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Lifetime Award for Bill Davies
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Trust Board Member Bill Davies has been presented with a Lifetime Achievement Award in the 2004 RSAW Housing Design Awards scheme. Bill will be familiar to civic society members not least for the fine watercolour sketches that illustrate his articles on architecture and urban design in About Wales. Bill's sketch of Plas Menai, the national watersports centre on the Menai Straits which he designed, is pictured above. The full citation reads:
"Bill Davies was born and brought up in North Wales and, after a period as an articled pupil to Colwyn Bay architect S Powell Bowen, studied at Manchester University School of Architecture, graduating in 1957. He then worked at Architects’ Co-partnership, London before moving to Denbighshire County Council, Chester City Council and Cumbernauld Development Corporation. He then spent three years with the Department of Public Works, Alberta, re-joining his old practice in 1971. This then became the Bowen Dann Davies Partnership, with Bill Davies as its Design Partner.
"The firm was hugely successful, over the years winning more than forty national architectural awards, including an RIBA Award and six Commendations, four Eisteddfod Gold Medals, and seven Civic Trust Awards and Commendations.
"Apart from public and private housing the range of work carried out by the practice included industrial, commercial, religious and other public buildings, as well as recreation and leisure complexes.
"Bill Davies’s design philosophy required any scheme to be sensitive to the needs of the people and the culture of the area, respecting the ethos of each particular site, be it urban or rural. In this way he mastered the art of reflecting in his buildings that elusive commodity – a sense of place. As a result he became renowned for his housing work, the firm, over the years, winning sixteen Welsh Office Housing Awards and Commendations.
"In 1985 he moved to Cardiff to join Wyn Thomas plc, later becoming an Honorary Professor at the Welsh School of Architecture and acting as a consultant to several organisations including Cadw, Welsh Historic Monuments. Currently he is a consultant to WynThomasGordonLewis.
"The Royal Society of Architects in Wales is very pleased to recognise the outstanding contribution made by Bill Davies to the development of housing design in Wales."
11/04