Christopher Law, Director
Chris Law is a founding director of the Oval partnership. He is also a director of INTEGER China Ltd, an organisation that promotes intelligent and green developments in China.
Chris was educated at Stonyhurst College in Lancashire, and studied Architecture at the Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London. Over the years Chris has received numerous accolades including Architects of the Year Award and the Outstanding Young Person Award in Hong Kong. Chris Law’s design projects have received awards from institutions around the world including the Royal Academy of Arts, the Hong Kong Institute of Architects, the Hong Kong Institute of Planners, and the American Institute of Architects.
Both the North site and the South sites of the Sanlitun Village project in Beijing, for which Oval Partnership is the principal architect, have been shortlisted in the World Architecture Festival Award 2010.The Sanlitun Village project also received the Hong Kong Institute of Architect Special Award 2010. The bamboo structure KPMG community centre in Sichuan has received many awards in 2010 including the Perspective Best of the Best Award, Sustainable Architecture Award, Design For Asia Award, etc.
Chris is the Chairman of the Family Welfare Society- a charity with a staff of 800. He is member of a number of government committees in Hong Kong, including the Tourism Strategy Group of the Tourism Commission, Women's Commission, and the Social Welfare Advisory Committee. Chris is the chairman of the Environment and Sustainable Development Committee of the Hong Kong Institute of Architects,and a director of the Professional Green Building Council.
Chris Law is a Justice of the Peace of the Hong Kong SAR. Married with two children, Chris spends his leisure hours collecting and testing recipes.
Patrick Bruce, Director
Patrick Bruce is Director of the Oval partnership, has over 30 years' experience of design and design management, and has lectured extensively at tertiary level.
Prior to setting up the Oval partnership with Chris in 1992, Patrick already had experience running several design consultancies, and has worked and travelled widely.
Originally trained in the product design field, Patrick became the Commercial Director of the Conran Design Group Ltd UK, an eminent design consultancy servicing a wide range of major UK and overseas clients. In 1988 Patrick came to Hong Kong as Managing Director of Conran Design Pacific, a multi-disciplinary design practice servicing clients in the Pacific Rim.
Patrick spends many of his leisure hours sailing in the open seas.
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 and internationally. 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 was shortlisted for RIBA House of the Year, the Stephen Lawrence Prize, Structural Timber Awards and AJ Retrofit Awards. It was praised by the RIBA judges as “offering a new typology for reusing complex and under-utilised urban sites”. It received a Civic Trust Commendation in 2021
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 tenth year.
He 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.
Simon Lee, Senior Architect
Simon joined The Oval Partnership in 2009. Since then he has contributed to a wide array of projects covering commercial, mixed-use, residential, master planning, exhibition and interior design.
Major projects in China include Sino-Ocean Taikoo Li Chengdu (responsible for schematic design, resident site team management, development and implementation of tenancy design guides and subsequent tenancy design control), Shanghai DreamCenter and Beijing Taikoo Li Sanlitun.
Hong Kong projects include the Hong Kong Academy of Performing Arts Amphitheatre, Citibank Causeway Bay façade refurbishment and 5, Star Street.
He is BIM manager and trainer across the Oval group. Originally from Hong Kong, in 2022 he moved with his family to the UK and is now based in the London office.
Mattie O’Callaghan, Graduate Landscape Architect
Mattie is a landscape architect, horticulturalist and curator and has been working at Oval since 2024 on a range of masterplanning, planting and community projects. They are also currently the Horticultural Trainee at the Garden Museum.
Working at the intersection of design, art and ecology, they are centred around questions of climate justice, materialities and local ecologies. At the heart of this, is how can we co-design spaces with communities reusing on site materials and engaging with biodiverse and climate-resilient planting.
They have received their MLA in Landscape Architecture with Distinction from the University of Greenwich. They have a MA in Curating at the Royal College of Art with Distinction and have a BA in Geography from the University of Cambridge.
