My stepfather, Bryan Thomas, who has died aged 95, was an architect and designer who was liable for the design of many homes in north-east Essex throughout his lengthy profession.
Bryan’s observe additionally designed faculties, church buildings, group centres, a Quaker assembly room and buildings at Essex College. The biggest of his church buildings stands in Alresford, Essex, the place he additionally designed and constructed two “upside-down” homes within the Seventies. There, bedrooms on the bottom ground and dwelling rooms on the primary ground look throughout fields to the River Colne. Bryan delighted in and celebrated pure supplies, utilizing wooden, stone, brick and clay tiles in his buildings. Danish purity of design was a enduring affect on him.
Born in India, he was the son of Ruth (nee Rowley), a nurse then a housewife, and Reginald Thomas, an engineer posted to the nation. Alongside along with his brother, Colin, he did his secondary training on the New Faculty in Darjeeling, arrange for youngsters marooned in India by the second world struggle. When his household moved to the UK on the finish of the struggle, he went to Worthing Artwork Faculty in Sussex after which did 5 years of coaching on the Architectural Affiliation Faculty of Structure in London. After nationwide service within the RAF, within the early Fifties he started working for a collection of London architects earlier than returning to Essex and organising his personal observe in Colchester in 1957.
His purchasers included artists, academics, medical doctors, clergy and a decide. In 1960 he designed a home for a neighborhood apple farmer; later, the encompassing orchards turned the world-famous backyard created by the “farmer’s spouse”, Beth Chatto.
In 2020 he was considerably perturbed when one in every of his homes (inbuilt 1961 in Colchester), featured on Channel 4 because the baddy within the collection Ugly Home to Beautiful Home. He was gratified when individuals contacted him afterwards to say they most popular his authentic design.
I’ve lived in and helped construct a number of of Bryan’s buildings, and would say that his ingenious use of area and lightweight make them thrilling, pleasant and purposeful areas. He lastly retired from structure in 2019, aged 91.
Bryan’s ’s first marriage, in 1954 to Pauline Venton, resulted in divorce in 1973. His second spouse, Wendy Foster, whom he married in 1975, died in 2021.
He’s survived by 4 sons, Adam, Micheal, Crispin and Dominic from his first marriage, 4 stepchildren, me, Emma, Ruth and John, from Wendy’s first marriage, 14 grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.
