Kevin Drayton

I’m an architect living in West Yorkshire with my darling wife, our chocolate labrador Bertie and two rescue cats, Molly and Wiffle. I recently stepped back after many years as a partner in a multi-disciplinary full-service private architectural practice to pursue more personal projects. Although not a Yorkshireman (I was brought up in Cambridgeshire) I’ve lived here longer than anywhere else.

Whilst my corporate life was all about planning, building, clients and ‘telegrams and anger’ as E M Forster put it, the reasons why I went into architecture in the first place (and stuck with it for so long) became overtaken by the needs of keeping an office of 25 or so people chugging along on a daily basis. In over 40 years of full-time practice I’ve learned and experienced a lot about planning, architecture and construction. And I thought there might be another way to make use of that knowledge and experience for the benefit of people. That’s why I set up Your Architect Ally.

I’ve seen the business from many different angles, been involved in projects of all types and sizes and I’ve made mistakes and seen things go wrong more times than I care to remember. Everything – the good, the bad and the unfortunate – has contributed to who and where I am today. I’m keen to help with the nuts and bolts of planning and construction, allowing the beauty of good design to come to the fore.

As well as architectural practice I’ve lectured, taught, written, served on various professional bodies, undertaken research, acted in legal cases and generally poked my nose into most corners of our business. I’ve also played a lot of very coarse rugby, some abysmal tennis, dabbled with amateur theatre, modern dance and bored numerous people witless about my musical tastes. I designed the house we live in and never cease to enjoy explaining it to bewildered visitors.