2023 was a year of exciting change at Haworth Tompkins. In August the practice relocated from its previous base in Kentish Town to expanded premises in Clerkenwell, the heart of London’s architecture and design district. The practice now occupies two floors of 110 Golden Lane, just north of the Barbican, and has undertaken a major refurbishment to provide a more creative environment for the team, with enhanced audio-visual facilities, larger meeting rooms and a multi-use central space for exhibitions, lectures and cultural events.
Major new commissions have been won, including the redevelopment of Earls Court; the masterplan for a new garden community in Tendring & Colchester; the Hexagon Studio Theatre, Reading; the De La Warr Pavilion refurbishment; St George’s Guildhall at King’s Lynn; the Compton Verney Masterplan; the Four Glories refurbishment at Stowe Landscape Gardens; Silvertown estate regeneration; the Gascoigne West neighbourhood development in Barking and a design competition for the redevelopment of Kouvola Theatre in Finland. Last year Haworth Tompkins became a Certified B Corporation, earning one of the two highest scores within the profession, and won the AJ100 Practice of the Year in both 2020 and 2022.
The director group has expanded over the four years since Haworth Tompkins became an Employee Ownership Trust, reinforcing its commitment to equity and collaboration as an organisation and a community. The practice is now led by Chris Fellner, Lucy Picardo, Joanna Sutherland and Roger Watts alongside managing director Toby Johnson, who have an average of over 20 years’ experience with the studio and are centrally involved in the collective mission to design regenerative, intelligent and beautiful architecture.
At the end of March 2024, marking the culmination of a five-year succession plan, Graham Haworth and Steve Tompkins will be stepping down as directors of the practice they founded in 1991. It has always been their intention to create a studio which would continue to grow and expand on its legacy and ethos, and they welcome their new role providing support as consultants. Now over 100 strong, with the combination of deep continuity, a pipeline of exciting commissions and an energised team, Haworth Tompkins is well placed to go from strength to strength.
Construction of Perth’s first fully comprehensive, inner-city university has reached a major milestone, with the Edith Cowan University (ECU) City campus reaching its full structural height. The ‘topping out’ milestone marks major progress on one of Perth’s most significant developments, with internal fit-out and finishing works continuing throughout 2025 ahead of the campus opening in 2026.
ECU City will feature state-of-the-art learning, engagement and performance spaces giving students and staff access to learn, teach, create and perform in world-class spaces. The new home for WAAPA includes a Playhouse Theatre, Recital Hall, Flex Theatre, Jazz and Contemporary Venue, Aboriginal Performance venue, and Dance Theatre, along with a range of teaching spaces and rehearsal venues, workshop areas and dressing rooms. Haworth Tompkins is working with Australian architects Lyons, Perth-based Silver Thomas Hanley, theatre consultants CharcoalBlue, acoustics designers Marshall Day, Head contractor Multiplex and engineers Stantec.
ECU City is located on the traditional lands of the Whadjuk Noongar people.
HT Director Roger Watts was recently on site at the Court Theatre in New Zealand for the first time since 2016 when the site was still empty and bare. Haworth Tompkins has been involved in the project since 2013 after Roger fortuitously met members of The Court at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre. During the recent visit Roger met Matthew Webby of Athfield Architects, the local lead architect on the project, in person for the first time after working together for five years via online communication.
Very few projects of the complexity and magnitude of The Court Theatre rebuild are designed without in-person collaboration. However, the use of technology following the Covid-19 pandemic has been of benefit to this project, with project members able to collaborate closely via video meetings held globally. Roger will return to site for the theatre’s grand opening in May 2025.
National Theatre – NT Future has been announced as winner of the Religion & Culture category at the 2024 Architecture Today, Buildings that stand the test of time awards. The awards demonstrate a strong track record for delivering on their environmental, functional, community and cultural ambitions, awarding architectural excellence, longevity, and a commitment to community, sustainability, and innovation.
The judges commented “In the 50 years since it was built the National Theatre has had to evolve to reflect the changing expectations of theatre and audiences and the evolution of the South Bank. Haworth Tompkins’ intelligent and sensitive interventions have been pulled off with aplomb and will set the stage for the next 50 years.” National Theatre
Industria Barking has won the Workplace category at the 2024 New London Architecture Awards. The judges praised the project for its bold commitment to blending industrial uses with workplaces and community spaces.
The project was designed in collaboration with Ashton Smith Associates for client BeFirst and represents an innovative and ambitious approach to modern industrial design that densifies and diversifies workspace in a move away from the traditional typology of single-storey, low density ‘sheds’. Read more here - https://www.haworthtompkins.com/work/barking-industria
Phase 1 of Pembroke Mill Lane, Cambridge development has been highly Commended at the Wood Awards in the Education & Public Sector category. The project forms part of the Mill Lane development for Pembroke College: the most significant expansion of the College since the fourteenth century, within a highly complex site in the historic city centre.
The project provides a range of public and collegiate spaces within both new and existing buildings, linked by an external landscape that continues and extends the language of Pembroke’s distinctive gardens. The Wood Awards recognises, encourages, and promotes outstanding design, craftsmanship and installation using wood. Pembroke College, Cambridge
The “Backstage Building” topping out ceremony was held on the 17 October to mark reaching the highest primary structure of the Glulam timber frame. To mark this milestone, tours of the building site were led by Haworth Tompkins and speeches took place in what will be the new event space with a toast in the Back of House rehearsal room.
With only 9 months to go on site, the new, six-storey backstage building will include a daytime café and script library, writers' room, Clore learning studio, green room and event space. Its realisation will also make the Old Vic stage and back-of-house areas accessible to visitors as well as staff and working creatives for the first time in more than 200 years.
Haworth Tompkins is excited to welcome our first two architectural apprentices to the studio offering both Level 6 and Level 7 opportunities. The apprenticeship programme has been launched to offer a more inclusive and diverse route into architecture, combining work-based learning with academic training. The programme reflects our social value commitments and support for the growth of the profession via alternative and holistic routes.
Our Level 7 apprentice, Aneesha Irika joined HT as a Part I and we will now support her via the Level 7 apprentice route at Cambridge university integrated Part II and Part III degree.
“I chose this apprenticeship for its focus on practical experience and career growth. In today’s competitive landscape, hands-on skills are valued alongside traditional learning, and Cambridge’s programme embraces this shift. It provides the ideal platform to develop real-world abilities essential for thriving in architecture. Additionally, the Part 2/3 study group at Haworth Tompkins further supports this ethos to nurture talent beyond traditional academia.” Aneesha Irika
Our Level 6 apprentice Jamila Saha was an Architectural Trainee as part of the Build the Way programme receiving creative and technical support by industry professionals and studies as part of the London School of Architecture Part 0 initiative. We will now support her to work through her Part I qualification via the Level 6 apprenticeship route at South Bank University.
“I couldn’t be more excited to embark on my journey as an apprentice with Haworth Tompkins and LSBU. The chance to gain valuable work experience with such a creative practice whilst pursuing architectural education is a fantastic opportunity for me”. Jamila Saha
The Mayor of London has selected Ken Okonkwo, Associate Director at Haworth Tompkins and Mayor’s Design Advocate to the role of Town Architect for the London Borough of Barking & Dagenham. The programme is part of Khan’s wider plans to support local growth and improve design in London through the £1.25 million Local Growth Capacity Support Programme. The two-year pilot scheme will utilise built environment expert knowledge from ten architects in ten locations to ensure that new buildings and public spaces in their respective area ‘benefit all Londoners by promoting quality and inclusion in the built environment’.
Ken will be supporting BeFirst and the borough on projects within the Thames Road Factory District and strategic projects in the southern part of Barking and Dagenham. In 2020, Haworth Tompkins developed strategic masterplan proposals for the Thames Road Area, providing a framework for its transformation over the next 30 years. Key objectives were to create a vibrant, cohesive and sustainable mixed-use district, incorporating a mix of industrial, residential and community uses. Forming part of the intensification strategy for the area, Haworth Tompkins designed Industria, an innovative multistorey ramped building, developed for BeFirst as a catalyst development for the district. Completed in 2023, it provides 11,500sqm of flexible, modern industrial floorspace and represents a groundbreaking new typology for UK industrial buildings.
Ken has been a Mayor’s Design Advocate since 2022, is vice chair for the Royal Borough of Greenwich design review panel and sits on design review panels for Ebbsfleet Development Corporation and the London Borough of Waltham Forest.
https://www.architectsjournal.co.uk/news/mayor-picks-top-names-for-londons-new-town-architects
‘I'm delighted to have been selected by the Mayor of London as Town Architect for Thames Road Factory District and South Barking and Dagenham as part of the GLA’s Town Architect pilot scheme. Along with the fellow MDAs working in different neighbourhoods across London, I will be promoting the 6 pillars of the Good Growth by Design programme, ensuring that new buildings and public spaces ‘benefit all Londoners by promoting quality and inclusion in the built environment’.
Building on Haworth Tompkins’ previous masterplanning work in the area, I am especially thrilled to be supporting BeFirst and the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham in making its first steps to realising the vision for Thames Road as a vibrant, sustainable and inclusive, mixed-use district, co-locating residential and industrial uses for the existing and future diverse communities within Barking.’ Ken Okonkwo, Associate Director Haworth Tompkins