Autumn 2025

Custom House, Leith
Moving towards a planning application

Funds are being amassed to allow submission of the design for Leith Custom House for planning and listed building consent

A dedicated fundraising post is currently being engaged by the client, The Scottish Historic Buildings Trust, and a full planning permission is expected to be submitted probably at Christmas. 

The project to convert Custom House into a digital museum, studios, offices, bars and cafes has already been subject to extensive pre-application consultation with both Edinburgh Council’s Planning Department and Historic Environment Scotland. 

Plans were also recently exhibited on film and well-received in the building itself, shown during the recent nationwide Doors Open Day programme.  

Image shows one of the rooms in the proposed museum. 

Laidlaw Digital Library 
Full planning application submitted

New House in Elie, Fife
Planning permission achieved 

We are currently looking at three exciting potential projects: a large supermarket, hotel and residential development in Kent, an  office extension on the east side of Edinburgh, and a new building for the Edinburgh Interfaith Association. We have already carried out substantial work all three projects and hopefully we will have more news on all before Christmas.

We were approached by a couple hoping to build a house on a plot of land on Clark Road in Goldenacre, Edinburgh, which was being sold by the City Council. Sadly their offer was unsuccessful but they have kindly agreed for us to show our design.

The site is very unusual, set down below street level at the level of an old railway line, it is surrounded by trees and set back from the street, so we made a little tower accessed to the first floor via a bridge, with bedrooms at that level, the living spaces on the second floor in the branches of the trees, and the master bedroom above that. The design was completed by a roof terrace on the top with views of the new and old towns and with a garage and studio etc on the ground floor. Further details can be seen here. 
Image shows an aerial view of the house. 

RHSPT High School
Advanced work continues

Advanced work continues on site with Robertson Construction, preparing the ground for the main contract works to commence in the next period.
 

Furniture has been installed and the landscaping competed. The franchisee of the café has yet to finish installing there, and when that is in place the whole project should be complete.
Images show (top) main interior (bottom row, L-R) board room and rear courtyard garden. 

Papple Steading, Haddington
Nearing completion 

The project continues with Eve's Court, the Demarco Gallery, exhibition spaces 01 and 02 and the first apartment to be finished, all due for completion in November. 

Image shows our client George Mackintosh with custom artwork by Jaime Gili being installed by the artist in the first of our apartments to be finished.

Richard will be lecturing at University College Dublin on Thursday 16^th October and Friday 17^th.  The Thursday lecture will cover selected projects under the title of Of It's Time and of It's Place with the Friday lecture featuring three projects by Scarpa. Both lectures take place at the Red Room at UCD's Richview main campus (Richview School of Architecture). The main building is just across from the architectural library. They will both be at 1pm and non-University members are welcome.

Richard is also hosting a drinks reception in the house we designed in Dalkey on the evening of 16^th October. If you wish to come please contact Pauline in the office. Image below shows the house at Dalkey.

GENERATION 
Exhibition at the Royal Scottish Academy 
24 January – 8 March 2026

Wearing his hat as an Academician at the Royal Scottish Academy, Richard proposed curating an exhibition of past colleagues who have worked in the practice and have gone on to establish their own practices and have achieved some beautiful work. Generation currently includes work from 14 practices: Craig Amy; Tina Bergman; Andrew Brown; Sonia Browse; the late Oliver Chapman represented by Martin Lambie who is now a director there;  Kris Grant; Peter Guthrie; Professor Ed Hollis; Klas Hyllen; Gareth Jones with Daryl Robbins and Brian Tobin; Matt Loader; Jordi Sanahuja; Stewart Stevenson; and Will Tunnell.
 
The RSA overview reads:
Curated by Richard Murphy RSA OBE, Generation will explore the idea of the architectural family tree, bringing together the work of 16 architects, all of whom formerly worked at the Edinburgh practice of Richard Murphy Architects and have since gone on to establish their own successful practices. Richard Murphy acknowledges Ted Cullinan (1931-2019), Richard MacCormac (1938-2014), Isi Metzstein RSA (1928-2012), Glen Murcutt and Carlo Scarpa (1906-1978) as influential on his own practice. Now he is looking to the next generation to see how this legacy is continued.
 
Image shown is Malvern Pool House by Klas Hyllen.

Richard Demarco at Papple Steading 
 

Richard was a guest at the Richard Demarco's 95th birthday celebrations held at Papple Steading where part of the Demarco Collection and Archive has been established. Image shows (L-R) our client for Papple Steading, George Mackintosh and Daniel Muzyczuk, director of Museum Sztuki.

Another successful Doors Open Day at Hart Street
 

Richard's house was again a venue for Doors Open Day which saw over 600 visitors queue down the street over the course of the day.  Tours were given in groups of six and the atmosphere and feedback on the day made it all worthwhile! 

Our former employee Kevin McAvinchey, now relocated to Norway and working for SBG Byggprosjekt, brought his whole office to Edinburgh and of course were given a warm welcome and tour at Richard's house. 

Our speculative proposals for a new modern art gallery in East Princes Street Gardens were covered extensively in The Herald which you can read here.  Of the proposals and increased visitor numbers envisaged, Richard noted 

“What I used to love about the Modern Art Gallery when it was in Inverleith House in the Botanical gardens was that people just wandered into the building and found themselves looking at modern art. It wasn’t just the cognoscenti who wanted to go and look….. it was genuinely inclusive….they were there because it happened to be in the gardens and it was another thing to do...and I think we’d get that back if we put it into Princes Street Gardens, particularly from Waverley Bridge. People would just wander in…..I think the problem could then be too many people, not too few"
 

A new book by Professor Timothy Mowl and Julian Orbach features our proposed Anglia Ruskin University  library and the competition-winning Jesus College auditorium project. As the introduction notes the book starts “in the 1670’s with Robert Grumbold’s projected quadrangle for St Catherine’s College and ends in 2012 with Richard Murphy Architects’ amphitheatre of books proposed for the library of Anglia Ruskin University”
 
Copies of the book can be purchased by emailing here: unbuiltcambridge@gmail.com

Images shows the front cover of the book. 

UNBUILT PROJECTS RE-EXAMINED
New visualisations of unbuilt projects

We recently compiled a beautiful booklet about all the many buildings and projects we have designed for the arts.

In the process of doing that we took the opportunity to brush up the presentation for some unbuilt work as our CGI programmes and skills have greatly improved over the last few years.

Images show: a new university library for Anglia Ruskin University in Cambridge; our competition entry for an extension and re-organisation of Paisley Museum, our competition winning proposals for the Shetland Music Centre and our competition winning design for an auditorium and other buildings for Jesus College Cambridge. The projects and new visualisations can be seen in full via the links above or by selecting each picture. 

THE BREAKFAST MISSION
Studio offices available

The Breakfast Mission is a historic building, (formerly a mission hall), located in the centre of the Old Town. 

We currently have an exciting opportunity for new tenants to join us at in the building. Current tenants include ourselves, a foreign consulate office, another architects practice and engineers. 

Two spaces are available, a larger self-contained private office measuring 65sq.m and the smaller mezzanine studio office, 29 sq. m.  Both have easy access to meeting rooms, kitchens and bicycle storage areas and are easily customisable.

If you'd like more information or wish to view either space, please contact Pauline (0131 220 6125)  for further details. 

Image shows a previous tenants customisation of the larger available office.

End of a story. The last large shipment of Carlo Scarpa and Castelvecchio Revisited books have gone to Verona for sale in the Castelvecchio’s own shop. There are only about 25 remaining until it is out of print!  All told, 4,375 copies have been sold in over 62 countries. Both the English and Italian editions of the book can still be ordered from here