Rachael joined D5 after taking a two-year break to spend time with her son and was promoted to an Associate in 2022.  Rachael has since worked across multiple sectors including residential, education, transport and leisure projects across the UK. She is leading internal teams on projects, working closely with both client and contractor teams across all RIBA stages.

Rachael believes successful delivery of a project is a blend of open communication, collaboration and co-ordination. She enjoys client engagement and developing schemes from a detailed design to delivering the completed building.

- Building Project of the Year : Old Heaton House
- Client of the Year Award : NGS, Birmingham Airport
- Integration & Collaborative Working Award : NGS, Birmingham Airport
- Residential Property of the Year : Old Heaton House

Savita Patel has been promoted to Senior Architectural Technologist and Jennifer Moffat to Senior Architect. Both promotions have been made in recognition of their professional development, including their hard work and commitment on large complex projects, meeting and exceeding our clients’ expectations.

In the last couple of months we've been very please to be joined by Isobel Barrett, (Architectural Technologist, now studying her RIBA Pt2 to become an Architect), Rob Simmonds (Senior Architectural Technologist), Stefan Fratila (RIBA Pt2 Architectural Assistant) and Jake Mace (Architect).

As D5's business grows, its great to welcome new talent to the D5 team, bringing more skills and insights to further the quality of our work and service we provide.

The D5 team goes from strength to strength!

D5 had a busy 2023 with project work across our sectors including a great deal of work in Transportation and Education sectors. But its interesting to see that we received most Instagram ‘likes’ for our Residential work and posts about office activities and staff. It’s great to see that followers like our people posts as our office culture and the team we have at D5 are so important to us and core of our success. For 2024, we look forward to progressing the incomplete projects in our Best Nine and our many other projects in Transportation, Education, Workplace, Leisure + Sport and Residential sectors! Happy New Year!

Ideal applicants should have a broad range of working experience through RIBA Work Stages 1 - 7, the ability to lead within teams and work autonomously, have working experience of Revit and Auto-Cad, have excellent technical, design and presentation skills. Please email CV and Portfolio to info@d5architects.net

The two block proposals are 15 and part 8, part 7 storeys respectively, accommodating 125 dwellings of one, two and three bedrooms. The long vacant site will now be developed with a high quality development, enhancing and adding to the ongoing regeneration of the area.

More project information here

We opened our office for the morning for clients and consultants to drop in, enjoy a coffee from our roaming barista and have a slice or two of cakes all baked by D5 staff. It was a great morning, and the weather was very kind with sun shining into our courtyard to enjoy the event largely alfresco!

Congratulations to Izzy from Evolve Planning for correctly guessing that there were 72 sweets in the jar. And we’re very happy to advise the morning raised a brilliant £1013 for Acorns. So, many thanks for all who attended and donated, it’s very much appreciated.

The Lowans Hill site is designed around communal public open space in its centre in a semi-rural location in Redditch. The planning committee gave particular praise to our design work, which was carefully developed to provide high quality homes, that reflected the sites former agricultural use.

More project information here.

We took in the architectural delights of the Design District and Kings Cross. A great relaxed social day chatting about design, details and materials interspersed with a comfortable helping of food and drink!

The practice currently occupies the former threshing barn on the site. Our proposal extends the rear of the building with two single storey pitched roof brick wings and a timber clad flat roof infill between the wings. The additional accommodation will provide new consulting rooms and small minor operation treatment rooms. The expanded facilitates will support the business’s growth and support of the NHS by bringing more specialist, timely and accessible care to the local community.

The project in Harborne, Birmingham, involves the infilling of a central courtyard to create a multi-use top lit space providing accommodation for an extended dining hall and hosting events.

The development consists of a new purpose built 2,900sqm/ 31,270sqft vehicle repair, valeting and imaging operations building, plus a new gate house and double storey vehicle storage area. In addition to the proposed buildings, the 7-acre site is also to be soft landscaped including a water attenuation basin, planted bunding and structural landscaping. Working with the site’s challenging bowl shape topography and 15m level difference has required carefully laying out each element of the proposal. Our client has strong sustainability ambitions with the proposal aiming to achieve BREEAM Outstanding accreditation and Net Zero Carbon design. The buildings have been designed to reduce whole life cycle carbon, provide efficient building fabric, and maximise on site energy generation.

More info here

D5 have now obtained Full Planning Permission for a new dwelling within the Warwickshire Green Belt south of Birmingham. The new house will be formed by converting an existing period brick built stable block to accommodate bedroom, study and bathroom. A new build contemporary contrasting extension, clad in blackened timber, will provide an open plan kitchen/ living/ dining space with a large glazed wall overlooking a private courtyard garden. Technical design for tender and construction to commence shortly.

Most recently Hedia Yared joined us for a week from her A-Level studies at Queen Mary’s Grammar School for girls. Hedia worked within the heart of our studio on a theoretical project to design her dream house, while being involved in general office activities and sitting in on project meetings and design reviews of our live projects. At the end of the week she was able to see her newly learnt Revit skills in 3D by enjoying a walk around her dream house in our VR set up. Hedia told us she had a great time with us and is now even more motivated to become an Architect.

D5 have now submitted a full planning application for our proposed extension to The Blue Coat School’s Viney Building in Edgbaston, Birmingham. The project involves the infilling of a central courtyard to create a multi-use top lit space providing accommodation for an extended dining hall and hosting events.

The Jewellery Quarter site was historically William Sapcote and Sons Ltd. builders’ yard since the early 1900’s, however in recent years it has been unoccupied and in need of redevelopment. The approved proposal includes 11 townhouses and 2 apartments.

The existing Camden Street fronting building is to be retained, converted and extended with a zinc clad roof top extension. Within the old yard two terraces of newbuild townhouses complete the scheme.

D5’s Meera Jackson has been tutoring second year architecture degree students for the past year, and was very pleased to be asked to present prizes to graduate students on D5 Architects behalf in the Dissertation: Champions of Environmental and Social Agenda category to Samuel Kercher – Champion of inclusive urban design, Alana Perry Kinloch – Champion of urban regeneration and Batool Hamadi – Champion of design for mental health and wellbeing. Meera commented, ‘ I’ve really enjoyed working with the students and seeing their projects come to life over the semesters – well done everyone’.

D5 have a long history of collaboration with local schools of architecture including tutoring, examining, work experience and year out placements. We see this as great way to connect with and help new upcoming talent and support the schools many of the practice attended.

The original Georgian house was almost entirely lost in form and out of sight before the project commenced. The house had been extensively modified to suit the sites former industrial needs and enclosed in surrounding buildings from the 19^th and 20^th century. The before photo shows how the front door and steps appeared before the project started. Now virtually free standing, the hansom property has been meticulously renovated and reinstated as a single 3-storey dwelling with cellar. The unique 5-bed house is now available for purchase, with marketing by Maguire Jackson

The project will develop a long vacant site in south Digbeth, within the Rea Valley Urban Quarter. The 10-storey building has been designed to accommodate 70, one, two and three bedroom apartments. Many dwellings have private external terraces with the upper storey dwellings having large westerly facing terraces with great views of the city centre.

The building will be clad in brick and feature recessed panels with a Celtic knot pattern in textured brickwork in reference to the area’s Irish heritage. Lines of burnished brass cladding panels feature on the façade identifying the ground floor entrances. Brass has been used in reference to the chandelier and gas fitting manufacturer which once stood on the site, which also gave its Leopold Works name to the development.