David Taylor catches up with John McElgunn and Tracy Meller to talk through the ramifications of RSHP’s name change and succession generally.

Hi, how are you? 

 

I'm good; long time no see!

 

So: talk to me about the new name of the practice, and the reasoning behind it…

 

We're going to simply be known as RSHP. It's actually something that we decided a number of years ago when Richard was still well and practicing. We did the original name change back in 2007. But in 2018, preparing for Richard's retirement, he'd always been clear that he didn't want to leave his name over the practice when he was no longer practicing. So in discussion with the full board, we agreed back in 2018 that we should take the individual names out. The four initials effectively represent a more collective approach to practice. But then, unfortunately, Richard's accident at the end of 2018 meant we delayed rolling all that out. And now it feels like the right time to do it. He officially retired in 2020. And I think, in a world hopefully post-COVID, post-train strikes, and post-Brexit, we felt now is the right time to do it.

 

Tracy, has that felt like a punctuation point in the practice and the start of a new era? Or is it an absolutely seamless transition? Or somewhere in between?

 

I think it's probably somewhere in between. It's not a new era, I don't think; it's perhaps the start of the next chapter, but one that we were expecting, and there's a natural sequence to where we were. I think this is definitely evolution, not revolution, and that there is an awful lot of continuity. Obviously, with the sad passing of Richard last year, we have had to evolve. But that evolution was planned for, in that he was planning to retire anyway. And obviously, Ivan [Harbour] and Graham [Stirk], with the name change back in 2007, marked the first of these steps in this evolution and recognized the pivotal role in design leadership that Ivan and Graham have had for some time. This change, I think, is more about moving perhaps to recognizing the collaborative approach of what we do, and actually that there's a lot of people involved. It is not the single-named individuals; it really is a collective team effort by the practice. And there are increasingly more partners and senior members of the team involved in the running of the practice, but also in the instigation of design. And so really, it's that move from single names, multiple names, to a collective of people, most of whom have been around for a very long time. I mean, I think the youngest partner has been there for over 20 years, of which probably 18 were with Richard. So, there's a huge continuity there. So, it's really more about the evolution of the DNA of the practice, which remains constant.

 

So, in a sense, it's the initializing of the name that anonymizes it, in a sense, and gives more credit to the whole group as a collective, rather than individuals on the name over the door frame, as it were, John, do you think?

 

I think that's right, David, and I mean, certainly, it's something that we've been very aware of when you're pitching for work or doing bids that our clients are really focused on: 'But who am I actually going to be dealing with?'. If we take a project like the British Museum, that's seven years, start to finish, so people know they're not going to spend every day, every meeting room, every, let's say, point of crisis, or every really intricate part, with this amazing figurehead. That project alone probably had 30 or 40 people from the practice involved throughout its seven years. I was lucky enough that I was involved, all the way through - Graham really heavily at the start, and other people coming in at different stages. And I think our clients are really alive to the fact that if I sign on to a relationship with you, I'm going to be spending a lot of time with you over the next whatever it is – three, four, five years, and who's it really going to be? You used the term ‘anonymizing’ – I think that's interesting. But also, it's probably more of an emphasis on the greater collective than trying to anonymize. I think moving away from individual names, from that point of view, should be a very positive thing.

 

Tracy, what was the naming process? Did you get branding experts in? Did you keep that in house? Or how did you do it?

 

Funnily enough, it was actually quite straightforward. I guess because the thinking about this dates right back to 2007, when the name changed, and Richard Rogers Partnership went to Rogers, Stirk, Harbour and Partners, this was always the intended direction of travel. And so, when it was raised back in 2018, with the whole group including Richard, it was a very obvious next step. So, we've made the decision that that's what we wanted to do. We then did quite a lot of thinking about it, testing it, and [asking]: ‘is it the right decision?’ And ended up concluding that yes, it is the right decision; we looked at other alternatives, but felt our gut instinct, if you like, and the original planned progression was where we wanted to land.

 

I'm interested in the other alternatives you just mentioned there! Was there a brainstorming about completely different names that could have applied that didn't have people's names in them? Or initials? 

 

There was a brainstorming, yes. And I think sometimes you do that. You push yourself to all sorts of extremes to see where you bounce back to. And I think that brainstorming we will keep for us (laughs)…

 

(laughs) Damn!

 

…Because some of those suggestions were provocative intentionally, to challenge ourselves. Do we all agree that this is the right direction? And actually, that's the bit that became quite easy, because we did try other things and felt no, actually, we all feel this is right.

 

The architecture profession has a varied success rate in handling succession. John, how do you think your practice has handled it? And has it been tricky?

 

That's a really good question, David, because obviously, you can't help but look at what your competitors are doing. And you know, there are some really big household names out there who have stuck with the name of their founder. That's great. Some of our competitors have stuck very clearly to their founder's name, whether they're retired or not. And they've almost used the name as a kind of collective term, which I think has been in some cases more successful than others. But I thought it was very brave, back in 2007, for Richard to recognize the design contribution of Graham and Ivan, put their name on the masthead and say, 'this is about the future; it's not always going to be about me’. Then, equally, those discussions in 2018, you know, I think we're actually in a really interesting place where this may be viewed as first or second generation. But actually, we're doing second or third generation because Graham and Ivan had already been there for 20 years and had their names put over the door. And so that continued evolution and even looking back, as Tracy was saying, we did a lot of debate about what it could be, or where some of the great original ideas about the constitution, the charity came from. And you know, the Mike Davieses and the John Youngs and the Marcos, you know, there's been some hugely influential characters who played massive parts over a certain period of time, and then handed it on to somebody else. So actually, when you try and plot out the history of the practice, it's been changing almost since its inception; the only constant is its change. So this feels to us – and we hope our clients and others agree – a natural next stage of evolution.

 

You mentioned the constitution of the practice, that you're run by a charity. What does that bring you, Tracy?

 

I think it's hugely important. It really was Richard’s foresight, I think, back in the 1990s, when, with the other founding partners, they came up with this constitution, that put the ownership in the hands of a charity. And it's allowed this concept of ‘naked in, naked out’; that no individual or group of individuals owns the practice. It means that you have a far greater breadth of access to partnership; you don't need to be able to afford to buy in. You don't end up with a situation where you have a succession-type problem of people still owning it, having moved on or passed it to members of the family; it genuinely is run by the current team for the current group of staff. And, of course, we carry the legacy of all of these people that we've talked about, who have helped shape and form that, and that will continue to be the case, which allows us to continue evolving. The huge thing is that it obviously allows us to give – we've given out 19.8 million pounds to charity, since the 1990s, since the inception of this, which is a huge amount of money. And that money is directed by partners and staff. So, there's an allocation that's given each year to the staff, and they decide where they would like to give it. It's ESG before its time! It's what a lot of practices talk about. And we have talked a lot about the fact that we don't talk about it! I think it is a surprise to a lot of people. And we've only quite recently started to put this on our website and talk about it more openly.

 It was so much just part of the core of what we all knew and accepted about the practice; it almost didn't occur to us to make a big deal out of it. But of course, we should make a big deal out of it, and we should celebrate it because it was ahead of its time. And it's massively important. We've made the decision with the agreement of the family to keep the name of the charity, the Rogers, Stirk, Harbour and Partners Charitable Trust. And that picks up on the fact that this came from Richard. It's a very important part of his legacy that talks to the culture of the practice, and what perhaps differentiates us a bit; not so much in what we do, but how we do it. And that is very, very important. It was part of what Richard carried, you know, past the point of Ivan and Graham and others having more of a design influence; Richard's involvement in the culture of the practice and who we are. The shared purpose of what we do has been incredibly important, and continues to be so.

So last question, what should we be looking out for from you guys? What are you both working on? What's next in the oeuvre?

 

Well, if I jump in there, I think, quite a lot of very varied things. That's one of the things that we've seen over the last 15 years, I think; how many more typologies we're involved in and how much broader our reach is. One of our partners, Stephen [Barrett] is heading up our French office, which was a direct response to Brexit, and having a firm foothold in France and in Europe, which is very positive. We're about to open and have a prominent member of staff in New York, which is really exciting, because again, our US clients do want somebody on the ground. I'm working with Graham on the extension to the British Library, which is enormous and has just gone in for planning after maybe four or five years in the development of that, as well as a distillery in Kentucky for a really interesting brand called Horse Soldier. But I think the other thing to look out for in London is our Hammersmith City campus. We're working for Hammersmith and Fulham, which I believe is the first time in our or history that we worked directly for a council, which is fantastic, and a really, really fascinating project. But perhaps Tracy could tell you what she's working on at the moment.

 

Well, I think one of the focuses that we're seeing more and more is of course around projects that look at adaptive reuse, whether that's on buildings, but also structures. We have a project in Carlton House, which is looking at an existing building, which is adaptive reuse, but also we're looking at gas holders. Two of the projects that I'm working on, currently in East London, Marian Place in Bethnal Green, and there's another larger one, are looking at how we can reuse gas holder structures for housing and creating real, quite exciting and dynamic places around that industrial heritage. So I think that's going to be an interesting one to watch to see on a rather bigger scale than some of the work done in King’s Cross and the gas holders; real places that are created and influenced by the presence of the gas holder structures. So that will be an interesting one.

 

There's one I can see from my window in Brighton if you're interested. 

 

Yeah, there is, isn't there

 

Well, brilliant. Well, thank you very much for giving us that insight into your firm's new name and all the work you're doing. It sounds really exciting and I'm looking forward to seeing you soon, I hope.

 

I think you're shocked by the name! (laughs) 

 

Well, I had a few stabs at it. I got them all wrong. 

 

(laughs)

 

So yeah, there we go - shows what I know!

 

I mean, in some ways, we already are known as RSHP and that's why it feels like a gentle transition, I think.

 

Yeah. Okay. Thanks again for your time. That's really great!  

 

Thanks, David. Lovely to see you, and hope to see you face-to-face really soon 

 

Yeah, That'd be great. And if you need any assistance on any site visits to the distillery, John, for any reason... 

 

(laughs) That's very kind. We haven't visited yet. We're chomping at the bit to get out there.

 

That's Bourbon, presumably? 

 

Yeah, exactly. Luckily, I have a bottle of it so I can sample it. 

 

Excellent! That's important. 

 

Very! Thanks, David. See you soon. Bye.

 

Bye!