Oliver Chapman

1969 - 2024

OCA Studio pays tribute to Oliver Chapman, our friend, mentor, and founder, who passed away in March 2024.

Oliver's dedication to his craft was profound. He exhibited a broad-ranging passion for architecture, encompassing everything from urban place-making to meticulous detailing. He valued dialogue, exchange of ideas, and nurturing relationships within his community, among collaborators, students and colleagues.

Oliver's legacy will remain present in the many lives he touched, in our work and our ongoing commitment to architecture, learning and discourse.

Currently Oliver's friends, family and his colleagues at OCA Studio are contemplating ways to honour Oliver's memory.

Oliver Chapman
BA(Hons) MArch RIAS, RIBA, RIAS Sustainable Design Accredited

Oliver Chapman founded the practice in 1997 and was the sole director until OCA became employee owned in early 2023. He took a personal, hands-on approach to projects and strived to create a collaborative spirit throughout the practice's activities which included coordinating multi-disciplinary teams especially for community engagement projects. Over his three decades in practice, he created buildings and places for creative industries, residential, leisure and other commercial uses often involving the sensitive re-use of buildings in places that had significant heritage value, landscape value or both. He received RIBA awards amongst others on behalf of the practice’s work and was an architectural assessor for the annual Civic Trust Award.

Oliver occasionally taught architecture (most recently at University of Edinburgh and Newcastle) and spoke regularly in public about the work and ethos of the practice. He founded Schop, an early start-up co-working business in 2008, which has developed into a provider of office space and services for self-employed individuals and small businesses in two locations.

Outside of work, he was passionate about civic life and debate, city cycling and singing with Calton Consort.