Submission by Fletcher Priest Architects.
Being a good ancestor
Practice
1. Do you have a clearly stated purpose aligned with the planetary emergency? We’re looking for a bold ambition here, and a culture which recognises the need for long-term thinking.
The practice has a core set of five values that unpin everything we do. ‘People first’, ‘Design to bring joy’, ‘All scales & stages’, ‘Quality that lasts’, and ‘Straightforward & trusted’. Sustainability is not singled out as an individual value, but integral and intertwined with all of these. Our sustainability vision recognises that a stable climate and environment underpin future generations’ ability to thrive. Our values are embedded into the way we approach our work and the investment we make into sustainability and research through our time and open-source sharing of findings. Beyond this, embodied and operational carbon performance are part of our core strategic objectives and are monitored on every project against the UK Net Zero Carbon Buildings Standard benchmarks. Since becoming a B-Corp in March 2026, our commitment to do good has been cemented into our partnership agreement and each new project is reviewed against these objectives.
2. Do you have a clearly stated purpose aligned with the planetary emergency? We’re looking for a bold ambition here, and a culture which recognises the need for long-term thinking.
As a Partnership, our Practice is led by a group of Partners and Associate Partners whose declared purpose is to promote the success of the business whilst having a material positive impact on society and the environment, taken as a whole. We are a perpetual Partnership operating a naked-in, naked-out model which reduces the barriers of entry and burden of exit, keeping equity in the Practice. We utilise an internal succession planning programme whereby candidates for Partnerships are recruited through an Associate pathway and must score highly against the Partnership Criteria for consideration. Existing Partners and Associate Partners are peer-evaluated against these criteria annually to ensure continued contribution at a high and meaningful level.
3. Do you share research and knowledge for the benefit of society and the wider world?
We strongly believe that sharing our research is fundamental to progressing the work we do as a practice, industry, and society. Investing in our Research and Sustainability Lead roles enables collaboration with external partners to spearhead innovation outside of fee-earning projects. We distilled years of research, project experience, and industry collaboration into our opensource Material Reuse Guide and Materials Catalogue. We can’t be circular alone and have worked with collaborators and competitors to develop and share our knowledge. This is essential to reach the critical mass around circularity that drives economies of scale in the supply chain and efficiencies in the design process to allow us to improve practices. The sharing of our work relates to outputs, as well as processes: we have been leading the conversation in how city-centre workplace development can support creation of inclusive neighbourhoods and regularly share insights into our approach with the wider industry.
Project
1. Do you advocate for long-term thinking at the outset of work? Do you initiate work with long-term thinking and challenge clients? Also, can the organisation demonstrate that this approach has worked?
Long-term thinking is fundamental to our projects. Working across scales from the micro to the macro, we think in years, decades and centuries. Most strategically, our urban design and masterplanning work establishes frameworks for resilient communities that evolve over long periods of time. We enjoy the conversations with clients and consultants that look beyond the lifespans of individual building components. This is grounded in realistic understanding of material limitations and warranties but also challenges our industry’s drive for ‘newness’ in what places should look and feel like. Our R&D work on Material Passports has enabled us to contribute to the circular economy and designing for future reuse. Our building at 100 Fetter Lane is the UK’s most comprehensive example of this process to-date, with 80% of materials by mass having passporting data, and 120-year warranties. This enables materials to be maintained, adapted, and reused at end of life.
2. Does your work take account of the future climate and the need for resilience?
‘Quality that lasts’ is a core practice value. We build as much resilience as possible into projects, particularly those with longest lifespans. We have pushed for greater facade solidity, reducing energy-hungry shorter lifespan glass. In taller buildings, (55 Old Broad Street and 63 St Mary Axe) we have pioneered this new approach, which the City of London have since encouraged on other projects.
Designing for very long term societal, technological and environmental uncertainty is key to our masterplanning approach. Our proposals for a Midlands urban extension reinstate natural systems, de-culverting watercourses and restoring natural landscape functions where ecological value has been depleted by intensive farming. Our landscape-led framework connects with surrounding countryside, retaining existing features and preserving half the site for accessible green space, including 225 acres of parkland and woodland. Flooding is a key concern; our proposals include wetland creation and floodplain reconnection, slowing and storing water.
3. Does the majority of your work go beyond mitigating negatives and towards optimising positives?
We strive to leave places better than we find them. Our decision-making is based on maximising positive outcomes, limiting negative impacts. Our masterplanning work includes city-scale projects and urban extensions that impact existing communities. ‘Being a good neighbour’ is a central theme. We focus on delivering reciprocal benefits: creating shared spaces, connections to everyday amenities, access to previously inaccessible sites, new employment and education opportunities and improved access to nature and leisure.
Nature recovery is increasingly key, especially at a strategic scale. These projects offer opportunities to create places deeply rooted in their landscapes, going beyond the legislative, highly formulated approach to biodiversity net gain.
Driving positive impact across supply chains is important; we actively promote and implement material reuse and passporting, sharing research to build a more mature circular economy. We focus on working with partners to continue to improve the construction industry’s understanding of impacts across supply chains.
Co-evolving with nature
Practice
1. Do you use biophilia within your premises and/or do you regularly gather in natural settings?
Our recent move to our new studio at within a we designed (before knowing it would become our new home) has enabled us to bring nature back into the core of our premises, enriching the way we work and embedding our practice values into our physical space. Our ground floor entrance and flexible social area is accessed through a richly planted sunken garden, bringing nature into the social heart of the practice, and allows us to easily spill out from inside to out.
Our first floor workspace has views of mature London plane trees and an adjacent pocket park (carefully incorporated into the building’s design) from all desks. Internal lockers are topped with rich planting.
We have an active softball team that gathers in Regent’s Park weekly during summer months, however we are looking at opportunities for more social gatherings outside moving forwards.
2. Can you share examples of where you have considered nature in decision making?
Integrating nature into our decision-making on projects across all scales is not only driven by a need for increasing biodiversity and urban greening, but also by the recognition that nature-based solutions are healthier for planet, as well as people. Providing access to nature at the same time as improving biodiversity and supporting nature recovery is essential to our large scale strategic projects, such as our masterplan for a brownfield site on a former RAF airfield at Waterbeach, Cambridge, or at an urban extension in the Midlands where we are enhancing mature hedgerows alongside ancestor trees as key drivers in the emerging site structure. Introducing significant greening has become key also on architectural projects: at 63 St Mary Axe in London, we are working with expert arboriculturists to ensure that 76 mature trees rising up a 46-storey building will thrive and provide salutogenic and cooling benefits to the urban environment.
3. Are you supporting nature locally and nationally?
We recognise that the biggest impact we have on nature as a practice is through the decisions made on the projects we design and deliver. This is where our current focus in supporting nature locally and nationally lies. We consider the impact of the products and services we purchase through our ISO14001 certification but we know we can go further in this process.
Going forward, we see our carbon offset purchases as our greatest opportunity to impact nature. We are committed to offsetting our scope 1, 2 and core scope 3 emissions from this year. We are exploring our options for verified carbon offsets both locally and internationally that actively regenerate ecosystems.
Project
1. Can you demonstrate work that strives to match the performance of a mature ecosystem?
We have the biggest impact on ecosystems in our urban-scale projects, where we inherit ecologically deprived brownfield or agricultural sites. We always partner with top-tier landscape architects and ecologists to ensure challenges are understood clearly from the outset. On a large strategic project in the Midlands, we are protecting and strengthening existing hedgerows and veteran trees, which become key structuring devices for our masterplan alongside connectivity. Our approach to landscaping at the East Village in London prioritises mature trees and the creation of wetland areas to support sustainable water management. We always avoid tree pits where possible.
We strive to form part of a broader systems approach through linking green corridors at our large-scale masterplanning projects as well as in our urban projects. At 63 St Mary Axe we are going beyond token gestures, working with specialists who genuinely understand how to keep species in site microclimates.
2. Are you working on material stewardship?
Material stewardship is central to our approach, and we are actively expanding our capabilities in materials reuse and circular design. Our retrofit‑first ethos has evolved into hands‑on strategies that retain, adapt and repurpose existing materials. At One Exchange Square we upgraded the granite façade in‑situ, staining it black rather than replacing it. We have deconstructed a pavilion pub for reuse into a playschool, refinished marble interiors at 155 Bishopsgate, and at 55 Old Broad Street we are repurposing fire doors and re‑cutting precast concrete panels for the new façade. We now conduct in‑house pre-refurbishment audits to embed circular thinking from project inception. Our Materials Reuse Guide and Catalogue consolidate our research and is being translated by ACAN Spain, helping to share knowledge across the industry. Through pioneering materials passports and offering this service in-house, we ensure that any materials we specify today remain viable for reuse in the future.
3. Does the majority of your work demonstrate the use of biologically-inspired approaches such as Bioregionalism, Biophilia or Biomimicry?
Good design is rooted in what is natural and essential and we aim to design for the human senses, providing views, touch, smell and sound of nature. Landscape is essential to our large scale strategic projects and we bring unusual amounts of greening to dense city centre projects, planting forests on existing buildings by utilising redundant MEP loading capacity (135 Bishopsgate) or adding 33,000sqft of terraces to a deep retrofit project (1 Exchange Square). Working within the constraints of a local geography is key to many of our projects. We aim to source locally where possible, working with local materials and local labour, as well as existing and found materials utilising our extensive material reuse expertise. Aesthetic interpretations biomimicry, however, would result in heavily bespoke solutions for many of our building typologies. Instead, we prioritise working with supply chain to develop a systemic shift towards more circular models of production.
Creating a just space for people
Practice
1. Do you have a progressive EDI policy and can you evidence many forms of diversity, which are welcomed and acknowledged, within your company/organisation?
We are committed to encouraging equality and diversity among our staff. We recruit, develop and promote the best people, based solely on suitability for the job. We ensure all applicants and employees receive fair and equal treatment irrespective of protected or othering characteristics. We actively participate in multiple programmes (including school, college, apprentice and university students) to raise awareness of and encourage careers in built environment design for those from groups underrepresented in the industry.
We maintain a working environment free from bullying, harassment, victimization and unlawful discrimination, running regular sessions for staff and managers to support best practice. We deal speedily and effectively with any complaints of negative actions by staff, clients, suppliers or visitors. Through confidential surveys and anonymised reporting, we monitor our progress towards our own EDI targets designed to create a practice that better represents the world we design for than the industry currently does.
2. Do you operate a no overtime culture, meet the living wage consistently, and stipulate a fair salary ratio between staff of all levels?
We are accredited members of the London Living Wage Foundation and committed to ensuring our staff and those of our outsource service providers are paid a fair wage in fair conditions. We do inevitably incur overtime on some project and proposal work. This is monitored through weekly timesheets and monthly reporting with TOIL and occasional additional rewards offered to offset any excessive overtime burden on staff. We undertake an annual salary benchmarking process referencing both publicly available salary information and a robust architecture and interior design industry specific survey conducted across the Architectural Finance Network and apply these learnings each April.
3. Do you support charities, community groups, social enterprises, action groups and others through pro-bono work, charitable giving or in-kind donations?
We are known for a culture that values people-first-design, inclusion, and community. We place importance on our role as a key enabler of opening doors to people who are otherwise underrepresented in architecture and built environment design. We take an active role in supporting charities and programmes close our collective hearts.
We participate in a number of outreach activities, formal and informal, through funding as well staff participation hours. We’re in year three of participating in the PlanBEE Apprenticeships programme, which provides alternative routes into careers in the built environment for young people. We actively support and engage in programmes with the Academy of Real Assets, Narrative Practice, NLA, LSA, BCO, and Women in Architecture. We are active and financial supporters of the Architects Benevolence Society and engage in a variety of fundraising activities throughout the year for Macmillan Cancer Support and other causes.
4. Do you use an ethical framework to assess opportunities and/or supply chain partners and is them team consulted on these decisions?
We don’t work on projects in foreign countries we don’t have ties to, with clients we don’t know and supply chains we don’t understand. For us, developing long-term relationships with clients that share our values, and working in locations where we really understand how we can deliver benefits for the communities that live and work there, is fundamental to our approach as a practice. Our colleagues at all levels often cite the ability to easily visit sites as a key benefit of working here, and we feel it allows us all to design better places, buildings and spaces.
As part of our B Corp certifications, we monitor any potential new work for controversial industries and reputational risk. This is tracked in weekly operational meetings for the full management team.
As a small practice these decisions are discussed directly within the project team and with clients where relevant. As the practice develops, we aim to further formalise these principles into clearer ethical and sustainability guidelines for procurement and collaboration.
Project
1. Does your work demonstrate deep engagement with local stakeholders and end users?
We actively enjoy stakeholder engagement processes and their influence on design. At the settlement scale, we establish long-term trust-based relationships with local communities and stakeholders and deliver schemes that offer benefits to all. Over the last five years, we have expanded this mindset to shape the way we develop and challenge briefs for architectural projects, including commercial workplace. On our project at 63 St Mary Axe, we worked with cultural strategists to engage with F&B operators, cultural producers, young people, entrepreneurs and landscape specialists to scope out a public offering and cultural activation strategy that is inclusive and meets the needs of diverse user groups. Similarly, our project at 55 Old Broad Street engaged with local cultural organisations to provide rehearsal space and creative maker space. We have also invested in our in-house POE capability to allow us to elicit insights and drive decision-making based on human experience and feedback.
2. Does your work create connected and resilient communities which positively contribute to neighbourhoods and allow equality of access?
Creating connected and resilient communities underpins our work across the scales. We challenge briefs to ensure that buildings benefit everyone who comes into contact with them. Our workplace schemes at 55 Old Broad Street and 63 St Mary Axe in London create permeable ground planes with new routes through the site and uses for all: incubator retail spaces, event and rehearsal space, auditoria/theatre spaces and maker spaces. At a settlement scale, our projects create benefits not just for new users, but crucially for existing communities: opening up an inaccessible sites with lakes and mature woodland at RAF Waterbeach; creating connections between neighbourhoods across former railway land at Stratford City, in addition to creating employment opportunities, school, health centre and access to nature; linking previously inaccessible agricultural grazing land, creating pedestrian and cycle routes and public open spaces that structure the site and make it accessible to all at Oxford North.
3. Does the majority of your work promote equity in society, and consider all people, not only building inhabitants
We promote and are valued for holistic thinking and use our role as architects who create projects from concept to completion to challenge how briefs, delivery and supply chains can improve outcomes for all people. This attitude is perhaps best exemplified by our commercial workplace projects shifting away from intimidating monocultural offices towards creating places that are equitable and welcoming to people beyond building occupants. Rethinking how buildings meet the ground is key to creating inclusive places that provide amenity to all, as in our project at 63 St Mary Axe, where we are creating a new fully accessible five-storey garden, complemented by a mix of uses including space for theatre. We collaborated with other architects to harvest materials from our deep retrofit at One Exchange Square and donate them to a charitable playschool project, in the process helping to shape circular supply chains supporting responsible material reuse.