It’s a new era! BLP has appointed 12 Principals and 11 Associates as its new leadership team. After a successful 25 years of practice and a 130-strong team across Melbourne and Sydney, BLP is moving to a more inclusive model of ownership recognising performance and fostering diversity of talent.
The new team of Principals includes Ron Billard, Tara Veldman, Mark Mitchell, Adam Muggleton, Shane Wood, Paul Longridge, Ariel Lopez, Tonya Hinde, Raj Senanayake, Ken Tsen, Emily Gilfillan, and Matthew Hughes.
Following David Leece’s recent retirement from BLP, Tara Veldman’s appointment as Managing Director is part of the executive restructure developed by the Board. Tara successfully established the Sydney office over 10 years ago and has built the studio to 70 staff with a range of health, schools and tertiary projects, including the soon to be completed Campbelltown Hospital (mid 2021), and the University of Sydney Health Precinct, a project in collaboration with DS+R.
“The significant projects BLP is working on will shape the future of social infrastructure in Australia and overseas,” said Tara. “We design for a healthy world. We are focused on re-envisaging hospitals, health hubs, education precincts, high tech research labs, residential communities and continuing to pioneer new ways of working.”
Adam Muggleton has been newly appointed as a Company Director, joining Billard, Veldman and Mitchell on the board, with non-executive directors, Tim Shannon and David Tregoning.
The new team of Associates includes Andreas Dimakopoulos, Katarina Vrdoljak, Matt Kenchington, Megan Harris, Smitha Suraj, Simon David, Phillipa Sharp, Bettina Bartos, Alessandro Filippi, Shaun Cassidy, and Edwina Ter.
Tara said she will continue to foster the evidence-led, user-focused design strategy employed successfully by the practice for the past 25 years. The current pandemic underlines the importance of the social impact of health and wellbeing in the built environment.
“Our objective is to build healthier communities, which means designing for the entire community by creating well-considered environments for the more vulnerable: developing playful healing and learning opportunities for children; providing safe, non-stigmatized spaces for people with mental health issues; stimulating secure centres for seniors and their families,” said Tara.
In recent years BLP has delivered many award-winning complex projects, valued up to $2 billion. Significant sites include the Royal Children’s Hospital in Melbourne; Orygen – The National Centre of Excellence in Youth Mental Health in Parkville, VIC; the University of Melbourne’s Werribee Campus Redevelopment; and the Hong Kong Children’s Hospital.
The practice is currently engaged in the planning of The Children’s Hospital Westmead and the Sydney Children’s Hospital Randwick projects (overall investment $1.3 billion), where BLP is charged with shaping the future delivery of paediatric healthcare through design.
“I’m delighted to lead this talented team at this challenging moment in history, continuing the legacy of design led by Ron and David for more than two decades.” said Tara.
“Our business has a proven ability to deliver complex and large-scale projects with an inherent humanity, that’s greatly appreciated by our government clients. The BLP design team has worked with the principles of design research, design thinking and co-design methodologies for decades, putting the user at the heart of the design process, being empathetic to their needs.”
