Tutor
Architecture Programme
School of Architecture
architecture@rca.ac.uk
www.procter-rihl.com
Christopher Procter co-founded Procter-Rihl, an award-winning practice for architecture and furniture. He trained at the Architectural Association (London), Carnegie Mellon University (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA), and the School for International Training (Japan). His international experience combines with a passion for sustainable design, and a thorough knowledge of timber construction through direct experience as a contractor and carpenter during his studies and practice.
Christopher Procter built earth-formed concrete structures at Paolo Soleri's Arizona construction workshop, Arcosanti, for his high school thesis project. He then went on to study architecture at Carnegie Mellon University where after year three he customised his degree to focus on sustainable design. He designed a proposed University Active Solar Laboratory with a group of Mechanical Engineering students for the ME thesis project. He joined the Housing in Developing Countries MA programme for another group research project on low-cost housing for the Peruvian altiplano climate, with his research on passive solar possibilities of stone structures. He designed a timber low-energy house in Vermont – all rooms with south windows, a sun space conservatory, north triple-glazed and earth sheltered, and primary heat wood stoves with back boilers for domestic HW. He built this house as a carpenter in the summer between third- and fourth-year studies. His fifth-year thesis investigated design strategies towards achieving 100 per cent passive heat in the northeast United States, with particular emphasis on trombe wall and clustering. He also pursued a minor in Asian History and Culture, culminating in an intensive language/cultural studies semester with the School for International Training in Japan.
After working as an architect in New York City on new housing projects, Christopher moved to London in 1987 to pursue further design study at the Architectural Association. He worked as a designer at Rick Mather Architects and Allies and Morrison, where he qualified for RIBA part 3. In 1995 he set up his practice Procter-Rihl with Fernando Rihl as a multidisciplinary firm for furniture and architecture. The practice has designed and exhibited worldwide, won awards and been widely published.
Christopher has been a visiting critic at the Architectural Association and at the University for the Creative Arts at Canterbury. He taught second-year Spatial Design at Chelsea College of Art and Design from 2007 to 2009. For the Royal College of Art’s ADS Studio 3 he organised the three-week design/three-day build student live construction project in Vermont, USA, in October 2008. Archiprix with the Federal University of Uruguay invited him to lead a 10-day research workshop in Montevideo at the 2009 Archiprix International Architectural Graduate Awards Conference.
Christopher joined the RCA Architecture programme to run the CDP (Comprehensive Design Project) course in 2009.