Our 30 Year Anniversary

We celebrate 30 years in business this September. A lot has changed in that time!

Franklin Ellis came into being in the now closed Limelight Bar, as a result of good friends David Franklin and Andrew Ellis (emboldened by several pints) making the move from James McArtney Architects (now CPMG Architects) to start their own Practice.

We are now under the direction of Managing Director Matthew Branton, who joined the Practice in 1993 as a student, before being promoted to Partner in 2002. We also haven’t quite shaken the influence of David, who keeps a close eye on us with a design consultancy position in our Leadership team.

We now operate with 30 full-time employees and two offices, one in our restored Old Pumphouse building in Nottingham, and the other at the LCB Depot in Leicester, as well as a satellite office in London, which has proved an excellent base to meet with national clients and consultants. Associate Dave Campbell, operates a permanent desk in London and is one of our lead designers.

The last few years have been pivotal in how we operate as a Practice, with our change to an Employee-Ownership model and the promotion of one of our long-serving Associates, Ian Burgess, to a Director role.

One of the first defining moments for us was our work on Castle Wharf in 1999, which won the Lord Major’s Award. We’re back at Castle Wharf again this year, working on a brand-new project at the iconic British Waterway building.

The site, formerly a 6-storey warehouse dating back to 1919, was built to assist the transit of goods along Nottingham and Beeston Canal. It’s instantly recognisable, mostly due to the signage on each parapet.

We’re pleased to be converting this piece of Nottingham’s history from a disused, commercial property, into 95 residential units including studios, one-bedroom and two-bedroom apartments. Our design includes a new rooftop extension, providing 8-apartments with views over Nottingham and the canal.

The early 2000’s gained us three Nottingham Civic Society Commendations for work on Raleigh Square, The Exchange at Sneinton Market and Portland Square and started to make it difficult to walk around the city without spotting one of our buildings!

The following decade saw us win several awards across the region for work on Lace Market Square, a mixed-use scheme providing 46 luxury apartments with ground floor retail units, a two-storey pavilion and a public square, within the heart of the historic Lace Market. This won an Evening Post Commercial Property Awards. We also oversaw the restoration and conversion of Willoughby House to a bespoke Paul Smith flagship store which won both The Lord Mayor’s Award for Conservation and Overall Building of the Year 2005.

In 2004, Derby Civic Society awarded us the George Larkin Brighter City Award for restoration of Brookbridge, a Grade II* Listed Building.

Somewhere during this time, we moved from offices at No.28 The Ropewalk slightly further up the hill to No.16, as well as operating from a small office a stones throw away on Talbot Street.

In 2008, the first £25M phase of the development at River Crescent was completed, providing 146 apartments in a crescent shaped block of seven storeys, with residents’ lounge/business suite, health club with pool and gym and basement car park. Winning Daily Mail UK Property Awards – Best Architecture (Multiple Units)

In 2010, Matthew was promoted to Managing Partner and the following year we upgraded our offices again to No. 5 on The Ropewalk, taking on the renovation of The Old Pumphouse (for which we were pleased to be awarded the English Heritage Angel Award – For the Rescue of The Old Pumphouse!)

The following decade saw us make strides into the education sector, as we commissioned by Trent College to deliver a master plan to direct development at the College for the next 10 years, received a RIBA East Midlands Commendation for our work on Harper Music School and Sports Hall at Lincoln Minster School and delivered Loughborough University’s Advanced Technology Innovation Centre and W&S building.

In 2016, we saw completion of the award-winning ‘iHub’, a 45,000 sq. ft. facility attracting some of the biggest names in the automotive, rail and aerospace supply chain industries, and the centrepiece for Derby’s Infinity Park development. This was awarded the Derby Civic Society George Larkin Brighter City Award.

We also completed work in healthcare, in 2015 we were awarded the Building Better Healthcare Awards for Best End of Life Care Development for Grantham’s ‘Hospice Within A Hospital,’ the result of a unique partnership between St Barnabas Lincolnshire Hospice, United Lincolnshire Hospitals NHS Trust and Lincolnshire South West Clinical Commissioning.

In 2016, we completed Parkside Chesterfield, a 22 no. two bedroom apartment development for Chesterfield Borough Council, all incorporating a balcony or bay window and designed using the ‘Wheelchair Housing Design Guide.’

2018 saw the completion of Becher’s Court residential development in Southwell which received the Harry Johnson Conservation Award, and we said a final goodbye to Andrew Ellis, as he retired after 25 years at the company helm.

We also completed a number of Leicester based projects in recent years, aided by our permanent office in the city. Notable projects in the area include the new Everard Meadows site, The Wullcomb, Mountsorrel Community Centre (which won the Leicestershire & Rutland Local Joint Consultative Committee for the Building Industry Merit Award) and site of the former Leicester City Council New Walk Centre. Newly appointed Director, Ian Burgess, leads the Leicester office and manages a number of commercial schemes for the firm.

Of course, in 30 years, our working methods have changed in a big way. From the early days of sketches on drawing boards to today’s fully-modelled digital designs using BIM technology, we continue to develop our digital offering. All of our staff fully transitioned to Revit based systems and workflows and we have invested heavily in hardware, applications and training since 2012.

In 2020, when the COVID pandemic hit, we found ourselves prepared to move our team to fully remote working for as long as necessary. One of our architectural technicians volunteered his van to deliver equipment to everyone, and we were up and running in record time, with our full team on virtual machines with access to our full library of tools and software. Despite the surrounding chaos, we were relieved to keep business as usual and saw the competition of our new student accommodation on Talbot Street, Nottingham.

2021 saw us appointed by the Wavensmere Homes and The Galliard Apsley Partnership joint venture for Stages 4 – 6 on a £40M housing project, Belgrave Middleway, in Birmingham. The 12-acre site is scheduled for completion in 2025.

We began work on a mixed use centre and care home in Lubbesthorpe, Leicester, and saw the completion of Everards Phase 1B, Everards’ new home including a state of the art Brewery, office Headquarters, a public food and drink space, and a shop.

In 2022 we were appointed to deliver a further project with Wavensmere Homes, the £130M Barrelsmans Point development on the former HMS Ganges site in Sussex. Station Street Offices for Domestic & General in Nottingham’s Southside Redevelopment Zone were completed, and of course, the past year has seen a further update to the Practice’s leadership, as we are now trading as an Employee-Owned Trust!

Associate Architect, and elected Employee Representative, Luke Turner, says “We’re really pushing for our staff to ‘think like an owner.’ We’re almost one year into being an Employee-Owned Trust, and we’re finding everyone has adjusted to this new way of thinking about Franklin Ellis, on a level of individual contribution, as well as thinking big about our direction as a company. The ethos of employee ownership fits very well with a culture that has always existed at Franklin Ellis, and we’re looking forward to where it will take us in the future.”

Luke is currently leading the firm on major residential schemes at Barrelman’s Point in Sussex and Belgrave Middleway in Birmingham in Partnership with Wavensmere Homes.

We unveiled our new virtual reality suite earlier this year, a great leap for our Visualisation Team and a real evolution from our realistic CGI images.
Though CGI offers a still image of the true representation of a building, VR conveys scale and light fantastically, showing how the space actually feels to be within. It’s an unsurpassed tool for exhibiting to planning authorities and other stakeholders.

We’re excited where this new tool will take us, and have already glimpsed its potential with showing clients and planners the scope and scale of new schemes in the context of the surrounding streetscape.

Our permanent setup at our Pumphouse offices means we can welcome visitors at any time to experience the full effect our VR suite has to offer.

This year will see the completion of a major new PRS scheme on Queen’s Road next to Nottingham Station, as well as the final stages of Park Yacht Club. Our Hotel Indigo, Exeter proved a big success for our interiors team, now directed by our new lead designer Nina, and the project has been nominated as a finalist in the SBID awards in 2 categories.

We’re excited to be taking on an array of new projects across the UK, and can’t wait to see where the next 30 years will take us!

See below for some of our Team photos for the last 30 years!