Manisha Patel, Senior Partner at PRP, brings a wealth of knowledge and a passion for people to her impressive body of work.
Manisha Patel has dedicated her career to renowned interdisciplinary practice PRP where she is currently a Senior Partner. With a strong passion for urban design and masterplanning, Manisha is a driving force at the firm who are currently celebrating 60 years of intelligent, repsonsive, and sustainable architecture.
PRP design high-quality buildings that enrich the lives of users and their community; from regenerating inner-city estates and masterplanning new neighbourhoods, to designing commercial buildings and homes for older people.
Having joined PRP straight out of university back in the Nineties, Manisha has seen the practice grow and develop substantially; and she has also experienced notable shifts within the architecture and housing industries first-hand.
Here, Manisha discusses the rich memories from her childhood, the projects and people that have inspired her over the years, and how past personal experiences resonate with issues present in housing today.
What is your earliest memory of design and architecture?
I spent my childhood summers in India visiting my grandparents, who took me to lots of temples in North West India. They were holy places, but I was always more interested in the architecture than the religion; it fascinated me that human beings could create such beautiful structures still used thousands of years later.
I’ll always remember walking through the Khajuraho temples in Madhya Pradesh when I was about nine years old; they completely blew my mind. Every surface was decorated with extremely intricate sculptures. However, it isn’t the buildings themselves that stand out in my memory; it’s the feeling the place gave me. It was about the setting, the landscape – perhaps that’s why I’ve always pushed for the integration of architecture with urban design and masterplanning. An understanding of all three is what creates places that truly work for people and stand the test of time.
Where did you study?
I completed my first degree at the University of Greenwich. Whilst studying, I found that whenever I was asked to design a building I wanted to design the whole area, so I decided to find a placemaking-led post-graduate course that integrated both architecture and urban design. This drew me to Oxford Brookes University, which I joined in 1993.
At the interview, they told me that urban design was only taught in the second year of the combined course, but I was so keen on it that they agreed to bend their own rules and switch the course around. I think this really benefitted me because I could integrate more advanced urban design and placemaking principles into my architecture work.
Whilst studying urban design, I contributed to a live estate regeneration project in Nottingham which involved working directly with the local community. I got so much satisfaction out of this and realised that community-led housing design was the area I really wanted to pursue. Luckily, when I graduated in the mid-1990s, the government was investing more in estate regeneration.
What kind of architect did you aspire to be?
Growing up, I was always very interested in how people live – I like people. Naturally, I was drawn to creating socially led, people-centred architecture.
Whilst studying at university, my aspirations developed further. I come from a working-class family, so landing in architecture was a bit of a shock to the system. The vast majority of my peers were privately educated; I felt like I had to work twice as hard, but this pushed me to challenge myself. I realised I wanted to develop a thorough understanding of how buildings are constructed. I wanted to see the buildings I design come out of the ground – not just as shapes on a piece of paper.
In architecture, vision is so important. It’s something to push towards to realise an idea. However, vision needs to be underpinned by knowledge and an understanding of how it can be delivered. I’ve seen so many visions that are undeliverable.
Who are your design/architecture inspirations?
I’ve always admired Jane Jacobs and Tadao Ando; they’ve definitely acted as design inspirations throughout the course of my career.
Jane Jacobs looked at cities in different ways. Reading about her whilst at university really influenced me; I was inspired to push design boundaries and think outside of the box.
I think about Tadao Ando’s architecture a lot. It’s very much about exploring the boundaries between inside and outside, bringing nature indoors and thinking about how a building is set within its landscape – pretty awesome.
Congratulations to PRP on celebrating 60 years of design. How long have you been at PRP and what is your favourite memory working there?
Thank you. I’ve been at PRP since I graduated, so almost 27 years now!
One of my favourite memories took place ten years ago, when we were waiting for results from the LLDC to find out who had won the competition to transform the first Olympic legacy site into a new residential neighbourhood. I was in the Welsh countryside, so had to hike to the top of a hill to get signal – I remember getting the message that we’d won like it was yesterday.
The design process that followed was intense, but I really admired the way the whole team challenged each other and pushed forward together – our client and collaborators were just brilliant. I learnt a lot from working with Frank Filskow, a Partner at Make, in particular; his drive is inspirational and we had a lot of good debates about architecture.
What does PRP represent as an architecture firm?
About eight years ago, PRP decided to close its international offices in order to concentrate on what we are good at back in the UK and make sure we weren’t diluting our service offer to clients.
This might be one of the best business decisions we ever made. This is because we are known primarily for our social aspirations to improve the ways in which people live and we have refocused our efforts in this area, from estate regeneration through to designing exemplar neighbourhoods for older people and creating new typologies to reflect modern ways of living and put people at the heart of their own homes.
We have evolved into a practice that is very much interdisciplinary. In addition to architecture, we are specialists in urban design, masterplanning, community engagement and landscape architecture and have recently expanded into film and TV studio design as part of our architectural offering in response to the rising demand for UK studio space. With the change of regulations post-Grenfell, we also introduced a Development Consultancy team to provide services that relate to the full lifecycle of a building – including adaptation, façade and defects remediation and fire safety consultancy. This has grown from a team of 22 to 70 in just six years.
How do you continue to carve your own path in the industry as an individual?
As an individual, carving my own path in the industry is about creating housing that reflects and anticipates social change; we can’t just think about the present or the next five years, we need to address what is going to happen to future generations.
A lot of this comes down to affordability; unfortunately, I think the affordability crisis is here to stay. Growing up, I lived in a home of five nuclear families and shared a bedroom with four others. My first bed was actually the bottom drawer of a wardrobe – I know the true meaning of overcrowding, and this experience resonates with the struggles that so many are facing today.
It isn’t really about individuals; we need to come together to mitigate the impact of the affordability crisis. As architects, I believe that designing homes that anticipate evolving lifestyles, such as the rise of multigenerational and intergeneration living, is an important part of our role to ease the challenges that the younger generation and future generations face.
What has been your biggest design commission to date?
It’s difficult to define what PRP’s ‘biggest’ commission is – scale, complexity and fee income don’t necessarily go hand-in-hand. A project could be small in scale but incredibly complex, or large in scale but not as significant financially.
In terms of complexity, I’d say our biggest design commission to date is the regeneration of the Pydar quarter of Truro for Cornwall Council. The scheme will bring transformative change to a rundown brownfield area of the city; a vibrant, sustainable and intergenerational neighbourhood will rise out of a site currently housing underutilised warehouses, asbestos-ridden empty buildings and car parks.
The mixed-use development will extend and connect Truro’s historic core with the River Allen and a Victorian railway viaduct to create a ‘place’ at the heart of the city. Consented plans include a diverse range of accommodation, including multigenerational housing, student apartments and a hotel in a masterplan that has environment and ecology as key drivers.
What does the face of architecture look like to you in 10 years’ time?
Architecture faces so many challenges in the coming ten years. As an industry, we need to make the profession more desirable – we need to acknowledge the ways in which the role of the architect is evolving and becoming more complex.
The built environment sector is facing a challenging period with evolving Building Regulations. This is for good reason, but architects are taking on a lot more responsibility. Our role is becoming more important. We’re competing against so many emerging sectors with career prospects that are more financially rewarding. If the industry doesn’t change, young people won’t be joining the profession – and we’ll lose the best existing talent.
I’ve heard some people comment that architecture won’t be around in a decade or two, as artificial intelligence will take over. I find that hard to believe. Architects are the drivers of regenerative design and a built environment that truly meets the evolving needs of our population. Every neighbourhood, city and country have distinctive, unique ways of living – humans are not the same, and their needs do not stand still. They require human solutions.
If you hadn’t become an architect what would you be doing?
I’ve wanted to be an architect as long as I can remember, so that’s hard to answer.
Perhaps I would have been one of those people who organise bespoke travel – I’ve just returned from a trip across north India with my family, which I spent a long time planning. My kids say they love going on mum’s holidays; I always add in an unexpected twist to the itinerary that keeps them guessing.
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