This March Bogle Architects turn 14 years old so the team are preparing for a big year ahead in 2027 which, as well as marking 15 years of the studio, will also be 20 years that they have been active in the Czech Republic.
“Our international adventures started with our first project in Prague which was winning the Žižkov Masterplan competition with Discovery Group,” says Ian Bogle, Founder and Creative Director. He laughs: “I remember thinking how are we going to do this as none of us speak Czech and then a strange thing happened. Viktorie Součková, who I had worked with at Foster + Partners in London, sent me an email saying she was leaving Fosters, going back to Prague, and I should come to her leaving drinks in the ‘Foster’ pub in Chelsea.” Well, the rest is now history.
Q, Bratislava, SK – luxusní rezidenční projekt s výhledem na Dunaj
Award-winning projects in Prague and elsewhere
Bogle Architects is based across studios in London and Prague and is led by Ian Bogle, Viktorie Součková and Barbora Markechová and the 50+ strong studio has worked across the globe (Bogle is an anagram of globe) in over 35 countries from South America, across Europe, MENA and Asia.
“We’ve just picked up some more work in North Africa and Costa Rica this side of Christmas,” states Barbora Markechová who has been with the team since 2009 when she also returned from Foster + Partners to Prague to work on the ELI Beamlines project south of Prague. She continues: “ElI Beamlines was an amazing project which has won a number of awards including a MIPIM Award back in 2016.”
Awards seem to keep coming for this studio as another Prague project, Rezidence Pomezí with KKCG, recently won a total of five at the recent International Property Awards including best in Europe for one of the villas.
Viktorie Součková states: “Pomezí has been a great collaboration with our client, KKCG who we continue to work with on other projects in Prague and hopefully further afield too soon.” Viktorie elaborates: “Pomezí is just one of the projects we’ve recently completed and in the Prague studio alone we have over 35 ‘live’ projects across the residential, commercial, research, education, sport, leisure and master-planning sectors.”
Working value add solutions
International work is dominant in the studio’s portfolio, whether it’s a residential tower in Bogota, the largest world’s kindergarten in Singapore, an outdoor cinema in Saudi Arabia or a private spa in Croatia. “Around 90% of our work in the London studio is outside of London,” states Ian Bogle, and adds: “We continue to work at Oxford Science Park and have a few projects ‘up North’, so we keep our hand in on UK work, however most of our new enquiries continue to come from abroad.”
What sets Bogle Architects apart, is their agility and ability in turning complex design problems into working ‘value add’ solutions. Another ground-breaking project is the carbon neutral School in the Desert (The Royal Grammar School Guildford Dubai), with Cognita, which was completed in 2021. The self-shading building, a simple geometric design solution reducing the solar gain on the building, offsets the lower energy demand with photovoltaics on the roof.
Versatile – or special?
Size also is no problem for the team who also won the 200,000 sq m Hagibor masterplan in Prague, with CRESTYL Group, and has delivered the first two commercial office buildings and progressing with the remainder of the scheme over the next few years.
The Prague studio is also engaged in science projects like the little gem, Brain4Industry, another project with the Physics Institute of the The Czech Academy of Sciences (CAS), and Mephared II, a 70,000 sq m medicine and pharmaceutical facility in Hradec Králové – for the Charles University due for completion in June of this year.
Viktorie continues: “We’re very lucky to work with private developers, universities and research institutes and most recently we are now working with the City of Prague on a large development.”
Some projects do however have a long gestation period and the recently published ‘Q’ project on the banks of the Danube in Bratislava, with CRESCO Group, took nine years to get to a start on site. “Q is our latest project with CRESCO, having completed three others over the years,” says Barbora, and adds: “The design exploits the setting very well with the residential units overlooking the river Danube and public spaces below – will be a game changer for Bratislava.”
The diversity of the Bogle Architects’ portfolio is quite astonishing and to have completed so many quality buildings around the world is testament to their ambition, attitude and ‘easy going’ working methods.
“People often ask me, what is my favourite project, and my answer is always the same – the next one,” says Ian Bogle, and specifies: “They also ask what we specialize in and again I play the Jose Mourinho card – we specialize in being special.”
Ian, Viktorie and Barbora will be in Cannes at MIPIM this year, if you want to get in touch, please do @ stand R7.A20