Open hires from Mecanoo

Design studio Open continues to establish itself in Manchester, taking on the fifth team member in six months. Aoife Rath-Cullimore joins from Mecanoo, after working on major projects in the city such as MECD, for the University of Manchester, and Kampus, on behalf of Capital & Centric and Henry Boot Developments.

Rath-Cullimore will join Open’s diverse team of landscape architects and urban designers, working on projects across the North and the Midlands. The studio’s current workload includes town centre masterplans in Greater Manchester and Merseyside, the design of public spaces and creation of a new parkland destination as well as the redevelopment of a former paper mill in South Yorkshire into a new community of over 300 homes.

Jaimie Ferguson, former head of design at Turley and design director at BDP, set up the new venture towards the end of 2016. He said of the latest hire: “We are really pleased to welcome Aoife to the team, having worked successfully together on a range of masterplan frameworks for Manchester City Council in the past. Her experience will be valuable to our clients and the projects we have secured across a broad range of sectors.

“In setting up the studio I wanted to provide an independent and interdisciplinary design service, with the range of skills needed to tackle regeneration challenges and create great new places. Aoife’s arrival strengthens our ability to do that and opens up exciting new areas of work and collaboration.”

Optimised Environments Limited, or Open, is a multi-disciplinary design company with masterplanning, urban design, landscape architecture and environmental planning at its core. It has a team of over 35 professional and technical staff working from studios in Manchester, Edinburgh and London.

Open Manchester is based at Beehive Mill, Jersey Street, Ancoats.