CONSTRUCTION
From a shed to Shire Hall, Quattro celebrate 35 years redesigning Gloucestershire
From a garden shed to gleaming offices in Gloucester Quays, it’s been quite a journey for Quattro Design Architects. The 55-strong workforce now has one of the best views in the city from their two floors of office space in Matthews Warehouse. From there, they have helped play a leading role in transforming the city where they work, designing the refit of Shire Hall and the new development on Black DogWay. It’s all a far cry from the company set up by a quartet of architects working at a housing association in Bristol 35 years ago, almost to the day. Back then, their expansion into Gloucestershire required registering one of the director's garden shed as their Gloucestershire office, so they could bid for housing projects north of Bristol. Now the company has grown to include the design of elderly care homes, education and learning
establishments and developments in the health and leisure sectors. The founding directors have all now retired, but a new batch – still quattro in number – are overseeing a company that turned over close to £3million and delivered projects up to £20million last year. Richard Fellows, a Gloucestershire-born and bred member of that new quartet explained that the second generation of directors were still implementing an ethos set by their predecessors. He said: “Our original directors started out working at a housing association called Solon before deciding to start their own practice." “It was 35 years ago on May 4 that they set up a cooperative with a big social ethos – sustainability was their driving passion back then. “It still is for us now. Lots of people say that, but that’s been our ethos ever since inception. We’ve always practised what we preach. Sustainability has always
66 | May 2019 | www. punchline-gloucester .com
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