Introduction
Ben Pentreath is an Architectural and Urban Designer based in London. His office is on Lambs Conduit Street, in Bloombsury, a few minutes walk from the Art Workers Guild.
In 2004 he set up his company, Working Group, with the particular aim of improving architectural standards within the house building industry. Ben has designed a large number of buildings at The Prince of Wales’ Urban Extension to Dorchester, most recently co-ordinating the designs for the South West Quadrant where he worked alongside fellow Bro George Saumarez Smith and where statuary will be provided by Bro Rory Young. Elsewhere for the Duchy of Cornwall, Ben is designing an extension to Truro and is working on the Newquay Growth Area with Bro Hugh Petter. Ben works closely with The Prince’s Foundation for the Built Environment and a number of other organisations, designing projects throughout the United Kingdom, as well as in Europe and the United States.
Ben is particularly interested in practical measures to achieve sustainable development and is a founder board member of the Good Homes Alliance, established to promote best-practice sustainable building throughout the UK. His project at Upton, Northamptonshire, won the ‘greenest housing development in Britain’ from the Building Research Establishment in 2007.
Individual building projects include the design of a Five star country house hotel in the New Forest, a 25,000 square foot medical centre in Dorchester, as well as a number of private houses throughout the south of England.
Ben is a keen watercolourist, illustrator and gardener, and has designed interiors and furniture as well as buildings. He has lectured both in the UK and in the United States. With Marianne Cusato and Leon Krier, he is the author of Get Your House Right, published by Stirling Press in New York in 2007.
Biography
Ben Pentreath read History of Art and Architecture at the University of Edinburgh, graduating with an MA (Honours) First Class in 2004. He subsequently began his architectural training in the office of (Brother) Charles Morris, in Norfolk, where he worked for a number of years on a variety of projects including the Orchard Room, Highgrove, for HRH the Prince of Wales.
He trained for one year at the Prince of Wales’ Institute of Architecture, before moving to New York in 1999, where he spent five years working for the office of Fairfax and Sammons Architects. In New York, Ben became worked on the restoration of several fine Greenwich Village townhouses (one of which won the 2004 New York City Municipal Arts Society Award), as well as the design of a number of new houses in New York State, Palm Beach, and in Charleston, South Carolina.
In 2003, Ben returned to London and worked for as an architectural and urban designer at the Prince’s Foundation for the Built Environment. At the Foundation, he was closely involved with a large number of urban design projects, amongst which are Upton, Northampton, and the Harlow and Aldershot Urban Extensions; and individual buildings including the HRH Community Build Project in Kitts Green, Birmingham, and the Royal Ballet School at White Lodge in Richmond Park. Ben still works closely with the Prince’s Foundation on a number of projects, and assists with their Education Programme regularly.
In 2004 Ben left the Foundation to set up Working Group design, where he has worked on a variety of projects throughout the UK and in Europe and the US. In 2005, Ben was one of two foreign designers invited to join the Mississippi Renewal Forum following Hurricane Katrina. In 2006, Working Group was appointed as lead designer for the next phase of The Duchy of Cornwall’s Poundbury, the urban extension to Dorchester in Dorset. Woodlands Crescent at Poundbury, designed by Ben Pentreath, was highly commended in the Georgian Group’s Architectural Awards ‘New Building in the Classical Tradition’ in November 2006.
Ben is a founder member of the Good Homes Alliance, established to promote practical measures to achieve sustainable housing in the UK. In 2006 he was appointed to the Committee of the Art Workers Guild. He has taught and lectured in the UK and also in the United States. In 2007 the book he has written together with Marianne Cusato and Leon Krier, ‘Get Your House Right’, will be published by Stirling Press in New York. A new book project, aimed at the UK housing design market, is entitled ‘Drawing on Tradition’ and is intended to provide a clear, concise pattern book for designing houses and their details.
Contact details
Work tel: 020 7430 2424
Website: http://www.working-group.co.uk
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Image Gallery
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Title: Charles Street, New York 2001
Description: This restoration of two New York Townhouses included a new stoop, doors, and windows. The project won the New York Municipal Arts Society award in 2004.
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Title: Fawley House, Henley-on-Thames
Description: New wings and extensions to this Grade II Listed house in Oxfordshire. The three-bay central section is designed by Quinlan Terry.
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Title: Woodlands Crescent, Poundbury
Description: This crescent of 51 houses at the heart of Poundbury, Dorchester, was highly commended in the Georgian Group's 2006 'Best New Building in the Classical Tradition' award.
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Title: Market Square, Poundbury
Description: This small terrace of shops and a public house forms the heart of the first phase of Poundbury. Ben designed these buildings while he was a student at the Prince of Wales's Institute of Architecture.