Broadway Malyan

Broadway Malyan reports a ‘steady’ UK performance for 2017, but saw overseas office fee income fall by 22 per cent. The 60-year-old practice closed its Chile office and slipped down a place in the table after dropping five UK staff.

According to managing director Gary Whittle, UK work picked up well after a slowdown in the spring of 2017 and a difficult early summer. As well as its mainstay residential work, completions included the £59 million Science and Health Building at Coventry University and the RIBA North architecture centre in Liverpool.

Planning successes include a new student village for Oxford Brookes University and a 12-storey residential development in Woking.

The practice has benefited from its geographical and sector spread. ‘Broadway Malyan has always had a tradition of a broad base across sectors, which we see as a great strength,’ says Whittle. ‘We’ve been building our urbanism team quite strongly and that really has been a growing sector for us.’

The UK remains its biggest market, followed by Europe and the Middle East, with strong trading in Madrid, Lisbon and Poland. Conditions were more challenging in Asia but picked up in the second half of 2017 in China, where key completions included Dulwich College Shanghai. In Thailand, the practice is masterplanning a 100ha business park and it has a string of projects in Indonesia. African projects include masterplanning in Rwanda and, in Tanzania, a strategic framework for Dar es Salaam. In the USA it is working on a $100 million cruise terminal in Miami.

Despite the challenges of a highly competitive UK market and downward pressure on fee levels, the practice remains confident, says Whittle, that market opportunities are still out there. Last year was also significant for the practice as its first year since ownership was transferred to an employment ownership trust in November 2016.