10.1.09 | London, UK | Five partners in the London office of Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates have left to start their own practice, named PLP Architecture. Lee Polisano, David Leventhal, Karen Cook, Ronaldus Bakker and Fred Pilbrow, all the office's equity partners, resigned from the firm on with immediate effect. It leaves just one KPF director, John Bushell, left at the office.

The move comes after the five made a failed attempt to buy out KPF's UK operations in July. KPF's London office has a staff of more than 230 people and it is expected that the US company's founder and chairman Eugene Kohn will take temporary charge there while the five are replaced.

"The London shareholders banded together to make an offer to purchase the London operation, the space, the people, and all the contracts that we
had," says KPF chairman A. Eugene Kohn, FAIA.

"They rather surprised us." At the time, the firm had a total of 13 shareholders, and the rest of the team rejected the offer.