Robert was awarded the Henry Wade Deacon Scholarship Prize for Architecture at Liverpool University. When confronted with the challenge of designing a disabled access ramp for the Lady Lever Art Gallery at Port Sunlight on the Wirral, Robert had bold ideas for altering this important neoclassical building. The new entrance and ramp he devised included a concrete bridge and glass balustrade. ‘I like to make it clear where we have made a modern intervention so that you can immediately understand what is new and what is not. This was the most lightweight approach, which least interrupted the original buildings and avoided pastiche. It has been received very positively by the client and public bodies alike,’ he explains.
After two earlier spells with the practice during his professional training, Robert was made an Associate of the Liverpool studio in 2006, and he has been closely involved in Phase II of the repair and conservation of Liverpool’s Grade I listed St. George’s Hall. He has written extensively about St. George’s Hall in the Journal of Architectural Conservation (March 2007) and has lectured about this major project to encourage school-age students to choose architecture as a career.
Recently, Robert has been involved with the practice’s hospitality sector, leading two major conversion schemes at the Former Royal Insurance Building in Liverpool and the Former London Road Fire & Police Station in Manchester. The main challenge in both projects is to find creative ways of integrating the historic fabric of the buildings into hotels for the twenty-first century whilst retaining their unique character.
Robert has also designed several modern buildings using local materials and a sustainable approach that he looks forward to employing again on future projects.
‘The key challenge for me is bringing a creative edge to the problems of conserving listed buildings and finding modern solutions that will give them new life’.