This role is for an architect who loves seeing their work take shape onsite. You’ll be joining a hands-on multidisciplinary design, development and hospitality studio, that doesn’t just design buildings, it develops, builds and operates them, and even grows food for the kitchens on its own sustainable farm!

The team runs around twenty private projects at a time (including complex one-off homes across the country) alongside its own boutique hospitality and mixed-use developments. These are places that serve food, welcome guests for longer stays, and connect directly to an urban organic farm.

As a Project Lead, you’ll take on three of these developments from the inside. And if you’re interested, there’s a clear path to grow beyond architecture and step into development management.

Position Overview

In your first year, you’ll be responsible for three of the studio’s in-house developments, spending most of your time on site with contractors, engineers and the people who will eventually run the buildings.

These projects combine hospitality (eat, live, work, stay), public spaces and sustainable food systems, often within historic structures that don’t always behave as expected. You’ll resolve details directly on site, sketch solutions in real time, and follow the buildings all the way through to daily use.

Responsibilities

• Lead three live development projects from concept through construction

• Spend the majority of your week on site, solving design and technical issues directly

• Produce clear, buildable drawings and well-resolved details

• Work closely with in-house contractor, engineering and operations teams

• Coordinate consultants and support more junior architects

• See how projects perform post-completion!

This is architecture with feedback...immediate, honest and often surprising.

Requirements

• ARB registered Architect

• Confident with detailing and technical coordination

• Comfortable working with existing buildings and unpredictable conditions

• Enjoys being on site and collaborating with contractors and specialists

• Curious, proactive and ready to take ownership

• Proficient in Vectorworks, or happy to learn quickly

Nice to have, but not essential:
Experience in high-end detailing, working on sensitive heritage buildings, hospitality or hotel design, Passivhaus, adaptive reuse.

Benefits

• Lead buildings the studio owns and operates, not just delivers

• Clear potential to progress into development management

• Monthly farm days to understand sustainability in practice

• “Skills share” sessions, architects can spend time in the kitchens they design

• No micromanagement, autonomy, creativity, and open ideas fully encouraged

• Hybrid working (4 studio / 1 WFH)

• 20 days holiday + bank holidays + birthday off

• Warm, team-oriented studio with excellent retention

Company Overview

This independent studio brings architects, builders, engineers, farmers and hospitality professionals together around one bright, shared table in Shoreditch. The environment is open, lively and deeply collaborative, no private desks, no closed doors.

The team’s focus is not just how buildings look, but how they behave once people inhabit them. They care about how a kitchen works under pressure, how a bedroom feels at night, how old brick interacts with new systems, and how food can be part of a building’s story.

Because they operate the spaces they design, sustainability becomes real responsibility over time,  not just a line in a manifesto.

People tend to stay because the work is meaningful, the team is genuine, and the projects don’t end at handover.

How to Apply

To apply for this position, please click the apply button below or send a copy of your CV and portfolio to tom@fatrecruitment.co.uk including the job reference number.

To find out more or for a confidential chat to discuss any other roles, please call us directly on 0208 282 8814, we would be delighted to speak with you.