Stephen Rowland Pierce was born in Hastings, Sussex, England in June 1896. It is not known where or with whom he initially trained as an architect, however, in 1921 he was a Rome Scholar in Architecture and attended the British School at Rome.
In c.1935 he joined James & Bywaters, an architectural practice established in London by Charles Holloway James (1893-1953) and Stewart Frank Bywaters in c.1929, to form James & Bywaters and Rowland Pierce. Projects by the partnership included Slough Town Hall (1936), City Hall in Norwich (1938), and Hertford County Hall (1940). The partnership was dissolved in 1947. It would seem that the practice then reverted to its original name, James & Bywaters.
Parallel with his work as a practising architect, Pierce was also an academic. From 1936 to 1942 Pierce was director of architectural studies at the Hastings School of Art and taught at the School of Architecture at Manchester University in 1941-42. He was also on the Faculty of Architecture at the British School in Rome.
Pierce was elected an Associate of the Royal institute of British Architects (ARIBA) in 1929 and a Fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects (FRIBA) in 1938.
In December 1931 he married the architect Betty Scott (1904-1983).
In the 1940s and 1950s he acted as a town planning consultant to various British local authorities at to the Government of Malta.
His address was given as 29 James Street, London in 1930; 33 Bedford Way, London in 1935; 5 Bloomsbury Street, London in 1939; and 44 Aubrey Walk, London in 1966. He died in Chelsea, London on 15 February 1966