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Friend and Company aims to create beautiful, simple buildings and interiors through a dialogue with clients, end-users and collaborators.  We work on a variety of scales, from private residences to educational buildings.  Our portfolio of completed work includes award-winning new self-build developments as well as sensitive conversions of historic, often listed buildings. Each project, regardless of scale, is the result of detailed research into the context and site characteristics.

We are adept at finding imaginative solutions to complex spatial problems, and have a particular interest in exploiting the structural possibilities of materials.  Ideally we like to be closely involved when a project goes on site, and we believe that a continuous dialogue with contractors and sub-contractors helps to ensure the highest quality finishes. 

Founding Director, Adrian Friend, is an RIBA Educator and has taught and lectured throughout the UK. Credited with establishing a projects office for University of Nottingham and leading the inaugural Jouberton Nursery ‘live-project’, designed and self-built by students in South Africa, Adrian has also helped implement a new architecture undergraduate programme for Norwich University of the Arts, returning the study of architecture to the city after a 50 year absence. A champion of design quality Adrian writes for the leading design and architecture publications including Blueprint, Wallpaper* and Building Design.

Since winning the Victoria & Albert Museum Main Shop international competition in 2016 we have developed a global expertise for museum shops particularly in highly sensitive, often grade I listed historic interiors, adept at finding symbiosis between Museum and Retail narratives that extend both museum as well as museum shop through crafted  commercial and cultural challenges facing 21stCentury Museums’ in meeting needs of diversifying and new audiences. Our materials first approach, founded on latest practice-led making research extends our material repertoire. Latest projects explore the application of new collaborative digital construction materials to socialise the way we build collectively with shared resources. Current project research includes application of corian cladding, fabricated cor-ten steel structures, recycled carbon fibre and stereolithic 3D-Printed clay tiling that was both a product that came out of, as well as embedded in the final museum shop design. 

Much of our work is founded around Climate Literacy and builds on Founding Director Adrian Friend’s expertise and involvement in the RIBA Ethics and Sustainable Development Commission (2018) that contributed to the RIBA Plan of Work 2020 and the RIBA Sustainable Outputs Guide - a model of Climate Literacy in the Built Environment adopted by leading architects and interior designers.

Friend is also an active Robert Grace Trust trustee. Set up in 1987 in memory of architect Robert Grace to provide immeadiate practical help to people with HIV/AIDS and their carers. Run by volunteers, the Robert Grace Trust (RGT) has since then provided £700k via the RGT Hardship Fund. Funds initially channelled through HIV/AIDS Councillors at London Middlesex and Royal Free Hospitals, the giving was extended in 2000 to South African carer organisations - including Nikosi’s Haven and Community Action in Johannesburg and St Paul’s Children’s Rescue Centre in Nairobi, Kenya.   

To date we have been fortunate to collaborate with the following charities and public institutions: 
V&A Museum
Warner Bros. Pictures
Corporation of London
Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea
National Trust
St Catherine’s College 
Focal Point Gallery 
British Council 
Kielder Water and Forest Park
Education Africa
Bird College of Dance
St Pancras Cruising Club
Robert Grace Trust
The Crown Estate
The National Gallery

Awards:
AJ Architecture Awards, Pop Up Ute 2023

Camden Design Awards Shortlisted, Pop Up Ute 2022

Archiboo Awards Shortlisted, Best Architectural Photography 2020

NLA Don’t Move Improve Awards Winner, Pop Up Ute 2018

AJ Designing for the future: retail destinations 2030 and beyond Shortlisted, Nirvana 2018

AJ RetroFit Awards Shortlisted, V&A Shop 2018

Dezeen Awards Shortlisted, V&A Shop 2018

Dezeen Awards Longlisted, Pop Up Ute 2018

Blueprint Awards Highly Commended, V&A Shop 2018

New Architects 3 – work published by Architecture Foundation, 2016

Wood Awards Highly Commended, Helix 2015

Network for Innovation in Culture and Creativity in Europe Award (N.I.C.E), Essen, Helix 2015

Innovation Voucher, Flying Factory Autonomous Housing Construction 2015

NLA Don’t Move Improve Awards Shortlisted, Studio 3 2014

Exhibited Work:
‘Hand Held to Super Scale: Building with ceramics’, NLA Building Centre, 19 September 2019 – 31 January 2020

Don’t Move, Improve! 2018 Awards Exhibition, NLA Building Centre, London, 25th January to 20th April 2018

Monumental Masonry Exhibition, Sir John Soane Museum, London 2015

Adhocracy: From making things to making the commons, Onassis Cultural Centre, Athens 2015

Don’t Move, Improve! 2014 Exhibition, NLA Building Centre, 11th December to 12th February 2015

‘Adhocracy: From making things to making the commons’, Onassis Cultural Centre, Athens, Greece, May-June 2015

Don’t Move, Improve! 2014 Exhibition, NLA Building Centre, 11th December to 12th February 2015

‘Monumental Masonry’ Exhibition, Sir John Soane Museum, from 6th December 2014 until 3rd January 2015

BIO50, ‘Affordable Living’, Museum of Architecture & Design, Ljubljana, Slovenia 18th September - 7th December 2014

ARUP (BEL) Building Installation London 2014, January 2014

Don’t Move, Improve! 2013 Exhibition, NLA Building Centre, 6th December to 6th February 2014

‘Out of Architecture’, St Catherine’s College, Oxford, September 2012

‘Out of Architecture’, ARUP Gallery, June 2012

‘Animal Architecture’, Architecture Center Houston Texas, January 2012





FRIEND AND COMPANY ARCHITECTS

Studio 167 Foundling Court
The Brunswick Centre
London WC1N 1AN
United Kingdom

friend@friendandcompany.co.uk


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