PLP Architecture

PLP Architecture is a London-based firm comprising architects, designers, and researchers. The company's mission is to shape the built environment through informed decisions grounded in place, behaviour, and lasting value. The firm delivers architecture that is responsive, human-focused, and built to endure. Founded in 2009, PLP Architecture is led by a group of partners, including Lee Polisano, David Leventhal, Karen Cook, and Ron Bakker, who previously led KPF's London office for over two decades. The practice operates as a collective that values the transformative role of ideas and architecture's capacity to inspire.

PLP Architecture works across every scale of the built environment, from individual buildings to urban masterplans. The firm's approach is analytical and strategic, translating complexity into clear urban structures that guide delivery, enable phased growth, and establish coherent identity. Each project is bespoke, shaped by local conditions, and informed by global experience across various markets, cultures, and procurement models. The company prioritizes a profound commitment to social, economic, and environmental values, striving to produce intelligent, groundbreaking, and exciting designs. This includes a focus on enhancing the quality of urban life and excellence in the handling of material, space, and light.

The firm provides full architectural design and planning services for projects of varying scales across a diverse range of sectors. These sectors include mixed-use buildings, investment offices, corporate headquarters, urban design, masterplanning, retail developments, entertainment complexes, education facilities, institutional facilities, healthcare facilities, residential facilities, hotels, resorts, conference centres, museums, renovation, and transportation. PLP Architecture works globally, with projects under construction in locations such as the UK, The Netherlands, Italy, Russia, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, India, Singapore, and Japan. The company's portfolio includes landmark buildings and places designed to solve contemporary challenges and maintain relevance for the future.

PLP Architecture has extensive experience in the residential sector, designing buildings shaped by how people desire to live. This work encompasses luxury towers, branded residences, build-to-rent schemes, co-living developments, and residential-led masterplans. The firm aims to create places that are comfortable, intuitive, and considered in everyday use, prioritizing light, space, privacy, and connection to support wellbeing and foster a sense of belonging. Notably, PLP Architecture was appointed to design a new purpose-built student accommodation (PBSA) scheme at 10 Leake Street in central London, which will offer various studio and shared living options alongside communal facilities. The firm also designed The Stratford Collective, a high-rise housing block in London's Stratford featuring co-living spaces modelled on student accommodation, intended to provide affordable options for young people. Additionally, PLP completed Collective Old Oak in London, recognized as the world's largest co-living building.

Innovation and research are integral to PLP Architecture's practice. The company values creativity and consistently strives to test conventional limits. PLP Labs, the firm's in-house think tank, extends its capabilities through strategic insight into the emerging forces that shape cities, buildings, and human experience. PLP Labs explores different futures for the built environment through research, collaboration, and strategic insight, investigating emerging ideas and translating these into strategic guidance for organizations. This applied research and experimentation ensure that innovation strengthens performance rather than disrupts it, helping clients navigate change with bespoke, design-led solutions informed by research.