Last week, we gathered to celebrate the retirement of Barry McCullough after twenty‑two years with Levitt Bernstein. Over an informal conversation, we looked back at his time at the practice and the many projects that have helped to shape our story.

Barry joined us in 2003, having already enjoyed a distinguished career at ABK, where he worked on the British Embassy in Moscow and the Arts Building at Trinity College Dublin. At the time, it was rare for us to appoint someone so senior from outside the practice and what drew him to us was a wish to return to the kind of work he first experienced in his student days in Belfast — housing that makes a tangible difference to ordinary lives.

That motivation ran through everything Barry touched here. His early work included Bermondsey Spa, Southwark one of the first large‑scale housing association–led regeneration projects in London. He helped to deliver over 600 homes there, bringing new life to post‑war bomb sites and setting a template for later mixed‑tenure estates. Projects such as the adjoining Spa School and Bolina Road housing followed, showing Barry’s ability for design at every scale — from complex urban masterplans to the smallest entrance detail, always approached with humanity and care.

Barry also had a profound influence on how the practice uses technology. He led our first experiment with Building Information Modelling, patiently guiding us from the wire‑frame world of AutoCAD into the more integrated possibilities of Revit and digital collaboration. The practice database — the tacit backbone of our day‑to‑day project work — was another of his lasting contributions.

There was, of course, much more. Barry’s portfolio spans estate regenerations in Southwark, Greenwich and Ealing; award‑winning community-led projects such as Acton Gardens; sensitive infill developments from Waltham Forest to Rochdale; and, in recent years, a remarkable body of work in Ireland. Projects for Dublin City Council and the housing provider AHB have extended our collaboration with ABK and with new partners such as Scott Tallon Walker Architects, continuing cross‑border architectural friendships that began decades ago.

Throughout all of this, Barry’s calm authority, gentle humour and innate generosity have been constants. He has mentored many, ensuring that transitions happen smoothly, and that people grow with confidence. It is difficult to imagine our board meetings without his quiet steadiness and the occasional, well‑timed raising of sharp elbows when something really mattered.

Beyond the drawings and the databases, Barry exemplifies the values we hold closest. He believes architecture is about people — colleagues, collaborators, residents, clients — and that the measure of success is not only what gets built, but how it improves lives and relationships along the way.

As Barry steps into retirement, we celebrate more than two decades of dedicated service and creative leadership. He leaves behind an extraordinary legacy of housing projects across London and beyond, a practice better equipped for the challenges ahead, and a culture that continues to value both rigour and kindness.

We wish Barry and his family every happiness in what comes next — and look forward to hearing, as we often did during project reviews, that modest but satisfying phrase: “That’ll do nicely.”