Able Partners

Area of Expertise: Office, hospitality, and urban design

Able Partners are an architecture practice creating innovative, bold, and sustainable solutions to the challenges of the built environment. Their aim is to create experiences, buildings and places which inspire people and enhance the cities we live in.

Able Partners champion straightforward language, transparency in the design process, and collaboration with a wide range of people and industries. The solutions to the challenges they face lie in questioning conventional thinking and finding inspiration from unexpected places.

They are known for their optimistic, colourful approach and willingness to develop original solutions. Most of their work involves the radical adaptive reuse of existing buildings and spaces, taking bold steps to extend their useful life and show them in a new light.

Phone +44 330 5519 499

Address 55 Whitfield Street, London W1T 4AH

Website www.ablepartners.co.uk

Social media

• LinkedIn able partners
• Instagram @able_partners

Tell us about your practice? What do you stand for?

We create bold, progressive, inspiring architecture that improves the physical world. Respectful to the past but ambitious for the future; we do not shy away from making the big moves necessary to create cities which are fit for purpose and rewarding to use.

We are excited about the opportunities our cities provide to address the shared challenges we face. We believe that architects should be optimistic co-ordinators and that a wide variety of views and experiences should be heard to deliver great projects.

What differentiates you from other architects?

We think big and know how to build it.

We really listen to our clients challenges to understand the full range of solutions that are available to them. Working together we turn these challenges and constraints into opportunities. We think big and are ambitious for what can be achieved with the opportunity. We are experienced delivery architects who understand how buildings need to be constructed and maintained through their life, so conceive and deliver robust, long term solutions.

How do you describe your approach to design?

We are dreamers that deliver.

Having been part of teams that changed the skyline of cities we know what can be achieved by thinking big and working hard. We are optimistic, bold and collaborative, while being focused and practical about what needs to happen. We grew up on a design diet of high-tech and post modernism and think buildings can afford to be expressive and interesting as well as affordable and sustainable.

Why do clients come to us?

We are experienced, technically strong and willing to challenge received wisdom with new ideas and technologies. We are big scheme architects but with a boutique business, so can be deployed to solve complex challenges on big projects as trouble shooters as well as designing schemes of our own. Clients like our bold, clear, confident approach to design and how their priorities get driven into the projects.

What kind of clients do you work with?

Our clients are innovative, open minded, and ambitious for change. Most are professional clients from investors and development managers, though to contractors and building occupiers but we work with a while range of stakeholders.

What projects are you currently working on?

We work in the UK, Europe, and the Middle East creating or adapting buildings that transform places and communities. We have several large mixed use buildings currently on site in Westminster, London, an innovation lab for the Blue economy going through planning in Trieste and a new iconic entertainment project under development.

What have been your highlights from the past year?

The last year has been transformative for Able. We have doubled in size, won two competitions, and taken three buildings on site. It was fantastic to have the variety of a short term activation of Warren Street creating art with local collaborators, in juxtaposition to delivering the construction of large new office buildings.

Is there anything exciting on the horizon?

We are in the process of designing a brand new central London attraction which should be operational for visitors by the end of the year. It is incredibly exciting and should change the conversation on what is possible with existing buildings. Watch this space.

Find out more about the RIBA Chartered Practices attending Cityscape 2024