Conran and Partners DLR Group’s tie-up, announced on 24 September 2026, will see the Clerkenwell practice become the first European studio within DLR Group‘s network of 40 bases, spanning the US, Dubai, Shanghai and Hong Kong.
The deal keeps Conran and Partners’ five partners (Tim Bowder-Ridger, Katy Clarke, Sebastian Conran, Simon Kincaid and Tina Norden) in place as principals, leading the London and Hong Kong offices. Both studios will trade under the name Conran and Partners, a DLR Group studio. The practice’s 75 design professionals across the two offices will each have the opportunity to become DLR Group employee owners through the purchase of stock in the US company.
Why the partners chose DLR Group
Bowder-Ridger said the partners had been ‘exploring how to take the practice further through a strategic partnership’. The difficulty, he explained, was familiar to many boutique design practices: ‘We consistently found the same tension: growing bigger usually meant growing more corporate and losing the imagination of our boutique culture.’
DLR Group, he said, offered a way through. ‘DLR Group gave us a clear answer: more design resources, extended reach and the platform to grow without asking us to become something we’re not.’
For Norden, the employee ownership structure was a deciding factor. ‘The relationships we formed with DLR Group’s leadership made it clear this was a cultural match,’ she said. ‘Our clients will see the same team, the same studio and the same sophistication of design, with the additional design resources and expertise of DLR Group’s global platform. For our team, this opens new design and career opportunities in building types and geographic markets around the world.’
Beyond geographic reach within the network’s existing footprint, Architect’s Newspaper reports that the partnership also provides the studio with a path into US markets, extending Conran and Partners’ reach well beyond its current European and Asian bases.
DLR Group’s case for a luxury European presence
DLR Group chief executive Steven McKay described Conran and Partners as ‘synonymous with luxury design in Europe and around the world’. The acquisition, in his framing, is about raising the calibre of work at the premium end of the market. ‘Conran and Partners adds a luxury design studio and a level of craft that immediately elevates our work for clients at the premium end of the market in Europe, the Middle East, Asia and the US,’ McKay said.
He pledged to grow the London and Hong Kong studios ‘to delight and exceed the expectations of the most sophisticated clients in the world’, while keeping the practice’s identity intact. ‘Conran and Partners will remain a distinct luxury boutique design studio within DLR Group. That distinction is precisely the point, and precisely what we intend to invest in.’
A practice founded 46 years ago
The practice was set up 46 years ago by Terence Conran, founder of Habitat and the Design Museum, together with Fred Lloyd Roche, initially under the name Conran Roche, in 1980. Conran died in 2020, aged 88.
The company’s latest published accounts tell a mixed financial story. Turnover grew from £6.5 million to £7.5 million in the year to 30 March 2025, but the practice swung to a pre-tax loss of £714,832, reversing a £200,989 profit recorded in the prior 12 months. The strategic move into DLR Group’s global network comes as the practice seeks a firmer footing for growth.
With the Conran and Partners DLR Group combination now in place, McKay’s stated intention to invest specifically in the boutique identity of the London and Hong Kong studios sets a clear direction: the next step is growth in the premium segment, backed by a network of 40 offices and, for the first time, a direct route into the US market.
