My friend Keith Smith, who has died aged 84, was an architect whose professional career took him through local authority work, new towns, private practice and teaching at the University of Sheffield.
From the mid-1960s he was part of a team of architects, including James Stirling and Michael Wilford, working on the development of Runcorn New Town. Keith was leader of the design team that produced the Esso Motor Hotel, which in 1974 was commended by the RIBA, and later led the team that produced the Runcorn law courts and police headquarters that were featured in the Architect’s Journal in 1977. Of all the buildings designed by Keith, he was most proud of these.
Born in Hull, to Esme (nee Speak) and Cyril Smith, an engineer, Keith went to the grammar school in the city. He trained as an architect at Hull School of Architecture, and after qualification started work in the city architect’s department in 1960.
In 1964 he moved to Lymm, in Cheshire, where we first met as neighbours, to join the Runcorn Development Corporation, becoming its deputy chief architect by 1966. When the new town was amalgamated with neighbouring Warrington in 1989, Keith moved into private practice. During this time, he also began teaching architecture at Sheffield University, and by 1991 was a full-time senior lecturer in the department, running the third-year BA programme as well as tutoring postgraduate students.
Keith believed that the role of the architect was to encourage the client to embrace solutions that followed artistic principles rather than the whims of current fashion or the individual. It was passing on these perspectives to his students, both at Sheffield and internationally as a visiting lecturer, that he found most rewarding.
In 1984 he acquired a derelict shell of a stone-built barn in the village of Ravenstonedale in Cumbria, and over time transformed it into an exquisite home with gardens and views out over the surrounding fells. Keith did much of the manual labour himself, with help from family and friends, bringing in skilled local craftsmen for specialist work.
Keith met Margaret Woods when they were both students, and they married in 1961. She was a secondary school teacher, and after they moved to Harrogate in 2007 they joined the local art group and developed their own considerable painting and drawing skills. Also in his student days, Keith was the clarinetist in the 2:19 jazz band, and he played the saxophone well into his 70s.
A great admirer of Steve Bell’s cartoons, Keith hated pomposity, privilege, hypocrisy and entitlement. He was a great friend and family man.
Margaret survives him, as do their children, Clare and Paul, five grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.
