Three stories published within days of each other rarely fit together neatly, but taken side by side they sketch a sector in transition. A 43-storey tower in Manchester, a global consultancy building a dedicated executive architecture arm, and a well-regarded London studio losing two of its three founders all point to the same question: how do UK practices organise themselves to deliver large, complex work while holding on to the people who make it possible?
Scale Returns to Manchester's Skyline
EPR Architects has designed two mixed-use towers rising to 43 and 33 storeys at St Mary's Parsonage in Manchester, for Gary Neville's development company Relentless. As reported by Building Design, the proposals include 434 homes, a 172-room hotel, and workspace, alongside a public river walkway.
The mix matters as much as the height. Combining residential, hospitality, and office uses in a single scheme is a familiar aspiration in city-centre masterplanning, but it is demanding to deliver. Each use brings its own servicing, fire strategy, circulation, and amenity requirements, and each has a different commercial logic. The walkway adds a further layer, because a publicly accessible riverside edge has to be designed for street-level activity, flood resilience, and long-term maintenance, not just for the photographs in the planning submission.
For practices, the lesson is that the most credible tall proposals now tend to be the ones that treat the ground plane and the public realm as seriously as the silhouette. Manchester's riverside has been a test of that principle for years, and schemes that deliver genuine public connection are better placed to win consent and to sustain value after completion.
Aecom Builds a Bridge Between Concept and Construction
Aecom has launched an executive architecture business in the UK, led by James Atha, formerly a board director at Veretec. According to Building Design, the division aims to support clients by bridging design concepts and construction delivery through enhanced technical architecture expertise.
The move reflects a gap that many clients recognise but few firms have formalised. Concept design is often led by one practice, while technical resolution, procurement readiness, and construction-stage information are handled by another, or fall between the two. Executive architecture, meaning the detailed technical design that takes a scheme from approved concept towards buildable reality, has traditionally been carried out by a range of practices, contractors, and specialist consultants. Establishing a dedicated business signals that this stage is now being treated as a distinct service line rather than an overflow of the design team.
Why the Executive Stage Is Getting Attention
There are several pressures behind this shift:
- Compressed programmes, which leave less room for sequential design and tender stages.
- Higher technical complexity, from decarbonisation requirements to the detailed resolution of fire, acoustic, and structural strategies.
- Clearer accountability expectations, as clients seek fewer gaps between design intent and what is built.
- Talent mobility, with experienced technical leaders increasingly moving between consultancies and contractors to build new capability.
For smaller and mid-sized practices, the question is not whether to match a global consultancy's scale, but whether their own technical offer is clear enough to hold a position in the handover from concept to construction. Those who define and price executive-stage services transparently are likely to find themselves better placed in procurement conversations.
When Founders Step Back
The third story is more personal but no less instructive. London practice IF_DO has announced that co-founders Sarah Castle and Al Scott will leave the studio after relocating away from the capital. The practice will continue under the leadership of remaining founding director Thomas Bryans, as set out in Building Design.
Founder transitions are among the most sensitive moments in a practice's life. A studio's culture, client relationships, and design identity are often bound up with the people who established it. The IF_DO announcement is notable because it is framed around a relocation rather than a dispute, and because a founding director remains to carry the practice forward. That continuity is what allows clients, staff, and collaborators to read the change as an evolution rather than a rupture.
Key insight: the practices that navigate leadership change most smoothly are usually those that have already distributed decision-making, client ownership, and design authority beyond the founders.
Relocation is also a reminder that where leaders live and work now carries real consequences for studio structure. Hybrid working, regional talent markets, and the cost of London property continue to reshape where senior people choose to be. Practices should expect founder and partner mobility to become a more routine governance question, not an exceptional one.
Succession Planning as Design Management
- Map which clients, projects, and relationships depend on individual founders.
- Document design principles and technical standards so they survive a change in leadership.
- Identify and develop associate directors who can credibly take on external representation.
- Agree in advance how equity, decision rights, and project responsibilities will transfer.
Reading the Three Stories Together
Although these announcements are unrelated in their specifics, they share a common set of pressures. The table below summarises what each signals for practice.
| Story | Core Development | Practical Signal for UK Practice |
|---|---|---|
| EPR, Manchester towers | 43- and 33-storey mixed-use scheme with 434 homes, a hotel, workspace, and a public river walkway | Integrated multi-use design and public realm quality are central to tall city-centre schemes |
| Aecom executive architecture | Dedicated UK business bridging design concepts and construction delivery | The executive stage is becoming a distinct, competitive service line |
| IF_DO founder transition | Two of three co-founders leaving after relocation; practice continues under remaining director | Leadership continuity and distributed authority determine how well studios survive change |
Taken together, the stories describe a profession where ambition is rising in scale, where delivery responsibility is being more explicitly defined, and where the people behind practices are more mobile than the institutions they lead. None of these trends is new, but they are converging in ways that demand a more deliberate response from firms of every size.
Looking Ahead
The Manchester towers will be judged on the quality of their ground-floor experience and the usability of the riverside route as much as on their skyline presence. Aecom's new executive business will be tested by whether clients begin to split design and technical delivery in new ways, or whether it becomes a complement to traditional appointments. IF_DO's next chapter will show how a practice rebuilds its leadership and client relationships after a founder transition, with Thomas Bryans at the helm.
For UK architects, the practical task is clear. Be explicit about what your practice delivers at every stage, from first concept to completed building. Make sure your studio's knowledge and authority do not reside in one or two people. And treat the public realm, the technical handover, and the leadership structure as core parts of the design proposition. The sector is rewarding practices that can show how they will deliver, and how they will endure.