We’ve mentioned before how incredibly proud we are that over half of our team have been at the company ten years or more; today we are celebrating the nine year anniversary of Tom Mellor, who has recently been promoted to the Board of Directors at gcp.
There are so many benefits to having skills and relationships built over a period of time – we think that our staff retention makes this office a welcoming place for our new starters and apprentices, many of whom go on to join the ranks. Read Tom Hubbard’s interview where he talks about making teas in the office back in 2006 and then joining us as an architectural technician in 2019!
Today’s interviewee Tom Mellor is an experienced architect who has worked and lived in Bristol since 2006. He worked for five years with Childs & Sulzmann Architects gaining a broad range of experience in a number of sectors including hotels & leisure, education, community centres and residential.
Tom joined gcp Chartered Architects in 2011 and has worked as a project architect on a number of schemes continuing to gain a broad experience in all aspects of the profession.
Tom has a particular interest in renovation and working in complex constrained sites where innovative creative solutions are required.
Tom has worked on many projects with a particular focus on those that involve refurbishing and extending existing buildings, sometimes with a heritage or listed status. Most recently this has included the extension and refurbishment of the Bristol Water Headquarters bringing new life to this iconic 1960s office building.
Tom has recently completed work on a project to refurbish and extend an office in central London. The project doubled the size of the building only accessible via a pedestrian archway, by addition of rear and two-storey roof extension. Tom has extensive experience of complex projects such as this which require extensive coordination with all consultants and contractor to find the best construction methodology, and excellent technical skills.
Tom has completed training to deliver Principal Designer services to meet the requirements of CDM 2015 Health and Safety Regulations.
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Wow Tom, well I think your experience about speaks for itself. Let’s give our followers the chance to get to know you a bit better with a few quick-fire questions.
We’ll start with the easy one: what inspired you to pursue architecture?
Travelling in Africa and being fascinated by how the different ways people design their homes affects the way that they live. The decision was made while sitting by the banks of the River Niger for several weeks waiting for our broken-down Land Rover to be fixed, wondering what we would do when we eventually got home.
Sounds like the plot to a film. So, if you weren’t an architect, what would you be?
Better paid but bored.
Funnily enough, not the first person to say that! Tell us, what’s a favourite project that you’ve worked on to date?
Elizabeth House, working closely with a really good project team to resolve many complex issues to deliver this project in central London to refurbish and extend an office building accessed through a small pedestrian archway. An interesting project with lots of learning involved on subjects including party walls, rights of light, unexploded bomb risk and detailed construction methodology. I won’t miss the 5am starts to early site meetings, however.
