WIT News

Architecture talk by Stephen Best, partner at Foster & Partners architects Posted: Wed, March 7, 2007

Stephen Best, a partner at Foster & Partners Architects, gave a most interesting talk on his architectural CV at WIT on Wednesday, March 7th. The talk was well attended by staff and students of the Department of Architecture as well as many practicing architects and planners from the South East region.

Foster & Partners is one of the most prominent architecural firms in the world. Stephen joined the firm 11 years ago and has had the good fortune to work on a number of projects which all have been built and where design was paramount, including the Millennium Bridge and a couple of innovative buildings for Stanford University. For approximately 4 years he worked on what was the largest project in Europe at the time, the new headquarters of the McLaren Formula 1 team in Woking with special responsibility for the Car Museum building. This was short-listed for the prestigious Stirling prize in 2005.

On all these buildings he saw the project through from design to completion including moving family and home to Canada for 3 years to see through the construction to completion of the University of Toronto's new Leslie Dan Pharmacy Building.

Stephen is setting up the Irish branch of Foster’s office and is currently working on a number of exciting projects and competitions. During his talk at WIT he brought us through a history of Foster’s work before concentrating on the renovation of the Clarence hotel and neighbouring buildings on Essex Quay in the Temple Bar area of Dublin. U2 is the client and they hope that by choosing a world class architect they will have a world class hotel. Stephen explained that before any form making takes place, it is essential to explore the context and connect with the users of the project as well as the people who will walk by on the quay and street side. He hopes that this project will rejuvenate a decayed area of Temple Bar. He is also working on a number of other exciting projects and competitions in Ireland.

Stephen also spoke about how sustainability is also a key part of their design mission. Foster’s designs concentrate on minimizing artificial systems of lighting, heating and ventilation and reducing overall energy consumption. Some of their well-known projects include the Wembley Stadium reconstruction, Hong Kong & Beijing Airports and Stansted Airport Terminal Building.