African Design Magazine December 2015 | Page 90

FBW is a 50+ employee strong UK registered international consultancy, established in 1995, to provide professional building services throughout Eastern Africa and the wider region. Can you give us a history of the practice? In 1995 two Dutch architects and a British structural engineer formed a partnership in Dar es Salaam; the company, Folkers, van Buiten and Wilks, primarily provided architecture and engineering services in Tanzania. In 1997, when projects were secured in Uganda, the company opened an office in Kampala, managed by Paul Moores, a British architect. In 2000, the company underwent a change and moved it’s centre of operation to Uganda. Geoff Wilks moved back to the UK and became Chairman of FBW Group in Manchester, Belinda van Buiten and Antoni Folkers continued the 90 africandesignmagazine.com Netherlands affiliate as FBW Architecten and in 2002 Nigel Tilling joined Paul Moores as a director of FBW Uganda. As the group grows and work is secured within the East African region, FBW Rwanda is opened in 2010, managed by directors Antje Eckoldt and Rob Woffenden and, most recently, FBW Kenya is opened in 2015. Directors Stuart Harley and Joseph Debuni provide operations management and engineering leadership to the group from the company’s Kampala office. We currently maintain 50+ staff within East Africa with a healthy mix of expatriate and local professionals based in our established offices in Kampala, Kigali and Nairobi.