Richard Gilbert Saxon
CBE (born 14 April 1942)
is an
English architect
An architect is a person who plans, designs and oversees the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to provide services in connection with the design of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the buildings that h ...
. He was chairman of
Building Design Partnership
Building Design Partnership Ltd, doing business as BDP, is a firm of architects and engineers employing over 900 staff in the United Kingdom and internationally.
History
BDP was founded in 1961 by George Grenfell-Baines with architects Bill Whit ...
(BDP), chairman of BE (a fore-runner of
Constructing Excellence), a vice-president of the
Royal Institute of British Architects
The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) is a professional body for architects primarily in the United Kingdom, but also internationally, founded for the advancement of architecture under its royal charter granted in 1837, three suppl ...
(2002-2008), Master of the
Worshipful Company of Chartered Architects (2005-2006), president of the
British Council for Offices (1995-1996) and Chairman of the Joint Contracts Tribunal (JCT 2015-2021). He was awarded
CBE in 2001 for services to British
architecture
Architecture is the art and technique of designing and building, as distinguished from the skills associated with construction. It is both the process and the product of sketching, conceiving, planning, designing, and constructing buildings ...
and
construction
Construction is a general term meaning the art and science to form objects, systems, or organizations,"Construction" def. 1.a. 1.b. and 1.c. ''Oxford English Dictionary'' Second Edition on CD-ROM (v. 4.0) Oxford University Press 2009 and ...
.
Career
Saxon trained as an architect at the University of Liverpool and joined BDP in Manchester as a graduate, becoming an associate in 1970 and a partner in 1977. He headed the firm's London office from 1991 to 1999, and served as group chairman (1996-2002). He is now principal at Consultancy for the Built Environment, a client and business adviser.
Projects upon which Saxon worked (and associated awards) include:
*
Halifax Building Society
Halifax commonly refers to:
*Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada
* Halifax, West Yorkshire, England
* Halifax (bank), a British bank
Halifax may also refer to:
Places Australia
*Halifax, Queensland, a coastal town in the Shire of Hinchinbrook
* Halifa ...
headquarters (1975 - British Council for Offices Award 2000)(listed Grade 2, 2013)
*
Durham Milburngate Centre (1978 winner of Europa Nostra medal and
Civic Trust Award)
*
Merseyside Maritime Museum
The Merseyside Maritime Museum is a museum based in the city of Liverpool, Merseyside, England. It is part of National Museums Liverpool and an Anchor Point of ERIH, The European Route of Industrial Heritage. It opened for a trial season in 198 ...
Masterplan (1981 Civic Trust commendation)
*London headquarters of
J P Morgan (1986-1991 - winner of New City Architecture award in 1993)
*
Paddington Basin redevelopment (1989-1992)(unbuilt)
*
All England Lawn Tennis Club
The All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club, also known as the All England Club, based at Church Road, Wimbledon, London, England, is a private members' club. It is best known as the venue for the Wimbledon Championships, the only Grand Sla ...
masterplan and redevelopment,
Wimbledon, London
Wimbledon () is a district and town of Southwest London, England, southwest of the centre of London at Charing Cross; it is the main commercial centre of the London Borough of Merton. Wimbledon had a population of 68,187 in 2011 which includes ...
(1992-1995 - Civic Trust commendation in 1998 for No 1 Court)
*Adam Opel AG Headquarters,
Rüsselsheim Germany
Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG),, is a country in Central Europe. It is the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany lies between the Baltic and North Sea to the north and the Alps to the sou ...
(1993–97) RIBA Award, 1998.
Industry change
Saxon has been active in various industry organisations, particularly those promoting more collaborative approaches to project delivery. For example, he was a member and - from 1999-2002 - chairman of the Reading Construction Forum, which played a key role during the late 1990s in applying the recommendations of the 1994
Latham and 1998
Egan Report The Egan Report, titled ''Rethinking Construction'', was an influential report on the UK construction industry produced by an industry task force chaired by Sir John Egan, published in November 1998.Egan, J. (1998) ''Rethinking Construction: Repor ...
s. He was also involved with the Design Build Foundation (1997-2002) and BE: Collaborating for the Built Environment (2002-2005);
the RCF and DBF merged in October 2002 to form BE,
and BE merged in 2005 into Constructing Excellence.
In addition, Saxon was chairman of the Good Practice Panel of the Construction Industry Board (1996-1999), a member of the
Strategic Forum for Construction The Strategic Forum for Construction is a United Kingdom construction industry organisation established in 2001 as the principal point of liaison between UK government and the major construction membership organisations. It also enables different re ...
(2001-2002), and a member of the executive board of the
Construction Industry Council
The Construction Industry Council (CIC) is the representative forum for professional bodies, research organisations and specialist business associations in the United Kingdom construction industry.
History
The first proposals for a Building Indus ...
(CIC) (2006-2014).
He chaired the Value Task Group of the
Construction Research and Innovation Strategy Panel and subsequently wrote the Constructing Excellence report ''Be Valuable'' (2005). After being the inaugural Povey Lecturer for the Joint Contracts Tribunal in 2003, he was elected Chairman of JCT from 2015 to 2021.
He was a regular contributor to the
Interdisciplinary Design for the Built Environment masters programme at Cambridge University and contributed a chapter on Changing Construction Culture to a book based around papers given on the course.
In August 2012, he was appointed as a BIM 'Ambassador for Growth' to join the CIC and the UK government's
Building Information Modelling Steering Group to look at how the UK can achieve economic growth by exploiting its BIM success.
This continued his involvement with BIM; he was a member of the BIS Low Carbon Construction Innovation and Growth Team which produced the key 2010 report
''Low Carbon Construction''
(accessed 30 January 2012) recommending government adoption of BIM - an initiative carried forward by the government's Chief construction adviser Paul Morrell. Saxon produced a report for government on Growth through BIM, published by the CIC in 2013, followed by a guidebook 'BIM for Construction Clients', published by NBS in 2016 and a further, concise guide 'Going Digital' for the UK BIM Alliance in 2018.
In addition to ''Be Valuable'', Saxon has also written about architectural subjects including atrium buildings, client advice, and the design of the City of London
The City of London is a city, ceremonial county and local government district that contains the historic centre and constitutes, alongside Canary Wharf, the primary central business district (CBD) of London. It constituted most of London f ...
(Saxon was appointed a Freeman and Liveryman of the City of London in 1988).
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Saxon, Richard
Living people
Commanders of the Order of the British Empire
Architects from London
1942 births