Building Design Partnership

Last updated
BDP
Founded1961
Founder George Grenfell-Baines
Headquarters
11 Ducie Street, Piccadilly Gardens, Manchester
,
England
Servicesarchitecture, engineering
Number of employees
950
Website BDP website

Building Design Partnership Ltd, doing business as BDP, is a firm of architects and engineers employing over 900 staff in the United Kingdom and internationally.

Contents

History

BDP was founded in 1961 by George Grenfell-Baines with architects Bill White and John Wilkinson, quantity surveyor Arnold Towler and eight associate partners. The associates were made full equity partners in 1964. Grenfell-Baines was the first chairman.

BDP was the result of a series of experiments in profit sharing and multidisciplinary working begun by Grenfell-Baines in 1941 with the Grenfell Baines Group. A 1962 policy statement committed BDP to “the principle of equal status for all professions”. [1] The firm expanded rapidly over the following decades and had 30 partners and 700 staff by the time of Grenfell-Baines's retirement in 1974. The firm has been associated with a variety of large public and private projects, such as the controversial Preston bus station that was designed by BDP's Keith Ingham and Charles Wilson, and retail projects such as the Liverpool One complex. [2]

BDP's principal offices, inherited from Grenfell Baines & Hargreaves, were in London, Manchester and Preston. By 1970, there were branch offices in Belfast, Glasgow and Guildford plus international offices in Memphis, Rome and Johannesburg.

As of 2016 BDP was reported to be the UK's second largest architecture firm, with 950 employees. In March 2016, the Japanese engineering firm Nippon Koei bought all of the stock of BDP for a total sale price of £102.2 million. [3]

In 2017, BDP was appointed architect for the refurbishment project for the Palace of Westminster. [4]

In 2018, BDP won the Carbuncle Cup award for worst new building of the year for their development of Redrock in Stockport, United Kingdom. [5]

In June 2020, BDP announced plans to make up to 70 UK staff redundant, blaming uncertainty arising from the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and Brexit. [6]

Selected Projects

People who have worked for BDP

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Manchester Piccadilly station</span> Railway station in Manchester, England

Manchester Piccadilly is the main railway station of the city of Manchester, in the metropolitan county of Greater Manchester, England. Opened originally as Store Street in 1842, it was renamed Manchester London Road in 1847 and became Manchester Piccadilly in 1960. Located to the south-east of the city centre, it hosts long-distance intercity and cross-country services to national destinations including London, Birmingham, Nottingham, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Cardiff, Bristol, Exeter, Plymouth, Reading, Southampton and Bournemouth; regional services to destinations in Northern England including Liverpool, Leeds, Sheffield, Newcastle and York; and local commuter services around Greater Manchester. It is one of 19 major stations managed by Network Rail. The station has 14 platforms: 12 terminal and two through platforms. Piccadilly is also a major interchange with the Metrolink light rail system with two tram platforms in its undercroft.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Stockport</span> Town in Greater Manchester, England

Stockport is a town in Greater Manchester, England, 8 miles (13 km) south-east of Manchester, 9 miles (14 km) south-west of Ashton-under-Lyne and 12 miles (19 km) north of Macclesfield. The Rivers Goyt and Tame merge to create the River Mersey here. It is the main settlement of the wider Metropolitan Borough of Stockport. The population of Stockport is 311,578

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Manchester Oxford Road railway station</span> Railway station in Manchester, England

Manchester Oxford Road railway station is a railway station in Manchester, England, at the junction of Whitworth Street West and Oxford Street. It opened in 1849 and was rebuilt in 1960. It is the third busiest of the four stations in Manchester city centre.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bolton Interchange</span> Railway and bus station in Greater Manchester, England

Bolton Interchange is a transport interchange combining Bolton railway station and Bolton Bus Station in the town of Bolton in Greater Manchester, England. The station is located on the Manchester to Preston line and the Ribble Valley line, and is managed by Northern Trains. The station is 11+14 miles (18.1 km) north west of Manchester Piccadilly. Ticket gates have been in operation at the station since 2016.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Scott Sutherland School of Architecture and Built Environment</span>

The Scott Sutherland School of Architecture and Built Environment, Robert Gordon University, is located at the university's Garthdee campus in Aberdeen, Scotland.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">City Tower, Manchester</span> Office building in Manchester, England

City Tower is a 30-storey high-rise office building situated in the Piccadilly Gardens area of Manchester city centre in England. As of 2023, it is the second-tallest office building in Manchester after the CIS Tower, the third-tallest outside London after CIS Tower and 103 Colmore Row in Birmingham, and the 16th-tallest building in Greater Manchester, with a roof height of 107 m (351 ft).

Sir George Grenfell-Baines was an English architect and town planner. Born in Preston, his family's relatively humble circumstances - his father was a railway clerk - forced him to start work at the age of fourteen. Both George and his younger brother, Richard (Dick), were gifted mathematicians and draughtsmen. Grenfell-Baines left a secure, but limiting, job in the Lancashire County Architect's Office to work for the prestigious private firm of Bradshaw Gass & Hope in Bolton in 1930.

RMJM is one of the largest architecture and design networks in the world. Services include architecture, development management, engineering, interior design, landscape design, lead consultancy, master planning, product design, specialist advisory services, and urban design. The network caters to a wide range of clients in multiple different sectors including mixed-use, education, healthcare, energy, residential, government and hospitality. Specific services are also available through global PRO studios: RMJM Sport, RMJM Healthcare, RMJM DX and RMJM PIM.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bradshaw Gass & Hope</span> Architectural practice in Bolton, England

Bradshaw Gass & Hope is an English architectural practice founded in 1862 by Jonas James Bradshaw. It is Bolton's oldest architectural practice and has exhibited archive drawings in London and Manchester. The style "Bradshaw Gass & Hope" was adopted after Bradshaw's death to incorporate the names of the remaining partners, John Bradshaw Gass and Arthur John Hope. As of 2022, the firm continues to operate from offices in Bolton.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mullion wall</span>

A mullion wall is a structural system in which the load of the floor slab is taken by prefabricated panels around the perimeter. Visually, the effect is similar to the stone-mullioned windows of Perpendicular Gothic or Elizabethan architecture.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Architecture of Manchester</span> Overview of the architecture of Manchester, England

The architecture of Manchester demonstrates a rich variety of architectural styles. The city is a product of the Industrial Revolution and is known as the first modern, industrial city. Manchester is noted for its warehouses, railway viaducts, cotton mills and canals – remnants of its past when the city produced and traded goods. Manchester has minimal Georgian or medieval architecture to speak of and consequently has a vast array of 19th and early 20th-century architecture styles; examples include Palazzo, Neo-Gothic, Venetian Gothic, Edwardian baroque, Art Nouveau, Art Deco and the Neo-Classical.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">111 Piccadilly</span> Office building in Manchester, England

111 Piccadilly, formerly Rodwell Tower, is a high-rise office building in Manchester city centre, England. It opened in 1965 and is now owned by Bruntwood. The tower is 64 m (210 ft) tall, which makes it the joint 74th-tallest building in Greater Manchester as of 2023.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gordon Murray & Alan Dunlop Architects</span>

Gordon Murray & Alan Dunlop Architects, abbreviated to Murray Dunlop and gm+ad, was an architecture practice based in Glasgow, Scotland. It was founded by Gordon Murray and Alan Dunlop in 1996, and was dissolved April 2010.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Livingstone Tower</span> Academic in Glasgow, Scotland

The Livingstone Tower is a prominent high rise building in Glasgow, Scotland and is a part of the University of Strathclyde's John Anderson Campus. The building was named after David Livingstone. The address of the building is 26 Richmond Street, Glasgow.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">James Weir Building</span> Building in Glasgow, Scotland

The James Weir Building is an academic building in Glasgow City Centre, Scotland, United Kingdom and is part of the University of Strathclyde’s John Anderson Campus, situated between the Townhead and Merchant City districts of the area. It was completed in two stages between 1956 and 1964 as an extension to the Royal College Building. It is the third largest building on the John Anderson Campus in terms of overall floor area after the Royal College and the Curran Building. In addition, the stair and lift tower on the south east corner of the building is the second highest structure on the campus after the Livingstone Tower, and is highly visible throughout the eastern side of the city centre.

<i>Building Design</i> UK magazine (1970–2014)

Building Design, or BD, is a British weekly architectural magazine, based in London.

Richard Gilbert Saxon CBE is an English architect. He was chairman of Building Design Partnership (BDP), chairman of BE, a vice-president of the Royal Institute of British Architects (2002-2008), Master of the Worshipful Company of Chartered Architects (2005-2006), president of the British Council for Offices (1995-1996) and Chairman of the Joint Contracts Tribunal. He was awarded CBE in 2001 for services to British architecture and construction.

Ralph George Covington Covell was an English modern architect, active during the post-war period to the early 1970s.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wolfson Centre</span> Academic in Rottenrow, Glasgow

The Wolfson Centre is an academic building within the city of Glasgow, Scotland and part of the University of Strathclyde's John Anderson Campus.

References

  1. White, Bill (1987), The Spirit Of BDP, Preston: BDP, p 22.
  2. Owen Hatherley (31 July 2012). A New Kind of Bleak: Journeys through Urban Britain. Verso Books. pp. 70–77ff. ISBN   978-1-84467-909-6.
  3. "UK's third-biggest architecture firm BDP bought by Japanese engineering giant", Dezeen , 3 March 2016.
  4. "BDP wins Palace of Westminster restoration job". Architects' Journal. 18 July 2017. Retrieved 8 February 2019.
  5. 2018-07-18T06:00:00+01:00. "Carbuncle Cup: Redrock Stockport, by BDP". Building Design. Retrieved 2020-07-31.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  6. Hopkirk, Elizabeth (23 June 2020). "BDP announces up to 70 redundancies". Building. Retrieved 23 June 2020.