With UK architect head count back into three figures for the first time since 2013, housing-focused practice PRP has climbed five places in the AJ100 this year.
The firm, which has studios in London, Manchester and Surrey, last summer expanded its offering to include softer services, such as user satisfaction surveys, health assessments, and ‘visioning’.
PRP has boosted its female representation, with 38 per cent of its UK architects now women, up from 32 per cent last year. Its proportion of black, Asian or minority ethnic UK architect staff dipped in 2016 to 11 per cent, down from 18 per cent but nevertheless still comparatively high among AJ100 firms.
PRP has four projects shortlisted for Housing Design Awards, including an estate regeneration scheme in Lambeth, London, and a 75-bed extra-care development in Stoke-on-Trent. Its ‘tenure-blind’ Park Heights development of 159 homes in Stockwell, south London, has won an RIBA Regional Award this year.
PRP often works on broader community schemes and in February this year secured planning consent for a mixed-use project in Surrey that includes a cinema, shops and restaurants as well as 153 apartments.
The practice closed its office in Russia in the past year, and no longer employs architects abroad. It says it has no immediate plans to open studios overseas. The practice is working in Saudi Arabia but not actively seeking new work there.
Having completed projects worth a combined total of almost £700 million in 2016, PRP won more than £900 million-worth of work over the year. This points to a healthy pipeline, although the practice expects profit margins to dip slightly on UK work. It carried out almost half of its work in 2016 directly for developers.
