Donald Needham BSc(Hons) DipArch(Lond) RIBA is a chartered architect who first worked with BWCP in 1980 and later rejoined the practice in 1987, and was appointed project director in 1989.

Prior to joining the practice he had extensive experience in public sector housing, university and welfare projects. He worked on an office relocation programme for British Telecom, in the process preparing a property maintenance manual for their estates department. He was project architect at ORMS for the RIBA Award winning headquarters building for Next plc.

At BWCP, experience has varied from working on a major teaching hospital in the Caribbean, preparing inner city shopping centre proposals, the first purpose built aparthotel in the UK, a major hotel proposal in central London, to office developments in outer London.

Recent work has an emphasis on projects that require unusual planning consents. The practice has pioneered the ‘live-work’ concept in the re-use of redundant office or industrial buildings in central London and Class E ‘flexible use’ planning permissions for schemes where future use may need to change with market conditions.

He has been involved in developing a mixed-use scheme in Greenwich, another in Chalk Farm and preparing the masterplan for a girls’ school sports campus in North London. Recently a conversion of a listed hotel into luxury flats near Baker Street and currently extensions to Curtain House in Shoreditch.