Five years before his death last week while felling an ash tree, the architect Richard Feilden was honoured with an OBE. To receive the award he cycled down the Mall to Buckingham Palace in top hat and tails. The Queen was amused: she chatted to him about his unconventional transport

The incident typified Feilden.

As founding partner of the 110-strong practice Feilden Clegg Bradley and a CABE commissioner, the 54-year-old architect rose to the height of the professional establishment. At the same time, he believed passionately in cutting pollution and providing affordable housing and consistently practised what he preached. He was also an irreverent prankster.

Since its foundation in 1978 in Bath, Feilden Clegg Bradley has been at forefront of award-winning architecture. Yet despite the elegant, well-crafted buildings it produced, the practice never belonged to the narcissistic vein of iconic architects. Feilden in particular was renowned for pushing out the boundaries of architecture 鈥� in terms of sustainable development and incorporating wider social responsibilities.

As CABE deputy chairman Paul Finch said: 鈥淗e was concerned about the whole environment, not just object buildings. He thought things through from first principles, from how people experienced architecture.鈥�

At CABE, Feilden channelled his infectious energy, enthusiasm and curiosity into school buildings. He chaired a group that produced a design guide for PFI schools and set up an enabling programme for developing 27 of them.

鈥淗e was less concerned with the supply side than with the user side of pupils, teachers and governors,鈥� said Finch. 鈥滲ut he did not take the approach of the doom-mongers who wrote off the whole PFI procurement system.

鈥淚nstead, he asked how you make them as good as they could be.鈥�

Paul Morrell, a fellow CABE commissioner, added: 鈥淗e extended the role of the school into the community. Once he said that we were currently building a new public library in every town. He meant the libraries of new schools, which could be opened to all local residents. It was an example of his lateral thinking.鈥�

Well might Chris Higgins, estates director of University College Winchester, observe: 鈥淗e touched the lives of so many people and in so many places.鈥�

Even, it seems, Buckingham Palace.