I’m somebody who likes creating things, either a design, or something tangible.
My background is as both an architect (with urban planning) and as a furniture designer. I studied in Manchester where I was awarded my City & Guilds as a Cabinet Maker, and then at the Manchester Metropolitan University, aka the Poly, where I gained a BA(Hons) in Architecture. My diploma in Architecture was awarded to me by the Academie van Bouwkunst in Rotterdam.
Since 1993 I’ve lived in the Netherlands, where I’m a permanent resident. Firstly in Rotterdam where I worked at the OMA, West 8, Neutelings Riedijk and KCAP. After moving to the Hague I worked for 7 years at Naco, designing airports.
Having survived Glandular fever, which left me out of practice for 2 years, and then the economic crisis that followed I’m now ‘fit and working again’!
The practice is named ‘Shaper’ as that’s principally what a designer or an architect does, in giving form to an idea. The name also refers to my other love in life, which is surfing, and a shaper, in that world, is the person who creates the perfect boards on which to glide through life.
My skills lie in the ability to think through a request (or problem) and finding an answer/solution to that proposition both spatially and in materialisation. I’m open to any scale of challenge, be it from designing and making a desk, to a giving form to a mixed use development. The nature of this kind of work means that that is either as a sole practitioner on smaller projects, or as part of a team which expands with the scale of the work involved. I’m happy with either and both!
I try to find the cleanest and most simple solution within a contract, which often leads to pleasant unexpected surprises for my clients who sometimes have the idea that things are far more complicated than they really are. You can see this in things I make, they’re to the point, pithy but still playful and at their root they resolve what’s been asked!
Get in touch if you’re interested in me helping you with whatever design quandary you’re in, it would be a pleasure to help! We can always deal with the terms and conditions then, as that is related directly to each particular project and the amount and type of my involvement.