John joined Orms in 1997 and serves as a Trustee and Director of the practice. With extensive experience across workplace, education, hotels and healthcare sectors, he focuses on creating architecture that responds sensitively to users' individual and collective needs. His notable projects include the Outernet, one of the Uks most visited tourist attractions, No1 New Oxford Street and the highly acclaimed transformation of The Standard, formerly Camden Town Hall. John specialises in unlocking hidden value through transformative reuse projects and maintains up-to-date knowledge of the evolving workplace market.
What does ultrapractical mean to you? The use of ‘ultra’ in ultrapractical means to go above and beyond what we have been set as a brief and seeks to meet the needs of those beyond it. In doing so our architecture is committed to balancing commercial viability, social and environmental values as seen at The Standard and Outernet, London. With nearly 30 years of experience across a wide range of sectors and in transforming existing buildings at different scales enables me to ask the right questions to ensure we maximise what we have and are thinking harder about the built environment. My work with Camden and Oxford Design Review Panels, judging of industry awards and written articles reinforces my commitment to creating an ultrapractical architecture.