Celebrating 40 years of Avanti Architects
2022Avanti Architects are delighted to be celebrating 40 years in practice and will be sharing highlights of the past four decades over the coming weeks across social media.
Avanti was founded in 1981 by Geraldine O’Riordan, John Cooper, Richard Barton and David Roebuck (who sadly passed away in 1985), coming from the in-house team of Community Housing Association (now One Housing Group). John Allan joined the practice as director in 1983 and developed the practice’s leading reputation in conservation and restoration of 20th century architecture, with Justin De Syllas joining as director in 1986.
Over this period Avanti built on the founding commitment to employing architectural innovation to drive social change as manifested in seminal work across a range of sector-defining projects.
The restoration of the Grade I listed Isokon Building in Camden to house key worker accommodation linked our commitment to both 20th century modernism and delivery of social value. This continued with the creation of the Isokon Gallery, run as a charitable trust, that tells the story of the building and its famous inhabitants.
Following a series of community health projects, Avanti delivered a competition-winning design for the seminal ACAD at Central Middlesex Hospital, the first ambulatory care and diagnostic centre in Europe.
We maintain a research and innovation-led approach, with Trumpington Community College in Cambridge adopting new modes of learning in a shared open-plan environment and the recent Makers building in Shoreditch pioneering local authority-led combined education and housing mixed use development.
This would not be possible without a community of Avanti team members, collaborators, clients and stakeholders who have helped grow the Avanti family and shape the many successful projects across the UK and the Republic of Ireland where Avanti set up our office in Cork in 2007 led by director Ronan Conneely.
