Prof. Stephen Bates
Stephen Bates is an architect and educator.
Having graduated from the Royal College of Art in 1989 and gained professional experience in London, Copenhagen and Barcelona, Stephen established Sergison Bates architects in 1996, together with Jonathan Sergison.
The practice has completed several critically acclaimed projects in the UK and across Europe and has won several prestigious awards, among them the Erich Schelling Prize and Heinrich Tessenow Gold Medal. They are currently in the process of delivering significant international cultural commissions, such as the KANAL cultural centre in Brussels and the Leuven Performing Arts Quarter.
Stephen has taught throughout his professional life, first at the Architectural Association in London, and subsequently as Visiting Professor at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zurich, the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale in Lausanne (EPFL), the Escuela Técnica Superior de Arquitectura (ESARQ), the Universidad Internacional de Catalunya (UIC/ETSAB) in Barcelona, the Oslo School of Architecture, the Harvard University Graduate School of Design, and the University of Antwerp. Since 2009 he has been Professor of Urbanism and Housing at the Technische Universität in Munich.
He regularly contributes to international architectural publications and has published several books, among them a three-volume collection of essays, Papers, Papers 2, Papers 3; Lineage and Legacy, a certain modernism in Cadaqués; Kanal #1 Thinking; From the Room to the city: Munich, Urbanity and Complexity; and the very recent Tent poles in the ground.
He has been a member of various Design Review Panels in London and has served on many international architectural competition juries, including the Iberian Premis FAD, the Stirling Prize in the UK, the Belgian Prize for Architecture, and has been President of the jury for the European Union Prize for Contemporary Architecture - Mies van der Rohe Award, Institut Balear de l'Habitatge (IBAVI) and the Premis d’Arquitectura de les Comarques de Girona in 2026.
Through his work in practice, writing and teaching he has explored the role of architecture at all scales, from city-making to domesticity, rethinking conventions and designing buildings that are rooted in place, engaged with the historical dimension of the existing urban fabric, and responsive to the challenges of environmental, economic and social sustainability.
He is a member of Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA), the Belgian Orde van Architecten and the Bayerische Architektenkammer.
Prof. Stephen Bates
Courtyard housing Lavender Hill, London (Photograph Johan Dehlin)
Harbour Building, Antwerp (Photograph Stijn Bollaert)
KANAL Museum of Contemporary Art and Architecture Museum, Brussels
(Image Secchi Smith)
Urban Quarter Tour and Taxis, Brussels (Photograph Stijn Bollaert)
Mansion Block, Hampstead (Photograph Johan Dehlin)
East Flanders Provincial Government Buildings, Ghent (Photograph Stijn Bollaert)
Performing Arts Quarter, Leuven (Image Secchi Smith)
Upper Lawn Pavilion, Wiltshire, Alison and Peter Smithson (Photograph Ian Cartlidge)
Mixed use building Mönckebergstrasse, Hamburg (Image_Secchi_Smith)
