About Us
Folk. is a unique collaboration between design and delivery experts Phil Coffey (Coffey Architects) and Colm Lacey (Soft Cities). We have many years of experience in the development industry and share a vision to create genuinely people-focussed places, with a consistent focus on design and build quality.
Phil Coffey
Phil is an award winning architect who with his practice Coffey Architects based in London are currently designing exceptional, sustainable projects at all scales.
Phil won the coveted Building Design Young Architect of Year in 2012 following 7 years of practice with Coffey Architects. Phil is a regular critic at the Bartlett and other schools including Sheffield, Manchester and Cardiff Universities and the LSA. He is a member of the Islington and Lewisham Design Review Panels and has judged numerous awards including the Grand Design Awards, Surface Design Awards and the NLA Don’t Move Improve awards. He is the regional chair for the north London RIBA awards panel and he has judged the RIBA Stephen Lawrence Prize. Phil is also a founding member of the multi-disciplinary cohort of practices named Londonon and a Freeman of the WCCA.
Since establishment in 2005 Coffey Architects has developed a reputation for highly crafted residential, education, commercial and public projects. A growing team, we are designing and delivering some of the largest and most exciting mixed-use, housing, workplace and cultural projects across London and further afield. Our international projects include the completed 400,000 sqft Cloister Masterplan in Qingdao, China; and the ‘Nassa Diamond’ a 37 storey boutique office tower in downtown Dhaka, Bangladesh.
Coffey Architects have been recognised with a clutch of accolades, including multiple RIBA awards since 2005 and other significant honours including MIPIM UK Visionary Architect/Master Planner of the Year 2016 and the RIBA Stephen Lawrence Prize 2011.
Colm Lacey
Colm is Founding Director of Soft Cities, a consultancy practice offering a variety of services to the design, development and construction industries with a view to enabling high-quality, sustainable urban development. He was previously Founding Director and CEO of Brick By Brick, a multi-award winning development company and architecture practice and key innovator and influencer in a new era of public housing delivery.
After setting up Brick By Brick (incorporating Common Ground Architecture) from scratch in 2016, Colm grew it to become a national leader in council-led development, with an unwavering focus on high-quality design and affordability. By the time of his departure in 2022, the company had an annual turnover of over £100m and had developed around 800 multi-tenure homes across c25 small sites in South London, helping to address local housing need and permanently influence the quality of the wider urban environment.
Colm has over 20 years of senior level experience delivering public housing and regeneration programmes in a variety of roles across London, including time at LB Newham as Director of Regeneration, Planning and Olympic Legacy, at LB Croydon as Director of Development and at the Homes and Communities Agency (now Homes England) and Greater London Authority leading on major housing and development programmes throughout the city.
He holds masters degrees in Economics, Politics and Urban Design and is a regular contributor to housing, architecture and construction related publications promoting innovative housing models, good design and responsible urbanism. He also sits on the expert judging panels for numerous industry awards including AJ Architecture Awards, Construction News Awards, Building Design Architect of the Year Awards and the FX Interior Design Awards