Perkins and Will snaps up former RIBA president’s firm

The firm of former RIBA president Sunand Prasad has been snapped up by Perkins and Will, the practice owned by the Lebanese parent of consultant Currie & Brown.

The deal will see the 35 staff at Penoyre & Prasad, founded in 1988 by Greg Penoyre and Prasad, swap its office at Old Street with Perkins and Will’s current base at the Whitechapel Building near Aldgate.

The move will mean Perkins and Will bringing its London headcount to 190, making the studio its third-largest in the world.

Penoyre & Prasad said joining forces with Perkins and Will would give it “global resources” that would allow the team to “increase our reach” and fulfil the ambition to “design in a more holistic way”.

The firm is expected to operate as a studio within the Perkins and Will brand for “a few years” while the integration progresses.

Perkins and Will, whose staff include another RIBA president, Jack Pringle, is due to move into new London offices its Beirut-based owner, the $2.5bn (£1.9bn) Dar group, is building at 150 Holborn (pictured).

McLaren is carrying out work on the eight-storey building, designed by Perkins and Will, which will be ready for occupation by the middle of 2021. It will be home to more than 1,000 staff from Dar, Currie & Brown and Perkins and Will.

Penoyre & Prasad is currently on a host of UK frameworks, including University College London, NHS Shared Business Services, Notting Hill Genesis, and the recently won Wolfson College masterplan at the University of Oxford.

Penoyre & Prasad won Small Project of the Year for its pavilion at the Bobby Moore Academy in east London’s Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park at last night’s Building awards.