ABOUT
PHILIPPA SPURWAY
INTERIOR ARCHITECT & PROPERTY DEVELOPER
At Rijeka Crnojevića Overlooking Skardar Lake
(October 2022)
I started my career by doing a Diploma, followed by a BA course in interior design at Chelsea School of Art, which has since become the University of the Arts London.
My tutors at Chelsea School of Art were constantly telling me, because of the work I was producing, I should be an architect rather than an interior designer. For that reason when I left my BA course, I went to work at an architects practice in central London called Autarkic Potentials Ltd as an architectural assistant.
This architect's practice run by Donald Forrest focussed on passive housing, which was an unusual and new area in 1981, whilst at the same time being an extremely interesting area to work.
We won many awards for our environmental designs, with my favourite project being a plan to turn Battersea Power Station into passive housing, a project that was exhibited at the Pompidou Centre in Paris, which was a very cool place to show having recently opened in 1977.
Unfortunately, a lot of these ideas projects were conceptual and were never realised being too early for the real mainstream acceptance of complete environmental change.
After nearly four years working closely with Donald Forrest and his happy team at Autarkic Potentials Ltd, I had the opportunity to start my own business, which I did working as an interior architect and property developer.
Since 1984 I have worked in London buying properties, completely redesigning them by acting as the architect, reconstructing them as the project manager and putting them back on the market to sell.
Another part of my work has been redesigning my visionary clients homes by turning them into better functioning and more attractive properties, which has been a real pleasure for me.
I do not need to have a website because of the type of work I do but I thought it would be nice to share what I am doing in Montenegro with other people contemplating buying and renovating property in another country.
My tutors at Chelsea School of Art were constantly telling me, because of the work I was producing, I should be an architect rather than an interior designer. For that reason when I left my BA course, I went to work at an architects practice in central London called Autarkic Potentials Ltd as an architectural assistant.
This architect's practice run by Donald Forrest focussed on passive housing, which was an unusual and new area in 1981, whilst at the same time being an extremely interesting area to work.
We won many awards for our environmental designs, with my favourite project being a plan to turn Battersea Power Station into passive housing, a project that was exhibited at the Pompidou Centre in Paris, which was a very cool place to show having recently opened in 1977.
Unfortunately, a lot of these ideas projects were conceptual and were never realised being too early for the real mainstream acceptance of complete environmental change.
After nearly four years working closely with Donald Forrest and his happy team at Autarkic Potentials Ltd, I had the opportunity to start my own business, which I did working as an interior architect and property developer.
Since 1984 I have worked in London buying properties, completely redesigning them by acting as the architect, reconstructing them as the project manager and putting them back on the market to sell.
Another part of my work has been redesigning my visionary clients homes by turning them into better functioning and more attractive properties, which has been a real pleasure for me.
I do not need to have a website because of the type of work I do but I thought it would be nice to share what I am doing in Montenegro with other people contemplating buying and renovating property in another country.
Skadar Lake
(The View I am Looking At In Previous Photo)