Jan, who graduated from TU Berlin in 1997 and has been with us since 1998, is returning at the end of January to his home town of Hamburg to become a partner with two friends in a young practice. He will continue to help us on some projects from his new base, and having seen him mature here we are sure that he will be successful in his new adventure. We wish him well.

Ian Ritchie Architects have recently completed the concept design for a new sports complex - 40,000 seat FIFA standard football stadium, Olympic swimming and diving pool and indoor arena. It is anticipated that the complex will be completed in 2010. We have also been commissioned to prepare designs for a landmark residential development in Istanbul of 1,500 units, working alongside Arup, Turkey.

Ian Ritchie presided over the jury of the Compasso Volante competition which was judged in Palermo, Sicily on October 5th 2007. This is an annual Diploma design competition between students from the following schools of architecture - Politecnico di Milano, Paris-La Villette, Tsinghua University Beijing, Hanyang University Seoul, Technical University Malaysia, and the University of Palermo.

The 2007 site for this competition was in Malacca, Malaysia and the brief demanded high quality housing. The members of the jury were professors: Ettore Zambelli (Milan), Eric Dubosc (La Villette), Li Dexiang (Beijing), Lee Kang Up (Seoul), Antonio de Vecci (Palermo) and Paulo Cucci (Malay), and the process chaired by Professor Marco Imperiadori (Milan).

Ian Ritchie Architects will be receiving the RIBA Award for the RSC Courtyard Theatre at the RIBA Awards dinner in Birmingham on 30th October.

Ian Ritchie will be giving a keynote speech at this year’s annual Dutch Steel Conference being held in Ede on 11th October.

The mayor of London, GLA and LDA have stated publicly their full support for the residential and cultural development at Potters Fields which we have designed for Berkeley Homes.
Ken Livingstone has indicated that the GLA will compulsory purchase that part of the land to enable the entire scheme, described as world class during the public inquiry, to be realised. The mayor is becoming increasingly frustrated by some London Boroughs inhibiting the delivery of much needed housing in the capital.

Although the London Borough of Southwark has been less than supportive, having consistently underplayed the 8,000 square metres cultural space provided for in the scheme. The Design Museum is actively seeking to take this space in order to increase their international profile and to triple the size of their operation in order to become, in the words of the Design Museum’s director, Deyan Sudjic, "to become the third generation Design Museum after the V&A London (19th century) and MOMA, NY (20th century)."
The project is being led by Loke Shee Ming.

We have submitted a planning application and listed building consent on behalf of a private client for the renewal of two 1930’s private houses originally designed by Oliver Hill in Great Peter Street, which were previously converted into office accommodation in the 1950’s and further modified in the 1980s. The project is being led by Teresa McQueen.

The Landmark Wales application to the Big Lottery Fund was unsuccessful.
We, along with Marks Barfield and Tonkins Lui were the winners of the international competition earlier this year. Landmark Wales has every intention of realising the three projects and will seek alternative funding.

The detailed planning and listed building applications have been submitted to Westminster City Council for this ARK school project which is one of the City Academies. The project involves the renovation of Leonard Mannasseh’s original Grade II* School in Penfold Street, and adding new nursery, primary and secondary teaching spaces and dance/performance facilities.

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