Moustachioed Maestros

Richard Philipson and Nathan Hones
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Stride Treglown looks to build facilities in the Middle East that everyone can access

In a profession where practicality can easily give way to pomposity and pretentiousness, Stride Treglown—Abu Dhabi’s newest kid on the block—seems a breath of fresh air. Take, for example, the fact that the entire firm, whether in Abu Dhabi or London, participated in the well-known tradition of ‘Movember’, the month-long moustache-growing charity event created to raise money and awareness for men’s health (specifically prostate cancer and depression).

Observing the tradition, and in honour of an afflicted colleague, the 280-strong firm set up shop in the UAE capital less than six months ago and is hoping to bring a building typology of which the region is in drastically short supply: well-designed schools and hospitals.

Despite feeling slightly sheepish about their new facial hair, London-based director of operations, Richard Philipson, and general manager of the UAE office, Nathan Hones, agreed to give Middle East Architect an hour of their time. And, much to their chagrin, we took pictures.

Richard, what can you tell me about the Stride Treglown story?

RP: Stride Treglown has been around since 1953. It was founded in Bristol. In the early 1950s, it was mostly post war, public work and fairly traditional, commercial architecture. It did a bit in the health and education sectors. It was a relatively small provincial practice. For the next 20-30 years it stayed that way, until the 1980s. Toward the end of the 80s, Stride Treglown began to grow and develop further.

To date, what is the firm’s core competency or primary skill set?

RP: We’re able to provide architectural services in pretty much every sector. The business is mostly definitely a commercial practice with its founding in well-designed, well-considered, buildings that are delivered on time, buildings that don’t leak and buildings that give clients what they want.

That is changing a bit now though. I think Stride Treglown is being recognised for good, innovative, cutting-edge architecture. In fact, in the UK, we’re about to start on site with our new office in Cardiff which will be the first BREEAM ‘Outstanding’ office building in the UK. It achieved 89%, which is the highest Outstanding score in the UK as well.

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NH: Well, I joined Stride Treglown in July 2009 after being in the Middle East for more than five years. My main responsibility is to oversee the day-to-day operations of the firm in Abu Dhabi. That includes: Responding to queries, attending meetings, turning around presentations, submissions, eventually authority approvals and documentation guidelines. And, very importantly, working with Richard to integrate my contacts with those of the firm to create a solid network of clients, consultants and contractors.

What is the most valuable thing you bring to Stride Treglown?

NH: I came to the UAE six years ago and I was based on site at Dubai Festival City. As the project architect, I oversaw a team of architects, engineers, interior designers and landscape architects. Working on site you learn very quickly about documentation and the approvals process. That sort of thing you can only really learn being based in the place.

After that, I moved out to another site at IMPZ. The first time I went out there, I was with the engineer from Halcrow, who were doing the roads at the time, and I asked him to take me to the site.

So we got into his 4X4, and after driving over several sand dunes quite quickly, he stopped on one of the taller ones and he pointed off in the distance to a camel that was walking between two dunes.

He asked me, ‘Do you see that camel down there?’ and I nodded my head and then he said, ‘Well that camel is walking along the southern boundary of your site’. So that was my introduction that project. I helped to establish an architectural site office for about 40 staff—that was everything from designing and fitting out the office interiors to establishing logistics for the staff to liaising between the established office and the mobile one.

To answer your question, I bring five years of on site experience where I designed and delivered pre- and post-contract. Stride Treglown was looking for someone who had been involved in setting up and organisation from the grass roots level. From a hardware and logistics perspective, Stride’s was starting here from scratch and what I bring is experience and contacts in terms of consultants and government authorities.