Glenn Howells is the founding director of Birmingham-based Glenn Howells Architects and a rising star in British architecture.
His Savill Building, a visitor centre for the Crown Estate at Windsor Great Park, has recently won a national RIBA award, becoming one of 14 schemes from which the eventual winner of this year's Stirling Prize, Britain's most prestigious architecture prize, will be selected in October.
Born in Stourbridge, he trained in Plymouth before starting work in London, returning to the West Midlands to work on the first phase of the development of the Custard Factory arts and media complex for London entrepreneur Bennie Gray.
He established Glenn Howells Architects at the Custard Factory in 1990, and it is still based in Digbeth Ð now employing an international staff of 90 including urban designers and modelmakers. During the last year it has added a landscape team which is working on plans for Birmingham's Icknield Port Loop and Stoke-on-Trent.
Howell's initial success was built on several arts lottery commissions. Hereford's successful and popular Courtyard Arts Centre (1998) was one of the first such projects in the West Midlands and with a budget of just £4 million demonstrated highly cost-effective as well as clear and rational design.
This was followed by several other arts projects including the Marketplace Arts Centre (Armargh, Northern Ireland), The Dream Factory (Warwick), Artrix (Bromsgrove) and, most recently, the Aspex art gallery in Portsmouth, winner of a regional RIBA award this year.
Howell's career took on further momentum when he won a competition, against 60 other practices, to design Timber Wharf in Manchester. This was the first new-build housing development by trendsetting north-west developers Urban Splash, for whom he has since designed the conversion of Birmingham's 1960s icon the Rotunda into apartments.
At first it seemed Howells was working everywhere but Birmingham, but this is no longer the case. In addition to the Rotunda and a large number of other city centre residential projects, including Southside on Hurst Street, notable home-town projects include the final office block for Brindleyplace, a hotel and residential tower - Birmingham's tallest building - soon to begin construction at Snow Hill, and the Icknield Port Loop masterplan.
Other notable current developments include a new building at Liverpool's Lime Street Station, designed to provide a gateway for the Capital of Culture year. Having collected 30 awards in its 17 year-history, the practice is currently working on major projects throughout the UK, Europe, the Middle East and South East Asia.
Glenn Howells is a board member of BDI (Birmingham Design Initiative) and chair of MADE (Midlands Art Design and Environment). He is also a member of the CABE 2012 Olympic Design Review, design advisor to Sheffield City Council and urban design advisor to Bradford Centre Regeneration.
He is chair of Birmingham's Ikon Gallery and is working with its director Jonathan Watkins to explore the possibility of creating a museum of contemporary art in the city.
Fascinating fact: Glenn Howell's portrait has been painted by his friend, the Scottish-born painter Peter Doig. Another painting by Doig fetched £5.7 million at auction in February, setting a European record for a living painter. The record was reclaimed by Lucian Freud when one of his paintings sold for £7.86 million in June.
