WHO | WHY
I’m Hayden Pritchard, and pritch. is the physical manifestation of a vision I’ve carried for years. I am a firm believer in the law of attraction—not as a passive wish, but as a disciplined alignment of intent, action, and reality.
At the time of writing, I have a one-month-old son. People often talk about the clichés of fatherhood, and as it turns out, they’re all true. His arrival hasn't just changed my perspective; it has bound me to my principles with an iron grip. He, and the siblings who will follow him, deserve to be raised by a version of me that holds the proof of my own potential. They need to see that the man I claim to be is the man who actually exists in the world.
Make no mistake: I am building this for me. But my family is my why and to paraphrase one Timothée Chalamet speech, "I know people don't usually talk like this" but I care deeply about my legacy. I heard once that there are 3 forms of legacy:
Biological, obvious and simple, have and raise children. Who will remember you.
Material legacy, the tangible stuff you own and the things you create. What you contribute.
and finally what could be called your ethos, these are the social, cultural and personal values you hold. How did you impact the world and the people in it.
WHAT | HOW
This company and its work is my life's project, it will be my material legacy and will be imbued with my ethos. To understand my ethos I have written out how I view the world and what values I hold, or at least everything that I think matters to this project. Its in the story titled 'Ethos'.
Boiled down, I place truth and beauty above all else. As guiding values in life and work I believe truth and beauty will build and shape the environment to the betterment of people. For my definitions of truth and beauty, see again 'Ethos'. So how does this effect pritch.
If you follow this journey it will be come evident, but as a design studio with large ambitions the impact we will have on people must be grounded in a positive ethos from the start.
VISION
I love the Bucky Fuller idea of the "Design Science Revolution"—the idea that the world’s biggest problems are actually just design flaws waiting to be fixed. But how do you actually fix a world that feels like it’s disintegrating. As an architect, I am very green (working in architecture for 8 years, and as a registered architect for less than 1) so I am under no illusion that there is a lot to learn. But i've seen enough to notice gaping faults in the industry. I also understand that you don’t fix them by drawing pretty pictures or writing manifestos. You do it by taking control of the entire process.
Most people see an architect as someone who sketches and designs a building and then hands off to someone else. That "someone else" hands it to a builder, who buys materials from a supplier, who follows a budget set by a developer all bound by regulatory bodies, legislation and some frustrating red tape.
By the time the building is actually finished, the original vision is often diluted, expensive, and inefficient. The "soul" of the design gets lost in the trade-offs and compromise.
pritch. is going to change that. I didn't start this company just to be another architecture firm. I started it to build a multidisciplinary powerhouse—a start-to-finish company that owns every single step of the journey, driven by professionals that understand and value design rooted in truth and beauty.
PLAN | APPROACH
My roadmap is practical and aggressive. We are starting as a young, hungry architecture studio of 1, but moving toward a future of total vertical integration. Through a series of strategic mergers and acquisitions, pritch. will expand until we are the:
- Architect & Engineer: Designing together with a strong collaborative approach.
- Supplier: Controlling the materials to ensure they are sustainable and high-performing, and encouraging design cohesion between the building and its furnishing.
- Builder: Executing the construction to the level of precision, quality design deserves.
- Developer: Identifying the projects that actually need to exist to help humanity thrive and taking the initiative to invest in creating them
I'm stealing the most successful business models from modern companies and applying it to architecture. Today we see when one company owns the whole process, the "waste" disappears. We can build faster, cheaper, and better. When the person who designs the building is also the person who makes the bricks and the person who hammers the nails, there is no room for excuses. There is only room for excellence.
My favourite verse of any poem:
In the elder days of Art,
Builders wrought with greatest care
Each minute and unseen part;
For the Gods see everywhere.The Builders, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
My experience has revealed how great ideas from brilliant designers have been crushed under the weight of overbearing regulation and fragmented specialization.
The end goal is simple: complete project sovereignty. We want to develop important infrastructure and building projects—cities that breathe, power systems that are clean, and spaces that bring people together—without having to compromise with third parties who don't share our vision for a better world.
We aren't just designing a new future; we are building the cultural machine that will manufacture it. We are testing rigorously, innovating through design, and building a company that can finally deliver on the promise of a world that works for everyone.
The revolution isn't just on paper. We're breaking ground. Our motto:
"To test rigorously that which needs improving and through design, innovate."