Phil Armitage
BSc (Hons)

Senior Partner

I am passionate about our role to facilitate architecture through innovative engineering, and the importance of our work in addressing global warming. I gain immense personal satisfaction from collaborating with a team to produce beautiful and functional buildings with elegant solutions to difficult problems. I am also proud to be part of a practice whose liberal ethos provides an environment which fosters the intellectual freedom to think outside the box.

I cut my teeth on a variety of theatre, office and residential projects, but an especially memorable challenge was presented by the new Pavilion at Ilfracombe, which was an incredibly brave architectural response to a brief to stimulate the regeneration of a once prosperous seaside destination. It was also the first project where I successfully implemented the use of natural water as a low energy source of cooling.

I have followed an interest in the use of water as active thermal mass throughout my career. Using passive means and existing resources to temper the internal environment is exciting and challenging, and is a fundamental part of building better, more comfortable and more efficient spaces.

Every building has a unique set of opportunities and constraints, and what we do has to be sensitive to all of these. The dialogue between architect, engineer and client can form and shape a building as deeply as a singular architectural style.