Chris Jones, Chairman of 10 Design speaks to Society Interiors & Design about his vision to guide 10 Design through its next phase of strategic growth and innovation alongside crafting the firm’s future direction, propeling the company to new heights.
How would you define 10 Design’s overarching architectural philosophy today, and how has it evolved in response to global shifts in lifestyle, climate, and technology?
I will answer that in two parts, firstly, I think it’s largely embedded how you structure a practice of creatives, from the outset we conceived the business as a singular entity in multiple locations with a shared vision for great architecture and a passion for the unique context, culture, and climates in which we operate. That combined with an inherent agility and adaptability to continually change and evolve. We have never been scared of change in fact we embrace it.
Secondly, our mission is to make responsible, forward-thinking, specific architecture, delivered with humanity whatever the location. We use architecture to solve the planet’s most urgent environmental, social, and commercial challenges, beautifully and pragmatically. Together, we believe in the universal currency of creativity.
Your portfolio spans large-scale masterplans, commercial developments, hospitality, mixed-use, and public spaces. How does your design approach adapt across these diverse typologies while maintaining a distinct identity?
The identity resonates in the quality of our design and delivery. We don’t have a house style, simply because each project, place, client, and user are different. There is so much interplay between typologies that our experience and ideas in each inform the other. In recent years in our post pandemic world we have witnessed the importance that hospitality plays on all our assets and how this is infused into multiple projects, commercial, mixed use public realm and master planning.
What role does research, computational design, and technology-driven exploration play in driving innovation at 10 Design? Could you share a recent project that reflects this?
We thrive in data rich environments and continually evolve our technical platforms and design tools to innovate and explore architecture and planning design processes.
As sustainable development becomes an industry imperative, what strategies does 10 Design consistently employ to ensure environmental responsibility from concept to completion?
You are right consistency is the key word and sustainability has been a cornerstone of our practice. This has been employed largely with a data driven, context specific design processes and a robust and smart continual Education programme. Environmental responsibility is now a priority for the majority of our clients, it’s a defining driver of decision-making, shaping projects from the earliest stages and influencing how they are designed, delivered, and operated. We welcome the opportunity to prioritise this discussion. We see ourselves as agents of change and as trusted advisors to our clients.
How do you integrate passive design, material efficiency, biodiversity, and resilience planning into projects across varying climate zones?
Our work is grounded in place-specific, data-led analysis undertaken inhouse, enabling us to integrate passive design strategies that respond directly to local climate, ecology, and available resources. With studios operating in regions already shaped by extreme weather – from typhoons in Asia and hurricanes across Florida and the Caribbean to the desert heat of Arabia and North Africa – we bring lived experience and empirical knowledge to resilience planning. However, we recognise that past experience alone is no longer sufficient. As climate change increases both variability and severity, we apply our sustainability framework from the outset of every project, embedding climate risk assessment and future climate data into the design process. This approach ensures our architecture is adaptable, durable, and resilient, not only for today’s conditions, but for the generations who will inherit it.
Many of your projects reshape urban fabric and community interactions. How do you balance commercial objectives with placemaking, accessibility, and long-term social impact?
It’s a good question, the balance is contingent upon good dialogue and effective and clear communication, firstly between design teams and the client and then more broadly to stakeholders. We operate in a number of mature markets where planning and entitlement processes can take years of consultation. You have to be patient and have the ability to listen, understand, and interpret the needs of numerous stakeholders and reach an agreed consensus.
With increased global focus on decarbonization, circular materials, and lowcarbon construction, what breakthroughs or practices are you most excited to adopt in future projects?
The design process is undergoing a fundamental shift, driven by the need for more resilient, highperforming, and low-carbon buildings. We embed sustainability from project inception, supported by strong in-house training. We’re particularly excited by ultra-thin vacuum glazing for sensitive retrofit and the emerging potential of modular stone construction as a low-carbon alternative to concrete.
Your firm works across multiple cultures and markets. How do you ensure that architecture remains contextually sensitive while still pushing design boundaries?
As architects we inherently have to solve complex problems and ideally curate and design simple and elegant solutions. This requires a commitment to place and a thorough understanding and respect of context. Typically, this results in buildings that work with their environment rather than against it, on a climactic, cultural, and social level. We ensure this by our presence, our analysis, and our engagement of both local partners both in terms of architects and the wider stakeholders of a projects, whether these are representatives of a wider Client body or regional community, residents, or amenity bodies.
What emerging trends — whether in smart cities, modular construction, adaptive reuse, or human-centric design — do you believe will define the next decade of architecture?
I hinted at this earlier, but we do see an increasing significance of the primacy of Human Centric Design and the associated principles of wellness, liveability and proximity to nature as critical to the success of our urban environments. This is also aligned to broader hospitality principles in establishing comfortable, intuitive, and genuinely healthy environments across all sectors.
As a leader mentoring global teams, what advice would you offer to young architects who want to innovate responsibly and contribute meaningfully to the built environment?
Expand your network. Look beyond your own discipline. Be social, be curious, engage with others. More increasingly the inter-disciplinary and cross-cultural dialogue is what drives innovation and successful responses to the built environment. This has served me well in my career and the opportunities in the future will only be seized through open dialogue knowledge share and ceaseless appetite to learn and evolve. Stay hungry and open minded.
