Senior Architect, Transport - #2139649

Senior Architect, High Speed Infrastructure

A number of critical transport buildings. Each one critical. A maintenance depot, a rolling stock facility and a national control Centre, all integrating with a live operational railway. The design has planning permission.

Our client is recruiting a Senior Architect to sit embedded within the Integrated Project Team on one of the most complex infrastructure programmes in Europe. The Design and Build contractors are incorporating engineering requirements into the consented design. Your job is to assure that the architectural quality and intent of the original design is maintained through every change they make.

You will not be reviewing everything. You will be focusing on the most complex areas, approximately ten per cent of the design output, where the risk to architectural integrity is highest. You will review contractor proposals, respond to technical queries, provide input to planning condition discharge, and act as a guardian of the design vision as it moves from detailed design through into construction. You will work across the interfaces between architecture, civil engineering, rail systems, landscape and environment, because on a project like this, the engineering requirements lead the design and the architect needs to understand why.

This is a rare opportunity to move from private practice into a major infrastructure programme and follow a scheme through from detail design all the way to build. You will be part of a community of fifteen or more transport architects working across the project, which means genuine peer support alongside genuine accountability.


What you need to bring
You will be a registered architect, ARB and RIBA, with a background as a transport architect. Rail experience is essential. You will understand how engineering constraints and operational requirements shape architectural decisions, and you will be comfortable working in a multidisciplinary environment where architecture is one discipline among many.

Your experience should include delivery within a multidisciplinary design and delivery environment, working across civil, systems and environment disciplines rather than in isolation. You will be able to manage your own workload across several workstreams, produce clear technical documents, and communicate with confidence to a range of specialist and non-specialist audiences.

Experience of major infrastructure programmes at detail design or construction stage is a strong advantage, as is familiarity with Design and Build contract environments where the contractor holds the design responsibility and the client role is one of assurance and oversight.

Location is Birmingham Snow Hill.