Timothy Smith and Jonathan Taylor are architects working together in London. Our designs for homes and housing, arts and commercial projects are practical and characterful. We work in collaboration with our clients to tailor traditional design virtues to the changing needs of modern life.
We have an international reputation for our interest in classicism and its potential as a living language of architecture. We do not engage with this way of thinking for nostalgic or sentimental reasons but as a foundation for a sustainable and robust architecture of the future.
Our small team is an RIBA Chartered Practice which means that we are endorsed and promoted by the Royal Institute of British Architects. We can draw on the services of a wide range of consultants with whom we have ongoing relationships, including contractors, engineers, building control specialists, historic building and ecology consultants.
Recognition for our work includes the RIBA Traditional Architecture Group’s Building of the Year Award in 2022 for our Georgian Townhouse project and a place on the London Borough of Southwark’s Framework Agreement for Architectural Design Services in 2020. In 2016 we were included in the Architecture Foundation’s book New Architects 3, “the definitive survey of the UK’s best emerging practices” and in 2019 the practice was invited to exhibit work at the Lisbon Architecture Triennale.
Teddington Folly
Alongside our practice we teach a postgraduate design unit at Kingston School of Art, London, and are Visiting Scholars at the Catholic University of America, in Washington DC. These academic environments provide opportunities for creative reflection and intellectual rigour, which in turn inform our practice. In 2022 we were awarded the prestigious ICAA Arthur Ross Award for excellence in the classical tradition (education category) in New York City.
Timothy Smith studied art at Leeds College of Art and Design before studying architecture at Edinburgh College of Art. He spent a semester at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Art in Copenhagen and completed his studies at London Metropolitan University, where he then qualified. He worked in Zürich, Switzerland, and for a small practice in London before establishing his practice with Jonathan Taylor in 2010. He is registered with the Architects Registration Board, a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, a liveryman of the Worshipful Company of Chartered Architects and was a board member of the INTBAU Engelsberg Summer School in Classical Architecture.
Jonathan Taylor studied geography at Aberystwyth before studying architecture at Edinburgh College of Art. He spent a semester at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Art in Copenhagen and qualified at Kingston University. Prior to establishing his architectural practice with Timothy Smith, he worked for offices in Blantyre, Malawi, Edinburgh and London. He is a Brother of the Art Workers’ Guild, a member of the RIBA Traditional Architecture Group, registered with the Architects Registration Board, and a chartered member of the Royal Institute of British Architects and the Royal Incorporation of Architects in Scotland.
Awards
Institute of Classical Architecture & Art Arthur Ross Award for Education, New York City
2022
RIBA Traditional Architecture Group Building of the Year Award
2022
RIBA Traditional Architecture Group Achievement Award
2021
Brick Awards (shortlist)
2017
Invited competition for the Institute of Psychoanalysts (shortlist)
2016
Open international competition for 150 homes for Peabody (shortlist)
2013
Architect’s Journal Small Projects Competition (shortlist)
2011
RIBA Yorkshire Awards (shortlist)
2011
Exhibitions
Wren At Work
Guildhall Art Gallery
London (practice and student work), 2023
Alternative Histories exhibition
Irish Architectural Archive, Dublin, CIVA, Brussels, Cork Street, London
2020
What is Ornament?
Lisbon Architecture Triennale
Lisbon (practice and student work), 2019
Frascati Forum
Drawing Matter
Somerset (student work), 2019
RIBA Traditional Architecture Group exhibition
Art Worker’s Guild
London (student work), 2019
Translations
Kingston School of Art (student work)
2019
Metamorphoses: Classical Currents in Contemporary Culture
Queen’s House and Old Royal Naval College
London, co-curators (practice + student work), 2018
Salon des Réfuses
Art Worker’s Guild
London, 2018
Remember, Rebel, Repeat
Prince’s Foundation
London, 2018
Peabody 150
The Building Centre
London, 2012
AJ Small Projects
The Building Centre
London, 2011
Lectures and Talks
Losing Streak: the Competition and Architectural Exploration
RIBA Traditional Architecture Group
(online) , November 2023
Journey into Architecture
Temple Bar
London, July 2023
Classical Trans-LA-tions
ICAA South California
(online), December 2022
Leon Krier: The Completion of Washington DC: Sailing in the storm of a Post-Pandemic World (response panel)
Traditional Architecture Gathering 4.2
(online), February 2022
Walton Lecture Series: Marginal Classicism
Catholic University of America
Washington DC, USA, February 2022
Classical Translations
TU Munich
Germany (online), May 2021
Fragments
IUAV Venice
Italy (online), May 2021
Classical Transformations
University of Miami
USA (online), April 2021
Studio shoptalk
University of Notre Dame
USA (online), March 2021
Marginal Classicism
University of Notre Dame
USA (online), March 2021
Register itineraries
Kingston School of Art
London (online), January 2021
Marginal Classicism
AHO
Oslo, Norway, November 2019
Marginal Classicism
Engelsberg Summer School in Classical Architecture
Engelsberg, Sweden, July 2019
Register podcast interview with Ellis Woodman
November 2018
Marginal Classicism
Karakusevic Carson Architects
London, October 2018
Metamorphoses: Classical Currents in Contemporary Culture
Old Royal Naval College, lecture and seminar panel
Greenwich, London, October 2018
Language Lessons
ICAA Education Forum Catholic University of America
Washington DC, USA, September 2018
Register lecture series: Marginal Classicism
Kingston School of Art
London, March 2018
Order
Brighton University
Brighton, October 2017
Architecture Foundation New Housing 2
Royal College of Art
London, August 2016
Some buildings by Sir Edwin Lutyens, OM, KCIE, PRA, FRIBA : thoughts on the non-expendability of tradition in architecture
BHSF
Zürich, Switzerland, March 2014
Publications
“Georgian town house extension embraces the neoclassical”
Isabelle Priest
RIBA Journal, 2021
Essay in Register publication “Columns”
2021
“Public House: A Cultural and Social History of the London Pub”
Contribution to Open City publication
2021
Interview in Stoa, the magazine of the University of Notre Dame School of Architecture
2021
Essay and student work in Register publication “Fragments”
2021
“Like the sudden revelation of something ancient”
Timothy Brittain-Catlin
Apollo, 2020
“Imaginative house extensions to build now”
Edwin Heathcote
Financial Times, 2020
Contribution to Drawing Matter publication “Alternative Histories”
2019
Mention in Charles Holland, “Roll over Palladio”
RIBA Journal
Essay “Language Lessons”
Architecture Today, 2018
Essay “Language Lessons”
Kingston School of Art yearbook, 2018
Teddington Folly
Architecture Today, 2017
Mention in Timothy Brittain-Catlin, “Outrage”
Architectural Review, 2017
Projects featured in Architecture Foundation/Merrell publication “New Architects 3”, the definitive survey of Britain’s best emerging practices
2016
Birmingham Design Charrette
Architect’s Journal, 2013
Doug’s Yard
Building Design, 2013
Kyverdale Road House
Grand Designs, 2013
”Into a Baptism of Fire”
George Saumarez-Smith
Building Design blog, 2012
Almondbury House
Architect’s Journal, 2011
The work of our students is annually included in The Classicist, the peer-reviewed journal published by the ICAA in New York City