Bryan Prisgrove, who was born and educated in London, immigrated to South Africa in 1967 and after working in the Stauch Vorster Partnership until his retirement from that practice in 1991, now practices as an arbitrator and mediator. He is an independent consultant on construction disputes, professional liability and liability insurance matters.

He joined the Institute in 1969, and because of his keen interest in contractual matters and his dedication and commitment to better professional practice in architecture, has served on many specialist committees since 1973. He has served on the Institute's Practice and Professional Development Committee since 1973, and chaired this committee from 1990 to 1996. Due to his dedication, several standard agreements, amongst these the now familiar Client/Architect Agreement, were developed and published for use by members of the profession. The standard documents that form part of the Institute's Practice Manual have continuously been revised and updated, and his valuable comments have structured many of these documents.

He represented the Institute on the Joint Study Committee dealing with drafting SA building contracts and the Committee that drafted and published the first national Standard Preliminaries document under his chairmanship in 1976. Since the establishment of the Joint Building Contracts Committee in 1985, he served as chairman from 1993 to 1996, and was elected chairman of the JBCC Technical Committee in 1999.

He is dedicated to continuously improving the professional standards of practising Architects, and was the originator of the Mid Career Training Courses. He served as visiting lecturer in contractual matters at several Schools of Architecture, and on many occasions also structured lecture programmes at the Regional Institutes for practising members of the profession. He has also published extensively on practice-related and contractual matters.

Bryan Prisgrove, although primarily dedicating his efforts towards professional development, also served as President of the Transvaal Provincial Institute from 1992-1993, and was the inaugural President of the SAIA from 1996-1998. He served on the South African Council for Architects from 1990-1998.

The award of the Medal of Distinction of the South African Institute of Architects is made to Rodney Bryan Prisgrove in recognition of his dedicated and ongoing commitment to sharing his experience and promoting better practice to the benefit of the members of this Institute.