Practice name KPK Studios Founded 2025Main people Brendan Kilpatrick, Manisha Patel, Spyros Katsaros Based London Where have you come from? We all met at PRP, which Brendan and Manisha joined in 1995 – less than a year after its London studio had been established. We went on to become senior partners, playing a central role in the growth of that studio and shaping the its direction over the following decades.Spyros joined 10 years later and was instrumental in helping to form a distinct team of urban designers within the practice, which he eventually led as director. Together, we collaborated on many of the practice’s most complex projects, combining architecture, urban design, new housing typologies, ways of living and community engagement to deliver socially responsive regeneration at scale.Advertisement Over two decades, we collaborated with nearly every major local authority, housing association, and private developer, shaping places through a blend of architecture, urban design, and community engagement. KPK Studios is the natural evolution of that long-standing partnership, built on shared values and complementary expertise, and driven by a commitment to design excellence, strategic visioning and socially responsive placemaking. What work do you have and what kind of projects are you looking for? We are working on a number of strategic visions, largely residential-based. We’re looking to grow our practice through established contacts – but contacts that match the ethos of our new practice. An example is a project in Kilkenny, which is a community-based regeneration project in one of the most beautiful towns in Ireland. We are working alongside an Irish practice that we have known for years, and the project is bringing us back to our roots: working closely with local people to deliver housing that is affordable and with support facilities that will enhance the lives of the community for generations to come. What are your ambitions? We see ourselves as a new brand of design studio with a fresh approach to solving problems derived from our track record. We are a start-up practice with a difference since we have amassed a century of experience within our sector. Our focus is regeneration, renewal and resilience. The practice can be viewed as a flying column of design, applying our collective creativity to unusual or everyday tasks with a fresh approach which gives immediate impact.  We will design for the future with a deep appreciation of the past, aware of the pitfalls to avoid and augmenting the good practice of things that have been done well.Advertisement ‘We will design with the future of family and the individual to the fore’ We want to create spatial urban environments which inspire, connect and facilitate continued sustainable growth in community cohesion, neighbourhood connectivity and workplace accessibility. In our masterplanning approach, and the architecture derived from it, context is key. Our concept of contextual reintegration is our driver for truly environmentally balanced regeneration to emerge from the design solutions we produce. We will design with the future of family and the individual to the fore. The health and wellbeing of our communities is founded on domestic resilience, on family integrity, on the quality of the landscaped spaces around buildings, and on intergenerational support. It is dependent on an inherent ability to live in a home that is affordable to rent or to buy, whether it is within social or private domains and gives choices to families striving to stay together or individuals to express themselves within their community or beyond. This is the basis from which stability of health and wellbeing form springboards to achievement and prosperity. We want to grow the practice to 10 or 20 people. We will be London-based but will have a national outreach. What are the biggest challenges facing you as a start-up and the profession generally? The profession is facing its biggest period of challenge in a generation, since the advent of design and build in the 1980s. The wave of regulation that has gradually emerged after the Grenfell tragedy has placed an increased regulatory burden, which requires a demonstrable ability in technical competence. This combines with self-inflicted instruments in the form of government policy in relation to the rental market and design standards, which are placing immense barriers on affordability and the delivery of new homes, either private or affordable. Everyone should be a lot busier designing new housing schemes, but there are simply not enough of them. The challenge for small practices is in meeting the technical competence required of the new regulatory regime while operating in an intensely competitive market. But being agile and efficient places us in a good position to deal with these challenges. We know that achieving this collaboration with the right experts, rather than the scale of a single practice, is fundamental. The Labour government will eventually release the bottleneck that exists in the UK, but this will probably not happen until 2026. Which scheme, completed in the last five years, has inspired you most? A scheme that inspires us is Chobham Manor – the first housing delivery site on the Olympic Park. It is a product of meaningful collaboration between several firms of architects. Source:Jack HobhouseChobham Manor by Haworth Tompkins It is a dense housing project but is cleverly designed to not be tall and to cater for a predominance of family homes. The masterplan has a strong landscape theme at its heart which defines its excellent spatial characteristics and contributes to its commercial success. It is also home to the first bespoke multigenerational typologies in the UK. It is a model for modern living and community creation at appropriate scale and diversity. Are you using any new design techniques, such as AI? Our limited start-up budget is keeping technology on a need-to-use basis for the time being, apart from AI, where we are using ChatGPT to help steer us through the technical and legal delicacies of opening a new business. Our experience in a larger practice of investigating AI puts us in a strong position to quickly navigate suitable techniques for design and presentation that do not take away from individual creativity or bespoke solutions. Ultimately, our approach is about harnessing AI’s potential responsibly. How are you marketing yourselves? The difference between our start-up and a young practice is that we’ve already established ourselves in the industry with clients, consultants and government bodies over a number of decades. Fundamental to us is the connection with people in our industry who have been very supportive, and continue to be. We’ve recently had a LinkedIn launch, which we consider to be a great marketing tool. Alongside, we are developing our website, giving lectures, contributing to research papers, cultivating relationships with the press and continuing our presence at industry conferences such as CIH Brighton and UK Reiif. We are taking the experience of a large-practice thinking on PR and maintaining the approach as a start-up. Contact details Manisha Patel: M.Patel@kpkstudios.uk Brendan Kilpatrick B.Kilpatrick@KPKstudio.uk Spyridon Katsaros S.Katsaros@kpkstudios.uk