Sector Focus Property
Forge Architects 25 years on… Tim Wood looks back at 25 years in business with Forge Architects. At the height of the 1980s recession, I thought it would be a good idea to set up an architecture practice! Forge started, like most firms, in my home in Borough. By 1993 that practice became Forge Architects and I am delighted to be celebrating 25 years.
A lot has happened during that time in Southwark, with many positive changes being made. I am proud to say that Forge Architects has played an active leading role in that regeneration, serving the community and facilitating growth across the borough.
In the beginning we worked with some of the survivors and victims of a pretty difficult recession, recovering and recuperating asset value that was at risk of being lost. I think we were good at what we did, working with developers to maximise value and work out solutions to property issues. It certainly helped that I had a development portfolio of my own and knew first hand what the issues were.
We grew quite quickly carrying out a lot of recovery work for banks. This line of work even involved setting up a small building company to carry out the construction work.
What’s in a name?
We took the name Forge from ‘Suthwerk’ Forge the property I lived in. The building started life as a tanners, but was taken over in 1860 by a dyslexic Blacksmith called Burkett, hence the misspelling of Suthwerk.
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As the market improved, so did we. The biggest benefit of this was that we could use some of our profits for community work. Bankside and Borough in those days was a very different place. The small parks and Open Spaces were unloved and derelict. We helped initiate a ‘Friends of’ group for Mint Street Park and eventually this evolved into Bankside Open Spaces Trust (BOST) a multi award-winning charity that creates, protects, transforms and maintains existing and new open space in North Southwark and Lambeth. Forge have helped out in a number of ways over the years and presently I chair the Board of Trustees. BOST has launched the second phase of the Marlborough Sports Garden this year one of the 45 spaces that it is involved with.
Forge has also helped many other local organisations offering pro-bono property advice and work in kind. We are currently helping Southwark Playhouse and Resonance FM with their property plans. In the past we have helped organisations like Surrey Docks Farm, Cooltan Arts, The Abbey Community Centre and some local primary schools. This notion of ‘giving back’ is only made possible by the commercial clients that we
Southwark BUSINESS TODAY
work for on their development projects. A percentage of the profits made from this work helps finance the community work.
Besides benefitting our local community, we found that by being involved in these grass roots projects, one of our key strengths was consultation. We take consultation very seriously. To us, consultation means listening to people rather than telling them how wonderful a design is. This is something we pride ourselves on along with the ability to put into action what we have learnt from listening.
Everyone in the office is on board with this. There is a great ‘cando’ spirit here which stems from giving back, listening to clients and stakeholders, and generally enjoying the process. We make sure that the day to day routine is fun. We’re all music fans, so naturally, as an office, we’ve
been to every Glastonbury Festival since 2002.
I find it interesting that our inception in a recession has helped our stability as a company. We were able to get through the 2008 recession without losing any staff. It also helps to have a range of work in the office not just residential. We do a bit of commercial, community, and industrial work as well.
The next 25 years
I’m looking forward to a greater degree of employee ownership. Everyone here is taking more and more responsibility within the practice. They are the legacy. It’s up to them whether they want to grow the size of the practice. My job is making sure that they are growing individually so that they can take on the responsibility of running the business.
“There is a great ‘can-do’ spirit here which stems from giving back, listening to clients and stakeholders, and generally enjoying the process. We make sure that the day to day routine is fun.”