Pierre became Chair of Stride Treglown in 2022, having previously led our Technology and Innovation sector, and our award-winning Cardiff studio. He has spent his career helping clients align building design with business goals, across projects in the UK, the Netherlands, Germany, Spain, and Japan.
Pierre led the process of Stride Treglown becoming the first AJ100 practice to achieve B Corp certification. Since then, he’s guided our transition to full employee ownership.
He has been a Board Trustee of the Royal Institute of British Architects and is a past President of the Royal Society of Architects in Wales.
What do you see as the big challenges and opportunities facing the industry?
I think the industry needs to be highly intelligent with the way it harnesses the power of AI. It has supercharged our ability to produce enticing images, but it glosses over the deep work of consultation and the careful construction of an evidential basis to design.
Practices like Stride Treglown have to define how we lead on this. I’m driven by making sure we keep architecture as a collaborative act — one where clients, communities, and delivery partners are all listened to with equal care.
On this point, I think we’re at a really exciting point in understanding and designing for social impact. Nearly forty years ago, I remember doing my university dissertation on participative design and the work of pioneers in the ‘70s such as Lucien Kroll. It feels like things have come full circle.
One thing that work has reinforced for me is that co-design is about giving people a meaningful voice and properly understanding the parameters you’re working within, so you can anticipate the needs of everyone affected by it. Then you can be prepared to say, ‘we’ve listened, we understand your needs and the trade-offs, and this is the direction we believe is right.’
The outcome may be different from what was imagined in the initial brief, but I don’t see that as working against the client’s interests. Quite often it’s protecting them.
Tell us about a recent moment that exemplifies the practice’s direction of travel.
I’m particularly proud of the brilliant team of social impact researchers helping us deepen our approach to community engagement. It formalises how we weave evidence-gathering into every stage of a project, sharing that knowledge across Stride Treglown and with the wider industry.
Tell us about a moment that changed how you think about your work.
Twenty-five years ago, I worked with Frank Duffy and John Worthington at DEGW. Their approach to strategic briefing taught me not to arrive with predetermined answers, or to leap at the most obvious solution.
The thread running through my work since then has been about respecting the many different paths to solving complex problems. That’s why I’m a big believer in the wisdom of crowds. There are usually multiple perspectives and several plausible ways forward.
How do you prepare the practice for a future you can’t fully predict?
I’m interested in the idea of anti-fragility: not simply designing something that survives change, but something that thrives in it.
I think great buildings thrive under the stress of change, either because they’re relaxed about their own permanence or because they’re easy to do new things in.
As a company you need a similar anti-fragile mindset — continually building the expertise, evidence, and thinking to take on harder problems. Again, it all comes back to the same thinking: don’t assume you already know the answer. Ask rigorous questions, seek evidence, and then make informed decisions.
Industry Bodies:
- RIBA Client Design Adviser 2021- present
- B Corp Ambassador 2022-present
- B Corp Co-chair of Built Environment Working Group 2021-present
- Quality of Life Foundation: Associate, 2022-present
- CBI: Southwest Regional Council member 2021- present
Awards:
- 2023 Building Magazine Employer of the Year (Stride Treglown)
- 2019, 2020 and 2021 Architectural Firm of the Year, Insider Property Wales (As Director of Stride Treglown’s South Wales studio)
- 2016 RICS Regeneration project of the year, Bay Campus, Swansea University, Swansea
- The General Offices, Ebbw Vale, RICS Conservation Project of the Year 2012
- Swansea University Constructing Excellence Wales Integration and Collaboration Award 2012
