18
INSIGHTS
PRACTICE PROFILE Michael Kendrick Architects
Michael Kendrick explains how he navigated Covid to found a practice with what would be an award-winning approach to designing high-quality, sustainable homes
M
ichael Kendrick has a background working in relatively large design firms such as Glenn Howells Architects and Ian Simpson Architects, spending his early career primarily in Manchester and Birmingham. When he decided to go solo, he was working as a project architect on high-profile projects at Glenn Howells, including the National Memorial Arboretum, which won the West Midlands RIBA award, and the English National Ballet HQ in Tower Hamlets.
By around 2017 this upwardly mobile architect had increased his
smaller-scale private design work, and won a design competition with a colleague at the practice, and the private work “took over,” says Michael. Asked why he decided to form his own practice, Kendrick says that “I just wanted to get back to something a bit smaller, and explore different ways of working – new techniques and construction processes – and working more closely with clients and end users.”
So on founding his practice in Leamington Spa in 2018 (following a stint in London with Paul Miller as Miller Kendrick), he continued and consolidated a growing reputation for one-off private residential commissions, letting Kendrick nourish a desire for a more hands-on relationship with his customers. He says that with his strong interest in this particular sector, he’s not looking to voyage far beyond it in the short-term at least, instead to “become a specialist in that field and explore ideas, techniques and processes of sustainability.”
Kendrick speaks candidly about the onus on architects in the face of our demanding zero carbon targets. Architects “have a big responsibility to design buildings which are environmentally and socially responsible, and we need to lead on that.” He asserts that in the small-scale residential market there is a particular opportunity to “influence the client in a way they may not be aware of” to achieve higher levels of sustainability, “guiding them through the principles of low carbon design.” He says he doesn’t believe he can yet call himself a sustainability
expert, but is prioritising investing time in further developing his eco knowledge, within an overall rigorous design approach. The timber-framed house he designed in Leamington Spa which recently won a 2022 RIBA regional award (Mill Lodge House) features elements such as a heat pump, high insulation levels and MVHR, and a rain garden. Kendrick says that the win has given the practice “a big boost” as well as “exposure to a wider market.”
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MILL LODGE HOUSE, LEAMINGTON SPA This sustainable home designed to fit the long-term needs of the owners’ parents picked up a 2022 regional RIBA award. Photos © Tom Bird
This was the practice’s first completed project, and was the result of “very good, hands-on clients,” says Michael, without being free of planning, site and timeframe challenges. Covid was more of a disruption from the client’s point of view than his, as it was completed the week of the first lockdown, but they had to wait around nine months to move in.
Flexible growth
Michael says that the growth plan was “always to get a couple of jobs on the board, then look to employ staff.” However when Covid hit, those plans were put on hold. He has three children with his partner, a GP who had to continue working through the pandemic. Michael took on the home schooling duties, which he
ADF JULY 2022
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