News: British architect Richard MacCormac, a former RIBA President and founder of MJP Architects, has died following a long battle with cancer.

Richard MacCormac was best known for designing campus buildings for the prestigious Oxford and Cambridge universities, as well as the Southwark tube station for the London Underground's Jubilee Line.

Born in Marylebone, London, in September 1938, MacCormac earned a double first in architecture from the University of Cambridge – where he would later teach between 1969–75 and 1979-81 – before completing his education at the Bartlett School of Architecture.

After a spell working on social housing for the London Borough of Merton, MacCormac founded London studio MacCormac Jamieson and Prichard in 1972, with partners Peter Jamieson and David Prichard.

The firm went on to complete university buildings including the Sainsbury Building (1982) and the Garden Quadrangle (1993) at Oxford, the Ruskin Library at the University of Lancaster (1996) and the Burrell's Fields student accommodation at Trinity College, Cambridge (1996).

MacCormac also served as president of the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) from 1991 to 1993, and was knighted in 2001.

In 2004, MacCormac Jamieson and Prichard was nominated for the Stirling Prize for the Phoenix regeneration in Coventry, which overhauled the landscape between the Cathedral Quarter and the Coventry Transport Museum. But MacCormac was famously fired halfway through completing the new Egton Wing of the BBC's Broadcasting House in 2005, after refusing to compromise design quality to cut costs.

MacCormac left the firm – now known as MJP Architects – three years ago to establish his own architectural consultancy, but continued to work at the company's Spitalfields office. He passed away on 26 July in London.