Building Design Partnership

Building Design Partnership (BDP) is a firm of architects and engineers employing over 800 staff in the UK and over 140 more internationally. It designs "2% of all the new, non residential building (and some of the housing) in the UK each year". [ [http://www.bdp.co.uk/flash/index.asp#a_profile BDP website] retrieved 2 March 2007]

History

Foundation

The firm was founded in 1961 by George Grenfell Baines with architects Bill White and John Wilkinson, quantity surveyor Arnold Towler and eight associate partners: Brian & Derek Cobb, Keith Ingham, Peter Renninson, David Rock, Lorrie Rossant, Keith N Scott and Sid Tasker. The associates were made full equity partners in 1964. Grenfell Baines was the first chairman. BDP was end 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” [White, Bill (1987), "The Spirit Of BDP", Preston: BDP, p 22.] . The firm expanded rapidly over the following decades and had thirty partners and 700 staff by the time of Grenfell Baines’s retirement in 1974.

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 and Rome.

Professions represented in BDP offices in 1968 [BDP (1968), "Experience in Industrial Building", Preston: BDP.]

* Architects
* Town Planners
* Cost Consultants
* Civil Engineers
* Structural Engineers
* Electrical Engineers
* Heating Engineers
* Ventilating Engineers
* Landscape Architects
* Traffic Engineers
* Graphic Designers
* Industrial Designers
* Sociologists

Limited Company

BDP ceased to be a partnership in 1997 and is now a limited company.

Current locations of BDP Offices

Building Design Partnership Ltd., UK

* Belfast
* Birmingham
* Bristol
* Glasgow
* Liverpool
* London
* Manchester
* Sheffield
* Winchester

Building Design Partnership (Ireland) Ltd., Ireland

* Dublin

Groupe 6, France

* Paris
* Grenoble

BDP Advanced Technologies Ltd.

* Manchester

BDP Advanced Technologies (Asia Pacific) Ltd.

* Singapore

elected Projects

* Rebuiding of Aldershot Military Town (1961-69)
* University of Surrey, Guildford (1965-68)
* University of Bradford (1965-71)
* Preston bus station (1968-69)
* Blackburn Central Area Redevelopment (1965-77)
* Halifax HQ, Halifax (1973 & refurbisment 2002)
* Channel Tunnel Terminal, Folkestone (1973-5, revived 1987-93)
* Brent Cross, London (1976)
* Ealing Broadway Centre (1979-85)
* Kingston upon Hull Crown Court (1988-90)
* All England Lawn Tennis Club, Wimbledon (1992-2000)
* Reconstruction of Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, London (1996-2000) "with Dixon Jones"
* Cribbs Causeway, Bristol (1998)
* Scottish Widows, Edinburgh (1998) "Number 93 of Prospect 100 best modern Scottish buildings"
* Adam Opel Campus, Ruesselsheim, Germany (1998)
* Niketown, London (1999)
* Connolly Station, Dublin (1999)
* Vasco da Gama Centre, Lisbon (1999)
* Olympic Tennis Centre, Sydney (2000)
* Glasgow Science Centre, Glasgow (2001)
* Manchester Piccadilly Station concourse (2001-02)
* Sao Gabriel & Sao Rafael Towers, Lisbon (2001-04)
* iceSheffield Sheffield(2002)
* TresAguas Centre, Madrid (2002)
* Royal Albert Hall, South Porch (2003)
* Nanoscience Centre, University of Cambridge (2003)
* BBC Mailbox, Birmingham (2004)
* Olympic Tennis Centre, Athens (2004)
* Melbourne City Waterfront (2006)
* Aintree Racecourse, Merseyside (2007)

Image Gallery of BDP Projects

People who have worked for BDP

* Leon Krier
* Michael Webb of Archigram

Notes

External links

* http://www.bdp.co.uk