About us

Founded in 1999, Burwell Architects is a RIBA award winning architecture practice based in Deptford. We are experts in the design and delivery of a wide range of projects of different scales, with a particular specialism for working within the residential, commercial, and higher education sectors.

We are regarded as thought leaders and innovators in the design of buildings for universities, higher education, and academic research. Our approach necessitates thorough engagement with educational institutions to create outstanding learning environments that explore the changing nature of teaching excellence and diverse opportunities for learning. Our experience over the past twenty years has included many new buildings for education institutions, including advanced research buildings, libraries, student social hubs, and buildings for the arts. More recently there has been a trend for universities to gain
advantage from their existing assets through retrofit, and we continue to work with our clients to investigate ways of getting the most value from their historic estates.
 
Our residential experience ranges from large developer led new build brownfield projects to the creation of bespoke homes for high-end developers and individual clients. We have accumulated considerable experience of developing high density urban residential projects to the point of completion; for many of our housing clients, we are known as both design architects and delivery experts, and have a vast wealth of experience of negotiating high quality, and ambitious projects successfully through planning.

Culture

The culture of our workplace is important to us. We foster a working environment that respects our staff’s personal time, and the constraints of the working week. We believe that the creation of successful architecture does not come from production lines, and so we create opportunities for reflection across the timeline of a project.

We are an ethical practice, with a commitment to sustainability. Our office achieved Carbon Neutral status in 2019, and we continue to develop ways of maintaining and improving our responsibilities to the environment in our working practices.

Our qualified staff have RIBA membership, which is provided for by the studio, and we sponsor architectural students at post Part 1 and Part 2 stages of their education through to qualification. Our diverse and multicultural studio is run with an ethos of mutual support and respect, something that we are pro-active about promoting.
 
Socially, we instigate regular opportunities for staff interaction and relaxation, which has recently taken the form of regular wine-tasting evenings, life-drawing classes, and other outdoor activities such as cultural visits and fact-finding trips.