Ian Ritchie Architects
110 Three Colt Street
London
E14 8AZ
t: +44 (0)20 7338 1100
f: +44 (0) 20 7338 1199
mail@ianritchiearchitects.co.uk
‘The spaces are stunningly beautiful and inspiring. They will raise the bar and challenge the students and staff in every possible form of music to reach higher and search further.’ Jonathan Freeman-Attwood, Principal, Royal Academy of Music
2018 RIBA National Award – Winner
2018 RIBA (London) Building of the Year Award – Winner
2018 AJ Architecture Award – Winner
2018 FX Award – Winner
2018 BCI Award – Winner
2018 National Wood Award – Winner
2018 AJ Retrofit of the Year Award – Winner
2018 NLA Award – Winner
2018 RICS London Award – Winner
2018-19 UK Property Award – Winner
The scheme designed by Ian Ritchie Architects works with the historic context and architectural grain of this formerly neglected part of Covent Garden to create a vibrant, elegant new area of public space.
A contemporary central piazza forms the focal point of the development, which contains residential apartments, shops and restaurants.
2018 RICS Awards (London) – Finalist
2017 Constructing Excellence Awards – Winner
2017 Building Magazine Awards – Finalist
2017 WAF Awards – Finalist
The Sainsbury Wellcome Centre for Neural Circuits and Behaviour at UCL is one of the first buildings ever designed incorporating latest neuroscientific knowledge into its fabric from inception, and in open collaboration with its prospective neuroscientist users.
“This is a shockingly good building to work in.” Adam Kampff, PI
2018 German Design Award – Winner
2017 RICS Project of the Year Award (London) – Winner
2017 RICS Design through Innovation Award (London) – Winner
2017 Galvanising Awards Duplex Award – Winner
2016 BCI Award Major Building Project of the Year (over £50m) – Winner
The RIBA national award-winning, now iconic Courtyard Theatre designed by Ian Ritchie Architects has been transformed into a vibrant, naturally lit collection of dramatic theatre performance spaces over five floors within the original, naturally weathered folded Corten steel sheet envelope.
“The Other Place is a fabulous achievement.” Erica Whyman, RSC Deputy Artistic Director
2018 Civic Trust Awards – Finalist
2017 WAF Awards – Finalist
The Spire Monument in Dublin’s centre was inspired by and reflects the ever-changing light and composition of the Irish skies. The elegant and remarkably slender form continues the tradition of standing stones and obelisks and was designed to embody an optimistic and far reaching spirit of contemporary Ireland.
All theatre production activities in Plymouth Theatre Royal’s TR2 are centralised and integrated with educational and rehearsal spaces. The design’s most striking elements are rehearsal pods, clad in a unique woven phosphor-bronze cloth, soft to eye and hand, ‘randomly’ placed on the rock riverbank.
Ian Ritchie Architects’ design for a permanent Concert Platform in Corten steel in London’s Crystal Palace Park is sculptural without being sculpture, bold yet reinforcing the surrounding rich and beautiful Paxton landscape. Nevertheless, its simplicity belies the complex acoustic performance required of it.
This 3,000m2 research office building was designed for the Prudential and Magdalen College JV. The building ‘floats’ above undercroft parking, the entrance is sheltered and east and west facing windows are shaded by horizontal veils of stainless steel mesh. The design provides adaptable accommodation for single or multiple occupancy, and the environmental controls permit natural ventilation through to full air conditioning.
Ian Ritchie Architects were commissioned by Stanhope to design, detail, supervise and deliver a multi-tenancy research-office building of 9,000m2 within 52 weeks to a fixed budget at the renowned Stockley Park. We developed the first double glazed Planar with Pilkington for the external walls. The finished building gave 92% net rental area and received several awards.
Ian Ritchie Architects led the design and realisation of the world’s largest glass hall for the new Leipzig International Exhibition Centre in collaboration with gmp. Combining simplicity of concept and construction with elegance and economy, it appears as a filigree shell within the site’s central landscape.
Ian Ritchie Architects designed the three iconic 35m high glass circulation towers giving the new Reina Sofia Museum of Modern Art in Madrid its architectural image. It was the world’s first glass installation which transferred wind load through the corner glass panels.
Ian Ritchie Architects helped conceive and develop the structure and glazing designs of the 6,000m2 roofs covering the three internal courtyards of the Louvre’s Richelieu wing, creating the Museum’s new Sculpture Courts proposed by I. M. Pei & Michel Macary.
In 1981 Ian Ritchie established his own architectural practice – Ian Ritchie Architects Ltd. (iRAL) and co-founded Rice Francis Ritchie (RFR) a design engineering practice in Paris – with Peter Rice and Martin Francis.
RFR did seminal work during the 80s on the Museum of Science, Technology and Industry at La Villette, and the Louvre – pyramids and sculpture courts.
By the 1990s iRAL had become world-renowned for their glass structures, material-technical innovation and intelligent environmental and sustainable design – of which iRAL’s most recent major project, the Sainsbury Wellcome Centre for Neural Circuits and Behaviour, in London, completed in 2016, is an evolution.
iRAL has won over 60 competitions in Europe and the UK and received over 80 national and international awards.
In this book extract Ian Ritchie RA reveals the deeper meaning of his life as an architect
A career in architecture engages with so many disciplines and aspects of life it is impossible not to enjoy it. The cyclical phenomena of nature – day following night following day, the life-regenerating cycle of the seasons – provide evidence for the Taoist paradigm. Successes and failures in architecture are part of the duality of being alive – happy and sad, good and bad, life and death. I am reminded that no amount of darkness can extinguish a candle’s flame. This is why, for me, optimism always prevails.
Architecture provides a physical reference to our cultural past and, at the point of conception, both expresses and gives us confidence to imagine a better future.
Beyond utility and aesthetics, built architecture has a metaphysical role - it shapes the emotions and behaviours of those who will live with it.
A metaphysical inquiry into the nature of space, structure and light is essential to envisage architecture that will lift the human spirit.
When the elements of this trinity are in harmony, a tangible sense of wholeness and serenity imbues an architecture that is able to touch the mind through the observer’s senses.
Architecture makes the existential tangible, and our sense of place is both a response to our physical environment and a cultural creation.
We are pleased to announce that the Royal Academy of Music has been shortlisted in the AJ Specification Awards and Surface Design Awards.
Ian Ritchie gave an exclusive interview, conducted by Prof. Dr. Abdi Güzer, critic and architect to the World Architecture Community at WAF 2018 Amsterdam.
iRAL are delighted that the Royal Academy of Music has received a 2019 Civic Trust Award.
The 60th Anniversary Civic Trust Awards will be celebrated held at the iconic Imperial War Museum North in Trafford, Manchester on Friday 1st March 2019.
The Ceremony will also coincide with the 150th year anniversary of Sir Robert McAlpine, who were Principal Contractor during the construction of the Imperial War Museum and are the lead sponsor of the Civic Trust Awards 2019.
Another fantastic achievement for the Royal Academy of Music which won Higher Education Project of the Year at the AJ Architecture Awards announced December 4th.
Tania Oramas, together with her collective KnitKnot Architecture, has received the INTBAU 2018 Excellence Award in the Community Engagement category for their project ‘El Jicarito School’ in Nicaragua.
“Architects were expected to take a position to continually improve the current state of the city and architecture.”
Ian Ritchie Architects are delighted to announce that the Royal Academy of Music has been nominated for the EU Mies Award 2019.
Ian Ritchie Architects has completed the design concept and engineering for the Arkan Theatre for El Badr.
110 Three Colt Street
London
E14 8AZ
t: +44 (0)20 7338 1100
f: +44 (0) 20 7338 1199
mail@ianritchiearchitects.co.uk