“There is no better example of how design can add value to the business of development in the built environment than is to be found in the work of Urban Splash.

“In my view that is because it’s founders, entrepreneur Tom Bloxham and architect Jonathan Falkingham, have a proper understanding of what design is. Their combination of talents demonstrates the impact of critical thinking, the core component of design skill, alongside creativity, communication, and an aesthetic sensibility. If you are going to truly benefit from the input of design talent to your business, you need to permit its influence from the very beginning, and across the full range of your process.

“From the moment I first came across Urban Splash, I could see that was the case. Everything they do is informed and improved by good design. The result, from humble beginnings, is an enviable oeuvre in master-planning, the architecture of new and refurbished buildings, regeneration and placemaking. And they have been generous with it, contributing much to the culture of architecture and design, including at the RIBA.

“So now they can say, with justification, ‘Look on my works, oh ye mighty, and despair!’”

“Stephen Gardiner’s quote comes to mind at once when I think of Urban Splash “Good buildings come from good people, and all problems are solved by good design.”

“A sneaky peek at the Urban Splash trophy shelf bulging with RIBA Awards surely glows with their energy, excitement and still apparently youthful enthusiasm for breaking the development mould, by brilliantly harnessing the naturally gushing lateral creativity of architects allowed off the leash.

“They have been rightly rewarded for having mined the multifarious and often untapped opportunities in developing and restoring under loved buildings around the country, many derelict and listed. They have run towards ideas which others have dumped, and been richly rewarded with accolades for such as diverse projects as Saxton in Leeds, Park Hill in Sheffield, Royal William Yard in Plymouth, the Midland Hotel, Morecambe, Fort Dunlop, Birmingham and many Manchester and Liverpool warehouses.

“The UK is a better, more exciting place to live in due to Urban Splash’s imaginative business strategies. At the centre of their success is, without doubt, a reliance upon brilliant architects, and the natural result is an unprecedented number of RIBA Awards.

“Well done to Tom and Jonathan’s team. There’s more to come I have no doubt.”

“Smithfield Buildings was perhaps the first Urban Splash building I visited (with Kisho Kurokawa) in 1997 and I recall we both applauded what had been achieved. Imagination, good architecture and quality were refreshingly at the forefront of the building’s renewal, an approach which seems to have underpinned every Splash development since then. The development pre-empted Lord Rogers’ Towards an Urban Renaissance and the case for densification of our cities. It signalled the return to living in Manchester city centre.

“However, for me, it is the change it has engendered in the culture of development that is most significant… the story of Urban Splash has not simply been about the developments or architecture. Very often it’s work has been with ignored, forgotten, or challenging buildings and environments...bringing an inventiveness to regeneration, whether it be with terraced housing in Salford, or the derelict Fort Dunlop in Birmingham, Park Hill in Sheffield or New Islington in Manchester.

“Each day I stare out from my office across the Bridgewater Canal at my favourite, Timber Wharf completed in 2002, which represented a step forward in the building technology of inner-city residential development. Sixteen years on, and that same pioneering approach is seeking to redress outmoded construction methodologies with the development of ‘House’, a prefabricated flexible home.

“It is this transformation of the culture of development and the quality of what has been delivered that so many other developers have tried to emulate but never quite matched.

“And it all started in Manchester and Liverpool…!”

“Open the Urban Splash website and you will read - About Us: “In the beginning, there was no big plan, no strategy, just a wholehearted belief in cities, in design, in architecture and a desire to make things better”.

“When Tom and Jonathan got together twenty five years ago they fused a great energy to create something from nothing - decaying sheds of a bygone age were transformed into desirable loft apartments and cool trendy workspaces, from Manchester and Liverpool to Sheffield and beyond.

“I remember visiting some of their projects on our English Heritage Urban Panel visits and being amazed by their casual business creativity and tremendous success at creating innovative places that were a joy to visit and recommend to others as exemplar projects. They were the cool boys up North bringing vast old stone mills and warehouses back into urban everyday life.

“Good design was always top of their agenda, rewarding them with business success over the years. They have won over 40 RIBA awards for their creative excellence. They make regeneration fun and sustainably the right thing to do, from the largest listed structure in Europe at the iconic Park Hill regenerated estate in Sheffield, to the hands on approach by home buyers getting involved in planning their own new House project, as in New Islington, Manchester.

“Urban Splash is About ‘US’. Where they feel they ‘would like to live and want to work’, a great work ethos with still many more projects to come. Their well selected name says it all - a Splash of Urban delight.”

“The joy of Urban Splash is how contagious their confidence is. In cities across England, they have found the buildings that are key to the identity of the place and imbued them with new life and vision, shouting out to the community that it is worth investing in, raising public confidence.

“The Urban Splash development that is closest to my heart I have known both before and after its regeneration. Park Hill Sheffield was a no-go area in the 70’s and 80’s when I lived in the city.

“What should have been a monument to social housing was an oppressive reminder of lack of investment and poor management hanging over the city centre. Taking huge but very successful liberties with the fabric of this listed building it now sparkles back, radiating new confidence.

“The role that good design has played in this and the other schemes they have been responsible for has provided exemplars for the role great design plays in regeneration.

“For Park Hill and many other acts of faith in investing in challenging but important buildings, I am really glad that they did make it work.”

“However much you believe in the power of architecture and design to transform places there is always a slight sense of disbelief when someone actually goes and does it. And Urban Splash have gone and done it at industrial scale. Again and again for 25 years!

“Bloody-mindedly picking the most unpromising, most decayed land and buildings, abandoned by all the know-alls; then with wild confidence turning it into humming urbanity full of people, energy and life.

“Urban Splash seem to transmit through the complex arts of development, the unique spirit of late 80’s Manchester, as technically proficient as stylish, brave and infectious.”

“I hadn’t really paid much attention to Urban Splash until my run up to be RIBA president in 2005-7 and then they seemed to be everywhere.

“In my two years in office they won nearly 100 awards, using great architects in low value areas. Surely that can’t work? And for such hyper cool lads from the North they seem to be very supportive of the RIBA.

“They were everywhere, at every party and at every after party. There were paradoxes all around. So, what was the trick?

“The “trick” was and is a great partnership, a visionary partnership, between Tom Bloxham, a natural and serial entrepreneur and Jonathan Falkingham, an architect who can see which way is up. They built their business from the ground up and didn’t let early set-backs deter them.

“With huge energy and foresight they bought properties for “less than the price of a carpet” and instead of demolishing them as others would have – they turned them into cool lofts and workplaces, establishing a superb company.

“They may be twenty-five years old, but they were always ten years ahead of the curve. Their use of top architects, because only they could get the best out of challenging low-budget projects, has been very shrewd.

“Urban Splash or Urban Legend? Here’s to the next 25.”

“Of course, it will never work.

“A couple of mad-hat dreamers building a mould breaking design-led property empire, ignoring all good advice from surveyors and agents?

“What a farcical notion that they can change the way we live in our cities by gutting and stuffing old industrial buildings and sites that no-one else would touch - and in our challenged Northern cities too.

“If anything makes one believe in the art of the impossible it is the improbable story of these two rock stars of urban regeneration who then had the cheek to invade the South!

“It has been a roller-coaster 25 years of high design, demonstrating that dogged determination, and wild imagination, combined with some of the best architecture in the UK, is a very potent mix - but of course it will never work!”