As PRP marks its 60th anniversary, senior partners Manisha Patel and Brendan Kilpatrick reveal to ADF how a strong ethos around community-led design and collaborative culture has been instrumental to achieving enduring success

In the 1960s, the UK was grappling with a severe housing shortage, prompting the Government to put building new homes at the top of its agenda. As a result, this era saw an unprecedented surge in housebuilding, with the country experiencing a higher rate of residential development than
ever before.

Against this backdrop, three architectural graduates with a shared passion for community-led housing design (Peter Phippen, Peter Randall and David Parkes), pooled their resources and founded PRP in 1963. The initial principles of the firm, instigated by its founders were centred around placing the end user at the heart of every design decision, an ethos that continues to be a “core value of the practice to this day,” asserts Brendan Kilpatrick, senior partner at PRP.

In the practice’s early stages, designing and constructing affordable housing was a significant challenge, community-based housing organisations having to work with extremely small budgets. Despite this, after a few years of ups and downs, PRP completed its first project in 1969 – a celebrated housing scheme called the Ryde in Hatfield. This unique project featured a diverse range of two, three, and four bed single-storey houses designed around courtyards, and benefitting from bright, free-flowing spaces. The success of the scheme led to a string of residential commissions in various then-emerging ‘New Towns’ such as Bracknell, Basildon, and Crawley.

Today the practice boasts a dedicated team of 300, with offices in London, Surrey and Manchester. The practice ventured overseas in a strategic move, opening two offices in Poland – Wroclaw in 2017, and Sopot in 2020. The offices each have “different specialisms and semi-autonomous groups,” however the move has also proven highly important for the firm’s sustainability post-Brexit.

Kilpatrick explains that facing the potential loss of some of its international talent following the UK’s exit from the EU, the opening of their branch in Wroclaw in particular has allowed PRP to retain its “multicultural” workforce. This office has since evolved into a multinational hub in its own right, serving as “an extension of the London studio.”

According to Manisha Patel, senior partner at PRP, the different offices have made considerable progress in strengthening connections between the studios, including the new additions. Encouraging the cross-fertilisation of ideas and knowledge sharing is beneficial both for the staff and its clients, she says, adding that “it ensures we are delivering the highest quality of design.”

While housing remains a key focus, PRP has evolved from its roots to become an interdisciplinary practice that is attuned to the changing demands of the industry and the built environment. With a keen eye on the shifting landscape of the housing market and society as a whole, the firm has developed a range of specialisms that span key sectors; estate regeneration, later living, town centre regeneration, Build-to-Rent, and landscape-led masterplanning.

Culture & diversity

A key focus of the firm, and an “ongoing process,” as Kilpatrick explains, is its aim to improve the equality, diversity and inclusion of their workforce.

Patel, who hails from a family that lives in a working-class neighbourhood of London, says that at university she felt like “a fish out of water.” Not only was she one of few women on her course, she also felt different from peers due to her “lack of connections, ethnic background and comprehensive school education.” Therefore for her, creating a workforce at PRP that “represents and embraces the rich diversity and different cultures of communities” has personal resonance.

As part of a recent effort to provide greater accessibility to people from less advantaged backgrounds, the practice has focused on developing its apprenticeship programmes. With the cost of living crisis making it difficult for practices to recruit and retain staff, the team are “constantly reviewing staff pay and exploring ways to encourage people to join – and stay in – the built environment sector.”

The practice also has another policy to both support female staff who are experiencing the menopause, and also break down the stigma surrounding it. Recently, PRP’s Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (ED&I) Working Group hosted a live webinar and Q&A on the subject, which saw a healthy attendance by male and female staff. “If women can talk about it, we can share and receive advice based on our experiences, and feel less isolated,” says Patel.

As a practice of putting great stores in collaboration, PRP has doubled down on creating a welcoming and friendly workplace atmosphere post-pandemic, seeing the office as a hub for social interaction and wider staff benefits. “The pandemic taught us a lot about the value of the office in combating loneliness and isolation,” asserts Patel. Celebrating a wide range of festivals such as Diwali and Lunar New Year to holiday festivities like Christmas and
St Patrick’s Day, the practice aims to be friendly and inclusive.

Contextual reintegration

Ensuring a context-specific design response forms the bedrock of PRP’s approach. The practice describes its strategy as “contextual reintegration,” a means to avoid “generic” architecture. It ensures the practice collaborates with communities, councillors and stakeholders to gather a nuanced understanding of the complexities of an area.

An example of where they’ve applied this is their recent commission to design a masterplan to revitalise the Canal Quarter in Lancaster. The area boasts some of the city’s most significant cultural assets, but these have been underutilised and disconnected from the rest of the city. PRP recognised that an in-depth understanding of the site’s history was crucial in creating a “context-informed vision,” explains Kilpatrick.

While community-driven projects remain a core value of the firm, the way in which they implement these principles has undergone “drastic” change, says Patel. In the early days, community consultation was not always an integral part of the design process. Today PRP has a dedicated in-house team specifically focused on community engagement. This allows for an “ongoing dialogue that gives a voice to everyone and co-producing practical, achievable solutions” that fulfil the needs of local communities.

One of the key differences in PRP’s approach is their emphasis on designing “with existing communities” rather than “for” them. This allows the team to achieve shared goals, rather than imposing top-down decisions. High Path Estate in Wimbledon a key example that Kilpatrick picks out. The project to “transform” the estate has involved a carefully curated series of interactive events (public exhibitions, coffee mornings, and one-to-one sessions with “hard-to-reach” groups). And ‘Regen Week’ had been introduced to educate local school children on the concepts of sustainability and regeneration.

“Our approach to design,” insists Patel, “is human-centred,” not focusing on “quantitative monetary values tallied up on social value calculators.” PRP’s overarching ambition is about “fostering health, wellbeing and creating accessible environments.”

Looking good at 60

As the practice celebrates its significant birthday, Kilpatrick credits their success and longevity to “good succession planning” and provision of “genuine” opportunities for staff advancement. In addition, its emphasis on a clear career path encourages long-term commitment and dedication from staff.

The firm has also cultivated a culture that promotes collaboration and open communication between all members, regardless of seniority. Patel and Kilpatrick, upon joining the board, took immediate steps to remove the glass partitions in the office that previously separated senior management from other employees, which “quite literally” broke down the hierarchical structures.

To commemorate the 60th anniversary, PRP has launched a brand-new mentoring initiative open to all disciplines, levels and studios – from architects and urban designers through to site inspectors and document controllers. It will aim to empower all staff to optimise their professional development, and ultimately improve diversity at senior levels of the practice.

“As we mark 60 years of PRP, we are celebrating our commitment to designing buildings that enhance the lives of communities,” says Patel.

Challenges & future

In terms of how the practice is tackling climate change specifically, an in-house team of environmental sustainability experts produce robust environmental strategies and provide advice on all their development projects. The firm has invested heavily in design knowledge on Passivhaus to strengthen its capacity in this area. Not only this but they are developing a series of masterclasses for staff on climate change resilience and seminars for clients. “We have always been focused on environmentally led design and combating the climate crisis; we were one of the first practices to sign up to the RIBA 2030 Climate Challenge.”

Moving forward, PRP intends to take on more projects related to placemaking, masterplanning, and town centre revitalisation, while continuing to expand into new areas like film studio design. Patel emphasises that the firm will grow while maintaining its “people-oriented, context-driven, and sustainability-led design approach.”