Out of the Ordinary is a detailed account of current work by Pollard Thomas Edwards architects (PTEa), accompanied by an overview of the career of this prominent practice. Innovators in both design and business strategies, PTEa have been pioneers of urban property development since they were established in the 1970s, and their radical methodologies continue to influence contemporary architecture, even as they continue to evolve. PTEa’s innovations have now become absorbed into standard urban design practice; this book shows how they continue to build upon their own radical approach in their most recent projects, including the development at City Road Basin, which houses their own offices among new mixed-use buildings and public gardens.

PTEa’s work, in its emphasis upon context and the accommodation of the new within the old, is doubly ‘out of the ordinary’; by emerging from and working within ‘ordinary’, existing structures, they are a truly extraordinary practice.