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Robin Courtland Partington (born 5 August 1960) [1] is a British architect; he led the design team for the Gherkin (30 St Mary Axe) when at Foster and Partners.
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Robin Courtland Partington (born 5 August 1960) [1] is a British architect; he led the design team for the Gherkin (30 St Mary Axe) when at Foster and Partners.
He grew up in Lostock, Bolton in Greater Manchester, then in Lancashire, attending Bolton School then a direct grant grammar school, now and independent day school. His parents were architects, his father died in a sailing accident whilst he was very young and was brought up by his mother, who later remarried Ronald Bellis who owned Richard Hough Limited manufacturing Calendar Bowls in a factory in Nelson Square Bolton. He had wanted to become an aeronautical engineer and grew up surrounded by architects and engineers. School holidays were spent immersed in heavy engineering and cutting oil nurtured a fascination for the properties of materials, how things are made and a healthy respect for the craftsmanship and skills involved. He attended the University of Liverpool to gain his Part I RIBA Bachelor of Arts with Honours degree from 1978–81. He worked for a year at Scott Brownrigg in Surrey from 1981 to 1982, then completed his Part II RIBA degree Bachelor of Architecture with Honours at Liverpool from 1982–84. He joined Foster Associates now Foster + Partners in 1984 for his final year out completing his RIBA Part III in 1985. He became a director of Foster + Partners 1984 to 2001.
He joined Foster + Partners in 1984, then returned to Liverpool to gain his Part III RIBA qualification. He became a qualified architect, registered with RIBA and the Architects Registration Board (ARB). He would work for Foster + Partners for seventeen years 1984 - 2001.
He joined Hamiltons Architects in 2001, and was responsible for the transformation of the practice over the following 8 years 2001 - 2009. Whilst there he was responsible for a wide variety of award-winning projects before leaving to set up his own practice in 2009.
In October 2009 an opportunity presented itself to start his own business. Despite the financial crisis at the time, the practice rapidly grew in its first year through the support of significant clients including Land Securities, Orion Land and Leisure and European Land and Property Limited. The company started life as Robin Partington Architects Limited, changing its name to Robin Partington & Partners to reflect the rapidly growing team and finally in 2018 the company became an Employee Ownership Trust, moving to its new offices at 235 St John Street in Clerkenwell, London. To celebrate the change in company structure, ownership and address we rebranded to Apt Works... because it does. The studio is an endless source of inspiration, filled with talented people and boundless energy. It is a place with great projects and wonderful opportunities, where clients and colleagues collaborate in a hugely rewarding process.
He lives in Paddington, London.
Norman Robert Foster, Baron Foster of Thames Bank, is a British architect and designer. Closely associated with the development of high-tech architecture, Foster is recognised as a key figure in British modernist architecture. His architectural practice Foster + Partners, first founded in 1967 as Foster Associates, is the largest in the United Kingdom, and maintains offices internationally. He is the president of the Norman Foster Foundation, created to 'promote interdisciplinary thinking and research to help new generations of architects, designers and urbanists to anticipate the future'. The foundation, which opened in June 2017, is based in Madrid and operates globally. Foster was awarded the Pritzker Prize in 1999
30 St Mary Axe is a commercial skyscraper in London's primary financial district, the City of London. It was completed in December 2003 and opened in April 2004. With 41 floors, it is 180 metres (591 ft) tall and stands on the sites of the former Baltic Exchange and Chamber of Shipping, which were extensively damaged in 1992 in the Baltic Exchange bombing by a device placed by the Provisional IRA in St Mary Axe, a narrow street leading north from Leadenhall Street.
The year 1997 in architecture involved some significant architectural events and new buildings.
The year 2004 in architecture involved some significant architectural events and new buildings.
Foster and Partners is a British international architecture firm based in London, England. The firm was founded in 1967 by Sir Norman Foster, and has since grown to become one of the most recognized and respected architectural practices in the world.
Arup is a British multinational professional services firm headquartered in London that provides design, engineering, architecture, planning, and advisory services across every aspect of the built environment. It employs about 17,000 people in over 90 offices across 35 countries, and has participated in projects in over 160 countries.
Sir Nicholas Grimshaw, CBE, PPRA is a prominent English architect, particularly noted for several modernist buildings, including London's Waterloo International railway station and the Eden Project in Cornwall. He was President of the Royal Academy from 2004 to 2011. He was chairman of Grimshaw Architects from its foundation to 2019, when he was succeeded by Andrew Whalley. He is a recipient of the RIBA Gold Medal.
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Christopher John Wilkinson was a British architect and co-founder of the architecture firm WilkinsonEyre. He was known for his techno-centric designs and execution of projects ranging from office spaces, factory floors, skyscrapers to botanical gardens. Some of his projects included the Magna Science Adventure Centre, Gateshead Millennium Bridge, Guangzhou International Finance Center, and the Gardens by the Bay in Singapore.
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The Oxford School of Architecture was founded in 1927. Forming part of the Oxford City Technical School, this became the Oxford College of Technology in 1956, the Oxford Polytechnic in 1970 and Oxford Brookes University in 1992. Now called the School of Architecture in the Faculty of Technology, Design & the Environment, it is one of the largest architecture schools in the UK, with around 300 students and 70 staff. The school has become one of the most competitive architecture schools, ranking in the top 50 Architecture schools in the world in the 2015 QS World University Rankings.
Speirs Major is a UK lighting design practice founded by Jonathan Speirs (1958-2012) and Mark Major in 1993. The practice is noted for its illumination of many prominent buildings, including Barajas International Airport, 30 St Mary Axe, the Millennium Dome and the interior of St. Pauls Cathedral. The firm has also developed lighting master plans for several British cities, including Cambridge, Coventry, Durham, Newcastle, and for major private developments including Greenwich Peninsula and King’s Cross Central, London.
George J. Efstathiou, FAIA, RIBA is an American architect of Greek descent. George joined Skidmore, Owings and Merrill, LLP (SOM) in 1974, where he served as Managing Partner and later Consulting Partner in the Chicago office until 2016. He is currently leading the consulting practice of Efstathiou Consulting LLC which serves clients in the architecture, planning, interiors design as well as others in the real estate and corporate communities.
The Mann Island Buildings are a group of buildings in Liverpool, England. They comprise three international style mixed use buildings on Mann Island, which lies on the waterfront between the Port of Liverpool Building and the Albert Dock. No.1 building is owned by Merseytravel although several floors are leased out to other companies
Sir Terence Farrell, known as Terry Farrell, is a British architect and urban designer. In 1980, after working for 15 years in partnership with Sir Nicholas Grimshaw, Farrell founded his own firm, Farrells. He garnered a strong reputation for contextual urban design schemes, as well as exuberant works of postmodernism such as the MI6 Building. In 1991, his practice expanded internationally, opening an office in Hong Kong. In Asia his firm designed KK100 in Shenzhen, the tallest building ever designed by a British architect, as well as Guangzhou South railway station, once the largest railway station in Asia.
Hanif Mohamed Kara is a structural engineer and is design director and co-founder of London-based structural engineering practice AKT II. He has taught design internationally, is a member of the board of trustees for the Architecture Foundation and was a commissioner for CABE from 2008 to 2011. He is currently Professor in Practice of Architectural Technology at Harvard Graduate School of Design. He also taught as professor of Architectural Technology at KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm from 2009 until 2012. He lives in London with his wife and two daughters.
Maxwell and Tuke was an architectural practice in Northwest England, founded in 1857 by James Maxwell in Bury. In 1865 Maxwell was joined in the practice by Charles Tuke, who became a partner two years later. The practice moved its main office to Manchester in 1884. Frank, son of James Maxwell, joined the practice in the later 1880s and became a partner. The two senior partners both died in 1893, and Frank Maxwell continued the practice, maintaining its name as Maxwell and Tuke.
The Tulip was a 305-metre observation tower proposed to be constructed on 20 Bury Street in the City of London. The Tulip is a proposal by Brazilian billionaire Jacob Safra, of the Safra Group, the owner of the adjacent 30 St Mary Axe, informally known as the Gherkin. The proposal was rejected on 11 November 2021.
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