Profile

MATHESON WHITELEY is an award winning London based architectural studio established in 2012 by Donald Matheson and Jason Whiteley.

The directors founded the studio following experience with leading architects Herzog & de Meuron (Switzerland) and Tony Fretton Architects (UK) and have gone on to develop a reputation for the intelligent and creative re-use of existing buildings and structures.

Completed projects include art galleries for Hollybush Gardens, Stuart Shave/Modern Art and Frieze, a group of studios for the artists David Noonan, Michael Raedecker and Goshka Macuga, a showroom for the fashion house Alexander McQueen and the redevelopment of Studio Voltaire.

Current projects in design or construction include new houses in London, Norfolk and Patmos (Greece) and a new artist studio complex in East London.

The work of the practice has been included in the 2014 Wallpaper Architecture Directory and Surface Magazine Endorsement Awards and was nominated in the 2015 RIBA Awards and the 2016 BD Architect of the Year Awards. In 2017 they won the 2017 BCO Award for Innovation and the 2018 AJ Small Projects Award. Studio Voltaire is a nominee for the 2021 AJ Retrofit Award.

 

Biographies

Donald Matheson completed studies in architecture at University of Edinburgh in 1997. From 2001-09 he worked in the office of Tony Fretton Architects and oversaw the design and construction of award winning and critically acclaimed projects in the UK and internationally. From 2009-12 he worked with Swiss architectural practice Herzog & de Meuron as project architect for the Tate Modern Project.

Jason Whiteley is a London-based New Zealand designer of Chinese/Pakeha descent. He studied physics and mathematics, before graduating from Te Herenga Waka – Victoria University of Wellington in architecture (2000) and qualifying as an architect in 2005. His career began in New Zealand, completing a number of houses in private partnership. In 2006 he began collaborating with Swiss architects Herzog & de Meuron designing large and complex residential and cultural buildings alongside projects with Herzog & de Meuron’s Digital Technology Group. Jason was a studio leader at Department of Architecture and Landscape at Kingston University School of Art, Adjunct Professor at Victoria University of Wellington’s Faculty of Architecture and Design Innovation / Te Wāhanga Waihanga-Hoahoa and a visiting critic at University of Cambridge Department of Architecture.

 

Studio

Donald Matheson
Jason Whiteley
James Bailey (Associate)
Richard Draper
Oliver Evans

 

Publications

Roux, Caroline. “Dramatic renovation for Studio Voltaire ahead of William Scott’s first UK survey show”, Financial Times, Life & Arts, October 15 2021
Interview. “Architect Jason Whiteley On Designing No.9 Cork Street”, Frieze Magazine, September 2021.
Williams, Fran. “Artists’ studios in Stuttgart”, Architects Journal, December 2019.
Jessel, Ella. “AJ Small Projects 2018”, Architects Journal, April 2018. Print & film.
Jacobs, Katie. “Art of Less.” World of Interiors, November 2016. Print.
“Trebble Bass.” Architecture Today, 170: July 2016. Print.
Woodman, Ellis (ed). The Architecture Foundation Presents New Architects 3, Merrell, London, 2016
Melbourne-Hayward, Amelia. “Offshore Talent”, Architecture NZ, November 2015. Retrieved from URL.
Stathaki, Ellie. “Super Studios.” Wallpaper Magazine, November 2015. Print.
“Segmented Vault: New Gallery for Hollybush Gardens.” Architecture Today, No. 254, January 2015. Print.
Gander, Ryan. “Little Chef” in Fieldwork: An Incomplete Reader. Plazzy Banter, London, 2015, pp. 54-63.
“Architects Directory.” Wallpaper Magazine, June 2014. Print.
Volner, Ian. “Matheson Whiteley.” Surface Magazine, Endorsements Issue Vol. 68: April 2014. Print.
“Birmingham Charrette.” Architects Journal, November 2013. Print.
“Space to Think.” Monocle, Issue 66, September 2013. Print.

 

Events

Living Within. Exhibition, Messums Wiltshire with Invisible Studio/Piers Taylor, Jenny Jones, Feilden Fowles, Peter Clegg, vPPR, Stiff + Trevillion and Niall McLaughlin. 12 September – 18 October 2020.
Re-Use. Public lecture, Kingston University Faculty of Art, Design and Architecture. 2017.
Afterlife, presentation, Architecture Foundation Good Grief series, London, September 2016
Unfolding Pavilion, Daniel Munteanu (curator), drawing in exhibition, Biennale di Venezia, Venice, 2016
Architecture in Bad Weather. Collection of New Zealand houses curated for OfHouses, October 2015
Birmingham Charrette, exhibition, Birmingham, October 2013
The Past is Another Country, public lecture, Victoria University of Wellington School of Architecture, October 2013
Fairfield International, Gander, Ryan, public exhibition of project proposal, Suffolk, September 2013
Working Methods, public lecture, Victoria University of Wellington School of Architecture, March 2012

 

Credits

Website design and development by Deniz Gezgin.