About us...
Founded 2004
Located Unit 305 Metropolitan Wharf
70 Wapping Wall
Wapping, London
E1W 3SS
Contact +44 (0) 20 7234 9330
info@bellphillips.com
Team 35 strong
Awards Architect of the Year | Winner 2023
Architecture Today | Winner 2023
British Homes Architect of the Year | Winner 2024
British Homes Awards | Winner 2016, 2024
Civic Trust | Winner 2017, 2018, 2019, 2021
Evening Standard | Winner 2024
GAGA | Winner 2011
Housing Design | Winner 2014, 2015, 2018, 2019, 2022, 2024
Inside Housing | Winner 2015, 2016, 2018, 2023
London Construction | Winner 2024
New London | Winner 2016, 2019, 2020, 2021
Pineapple | Winner 2024
Planning | Winner 2024
RIBA National | Winner 2016, 2022
RIBA Regional | Winner 2016, 2017, 2018, 2021, 2022, 2024
RICS | Winner 2017, 2019
Clients Related Argent, British Land, Lendlease, Peabody, 17 London Boroughs including Southwark, Westminster and Tower Hamlets, Get Living, Igloo, Backhouse, Be First, Pegasus Life, Pocket Living, The Skinners’ School, Kent College Canterbury, Dartford Grammar, Empiric Student Housing
Frameworks BeFirst, Bloom, Clarion, Catalyst, Haringey, Homes England, LCP, LHC, L&Q, London & Quadrant, Notting Hill Genisis, Perfect Circle, Places for People, Royal Parks, Scape, Southwark Architects Framework (ADS), Tower Hamlets, Waltham Forest, Westminster
DRP & QRP
Our team hold positions on various panels.
Current appointments include:
Tim Bell | Be First, Essex
Melissa Dowler | Folkestone and Hythe, Kensington and Chlesea, Waltham Forest (chair)
Tom Morgan | Reading
Jay Morton | Croydon, Ealing, Islington
John Lineen | Kingston
Ashmi Thapar | Hounslow, Brent
Uplifting
We create places people love We believe in the power of architecture to provide sustainable and inspiring places that everyone should thrive and benefit from.
Our strong social and moral purpose drives us to use our expertise as architects to make a tangible impact on people’s quality of life.
Progressive
We build for a positive future
Our design approach is progressive, responsive to the changing world, continuously evolving but always underpinned by our commitment to create a better life for everyone in society.
We create beautifully crafted architecture that responds positively to its surroundings, that challenges convention and creates future legacy.
Respectful
Community, collaborators and the planet
We pride ourselves on our proactive and enthusiastic approach to build constructive relationships with everyone we have the pleasure to meet.
We strive to make the process enjoyable and lead each project with a sensitive ear and collaborative mindset because we believe people make places.
Flexible, adaptable, light-touch studio
fit-out Metropolitan Wharf
The fit-out of our new offices in Wapping was carefully undertaken to minimise the impact on the Grade II listed warehouse building. Free-standing partitions, shelving, kitchen and storage units constructed from naturally-finished plywood give a visual coherence and warmth to the open plan office space that contrasts with the white painted brick, timber and cast iron of the warehouse structure. The plywood is complemented by other natural materials; galvanised cable trays and cork pin-up boards. The layout of the office emphasises the open, collaborative nature of the studio whilst providing different environments to work in.
New housing and co-working hub for Swanley
High Street Swanley
This mixed use development on Swanley High Street brings together a co-working space/business hub and 18 new homes. The development makes productive re-use of a vacant town centre site, and is a model for local authorities looking to take control of assets in their area to drive regeneration, support local workers and businesses, and deliver new homes. The project occupies a brownfield site in a key high street location.
A mixture of one and two bed homes addresses local housing needs, while the new business hub - known as The Meeting Point - enhances the vibrancy and economic viability of the high street. Its flexible layout means that it can offer attractive space to small businesses and start-ups, as well fulfilling a post-pandemic need from individuals for co-working space in a convenient town centre location.
The Meeting Point is accessed directly from Swanley High Street, and provides 247 sq.m of flexible commercial space. It provides a supportive setting for individuals who want to be able to work flexibly or for whom home working is not possible. A garden to the rear of the ground floor is designed to be shared between commercial and residential tenants, offering over 340 sq.m of landscaped social space where people can meet and relax.
Project High Street Swanley
Location Swanley, Kent
Client Sevenoaks District Council
Project Cost Undisclosed
Status Completed
Awards Housing Design 2024 | Winner
The project aspires to be a catalyst for future developments in Swanley, thereby raising the bar for the town in terms of sustainability. Each apartment has an individual air source heat pump alongside mechanical ventilation heat recovery and underfloor heating. Heating and cooling to the co-working and business hub is via an Air Handling Unit. External walls incorporated a high level insulation to target a 0.15 U Value to reduce heating bills.
Electric vehicle charging points have been provided with all spaces having the future capacity to be EV charging points.
Recessed balconies provide shading to the livings spaces to manage solar gain in the summer whilst utilising the solar gain in the winter. Elsewhere windows are provided with horizontal brise soleil.
The project enjoys sustainable transport connections: it is close to the train station with direct access to London Bridge and the building has generous cycle provision.
A progressive school building with a nod to the past
The Mitchell Building
The Skinners’ School is a highly respected grammar school in Royal Tunbridge Wells which is expanding to accommodate a growing number of pupils.
We were appointed to design a new 3-storey building in a key location on the public frontage, between two of the original Victorian buildings on the site. The new building contains a sixth-form centre, English department and library.
The design was developed from a careful analysis of the Gothic revival style of the original school buildings and comprises a design which uses a matching brick with a strong emphasis on verticality and repetition, in a similar manner to the existing buttressed hall. The result is an architecture which is both highly contemporary and respectful of its historic context.
Like its Victorian neighbours, the building is designed to last 100 years. The quality and detail of the brickwork ensure it sits perfectly in its context, as a symbol of 21st century education in a historic setting that will continue to provide great spaces for learning for generations to come.
Project The Mitchel Building
Location Royal Tunbridge Wells, Kent
Client The Skinners’ School
Project Cost Undisclosed
Status Completed 2020
Awards RIBA National 2022 | Winner
RIBA South-east Region 2022 | Winner
Civic Trust 2022 | Winner
National Building & Construction 2022 | Shortlisted
Architects Journal 2021 | Shortlisted
Surface Design 2021 | Shortlisted
Royal Tunbridge Wells Civic Society | Winner
The building centred on creating uplifting, stimulating spaces to learn, grow and promote wellbeing in harmony with the surroundings. Sustainability permeated every step of the design process.
Natural, biophilic materials are used throughout with marmoleum flooring, timber cladding, wood-wool acoustic panels and carpets made from recycled fishing nets. Not only does this provide a beautiful aesthetic but studies also show that the use of natural materials can improve performance, improve mood and lower blood pressure essential for learning environments.
Passive daylighting and natural ventilation was prioritised with all classrooms being double or triple aspect, hugely reducing reliance on artificial lighting and air conditioning, whilst exposed concrete soffits regulate the internal temperature and give generous floor to ceiling heights.
Red brick with colour matched mortar, Brookmill Blend by Traditional Brick & Stone
Hand laid bricks at 45 degrees
Bespoke double masonry support angles by IG Lintels
Timber aluminium composite window system, Velfac 200 Energy
Brick piers hand laid at 45 degrees
Brick special sill with hydrophobic masonry coating
Brick slip soldier course as part of IG Lintel masonry support system
Thrutone fibre cement slate roof tiles
“... the architectural design of a wonderful building that is imaginative, practical, in sympathy with surrounding buildings but also striking in its C21st contrast and pleasingly sustainable.”
Edward Wesson, Headmaster & Paul Johnston, Bursar
Enhanced ways of working on Oxford’s science and innovation campus
Harwell Hide
Harwell Campus is a science, technology and innovation campus with close ties to Oxford University. The hides provide tranquil workspaces overlooking an existing lagoon. Each pavilion is clad in angled facets of timber cladding and mirrored glass with each offering a distinct working environment.
To reduce the impact on the ecology of the site the structure of the Hides will touch the ground very lightly in localised areas, with no major excavation or earthworks, and there will be no hard paved paths or vehicle access. The pavilions have been constructed offsite using crosslaminated timber (CLT) to reduce the impact on the ecology of the site.
The use of timber cladding and CLT minimises the embodied carbon, whilst natural passive ventilation and woodburning stoves minimise energy in use.
The Hides have been arranged to minimise the impact on the site’s ecology, trees and planting and the landscape design will reinforce and enhance the existing flora.
Project Harwell Hide
Location Harwell, Oxfordshire
Client Harwell Campus
Project Cost Undisclosed
Status Completed 2022
Awards British Council of Offices 2022 | Finalist
Gardensity: Localised, integrated food production
Meridian Water
Gardensity is a vision for a zero-carbon community for Meridian Water in Enfield.
Underpinned by Garden City principles the vision seeks to address the challenges of the urban environment by creating a resilient and healthy community structured around an integrated local food system. Gardensity will empower the community to live more sustainable and healthy lifestyles by providing locally grown food, minimising energy use, reducing transportation and changing attitudes to consumption, creating a stronger and more stable community in the process.
The proposal, developed in conjunction with Grow Tottenham, Susan Parham, Webb Yates, Hoare Lea, Human City, Arcadis and Savills comprises a resilient and sustainable urban community centred on food production at different scales. The integration of homes with food production results in a more sustainable community, with outstanding external amenity space, a greater sense of community, opportunities for education and a heightened relationship with nature where nurturing and growth are central to the shared ethos.
Project Meridian Water
Location Meridian Water, Enfield
Client Enfield Council
Project Cost Undisclosed
Status Research / Design Code
Gardensity: Localised, integrated food production
Meridian Water
A typical urban block proposes large family dual-aspect scissor flats with generous gardens that can be used for growing and which provide excellent amenity. Communal allotments on the roof together with urban gardening and markets on the ground floor make for a self-sustaining community.
The ethos is extended to the public realm to create a network of edible and biodiverse routes throughout the development. This allows residents to benefit at different levels of participation, from passive observer and consumer to full blown grower whether it be as part of a community garden, personal grower or even an urban farmer.
The design seeks to deliver the vision at an appropriate scale and density to make optimum use of sites to deliver much-needed homes.
The study will inform the design guide for the Meridian Water masterplan and will establish principles that underpin the plot designs.
MERIDIAN FOODS
MERIDIAN MARKETS
MERIDIAN GROWTH
MERIDIAN MAKERS
Intervening in a historic postindustrial setting
Granary Square Pavilion
Granary Square Pavilion incorporates a retail unit, public WCs and public access lift connecting Granary Square to Lower Stable Street on a prominent site opposite the Granary Building and Thomas Heatherwick’s new retail complex at Coal Drops Yard in King’s Cross. The roof of the pavilion extends the public space of Granary Square completing the western corner of the space.
The pavilion completes Granary Square, extending the public realm across its roof, whilst presenting an active frontage to the adjacent Goods Yard Ramp and Lower Stable Street. The pavilion seeks to be an understated, contemporary, yet high quality, addition to King’s Cross that engages with, but doesn’t compete with, its surrounding context.
The pavilion has a decorative cast iron façade that extends up to the form a balustrade to Granary Square. The pattern of the cast iron is inspired by the molecular structure of coal referencing the site’s industrial heritage.
The pavilion is one of three public realm interventions we have added at King’s Cross together with Gasholder Park and Jellicoe Gardens.
Project Granary Square Pavilion
Location Kings Cross, London
Client King’s Cross Central Ltd Partners / Argent
Project Cost Undisclosed
Status Completed 2019
Awards Civic Trust 2021 | Winner New London Architecture 2020 | Winner
A new mixeduse district in Gothenburg
District Bearing
Situated along the river Savean in the northern part of Gothenburg, this historic factory complex consists of a series of striking industrial buildings that date back to the early 20th century. Originally built in phases, the factory served as a hub for both the working and cultural life of the region. However, the ball bearing factory has since been replaced by more modern facilities nearby, leaving behind a rich legacy that now calls for a fresh vision.
In collaboration with Stena Fastigheter and Gothenburg City Council, Bell Phillips has been instrumental in developing a place-making vision for the site’s future. This vision is supported by a comprehensive framework outlining the steps needed to achieve a thriving, multi-use community. Our approach has been informed by extensive research into the best examples of industrial regeneration across Europe, alongside a detailed analysis of the site’s history, architectural fabric, and context.
Project District Bearing
Location Gothenburg, Sweden
Client Stena Fastigheter
Project Cost Undisclosed
Status Planning Submitted
The development plan encompasses approximately 1,000 new homes, alongside a linear park running alongside the river, which will enhance public access and provide green space for residents and visitors. Key to the vision is the renovation of the most significant industrial buildings, which will be re-purposed for a mix of workspace, cultural, retail, and education facilities.
Our aim is to breathe new life into this historically rich site by celebrating its industrial heritage and revealing the unique character of the factory complex. In doing so, we seek to transform the site into an exciting new destination and play a central role in the broader regeneration of northern Gothenburg.
Low energy technology and innovation workspace
Project Zeus
This speculative tech industrial building is intended to be one of the most sustainable buildings of its type.It comprises a superstructure of engineered timber with charred timber cladding to minimise embodied carbon, and is designed to allow natural ventilation and lighting, whilst minimising any unwanted solar gain. The site plan brings the soft landscaping of the surroundings into the heart of the development, as a focus for tenants working in the buildings, contributing to a very high sense of well-being in the workplace.
Project Project Zeus
Location Harwell, Oxfordshire
Client Harwell Campus
Project Cost
Undisclosed
Status RIBA Stage 2
