Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios have experience in designing for education, housing, masterplanning and urban design as well as places for art and the creative reuse of historic buildings.

We started small 40 years ago and, in spite of our growth to over 200 staff, we continue to be committed to social and humanistic values in our work. We are proud to have won the RIBA Stirling Prize for Accordia, a scheme which is widely regarded as setting a new benchmark for housing in the UK. 

With our strong track record we are well placed to face the challenges of the future: growing & fractured cities; climate change; massive shifts in the delivery of education; increased localism; embracing the pace of technological change. The face of architecture is changing and we continue to pioneer imaginative and inclusive ways to create exceptional buildings.

From large-scale urban design to the all-important incidental spaces in our buildings, architecture can have a positive impact on society and humanity. We create buildings and spaces that develop our culture and enhance our communities. It’s also a way of life for us and gives us a platform from which to engage in wider political issues from a cycling culture to a stance on creative education and an approach to heritage in the built environment.

Our architecture comes from a response to place. This includes the physical and environmental context, its history and its potential futures. Using the technologies of our time we craft the material language and form which express the particularities of an urban site or a rural landscape. Working with a sense of place we create and recreate bespoke and imaginative places where people can thrive.

We have always pioneered designs that have a light touch on the planet. Our early work for Greenpeace and the BRE confirmed us as leaders in the field.

FCBStudios are one of the first five global founders of a new online platform designed to scale One Planet Living, as a way to bridge the gap between design theory and practice. The site is due to go live in 2018.

To date we have delivered 16 buildings which have achieved BREEAM Excellent, and in 2012 our Library scheme in Worcester achieved BREEAM Outstanding. We have set new records with our Meixi Lake Eco City project which was awarded China’s first ever BREEAM outstanding in 2013 and most recently were awarded BD Sustainability Architect of the Year Award 2016, an accolade that affirms our ongoing commitment to sustainable design.

Today, low energy design is more main-stream but our interest in reducing embodied energy and our commitment to the wider social aspects of sustainability still mark us out as leaders in environmental design.

Social and environmental responsibility is at the heart of our practice. We are committed to designing communities at home and abroad that support sustainable lifestyles and accommodate different patterns of living, learning and working. Our buildings aim to provide a strong sense of identity for their users.

We actively support community and educational projects in the developing world through our own charity, The Richard Feilden Foundation

We enjoy the “making” of buildings: crafting light, space and form to create memorable and functioning places. We continually explore new developments in the technology of materials and whether working with traditional craftsmen or design subcontractors we believe strongly in creative collaboration.

At Manchester School of Art we worked with both client and contractor to make triple height columns with a relief cast decorative detail inspired by a historic textile pattern by Lewis Day who taught at the school a century ago.

Modelmaking plays an important role in design development at FCBStudios, and the relationship between the studio and workshop environment is considered integral to the design process. The practice has recently invested in new workshops across its UK studios, providing state of the art facilities accessible to all.

Design should be a contemporary response to people and place and, at its best, should be progressive and transformative. Our work engages with the culture of our age, focusing on narrative architecture that is meaningful, functional, accessible.

We have always pioneered designs that have a light touch on the planet, low in carbon and energy use: a new minimalism that helps us and our clients to both avoid and mitigate the impact of climate change.

Our priority is helping clients make great architecture that serves their particular needs and responds in a vital way to its context. In order to do this we invest in a wide programme of research which enables us to be inventive and to find new, unexpected solutions.

Current research projects focus on post occupancy evaluation to determine the impact of school design on educational performance, as well as the environmental performance of the buildings themselves. We are also involved with embodied energy and materials research with the University of Bath, research into digital animation and the development of our own software to solve environmental, structural and aesthetic aspects of design.

Our historic environment is a shared resource which we are entrusted to look after. Working within these environments requires the highest standards of architectural design coupled with a considered and sensitive understanding of significance in all its many guises. We work in collaboration with like-minded consultants and we have global connections with organisations and charities that enable us to share our skills and test evolving knowledge about sustainable conservation and design.

The success of our work is dependent on creative collaboration, both internally within our open studio culture and externally with our clients, consultants and contractors. We actively work with wider stakeholders as participants, not only to ensure practicality and economy, but to ensure we produce designs that are owned and loved.

Our offices in Bath, London, Belfast and Manchester are very sociable spaces where clients, collaborators and staff can meet, chat over lunch or feel inspired by one of our regular Open House design events. Come and visit us!