Placed between two Edwardian buildings, this project was part of an exemplary new masterplan; the building design, a hairdressing salon and school for the fabulous Herbert’s of Liverpool, celebrates views of and from the surroundings with three major bay windows set into wrap-around curtain walling enriched with deep mullions and transoms.

Client: Grosvenor Estates © CZWG

Two semi-circular residential forecourts are clad in deep blue glazed bricks; a circular seam of cobalt in the canyons of London stock brick. The metal windows of the street elevations are light gold, the balconies bracketed on pine logs. Ground floors are commercial spaces, shops, offices and a health club.

Client: Jacobs Island Co Plc © CZWG

A building that is a portrait of its owner. The windows form large, interlocking diamond shapes with matching open screens for the balcony and terrace railings. Graded colours of brick give an impression of perpetual sunlight and shadow. Glazed roof tiles cover the steeply pitched roof enclosing the separate studio.

Client: Janet Street-Porter © CZWG

“The park that beat the road.” This unique bridge joins the two halves of the Mile End Park across the busy Mile End Road. Shops and restaurants line the underside of the bridge and bring vitality to the streetscape.

Client: London Borough of Tower Hamlets © CZWG

A series of interlocking glass drums celebrate the historical storage and manufacture uses of the street. Twenty-five residential shells are accessed via a Japanese garden above a ground floor Wagamama restaurant. There is a consistent façade design to all floors, the glazing for each successive floor setting back slightly, giving a similar effect to telescopic gasometers.

Client: Giltarc Ltd © CZWG

© CZWG

The striking buildings opposite the entrance to the Tate Modern, set around a raised garden and a red-brick Italianate ex-cocoa mill, include a 1950s building extended to form a spiral tower in an orange rendered frame, a restored 17th Century cottage, a five-storey office building and a new loft building angled for views across the river to the city.

Client: Manhattan Loft Corporation © CZWG

An exuberant 55-storey tower accommodating a four star hotel, 330 apartments, 16,500 m2 of high quality office space, a new leisure centre and a public restaurant and bar with a cantilevered viewing gallery over Wellesley Road, opposite the proposed new Westfield shopping centre.

Client: Guildhouse- Rosepride LLP © CZWG

“We bought this building in 1980, and we’ve been here ever since. This part of Clerkenwell was a printing area and this building was originally owned by the London Evening Standard. This is where the newspaper started – it’s where they printed the paper and where the horses that delivered it were stabled”

© Eamonn McCabe

“When the sun comes into the building in the morning, there’s rather too much light to see a screen. In the olden days when we all drew at drawing boards, we didn’t mind the light. But since getting computers, we don’t like the reflections and so we put up these sails”

© Eamonn McCabe

“We have an unusual approach here. We have a bit of a rule that you stop work at 6pm, when the ping pong table starts making a noise and people start to play. One of the problems with architecture is that there tends to be a macho image. Because it’s difficult and it takes a long time, people feel obliged to work all night and it’s supposed to be an all-consuming art.

But we’re very family-oriented. You will seldom find anyone here during a weekend. People should be able to see and enjoy their partners and families. And that’s what makes them a good architect: having empathy for other people, not just for buildings”

© Eamonn McCabe

“This is a very dusty model for a fantastic scheme which has taken a very long time to come to fruition. It’s the conversion of a huge red brick Edwardian Post Office sorting house on Upper Street in the heart of Islington. We’re creating a new shopping arcade, and more rehearsal and dance spaces for the Almeida. We’ve had some hiccups, partly because of the recession, and partly because the Post Office had to move out, which took longer than expected”

© Eamonn McCabe

“We employ about 60 people at the firm; it’s a medium-sized practice, and all the partners work here every day. We’re very much a one-office place; we like being all together. We interact well and bounce ideas off each other. We like the team spirit of the place. This is really important in architecture because some projects go on for ten years and people will be in a team together for a long time.

We don’t try too hard to create an atmosphere in the office: we just try to be agreeable human beings. The management arrangement of the office is basically very laissez-faire. Architecture has to be based on trust. It’s far too complicated to be looking over people’s shoulders”

© Eamonn McCabe

“Lots of people like to think architecture is about process. It isn’t – it’s about ideas. It’s not about how you do it, but how you dream, what you think of. To me, whether you have a 3D-printer is neither here nor there. It’s just a tool. Architecture is about imagination; understanding how things are built, having a knowledge of construction and knowing what is sustainable”

© Eamonn McCabe

“I feel an obligation to wear bright clothes, not to draw attention to myself but because there are people out there who are making things and I ought to wear them. This one is unusual because I chose the fabric myself, from Joel, the famous fabric suppliers in West London. I had it made into a suit by a tailor, G. Antoniou, in Gray’s Inn Road. It’s got great buttons”

© Eamonn McCabe

“Paul Smith and I worked together on a Maggie’s Centre in Nottingham. I’ve known him for years and years. The firm worked on the building and Paul did the interiors. This green ceramic model of the building was exhibited at the Summer Exhibition in 2011 when I co-ordinated the Architecture Room”

© Eamonn McCabe

“Academicians are privileged to have inherited an independent institution free of government influence. And that to me is the most vital aspect of our culture, that we don’t all become dependent on government money to do everything. That’s what the RA is about: it’s is a place where ideas can flourish and we can be free to be unusual. We can give freedom to curators to do things they couldn’t otherwise do.

The other pleasure of being an Academician is having other Academicians to communicate with. It’s humbling to be part of it. We’re in a very happy and privileged place”

“This lovely boom box was given to me by Deyan Sudjic for my 50th birthday. He’s the director of the Design Museum and a writer of many books on architecture. It’s been decorated by the artist Leslie Perkins and it’s just great”

© Eamonn McCabe

“This is proper, isn’t it? This is how you really want to be. My partner, Nick (Campbell, of CZWG), gave me this for my birthday. It plugs into your mobile phone so that you can talk golden talk. And next to it is my circle drawer, which I still use. It’s very important”

© Eamonn McCabe

“As architects, often we feel very old-fashioned, beavering away on long-term projects while the rest of the world is tweeting. But building a building that you can go past every day for the next 50 years, even if it took ten years to build, is really lovely”

© Eamonn McCabe