Why create a website?
This was the question I asked myself when I first started to be interested in web-design and creating a ‘web-presence’. This process started way back in the Year 2000, during my first stint at university as a Part 1 student at Manchester University’s School of Architecture. Curiosity is the answer but it developed quickly into a method of keeping in touch with people (via the Forum) before the use of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and the whole slew of social media available to us today. It has eventually ended up as a record of my professional and personal life and has been very rewarding.
Our history
The site started as a project called melshimber.org.uk and was never published (until now). The first published version of this site was uploaded to a domain www.michaelriley.org.uk (now lapsed) and was laboriously created using HTML code and Adobe ‘Dreamweaver’. Following this first publication there have been four major versions of the site to-date and several different domains, thankfully Versions 3 and 4 were created with a programme called iWeb which was developed by Apple; A very versatile programme, it has helped amateur web site owners for a long time before being culled in 2011. I have continued with an old version of iWeb for many years but now felt the need to update this site using modern ‘responsive’ technologies. This is mainly to deal with mobile computing and give me the ability to update the site on the move. And so, Version 5 was born.
Version 5, which has been dubbed V5 – The Great CMS Experiment, is powered by WordPress, Pinnacle Theme by Kadence Themes and is hosted on 1and1. This final choice of Content Management Software (CMS) software has been a while in the making and testing, I also tested Concrete 5, Joomla and Drupal. I also considered using Square Space based on their slick website and recommendations by ‘Hellen and Ollie’ from the Answer Me This podcast. Square Space would have been a good choice if I wasn’t also hosting a number of sites on my webhosting service.
Current projects
Although the website has now been launched I have only uploaded a small selection of the projects and events which were shown on Version 4, content will be restored in the coming months.
I also have a number of other web-projects as follows,
- John Riley Photography – Created using WordPress, forum by phpBB3.
- Atherton and District Amateur Photographic Society – Ran for c. 15 years, current website by others.
- Amelia Riley – Created using WordPress.
- Georgia Riley – Created using WordPress.
The archive
The links below will take you to archived versions of the site re-hosted on rileyuk.
Employer
2008 Building Design Partnership
2005 arca Architects
2002 Michael Riley
2002 Pozzoni Design Group
1997 Anthony Grimshaw Architects
Professional Memberships
Royal Institute of British Architects RIBA
Architect’s Registration Board ARB
Passivhaus Certified Designer
Association of Project Safety
RIBA Part III Examiner
2016 The Bartlett, UCL
2016 RIBA North West
2013 London Metropolitan University
Education
2022 Certified PassivHaus Designer
2006 Diploma in Professional Practice (Distinction)
2005 B(Arch) Manchester
2002 BA(Hons) Manchester (2:1)
Projects
2019 Manchester Met Institute of Sport
2018 Manchester Met Science & Engineering
2018 Palace of Westminster Restoration and Renewal
2018 Northern Estates Project
2018 Ground Transport Interchange Building
2017 Manchester Metrolink T2 Western Loop
2017 Halifax Station
2017 Middlesbrough Station
2016 East West Rail 2 (Winslow & Bletchley Stations)
2015 Northern Hub Electrification (Picadilly & Oxford Rd)
2015 Northern Hub Electrification (Ordsall Chord)
2013 Lancashire County Cricket Club – Grandstands
2012 Lancashire County Cricket Club – Pavilion
2011 Sutton Scarsdale Hall
2009 Abraham Darby Sports and Learning Community
2008 Culcheth High School
2008 Hollybank House
2007 Cornerhouse
2007 Greengate Hotel
2006 Silver Cafe, Morecambe
2006 Euston Road, Morecambe
2006 Tate Liverpool
2005 West End Road Apartments
2005 Gun Street, Ancoats
2002 Manchester University Part II
1999 Manchester University Part I