Hello, my name is John and I’m one of the practice directors at JAMstudio. Building has been a part of my life ever since a very young age with my father being an expert bricklayer. Often going to work with him during the school holidays, but whether I helped or hindered is another question… Wanting to take up something in the building profession, I was encouraged into architecture. Having a great interest in how things go together I decided to study as an architectural technician. Following a number of years at college I left with my OND and HNC in building studies, I then worked in a number of architectural practices in and around London including Argyrou Associates, Barratt Lloyd Davies Associates, Kajima Design Europe and HOK International.
Following some long spells away in Europe and the Middle East on projects for HOK I realised after a while that being split from M-L for long periods wasn’t for me. Following my return, M-L and I decided upon a major life change, so moved to Aberdeen and set up own architectural practice, JAMstudio.
Since 2003 M-L and I have carefully grown the company. With a varied mix of residential and commercial projects and a variety of office and site based work, no two days are ever the same which make my role very enjoyable. We have some fantastic clients, who after completed projects and time have become great friends. We like to think of ourselves as approachable and encourage our clients to ask as many questions as they need to understand to process of getting their project onto site. I tend to be involved in the technical side of our projects with the detail design, specification, obtaining building warrants, liaising with consultants and contractors also making regular site inspections to ensure works are progressing as expected. The best bit of what I do is seeing a project come out the ground, and knowing that you’ve played a fundamental part of the creation of something that wasn’t there before. I’m currently studying and completing my logbook to become a CIAT registered chartered technician which I hope to complete in 2010, something I should have done a while ago, but in truth the extra years of experience have done me no harm!
1988 – BTEC OND – Waltham Forest College
1990 – BTEC HNC – Chelmsford Technical College / Essex Polytechnic
1988 – 1989 – Carr, Goldsmith & Fallek, working on notable buildings such as St Marys Hospital, Paddington.
1989 - 1991 – Argyrou Associates, working on buildings such as Marco Polo House – Battersea and Bourne Court office development.
1991 – 1995 – Acatos & Hutcheson, working on industrial and food processing plant projects.
1995 – 1997 – Kajima Design Europe Ltd, working on notable buildings such as the fit out of Richard Rogers 88 Wood Street office for Daiwa corporation, and the Japan Embassy and Cathode Ray tube Factory for NEG Shott.
1997 - 1999 – Barratt Lloyd Davies Associates, working on high end residential projects up to £4m in and around Kensington and Chelsea such as Halsey House, Mulberry Walk, The Boltons & Holland Villas Road.
1999 - 2003 – HOK International Ltd, working on a variety of commercial projects such as MoD Whitehall, Cabinet Office, Cisco Systems Campus Amsterdam, Deutsche Bank Tower 42, Barclays World Headquarters Canary Wharf, Heathrow T5 Rail Link, Exxon Mobil Brussels, Exxon Mobil Riyadh, Nortel Networks Paris.
2003 – Set up JAMstudio with my wife Marie-Louise.