Walking into 10 Design’s light and airy London office, it does not immediately feel like entering the headquarters of a major global practice. The two-storey former industrial building, located on a quiet back street near Waterloo station, is in fact a space which the firm shares with WW+P, which is also owned by the pair’s parent company, French engineering giant Egis. 

10 Design’s London expansion

10 Design’s main address is directly opposite at 10 Valentine Place. The practice seems to have an affinity with the number – it was founded in 2010, by a group of 10 architects from the Asian operation of Scottish practice RMJM. It now has more than 400 architects across nine offices, including Dubai, San Francisco and its original headquarters in Hong Kong.

This makes 10 Design about the same size as WW+P, although the former’s new chief executive Sabrina Klor is targeting a growth rate of, fittingly, 10% a year.

Much of that growth is taking place at its London office, to where the firm moved its headquarters in 2022 following its merger that year with San Francisco-based SB Architects. With its three main markets – the Far East, the Middle East and, now, the US west coast – the practice felt it needed to base itself in a European time zone.

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