Place 54 is a forward thinking studio of award winning designers based in Central London. We provide our clients with extensive architectural knowledge and expertise in housing, interiors, commercial, masterplanning and place overview, with a diverse portfolio of projects across UK and Europe.
We provide design expertise and leadership a long way before architecture, providing inspiring ideas and visions for communicating placemaking, we publish our ideas for review emphasising environmental and sustainable design in response to the climate emergency. Our Place Overview reflects our interest in the specifics of place responding to the risk of souless placemaking through the use of Ai. We provide outreach and support for all ages, especially young people aspiring to develop careers in design communication.
Our architects produce innovative and sustainable building designs, recognising a critical need for our profession to meet the urgency of the climate emergency challenge. We feel pride in performing this role along with an understanding of the value in sharing ideas across the profession, with other consultants, developers, investors, local authorities and occupiers, to come together to solve problems.
Gary Young,
Gary Young is the founding Director of his own architectural practice established in 1998, now Place 54 Architects, which has completed new build homes in London, Oxfordshire, Kent and Netherlands, along with numerous conversions and interiors for residential and commercial uses in Central London Conservation Areas. Gary has established an international reputation designing masterplans, both complete and in progress, including new villages and towns for housing and mixed use. He led the masterplan team for Otterpool Garden Town of 10,000 homes in Kent which has been granted outline planning approval, the award winning completed NW Bicester Ecotown first phase village. He has designed urban brownfield mixed use regeneration with leisure, retail and residential supported by an infrastructure of streets, riverside walk, bridges and station improvements completed at Norwich Riverside. Business and E commerce logistics park have been designed and completed for developers and local authorities in UK, Europe and the Middle East.
Awards for housing include: 1993 Europan 3 housing competition in Haarlem, Netherlands, completed in 2005, British Homes Awards Home of the Future and RIBA Tomorrows Garden City housing in Letchworth 2007, completed in 2012.
Gary Young was formerly a design director 1981 to 1998 and later a collaborative partner with Sir Terry Farrell, designing award winning, mixed use developments including: Comyn Ching Triangle in Covent Garden, 17th century listed buildings combined with new infill, which was listed in its entirety an exemplar regeneration by Historic England in 2016; Tobacco Dock grade 1 listed retail conversion in Wapping. He led the design for groundbreaking regeneration masterplans supported with design codes and guidelines include: Greenwich Peninsula, Birmingham’s Brindley Place, NW Bicester sustainable urban extension/eco town and Cambourne new town in UK. Wide experience of delivery of international urban regeneration includes waterfront masterplans for Lisbon and Hong kong Kowloon.
Contributions to publications & teaching include: 1980 First European Passive Solar design handbook; 1993 Europan 3 Competition results; 1992 Studio tutor at Kent KIAD; 2007 British Homes Awards, Market Garden City advocating sustainable food resourcing was written in 2014, published in 2020 by Planning in London and presented in 2024 at the Healthy Cities Conference in Liverpool.