The Progress 1000: London's most influential people 2016 - Architects and Designers

Martin Brudnizki in his self-designed residence in the Royal Academy’s Academician’s Room
Rebecca Reid
9 October 2017

Martin Brudnizki

Interior designer

When restaurateurs want to make a statement they turn to Brudnizki. The Scandi designer has become the go-to man for glittering venues including Annabel’s, Le Caprice, Dean Street Townhouse, Hix, The Ivy, Scott’s, 45 Jermyn Street and J Sheekey Oyster Bar. His signature sexy but sophisticated style encapsulates London’s glamour.

Patrik Schumacher

Architect

Dame Zaha Hadid’s right-hand man was thrown into the spotlight earlier this year after her sudden death. The German architect joined Dame Zaha’s practice in 1988 and his cerebral approach to design and practical skills made him indispensable in realising her remarkable buildings. He has inherited an office of 400 staff and an incredible 950 completed projects.

Adam Caruso and Peter St John

Architects

The designers of Damien Hirst’s Newport Street Gallery are now rolling out their understated style across the continent. Their remodelling of Tate Britain and several galleries for the dealer Larry Gagosian make them the go-to architects of the London art scene.

Sir Terence Conran

Designer and restaurateur

Sir Terence stepped down as chairman of Conran Holdings in 2014 but continues as a designer. His greatest legacy, he says, is the new Design Museum, due to open in November. He told the Evening Standard: “I’ve put £74 million into it from the day we opened the Boilerhouse and think of it as the best thing I’ve done in my life.”

Lord Foster

Architect

Norman Foster celebrated his 81st birthday this year and shows no signs of slowing down. His new Maggie’s Cancer Centre opened in Manchester in April, and — not content with domination of the Earth’s architecture — he is now looking to space. His project for a robot-built settlement on Mars was among 30 designs shortlisted for a modular habitat on the Red Planet.

Lord Rogers

Architect

The colourfully clothed peer celebrated the completion of his £160 million cancer centre at Guy’s Hospital in April. It is just the latest of Richard Rogers’s many hi-tech buildings to grace the capital, soon to be followed by the £2.1 billion International Quarter in E20, which includes an 11-storey new home for Transport for London. Beyond his home city, he has schemes in progress as far and wide as France, Australia, China, Colombia and America.

Tom Dixon

Designer

Dixon played a major part in London’s design revolution in the Nineties before setting himself up as a brand in 2002. These days his name is attached to a product range, shops, and the Design Research Studio architecture and interiors business — all of which were sold last year by their Swedish owner to the British investment firm Neo, with Dixon as minority shareholder.

Deborah Saunt and David Hills

Architects

The husband-and-wife team have attracted much attention in the capital for their striking “Flatiron” building in South Molton Street, a studio for artist Edmund de Waal and their own sunken house in Clapham. Next up is the £32 million project for new landscaping around Centre Point and the surrounding streets, to be completed in 2018.

Herzog & de Meuron

Architects

The opening this summer of the 10-storey extension to Tate Modern has cemented the hip reputation of the cerebral Swiss architects in the capital. Next-up for the London office of Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron will be a 55-storey cylindrical residential tower in Canary Wharf, followed by a new 60,000-seat stadium for Chelsea Football Club.

John Pawson

Architectural designer

Anticipation is mounting as the November opening approaches for Pawson’s crisp conversion of the former Commonwealth Institute in Kensington into the new Design Museum. It will be the icing on the cake in a year which has already seen the completion of the designer’s minimalist holiday house in Wales for the Living Architecture company.

Charlotte Skene Catling and Jaime de la Peña

Architects

The co-founders of Skene Catling de la Peña won the Royal Institute of British Architects’s house of the year award last November for the sculptural Flint House they designed for Lord Rothschild on his the latest classy scheme for this well-connected practice, which is also responsible for Robin Birley’s 5 Hertford Street and stores for Agent Provocateur in London and across the world.

Sir Terry Farrell

Founder, Farrells

As founder and principal of Farrells architecture and planning practice, Sir Terry has a hand in urban schemes and designs for cities across the world. Current London projects include the revamp of 28 hectares around Earls Court Exhibition Centre, and a masterplan to transform the Royal Albert Dock into London’s third business district.

Graham Haworth and Steve Tompkins

Architects

The founders of multi-award-winning practice Haworth Tompkins have set a new standard for theatre design with their work for the Royal Court, Young Vic and refurbishment of the National. Their new buildings for the Royal College of Art in Battersea have also attracted praise. Next on the list is the rebuilding of the burnt-out Battersea Arts Centre and housing schemes in Brixton and Tower Hamlets.

Deyan Sudjic

Director, Design Museum

It’s a landmark year for Sudjic, who celebrates the opening of the new Design Museum on Kensington High Street this autumn. The shrewd director has overseen every detail of the operation, from the selection of John Pawson as architectural designer to the realisation of the £83 million scheme to convert the former Commonwealth Institute. Securing free entry for visitors to the permanent collection is a major achievement.

Amanda Levete

Architect

Levete remains a rare example of a woman running a major practice — ALA — a breed which became scarcer after Dame Zaha Hadid’s sudden death in March. Her competition-winning £49 million extension to the V&A, due to open next year, looks set to cement her reputation in the premier league of British architects.

Jane Duncan

Architect and president, Riba

Duncan is only the third woman to head the professional body for architects in the Riba’s 182-year history — when she arrived to train at UCL in the Seventies she was one of six women in a year of 45. Among her campaigns is the championing of inclusion in a notoriously elitist and sexist industry. She continues to run the Buckinghamshire practice she set up in 1992.

Thomas Heatherwick

Designer

Having designed the Olympic Cauldron and the so-called Boris Bus, Heatherwick proved he wasn’t one to let the grass grow under his feet by turning to perhaps the most remarkable project of his career — the proposed Garden Bridge linking London’s north and south. He has plenty more up his sleeve too, notably the proposed development of Victorian coal warehouses in King’s Cross into a shopping and restaurant quarter. Infrastructure really can be beautiful.

Designer Thomas Heatherwick
Charlie Forgham-Bailey

Christopher Turner

Director, London Design Biennale

The former editor of architecture magazine Icon has championed London’s first Design Biennale, based on the Venice model, which launches this month. “Design teams from over 30 countries will exhibit ambitious installations that explore how architecture, design and engineering might contribute in some way to making the world a better place and our cities more liveable,” he promises. A smart move.

Bjarke Ingels

Architect

The hip Danish architect made his mark in London this year with the Serpentine Pavilion in Kensington Gardens. Consider it a calling card for his services, which are already heavily employed in Copenhagen and in New York, where his design proposal has been tipped to become the new World Trade Center’s final skyscraper.

Allies and Morrison

Architects

Bob Allies and Graham Morrison are the quiet men of architecture, stealthily re-planning chunks of the city around us. Currently on their drawing boards are the Stratford Waterfront cultural quarter at Olympicopolis and the masterplan for a 13-hectare expansion of Canary Wharf. They may not be responsible for all the eye-candy buildings that end up on these sites, but the vision is all theirs.

Asif Khan

Architect

Critics proclaimed Khan’s sundial-like summer house for this year’s Serpentine pavilion programme the best of the four designs on offer. The man who created the Beatbox pavilion for the Olympic Park in 2012 was born in Forest Hill. This summer, he and Stanton Williams won the commission for the new Museum of London in Smithfield market.

Eric Parry

Architect

Parry, previously known for his classy West End office and residential buildings, is set to enter the architecture premier league with 1 Undershaft, his 295m skyscraper next to the Gherkin. The tower, with its distinctive cross-bracing, will almost match the Shard for height and become a new London landmark.

Hana Loftus and Tom Grieve

Architects

Since they set up their HAT practice in 2007 these bright young architects have completed several high-profile schemes for artists, including a block of studios in Purfleet and a gallery and workspace building for Gasworks in south London. Next up is a rooftop office extension in Mile End for Acme, the charity which provides affordable studio space in the capital.

David Adjaye

Architect

Adjaye rocketed to starchitect status this year when he was shortlisted to design the Obama Presidential Center in Chicago but was pipped at the post by an American practice. Back home in London he completed a cool row of new shops in Hackney’s Morning Lane, while a proposed £600 million hotel and residential development opposite the Ritz looks set to stamp his mark on the West End.

Laura Sanjuan and Russell Potter

Architects

Sanjuan and Potter’s practice Soda made its name with atmospheric interiors for hip London restaurants, including Polpetto and Ape & Bird. Now it is tackling its biggest and most prestigious project to date: the remodelling of 15 Soho buildings, including the historic Kettner’s restaurant, to create the improved and enlarged Soho House members’ club, due for completion in 2018.

Edward Barber and Jay Osgerby

Designers

Barber and Osgerby achieved international recognition with the Olympic torch they designed for the London Games in 2012. They continue to go from strength to strength, creating furniture, lighting and tableware for top brands, including Vitra, Knoll and Royal Doulton.

Bethan Gray

Designer

The London-based Welsh designer has come a long way since scooping the New Designers prize in 1998. After cutting her teeth as design director of Habitat, she established her own studio in 2008 and is now one of Britain’s foremost furniture makers. Her best-selling collections are stocked in retailers ranging from Liberty to John Lewis.

Designer Bethan Gray (Daniel Hambury/Stella Pictures )
Daniel Hambury/Stella Pictures

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