Andrew Taylor

Andrew Taylor died aged 64 after suffering a heart attack. His death was announced by Patel Taylor and reported by The Architects' Journal and Building Design on 4 November 2026. Where he died and funeral arrangements have not been made public.

Andrew Taylor was originally from North Wales. He studied architecture at the Bartlett School of Architecture in London. Before founding his own practice he worked at MacCormac Jamieson Prichard, the London firm led by Richard MacCormac.

In 1989 Taylor and Pankaj Patel set up Patel Taylor in Clerkenwell, London. The practice gained early recognition through competition wins for masterplans at Antwerp Docks and at Châteauroux in France, and in 1992 it won a RIBA award for converting a stone barn in North Wales into the Ty Isaf Arts Centre. In 1994 Taylor led the design of the competition-winning Ayr Citadel masterplan, a commission the practice said marked a significant step in its development and helped secure private funding after a 25-year hiatus in the site's development.

In 1996 Patel Taylor, with Groupe Signes and Arup, won the international competition for Thames Barrier Park. The 14 hectare park, which opened in 2000, transformed a derelict brownfield site in the Royal Docks into a public park connected to the river. Eastside City Park in Birmingham followed in 2012.

The practice's work ranged across cultural and educational buildings, public landscapes, housing and large-scale regeneration. Projects included the Benslow Music Centre, the Performing Arts Department at Aberystwyth University, the Lowther Children's Centre, the Silberrad Student Centre and Albert Sloman Library at the University of Essex, and designs for a cultural quarter in Reims. Taylor oversaw the extension to St George's Bristol, a Grade II listed concert hall in a former church, completed in 2019. Major residential masterplans included London Dock, the redevelopment of 6.2 hectares of previously inaccessible land in Wapping, Twelve Trees Park on a former GLA-owned site beside West Ham station, and Beam Park, 3,000 homes on the former Ford site at Dagenham.

Estate regeneration and housing for older people were an important strand of his work. The Courtyard Housing scheme in Barking and Dagenham, completed in 2014, was influenced, he acknowledged, by Jørn Utzon's housing at Fredensborg in Denmark.

Beyond the practice, Taylor served on several design review panels, judged RIBA awards and was a visiting professor at the Welsh School of Architecture, Cardiff University. He lectured internationally, including in Japan, Spain, France, Ireland and the Netherlands.

After an earlier health scare, Taylor became a keen runner. He completed three full marathons, including New York and Venice, and 15 half marathons.

In its statement, Patel Taylor said placemaking had been central to Taylor's approach, bringing architecture, landscape and urban design together to repair and reinforce a sense of place. He often spoke of the genius loci, the spirit of a place, when analysing a site, and drew on the hierarchy, grain and variety of London's streets, squares and gardens to inform new development. The practice said he united humanity and materiality through the careful use of materials, craft, light and shade, and that his convictions continue to guide its work. Thames Barrier Park, one of the first new riverside parks in London for decades when it opened, remains the best known of the places he helped shape.