Neven Sidor, who joined Grimshaw in 1981, and has served with the practice for 44 years, becomes the practice’s first Fellow.
Retiring from the practice in November 2025, Neven Sidor has become Grimshaw’s first Fellow. The Grimshaw Fellowship was set up in 2025 to enable the links into the practice to continue for retiring partners and those who have significantly contributed to the practice’s work, values and success.
In his long career with Grimshaw Neven has led design teams on over 24 projects across five countries. This includes the Stirling-Prize shortlisted Bijlmer Station in Amsterdam and Waterloo International Station which received the RIBA Building of the Year award (the precursor to the Stirling Prize) in 1994. Most recently he led the design team for HS2 Curzon Street station in Birmingham and the recently completed Civil Engineering Building at Cambridge University part of the Grimshaw’s West Cambridge masterplan. The Whittle Laboratory, also part of the West Cambridge masterplan, will open next year, Neven’s final project for the practice.
“In the 70’s I had what could be called an orthodox modernist education. Lighter weight buildings focused on structural elegance and adaptability in the tradition of Paxton and Prouvé were something completely new to me. I greatly admired Nick’s Herman Miller factory in Bath so applied for a job to find out how it was done. The architect Patrick Hodgkinson famously said that all architects were either cheese carvers or assemblers. You could say that I entered the practice as a cheese carver but quickly went over to the assemblers.”
Neven worked alongside Sir Nicholas Grimshaw, delivering the practice’s earliest defining projects including Oxford Ice Rink, the Sainbury’s Superstore and Grand Union Canal Walk houses in Camden, the Frankfurt Trade Fair Hall in Germany, and the Ijburg Bridge, now formally named the Enneüs Heerma Bridge in Amsterdam. He took his expertise and passion for purposeful and sustainable design to projects such as the University of Southampton Boldrewood Campus, which is the UK’s largest university and industry partnership and with the National Infrastructure Laboratory forms a significant part of the UK Collaboratorium for Research on Infrastructure and Cities (UKCRIC) and the BREEAM Excellent London School of Economics New Academic Building. In 2023 Neven also received the RIBA East Sustainability Award for his private home. ‘At its best, architecture has the power to delight, and this little house delighted the jury.’ stated the judges, ‘it is a combination of very low embodied energy, extremely good performance in use and close connection with its immediate surroundings.’
‘This ethos, continued commitment to architectural design that performs in harmony with its environment and people, is the legacy Neven leaves the practice.’ says Andrew Whalley, Chairman at Grimshaw. ‘Grimshaw’s Fellowship is about continuing to bring this invaluable expertise and philosophy to the practice, a bridge to our future generations, through design reviews and crits, and for Fellows to continue to be an ambassador for the Grimshaw practice externally, through lectures, events and publications.’
Neven delivered his first Fellowship lecture to the practice in November 2025 and will be part of the forthcoming Twentieth Century Society’s High Tech Dialogue Series in Spring 2026.
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