Lee Morris, a chartered architect, has recently joined Laurence Associates as design director. Lee is a talented, versatile and results driven design and development professional with over 30 years of local and international experience overseeing a diverse range of exceptional design projects and developing close relationships and trust with clients and contractors.
Laurence Associates is also pleased to have attained Royal Institute of British Architects Chartered Practice Status in addition to its chartered status with the Royal Town Planning Institute and Chartered Institute of Architectural Technologists. The RIBA promotes excellence in the field of architecture, with a commitment to good quality, design and customer service, championing better buildings and places, stronger communities and a sustainable environment.
About Lee Morris
Lee recently moved back to the UK from overseas after nearly 17 years, most recently in Saudi Arabia with The Diriyah Gate Development company and before that, the United Arab Emirates, Dubai and Abu Dhabi where for 7 years he led multi-disciplined design and engineering teams for Atkins.
Amongst the many projects he has worked on, one of the stand outs was his design for a 300 metre-high, 250,000 m² split linked, mixed-use hotel, residential and commercial tower at the centre of Palm Jumeirah in Dubai for Nakheel, The Trump Organisation and Donald Trump.
Over three years in the making, the project and the client were extremely challenging with high expectations, as the building was the centre piece of an iconic man-made island in the Arabian Gulf.
Also, in line with the long-term vision of the rulers, large and mega scale master planning forms a crucial element in the socio-economic development of these countries.
In line with Vision 2030 the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has set in place an incredibly ambitious agenda to diversify the economy away from oil, attract inward investment, drastically improve the lives of the population through social change and open the country up to tourism.
The series of diverse and breath taking giga projects that are currently under design and construction are testament to this commitment to the vision.
Lee led the winning master-planning team and subsequently moved client side as head of design for one such giga project, namely Diriyah Gate, with estimated construction costs of £10 billion, located to the west of Riyadh. Originally envisaged as the largest mud city in the world with traditional architecture of Najhdi, the masterplan incorporates national museums, academies, theatres, residential and uber luxury hotel districts, a central retail and lifestyle
district of 250,000 m², 11,000 car basements, government and commercial offices, a university, kindergarten and schools, and as it will be a predominantly car free environment, a subterranean metro and transportation system.
Spread over 11 km² the site is located next to the UNESCO World Heritage site of At Turaif, the birthplace of the current rulers, the House of Saud dynasty and therefore holds significant emotional and cultural importance. The project is envisaged to be completed in 2026.
Lee also oversaw the detailed re-master planning and repositioning of King Abdulla Financial District KAFD) a 1.8 million m² commercial ‘white elephant’ seen at the time as the ‘Canary Wharf’ of Riyadh in 2008, it has remained unfinished and unoccupied since work stopped in 2010. The brief was to redesign and re-energise the urban cityscape and districts and fundamentally to reduce the commercial area to 50% by introducing residential, retail,
hospitality and entertainment into the mix of the city to create a true live, work and play environment.
Having worked on the client side as a client representative and a development director for the private and government sectors, Lee has gained invaluable insight into how the industry works from both sides of the spectrum.
Lee has also spoken at several local and international conferences including The Council for Tall Buildings and Urban Habitats (CTBUH), MEED and the Emirates Environmental Group, primarily on the subject of low carbon design and global sustainability initiatives.
Lee is passionate about the sustainability agenda and fully embraces the need for dramatic and wholehearted change within the construction industry which is now coming in to play with new building regulations for the UK.
Lee adds:
“It’s amazing to finally come home after working overseas for many years to join a well-established, highly respected and award-winning planning-led architectural practice in Laurence Associates in the heart of Cornwall. I look forward to helping drive and diversify the company’s portfolio of work as an RIBA Chartered Practice. After working on many major projects abroad, I am really looking forward to working collaboratively on a range of smaller but no less challenging projects/sites to create exceptional high-end residential, hospitality and commercial property schemes with our talented in house architectural, planning and landscape teams offering a fully integrated approach to development, from concept to completion.”
Jason Pledger adds:
“Having created the architectural team at Laurence Associates over 16 years ago, it is with mixed emotions that I hand over the Design Director reins to Lee. Lee is a very talented architect with unique experience leading large international architectural teams on prestigious projects in the Middle East. He is a welcome addition to the practice, and I have no doubt the design function is in safe hands and am excited to see it develop further under his management now we are also an RIBA Chartered Practice. Lee brings a wealth of knowledge and experience across all sectors of architecture, especially the commercial sector, and the team are very excited about the prospect of learning from him. Lee assuming the Design Director role allows me to focus on other operational aspects across the group companies.”