Tom Wimshurst: from deals to design

Our next speaker is Tom Wimshurst who co-founded Wimshurst Pelleriti with his architect brother, Will, and Leo Pelleriti who is also an architect. The 13-strong practice spans architecture, contracting and development.

Both Will Wimshurst and Pelleriti worked for RSHP before setting up WP in 2013.

While WP is better known as an architecture firm, the directors now want to put their energy into the development side of the business in order to take advantage of the Government’s new planning reforms and the expectation of a further cut in interest rates.

To date WP has completed several successful developments including  a church conversion into nine apartments in Fulham, south London. A  mixed-use development in Barnes, is nearing completion.

Developments have been funded via ‘family and friends’ and topped up with bank finance.

Wimhurst, whose background is in finance and sales, had no experience of property development when WP was founded eleven year ago.

The business has five sites “ in the hopper’ including one in Kingston, London which is currently in planning.

Wimshurst’s talk will look at the advantages and disadvantages of running an architecture and development business side-by-side, what he has learned so far, the current market and where he sees the opportunities.

He says: “You can read about property development in a book but you can’t learn about it until you do it".

Amanda Baillieu and Gus Zogolovitch set up Developer Collective in 2018 to teach professionals how to become design-led property developers and give them the contacts and resources to deliver their projects. Their book How to be an Architect Developer was published in September '23.

The talks are aimed at architects who would like to know more about the opportunities and challenges around being an independent developer, including spotting creative solutions that a non-architect developer will often miss.

The talk will be followed by networking drinks and nibbles.

This event is supported The Society Building.