Selected Projects
The Practice Eric Parry Architects is an established and award-winning practice with a portfolio of notable work. The practice has gathered together talented individuals from diverse cultural backgrounds and a wide range of experience and as a result, the practice operates easily within any frame of reference, whether the Far East or continental Europe.
Eric Parry founded the practice in 1983. It is based in London, and employs over 70 staff. The practice also has an office in Singapore, where we have a number of residential schemes in the region. Eric Parry maintains a key involvement in all projects, particularly in their design development stages. The practice approaches all work with intellectual rigour, and also seeks to integrate the highest level of craftsmanship in all schemes it undertakes. The practice is responsible for several highly prestigious commercial projects in the City of London and the West End.
The practice has also completed a number of cultural projects involving highly sensitive historic buildings including a significant new wing for the Holburne Museum of Art in Bath, and are currently working on a new recital hall and associated teaching spaces for Wells Cathedral School. Eric Parry Architects completed the restoration and renewal project for the historic St Martin-in-the-Fields Church in Trafalgar Square in 2008. Notable previous work includes the home of the London Stock Exchange at 10 Paternoster Square in the City of London and the acclaimed office buildings at 30 Finsbury Square and 5 Aldermanbury Square.
Eric Parry has developed a strong reputation for delivering beautifully crafted and high-quality contemporary buildings that respond to their context. His practice, Eric Parry Architects, is renowned for cultural projects involving sensitive historic buildings such as the restoration of the historic St Martin-in-the-Fields Church in Trafalgar Square and the highly acclaimed new extension for the Holburne Museum of Art in Bath. Eric Parry Founder & Principal MA (Cantab) MA (RCA) AADipl RIBA
The practice is known for several prestigious commercial projects in London’s City and West End including 1 Undershaft which will become the tallest building in the City of London crowning the new cluster of planned skyscrapers in the Square Mile. The practice’s work also include the RIBA Stirling Prize shortlisted schemes at 30 Finsbury Square and 5 Aldermanbury Square. The successful 8 St James’s Square broke a UK office rent record in 2015.
International projects include the residential schemes Damai Suria in Kuala Lumpur and the Westminster Nanpeidai in Tokyo for Grosvenor. In addition to his work in architectural practice, Eric Parry serves on the Council of the RA, The Fabric Advisory Committee of Canterbury Cathedral and the Council of the British School at Rome. He has in the past served on the Arts Council of England’s Visual Arts and Architecture panel, the London Mayor’s Design Advisory Panel and chaired the RIBA Awards Group. His contribution to Academia includes fourteen years as Lecturer in Architecture at the University of Cambridge and lectureships at the Harvard University Graduate Design School, the Tokyo Institute of Technology and was President of the Architectural Association from 2005 - 2007.
Design Approach
“Our contribution is very much one to do with continuity, but in reinterpretation, in the present. (...) There isn’t a style tag. There is much more a concern for a way of crafting, the materiality of these projects, but also their relationship to a specific urban site, whether it is a street, a square, or an urban place of an atypical kind. This is really where the intensity of design discourse happens.” Eric Parry
The aspect of place and context we explore from a theoretical position and knowledge of the tradition of the European city. This is a basis from which we allow our speculation in design (not with repetition or historicism). The character of a building can be instigated by an individual creative thought or process but is only delivered with a wider team. The client is central to this team and we have nurtured close and collaborative working relationships with them.
We enjoy a range of scales of making – this is from a door handle to an urban masterplan. The design and execution is different for each but all need passion and commitment. We relish the urban milieu with its juxtapositions of scale, activity and real lived intensity.
Opposite A preliminary façade study of 50 New Bond Street
Design Methodology
Eric Parry leads our creative design process with a team of skilled and enthusiastic architects and assistants. Depending on the scale of the project a senior architect will manage the internal team and the coordination with the broader design team and client.
For a major urban project this would be a director supported by an associate director and associate with teams of architects to focus on various elements of the project. We are all familiar with the work stages through which a project should smoothly progress. We are accepting of the need for rigor in completing accurately and fully these stages whilst ensuring our intent and flare is concentrated, not diluted. When the going is less predictable, as can be the case with planning and external influences, we are able to negotiate to best affect a positive outcome.
An example of our working methodology is seen in the process and selected images (opposite) for the 7 & 8 St James’s Square project and the corner elevation treatment on Duke of York Street. Our testing through drawing and 3D modelling is then continued through to full size mock ups so that quality control of components can be observed. Here the reference to Lutyens’ own office in No.7 is expressed in the projecting open limestone framework above a monument carving by Stephen Cox (completed in South India).
Opposite Façade development, 8 St James’s Square
Cambridge Client Cambridge Assessment Value £142m Status Completed 2018
Cambridge Assessment We were appointed to design the new headquarters for Cambridge Assessment in 2013, following a limited competition. Established over 150 years ago, Cambridge Assessment operates and manages the University of Cambridge three exam boards and carries out academic and operational research on assessment in education.
The development provides approximately 350,000 sqft (NIA) of new office and amenity space for 3,000 people with 1,150 bicycle spaces. Our vision was to create an inspiring new group of connected buildings, ranging from four to five storeys in height. These are shallow plan depth fingers set around raised landscaped podia with a central arrival court and garden. The main façades are formed of horizontal bands of handset brickwork in lime mortar, combined with light coloured self-finished precast concrete elements, and include a visual arts intervention by Vong Phaophanit and Claire Oboussier.
A taller tower is located along the railway, marking the site when viewed from the railway and busway approach into Cambridge station. The tower is scaled to the local context and will not compete with the existing taller landmark buildings in Cambridge. The building will be highly sustainable and is targeting a DEC A rating when in occupation.
Opposite Landscaped podium garden Left Main entrance
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The Cambridge Science Cluster is world renowned for research and education and makes an excellent base for multinational innovative companies.
Cambridge Client Granta Park
Granta Park The first phase was Granta Park, a development of new R&D labs totally 50,000 sqm in the Green Belt, which meant demonstrating the need for specialised hightech workspace as well as achieving exacting standards of sustainability and design quality.
The creation of Granta Park, a joint development between MEPC and TWI in the 1990s, provided the first opportunity to make a significant investment into the existing building stock of the Welding Institute Facilities and provide much needed modern accommodation.
Working with Latz + Partner, we turned agricultural land into a working environment for science and technology, meeting the standards of research laboratories as well as minimising impact on the environment. It has sustainable traffic, water and sewage systems, as well as series of amenities which foster communal interaction, such as a cricket pitch, restaurant and conference facilities. Its profits went towards The Welding Institute’s own expansion plans.
The original masterplan was started in 1992 with the acquisition of 87 acres of farm land, on which Granta Park Phase 1 is now built with the basic concept of a high quality, low density, fully landscaped development. The masterplan for the park was developed in consideration of ecological criteria, with the aim of preserving and enhancing the existing rural landscape and ensuring the site would be easily accessible.
Throughout the subsequent 15 years the site was transformed from arable farmland to the highly successful science park it is today. With a vision to provide the very best purpose-built research facilities in a high quality landscape setting, Granta Park is recognised as a highly successful science park. After Granta Park successfully generated funds for The Welding Institute’s own development, we moved onto phase 2 of the masterplan in 2011. The brief was to create extended facilities to the existing Welding Institute, including new catering facilities as well as further office and research spaces.
Cambridge Client Granta Park
Granta Park Phase 2 Eric Parry Architects has developed detailed proposals for the Phase 2 development of Granta Park. The core objective of the proposal is to create a landscaped campus with flexible and sustainable life science buildings for office and lab use to meet the demand in this unique and established location in South Cambridgeshire.
The extensive and maturing landscape strategy at the heart of the first phase has been key to the success of the campus and Phase 2 builds on this with wellbeing and nature at the heart of the scheme.
The Phase 2 site sits to the east of Phase 1 and directly south of the historic Grade 2 listed Abington Hall and its associated landscape.
The proposals are bringing forward a highly sustainable strategy with extensive landscaping.
A total of 34,000 sqm of space is provided across five buildings within the shared landscape.
Through the use of high performance facades, passive and active energy saving measures and LZC technologies including Air Source Heat Pumps and Solar PV the development is expected to achieve a 32.7% reduction in regulated carbon emissions using the future carbon factors, of which 18.8% comes from LZC’s. This significantly exceeds the minimum compliance target of 10%. The development is targeting BREEAM Excellent, WELL Gold standard and Wired score certification.
Cambridge Client The Welding Institute Value £40m Status Completed 2016
The Welding Institute Eric Parry Architects was commissioned to design the Masterplan for Granta Park in the mid 1990s by the then owner MEPC. Throughout the subsequent 16 years the site has been transformed from arable farmland into the highly successful science park it is today.
Following the recent completion of a restructuring of the ownership of Granta Park, The Welding Institute have been able to transform their site and create the accommodation suited to their needs. Three new buildings house amenity operations, a NSIRC education facility and an engineering hall including heavy and light engineering laboratories and office accommodation. The project won a RIBA National & East Region Award (2017).
Opposite ‘The Street’, a passageway linking the buildings Left Feature staircase
Cambridge Client The Masters, Fellows & Scholars of Pembroke College Value £6.5m Status Masterplan completed 1989 Foundress Court completed 1998
Pembroke College History is more of a burden for the inhabitants of one of the oldest university towns in England than is generally acknowledged. Given the college’s unending need for further accommodation and the restriction on site within the densely developed town fabric of Cambridge, the addition of nearly 100 student rooms, a fellow’s set, computer centre, meeting rooms and new Master’s Lodge was a challenge requiring a very comprehensive masterplan.
At the northern end, the building resolves as a raised, cloistered garden; at the western end, the master’s lodge forms the end of the building.
The complex nature of this building in an urban context between town streets and a collegiate interior is illustrated by the fifteen elevations that make up the exterior. The two perpendicular wings of the building form the new boundaries to one of the college courts.
The building is formed from in-situ concrete slabs supported on load bearing blockwork walls. The fabric of the building has been developed using some of the most innovative specialists and testing bodies to create a building with an anticipated life of over 200 years.
At the intersection of the wings there is a main stair which rises up below the roof lantern. The lantern demarcates the new college entrance. To the street side, six new small courts of different character are formed between projecting pavilions.
“All in all, it is a most impressive building, particularly in the careful detailing and choice of materials, and it confirms Parry as a major talent of his generation.” Peter Blundell Jones, The Architects’ Journal
Opposite Stairwell in student accommodation Left Façade detail Overleaf The buildings viewed from New Court
London EC4 Client City of London Corporation Status Public Consultation
Salisbury Square The City of London Corporation has identified a unique opportunity to create modern facilities for both the City of London Police and Her Majesty’s Courts and Tribunals Service (HMCTS) in the heart of the historic Square Mile.
Built to exemplar standards when it comes to accessibility and sustainability, the buildings are designed to last for at least 125 years. Salisbury Square will be enlarged and refocused as a gathering point for the development, somewhere people can enjoy.
Eric Parry Architect has been commissioned to design and deliver a new, purpose-built 18-courtroom legal facility called the City of London Law Courts and a cutting-edge police head-quarters equipped to amongst other things combat fraud and economic crime across the UK.
The placement of buildings and introduction of new routes has been inspired by the ancient City, with passageways and spaces encouraging con-versation and exchange of information. Eric Parry Architects have prioritised the continuation of this tradition and integrated it into a modern development as a vital part of civic life.
Opposite View on Fleet Street Left View of Salisbury Square
Above & Left Salibury Square Opposite View to St Bride's Church
London NC1 Client Argent Group plc Value £76m Status Completed 2017
4 Pancras Square The Argent development at King’s Cross is one of the most significant new urban developments in London and one that will receive worldwide attention. The site is located to the north of the existing King’s Cross railway station, adjacent to St Pancras International Station on brownfield land.
Eric Parry Architects was commissioned in 2003 to prepare an initial design for 4 Pancras Square to test the Masterplan proposal. At that time the cast iron gasometer was still located on the site of the proposed Pancras Square and this informed the proposal for an expressed steel frame to this office building.
The building consists of 10 storeys of office above ground floor reception and retail with two floors of basement below and was completed in June 2017.
The materials of the façade consist of weathering steel and white glazed ceramic for the horizontal brise soleil shading.
Opposite View from Pancras Square Left View of south terrace on tenth floor Right North elevation
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Birmingham Client Birmingham City Council & Hermes Fund Managers Ltd Status Completion Due Autumn 2019
One Chamberlain Square Eric Parry Architects won a competition in 2014 to design the first building at Paradise. Our proposal at One Chamberlain Square has led to the creation of an exemplar modern commercial building that both reflects and complements the historic civic space in which it is set.
Opposite & Below View on Chamberlain Square Overleaf Details of the ceramic facade fins
This eight storey, 172,000 sqft office building has retail on the ground floor with office space above. The whole of the commercial space is let to international professional services firm PwC who will move their 1,400 strong team into the building in 2019 to create a new regional headquarters.
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London E1 Client Ballymore Properties Limited Hammerson UK Properties PLC Status Planning
The Goodsyard Plot 2 The client is a Joint Venture between Hammerson and Ballymore. Eric Parry Architects has been commissioned to develop a building for Plot 2 of The Bishopsgate Goodsyard masterplan to allow a detailed planning application to be submitted as part of an overall outline Planning Masterplan.
Our building at Plot 2 is the flagship commercial building on the western prow of the Goodsyard delivering approximately 47,000 m² NIA office space and retail uses at ground and the Platform level and is integrated into the heritage-rich, partly-listed world of brick archways, the remains of the Bishopsgate Goodsyard Station. The new building will include 15% affordable office space and 25-30% co-working spaces. (The affordable space may be part of the coworking space).
London SW1W Client Qatari Diar Status Under Construction
Chelsea Barracks Eric Parry Architects have designed 5 new residential buildings across 2 Phases of the masterplan for the redevelopment of the former Chelsea Barracks, a large site on Chelsea Bridge Road, opposite Ranelagh Gardens. Phase 4 comprises three buildings, Nos. 6, 7 and 8, arranged around a private courtyard at the centre of the masterplan. Building 7 sits on Chelsea Bridge Road and is seen as the most prestigious building in the development. Buildings 18 and 19 are across a new public Square, with Building 19 being a companion piece to Building 7 on Chelsea Bridge Road.
All 5 buildings are 6 storeys in height with a further two storey penthouse set back at the upper levels. There is a mostly two storey basement across the site, providing car parking, residential storage, plantrooms as well as a residents gym and spa, including a three storey basement with a top lit tennis court. Each building is between 62 – 64.5m long, by between 22 and 23m wide. The appearance of each building is informed by the historic character of the area and combined with contemporary detailing. Phase 4 provides 88 residential units, Phase 6 provides 96 units. Phase 4 is currently on site, Phase 6 has been submitted for planning permission.
Buildings 7 and 19 on Chelsea Bridge Road are proposed to have light coloured limestone in the tradition of London’s finest buildings. The remaining buildings are predominantly dark brickwork, with limestone detailing to bases and window surrounds. The proportions of the elevations have been carefully studied and the proposals have a sense of generosity and authority, emphasising the principle of a tripartite order: base, body and top that characterise a tradition of urban architecture.
Opposite View from Chelsea Bridge Road Left View of xxx
London W12 Client Helical Bar plc & Aviva Investors Value £600m
White City Masterplan Granted planning permission in 2012, Eric Parry Architects designed and masterplanned this ambitious redevelopment of an under-utilised brownfield site in West London. The 12 acre mixed use development is located on the former Dairy Crest site and provides affordable housing, community spaces such as a health centre and music and arts facilities and landscaped public gardens.
The vision for the Dairy Crest Masterplan is to establish a flourishing urban quarter that will provide a high quality mixed-use development with a range of complementary facilities. The ultimate objective of the public realm and landscape strategy is to stimulate a rediscovery of a vibrant public life, to enhance the enormous potential of White City as a place for the enjoyment, health and wellbeing of the wider community.
The landscape strategy establishes an extensive network of gateways, squares and green spaces that are interlinked by a network of streets. Along with extensive tree planting, this green infrastructure adds to the overall structure of the masterplan by providing locally distinctive neighbourhoods and enhanced streetscapes. This complements the architecture, emphasises important views, and creates an attractive green network of routes serving as wildlife corridors that connect to the wider context.
Opposite Artist’s impression of generous public spaces Left Site masterplan
Top View from Paternoster Square Above South façade detail Right Aerial View
London EC4 Client Mitsubishi Estates Corporation Ltd Value £54m Status Completed 2004
10 Paternoster Square 10 Paternoster Square occupies a ‘keystone’ position in the centre of William Whitfield’s masterplan. As well as fronting on to Paternoster Square, the structure maintains an animated presence in the urban framework with an entrance on Newgate Street.
The London Stock Exchange was operational by May 2004, and the Queen, accompanied by The Duke of Edinburgh, formally opened the new London Stock Exchange building on 27 July 2004. The building won the New Build category of the Stone Awards 2004.
A north-south pedestrian ground level walkway offers access through the building King Edward Court is the headquarters of the London Stock Exchange. The form and articulation maximise the development within the height constraints of St Paul’s. The stone façades sweep to the new public space and loggia overlooking the cathedral. The stone façade and cladding was completed with a flying platform above the main site entrance.
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Left Site plan Site plan of Paternoster Square defined by the office buildings developed within the William Whitfield masterplan.
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Ground floor plan. The building is bounded to the south by the Whitfield loggia, to the north by Newgate Street and to the east and west by two passages. Retail use to the east of the central passage connects the north and south entrances.
London E20 Client Olympic Delivery Authority Value £48m Status Completed 2013
East Village Eric Parry Architects design for Block N10 of East Village (formerly the Athletes’ Village) in Stratford City was completed successfully for the 2012 London Olympics.
Block N10 is a ‘mansion block’ development of six number ten storey blocks comprising three storey townhouses to ground levels with seven floors of apartments above, giving 281 units in total. These are constructed around a central landscaped podium courtyard which sits above vehicle parking and ancillary accommodation.
N10 housed around 1,700 athletes (10% of the total) during the Olympics and then Paralympics. There was a programme of temporary works to adapt the units to accommodate the athletes, and then another phase of temporary removals and final fit-out post-Games. PreGames handover was in early 2012, post-Games completion was in 2013.
Opposite East Village Masterlplan drawing & Balconies featuring artwork by Eric Parry Left (clockwise) View from Liberty Bridge Road Typical living room Entrance to communal central landscaped podium
Norwich
Norfolk & Norwich Hospital Located at the outskirts of Norwich as an open green field on the threshold between rural and urban communities our proposal for the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital aims to move away from the homogeneity and centralisation of traditional hospital design with its focus on technology in favour of a smart decentralised approach orientated towards the patient, the family (visitor) and community The hospital is interpreted and organised as part of a town, structured yet differentiated, allowing individual areas to be treated with more freedom, greater respect to the conditions of the lives of the patients and the possibility of future expansion.
In creating a coherent setting of interdependent buildings around a central garden we considered the historic tradition of landscaping and nature as a restorative power of physical and spiritual well being. The therapeutic healing centres of the ancient Greeks at Asklepion of Pergamon or the Medieval Monastery Gardens of Germany (– e.g. Abbey Disibodenberg & Hildegard von Bingen) understood the vital connection between the green health of the natural world and the holistic health of the human being. The landscape plays a fundamental role in the design of the hospital, the relationship between gardens, and physical and spiritual healing, plants, and medicine, has many historic precedents.
Buildings are arranged towards the edge of the site, focussing inwards to the protective central garden. At the more civic end next to the urban square, the landscape is characterised by more formal, crisp, and controlled planting, to the south the landscape changes into a cultivated wilderness of an informal woodland where diversity of planting of native species is a priority and the buildings are being carved into the solid mass of the trees. The central garden is the heart of the scheme, around which smaller differentiated gardens are related to the specific activities such as therapeutic gardens, children’s gardens, herb gardens.
London WC2 Client Wilmar International Status Under Construction
Wilmar Headquarters Our proposal combines signature architecture with high quality public realm to create a landmark headquarters building for Wilmar International’s global business. Our proposal provides world class laboratories and office spaces within a landscaped garden setting.
The building is organic in form and is characterised by tiered landscape terraces which provide a garden aspect to each office level. The envelope has ribbons of glass to provide 360 degree views whilst horizontal fins provide solar shading to keep the building cool. The extensive use of reflective materials both mirror and accentuate the surrounding landscape to provide ‘a workspace within the landscape’. An open ground floor provides a large covered public space with active uses of exhibition centre, auditorium and café which animate the space.
A basement car park and cycle store enjoy end of journey cycle facilities of showers and lockers. The building is highly sustainable and responds to climate and orientation to maximise the passive effect on reducing heat load and energy usage. It promotes responsible resource stewardship through conservation of water, rainwater harvesting, an integrated greywater system throughout.
Opposite View within restaurant Left View of The Opera Terrace
London Client Confidential Status Competition
Knowledge Quarter Our scheme for the British Library Knowledge Quarter provided flexible commercial office and research space with The Alan Turing Institute’s flagship data science lab, alongside the British Library and the Francis Crick Institute, the largest biomedical research facility in Europe.
Focussed around a new public space the design focussed on being a powerful symbol of the British Library values, to develop a clear vision of a society where education, research, public realm and business interact in a mutually beneficial setting.
Brighton Client Brighton College Value £10m (Phases 1&2) Phase 1 £5m Status Completed 2016
Performing Arts Centre In 2010 Eric Parry Architects won an invited competition to design a new music school for Brighton College. In 2011 the brief was expanded to include a new drama building with theatre, dance rehearsal spaces and shared foyer to form a new performing arts centre at the heart of the school.
The competition winning concept was for a simple pitched roof pavilion to give the school a face onto the Home Ground to the north of the main school buildings. The building is contemporary in character, reflecting the school’s vision for the future, whilst the pitched roof reflects the gables of the original Victorian Gothic school buildings. The Sarah Abraham Recital Hall can seat an audience of up to 195. It provides a flexible teaching and performance space with a retractable seating system, integrated stage lighting and mechanically operated variable acoustic system in the wall linings.
Carefully detailed materials, such as the Caen stone ashlar walls and dramatic glazed roof tiles allow this new addition to sit comfortably in its historic context as well as being very much a building of our time. The redevelopment redefines a previously neglected and congested part of the campus. It restores dignity to George Gilbert Scott’s original school building and creates a wonderful new facility which makes the performing arts central to campus life. The project won a RIBA South East Award (2017).
Opposite View from the playing field showing bespoke glazed ceramic tiled roof Left The Sarah Abraham Recital Hall
Wells, Somerset Client Wells Cathedral School Value £7m Status Completed 2016
Wells Cathedral School Cedars Hall is an award-winning new music facility for teaching, learning, performance and recording of music. The building contains a technically-excellent recital hall and inter-connected flexible spaces. The recital hall can accommodate an audience of over 400 and is recessed into the surrounding garden, which is visible from the hall through large windows.
Natural light fills the space during the day and the building becomes a lantern in the landscape during the evenings. The stage, seating and acoustic wall panels within the hall can be adapted for various layouts with differing acoustic qualities suitable for a range of music styles and audience configurations. Sited in The Cedars, the Georgian heart of the school, Cedars Hall lies on the historically significant axis with Wells Cathedral’s Chapter House, and both share the function of gathering spaces for the local and regional community.
The new building maintains important views from the landmark Cedar Tree to Wells Cathedral and views across the garden and grounds. The design incorporates local stone used on the listed garden wall within the site, low reflective glazing and matte, warm finished steel on the exterior façades. The project recently won a RIBA National Award, South West Award and was also awarded the RIBA South West Building of the Year (2017).
Opposite View across playing fields Left The new recital hall
Bedford Client Bedford School Value £1.2m Status Completed 2003
Bedford School Library Eric Parry Architects won an invited RIBA competition to design a new library building for Bedford School and was appointed in January 2001. The site for the new library is on the staff car park to the west of the existing school library. The library addresses the range of main school buildings, establishing a front elevation that works around the existing library rather than behind it.
A sequence of spaces within the library progress from the informal lobby housing the newspapers and journals, through to the quieter study areas facing the garden. From a single front elevation the building splits into two wings. To the south is the quiet study area with a seminar room above. To the north is the two storey library with a mezzanine accessed by stair or lift. The library was officially opened in January 2004 by Poet Laureate Andrew Motion, and was awarded a Mention in the National Design Awards by the Civic Trust, 2005.
“Where the existing school environment relentlessly asserts a collective identity over individual experience, the library proposes a rather more human vision – one grounded in a historical continuum certainly, but generous enough to accommodate other, quintessentially contemporary needs – intimacy, responsiveness and even that most underrated of architectural virtues – doubt.“ Ellis Woodman Building Design
Opposite Evening view from library garden through west gate to library interior Left Cutaway perspective showing the steel barrel vaulted roof structure
Above Upper level of the reading room Opposite Radiussed brickwork