Edward Cullinan Architects

Edward (Ted) Cullinan set up his practice in 1965 as a cooperative in the belief that architecture needed commitment from the whole team. He was inspired by a year at Berkeley in 1956, and had worked closely with Denys Lasdun – notably at the University of East Anglia. He started with highly inventive low-cost houses, building his own upside-down passive solar home in north London where he lived until his death in 2019.

The practice and the projects grew with major local authority housing, public and private buildings before embarking on a sequence of university buildings and master plans in the UK and abroad. Ted composed his buildings, drawing by hand the section, plan and elevation simultaneously. His integration of low-energy and environmental design matured as a team effort of architects and engineers. You did not have to be an architect to be captivated by the drawings he made when giving lectures.

With some classic and many new photographs and a selection of his drawings, this is the first complete account of the practice that Ted led for over 50 years. Never more than 45 members strong, the practice morphed into Cullinan Studio with his insistence on thinking and behaving differently for architecture and the greater good.

Edward Cullinan Architects is part of the series Twentieth Century Architects, produced in collaboration with the Twentieth Century Society and Historic England.