Wildblood Macdonald turns 40!

Today Wildblood Macdonald celebrate 40 years as a practice

In mid-1975 Michael Wildblood ‘set up shop’ as a sole practitioner architect, working on a drawing board and tee square on the dining room table at his home in Gledhow Lane, Leeds.

A year later, on the 1^st July 1976, he was joined by Peter Macdonald and together they opened an office, shared with Structural Engineers Robert T. Horne and Partners, behind The Oven Door sandwich shop in North Street, Wetherby. Wildblood Macdonald had been formed.

The intervening 40 years have seen a number of office moves in Wetherby, culminating in a move to Parkhill Studio, its current offices, in 2003.

Philip Wright became partner in 1990 and Richard Burt in the period 1992 – 2005 during which time Peter Macdonald retired.

Stuart Fullerton became a partner in 2005 and subsequently led a management buyout in 2012 when he was joined at the helm by Mike Burkett, Catherine Hewitt and James Mate, the current directors of Wildblood Macdonald Architects Ltd.  Michael and Philip remain as consultants.

The firm has weathered a number of recessions over the past 40 years thanks mostly to its varied architectural workload.  In the 1980’s and 1990’s it gained a reputation for an expertise in the design of Children’s Hospices and in the subsequent decade became known also for sensitive housing schemes in the north of England for a number of the national housebuilders.

In more recent years, the design of large individual houses in the region coupled with a sound understanding of the planning system, has seen the firm cement its reputation for the provision of high quality architectural design and advice.

The firm continues to thrive and looks forward to the next 40 years of its life.

To celebrate the 40th year of Wildblood Macdonald we have been running a 40years:40projects countdown via social media all this week, showcasing our favourite and most popular projects from our portfolio.

To find out more about our #WM40 countdown take a look at our Instagram page here: www.instagram.com/WildbloodMac 

or via our #WM40 Pinterest page here: www.pinterest.com/wildbloodmac