Blueprint for the modern embassy – The Property Chronicle
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Blueprint for the modern embassy The British Embassy in Sana’a, Yemen

The Architect

This article was originally published on 30 April 2018.

The recent completion of the hugely expensive new US Embassy in London and the continued controversy around the US decision to relocate its embassy to Jerusalem brings back memories of our own British Embassy project in Yemen; one of the first of a new generation of British Embassies designed for the post-9/11 world and winner of the 2008 RIBA International Award.

In July 2003, the Foreign & Commonwealth Office (FCO) invited six teams of consultants to submit conceptual designs for the new British Embassy in Sana’a, Yemen. The competition brief emphasised two objectives: to provide a highly secure building and to showcase the very best of British architecture and engineering. Our winning design, developed alongside engineers Ramboll, strove to balance security and openness, contemporary and vernacular.

Designing a new British Embassy for the post 9/11 world meant dealing with extremes and paradoxes. These are best summed up in the words of the Client: “On the one hand the ideal embassy is a highly secure underground bunker. However, on the other hand it needs to be a marquee with a large sign saying ‘do come in and have a cup of tea’”. The job of the architect in designing the modern embassy is therefore to reconcile the central paradox; it is not a case of bunker or marquee, but bunker and marquee.






The Architect

About Richard Rose-Casemore

Richard Rose-Casemore

Richard Rose-Casemore is a practitioner and an academic. Having worked for some of the leading practices in the UK, he co-founded Design Engine Architects in 2000, and enjoys working in all sectors and at all scales, from masterplanning to interior design, with architecture at the centre. He has been the recipient of numerous national and international awards during 25 years of practice, and received the Stephen Lawrence Prize for his own house. Richard has travelled widely in his teaching and practice, and worked in South Africa for a year as an undergraduate. He has a particular passion for teaching and led a Masters studio at Oxford Brookes University School of Architecture between 1995 and 2010. He continues to act as a visiting critic and external examiner at various UK Schools. Richard is currently a Fellow of Royal Society of Arts, a Fellow of Oxford Brookes University, an Academician of Urbanism, a Member of the Chartered Society of Designers, and sits on the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) Validation Board. He was a CABE Representative for five years and now chairs or sits on various Design Review Panels and the Higher Education Design Quality Forum (HEDQF).

Articles by Richard Rose-Casemore

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