Jonathan Pile, Resident Director

Jonathan is an RIBA Chartered Architect with 30 years post-qualification experience. He has led Oval Partnership’s London office since 2010, responsible for shaping the design direction of numerous high profile projects in the UK, Hong Kong and China. He has extensive experience in master planning, urban and architectural design and delivery in both Europe and Asia, including commercial, cultural, institutional, residential, and conservation projects.  He excels at resolving highly complex, often historically sensitive mixed-use projects, unlocking value for clients whilst delivering diverse, liveable environments at all scales from single buildings to new settlements. He has a particular interest in sustainability and the relationship between buildings, people and landscape.

His own recently completed timber-framed low-energy house on a very complex site in Deptford South East London received a 2019 RIBA London Region Award and is currently shortlisted for RIBA House of the Year, the Stephen Lawrence Prize, the Structural Timber Awards and the AJ Retrofit Awards. It was praised by the RIBA judges as “offering a new typology for reusing complex and under-utilised urban sites”.

In 2016, in collaboration with Brock Carmichael Architects, he led the winning team in the RIBA International Competition to devise sustainable future strategies for the remote island of Tristan da Cunha.

Jonathan designed and curated the acclaimed Hong Kong Exhibition at the 2012 Venice Architecture Biennale, which led to the founding of an annual Urban Festival in Hong Kong, now in its fifth year.

He has taught at the Bartlett School of Architecture University College London for 12 years, and for three years jointly ran an undergraduate unit in Experimental Sustainable Design at Oxford Brookes with Toby Smith.

He was previoulsy at Conran Roche Architects, responsible for the restoration and redevelopment of the Michelin Building, the redevelopment of New Crane Wharf in Wapping and numerous master-planning and urban design proposals across the UK and in Europe, particularly concentrating on the regeneration of historically sensitive industrial waterfront areas and the planning of new small settlements and low-density housing in ecologically sensitive locations.

He also writes, and was the UK correspondent for European architecture magazine A10. He is a photographer, a keen cyclist, walker and explorer of forgotten footpaths.