William Russell studied architecture at the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne and the Royal College of Art, working in Hong Kong for commercial architects RMJM between degrees. Having graduated from the RCA, he setup practice with David Adjaye before establishing William Russell Architecture & Design in 2000. In 2005 he joined Pentagram’s London office as a partner.

His clients include The London Jewellery Centre (a joint venture between Holtz Jewellers and The London Borough of Camden), Alexander McQueen, Cass Art, COS, Krug Champagne, the London Borough of Camden, Margaret Howell, H&M and the Tate Gallery. In addition to these, he has designed numerous residential projects for clients such as Ewan MacGregor and the artist Chris Ofili while the construction of his own residence in Bacon Street, East London, has attracted critical acclaim from around the world.

William’s work has been extensively published in both the architectural press, design journals and numerous books. His projects have received prestigious awards including the VM + SD New York Store Award of the Year 2002 for the Alexander McQueen Flagship Store and Commercial Architecture Awards for retail environments for Cass Art and Margaret Howell. In 2003 he was short-listed for the Mies van der Rohe Award, the European Union Award for Contemporary Architecture and in 2008 his work for Tate Modern featured in the Creative Review Annual, which named Pentagram as its Design Studio of the Year.

William taught a diploma unit at London South Bank University for three years. He has been involved in a series of workshops at the Royal College of Art and has been an invited lecturer at the Royal Institute of the Architects of Ireland (RIAI) and the University of Buckinghamshire where he is presently the External Examiner for the three dimensional design course.