Mark Sutcliffe joined Team Four in 1963 working on the Reliance Controls Project. After completing his studies and spending a period with Albert Kahn Associates in Detroit, USA, he worked at the Greater London Council and London Borough of Camden on residential and education projects.

In 1969 he joined Foster Associates as project architect for IBM’s Pilot Head Office at Portsmouth, and was made an associate in 1971 when he led the team on the award-winning Willis Faber, Ipswich Headquarters Building.

From 1976, as a freelance architect, he carried out project management for prominent projects such as Willis Faber’s London offices and IBM Birmingham. He subsequently spent a year as a senior associate at a large commercial firm and was responsible for the successful planning appeal and public inquiry on the Little Britain Office Tower project.

Rejoining Foster + Partners in 1983, he became a director with responsibility for the new BBC Centre. Having worked on Stansted Airport, he then assumed responsibility for IBM’s London Computing Centre through to detailed design stage.

From 1987, he spent a period in private practice, working on a range of projects that included offices, healthcare, industrial, leisure and residential buildings. He also undertook value engineering studies for IBM.

In 1992 he returned to Foster + Partners to lead the 55-strong team for the 52-storey Commerzbank Headquarters in Frankfurt, until its completion in May 1997. Following a management role on the Valencia Conference Centre, he divided his time between the London and Berlin offices, where he provided support to the local team on the Reichstag project. He was also responsible for Foster and Partners’ first project for Hines, the Metropolitan, in Warsaw, Poland.

In 2004 he was made a senior partner responsible for the Specialist Management Group and his interest is in the management and co-ordination of large teams on challenging projects.