I had idea at my kitchen table and my phone hasn't stopped ringing

James Kearns and Joel Roderick, owners of architecture practice Studio 16A in Liverpool
-Credit:Liverpool Echo


Two friends who ‘came from nothing’ are now the brains behind million-pound building projects. Joel Roderick, 34, from Liverpool city centre, heads up architecture firm 16A along with his friend James Kearns, 34, from Woolton.

Since setting up the business, their firm has designed and redesigned several local buildings. These include a £2m renovation of an old tobacco warehouse as part of Wirral Waters and the training ground of Cammell Laird football club.

Now, they will be working on a brand new hotel in Chinatown, renovating and extending several properties on Nelson Street. Speaking to the ECHO, Joel revealed he started the business in his spare time when he was working at a different architect firm based in Manchester.

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Joel said: “It all started from my kitchen table. For some reason, it felt natural to start doing extra projects on the weekend and building up a catalogue of consultants that were all needed to execute a project domestically and commercially.

“This ranged from structural engineers and contractors to landscape designers. I found myself doing work to and from my nine to five job and filling my weekends with client's work. It was here that I learnt how to win work and create my own process.”

Things started to change when lockdown hit, giving him more free time to work on his own brand. He said: “When lockdown first happened, I wasn't commuting to Manchester to my nine to five job and I used the extra hours to build up a website.

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“I started drawing up schemes on plots of land just to showcase my work. I did that and put it on a website and created a brand that I thought would reflect a modern design practice. The brand 16a was born, so it's officially been about 4-5 years.”

One of its first major projects was Six Park West, which transformed an existing house in Heswall into a modern ‘eco’ home, filled with large windows, solar panels and an energy efficient heating system. This was a major turning point for Joel.

He said: “People loved the design ethos of the before and after and the ability to renovate and transform existing houses. The word kind of got around and the phone didn't stop ringing from there.

“I think also the government’s decision to remove stamp duty really helped with this as people were now actively looking at old houses in and around affluent areas and looking to renovate them into their forever homes. I was overwhelmed with the amount of queries and I ended up quitting my job. I decided to go for it.”

When he won the contract to assess and oversee the building of a new training facility for Cammell Laird FC, the football team of the famous shipbuilders in Birkenhead, he decided to ask James if he could help. Joel said: “It was at this point I rang up my old friend and now business partner James, and said, ‘do you fancy going for it?’

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“At this point I was working from my kitchen table and James came to work each day. It was clear we became a nuisance at home, so we started the search for a start-up office.”

They found one on Pacific Road in Birkenhead, a cobbled street where old Victorian shops have been remade into new offices. From there, they gained staff through the government-funded Kickstart scheme and renovated an old tobacco warehouse for £2m as part of the Wirral Waters project.

Last month, it was revealed that 16A is currently transforming several properties on Nelson Street, which used to house Chow's House restaurant, into a new 25-bed hotel. Joel said: “The Nelson Street project has been underway for a while with many meetings and design changes.

“To see the project out in the press has been an exciting start to 2025. Hopefully once the scheme has been developed and the interior people can realise what we can do. We are all excited to see it come to life and have really enjoyed the process so far.”

Nevertheless, it hasn’t been entirely straightforward for Joel and James as they navigate the challenges of running their own business. He said: “Even after five years in practice, both myself and James have big aspirations.

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“We've learnt that going self-employed has its ups and downs. There’s not as much security. Over the past four to five years we’ve had to find that security. It's about planning ahead and looking six months ahead rather than one.

“On a personal level, you get lost in the good days and the bad days but you don't realise how far you've come. I think on the bad days, we both need to remind ourselves a bit more of where we’ve come from. There’s a lot of stress. But other than that it’s not over.

“There’s more to come. We want to grow and expand. Obviously there’s work in Liverpool and the north west but we've done things in Birmingham, north Wales, north Yorkshire, Surrey, Wimbledon and around London. The sky really is the limit."

A moment of reflection came when the business drew up a £200m factory scheme for Heinz and Kraftheinz in Wigan, one of the largest food processing plants in Europe and the largest H. J. Heinz facility in the world.

Joel said: “We were finalists and were shortlisted out of substantial practices that were over 50 years old. We are proud of this and believe we are competing at the right level going from strength to strength. To look at how far we have come in so little time, for someone who comes from nothing, it genuinely feels fantastic to be where we are.”