Yẹmí is an architect and head of development at Meridian Water, Enfield Council. Yẹmí advocates for education, income & housing equity and broadening access to the built environment. She is a board member of Women's Pioneer Housing association and the Quality of Life Foundation. Yẹmí was selected as one the UK’s next generation of boundary-pushing designers and innovators by the Architect’s Journal in its 40 under 40 cohort for 2020.
Alexandra Andone is an experienced architect and associate director specialising in residential design, urban regeneration and sustainable environmental solutions.
At PRP she is part of the core team working on High Path estate regeneration in Wimbledon and has been involved in other large scale developments in Stratford (Cherry Park) and the Olympic Park (Chobham Manor). Having experience in working across all tenures, she is committed to delivering high quality architecture that improves and adapts to current and future lifestyles.
Alexandra is involved in a series of charitable activities within PRP, including educational programmes with Open City like Archikids, Open House Families and Architecture in Education. She also coordinates the Work Experience programme within the practice, mentoring young students in pursuing their passion for architecture and design.
Amr Assaad is a Board Director at Buckley Gray Yeoman. He joined the practice in 2005 and has led the front-end design on many of the practice's key schemes. Most recently, Amr has overseen a number of significant projects including the masterplan of the Truman Brewery site, Dept W, and Technique.
Lee is a Partner, Design Chair, and School Lead at Sheppard Robson. His diverse portfolio includes award-winning schools and higher education buildings, the retrofit of Old Marylebone Town Hall, and prominent workplace-led developments. His views on new models for education, modern methods of construction, and the pursuit of net zero carbon schools have been widely presented and published. Lee teaches at Liverpool University and is an External Examiner at the Architectural Association.
Sarah leads the development and asset management of a new mixed-use 22-acre campus in White City which blends academic, commercial and residential activity around a new community park. She was previously Executive Director for Place at Enfield Council where she was responsible for services such as waste collection, street cleaning, property management, and planning while also leading Enfield’s longer-term development plans including 4 major housing-led regeneration projects and Meridian Water. Sarah has a PhD in town planning and was previously at British Land, where she worked in the development team before becoming Head of Sustainable Places.
Irene Craik is an architect and Director at Levitt Bernstein. She has a breadth of expertise across cultural and housing projects of all scales with a particular focus on community involvement and impact. She led the recent transformation of Bristol Beacon concert hall which involved the transformation and repurposing of a sensitive listed building.
Irene leads the practice's specialist housing studio, which delivers award winning later living housing and also schemes for those with physical and learning disabilities. She contributes to research in this field and regularly speaks at conferences.
Alex Ely is Founding Director of Mæ, a London based architecture and urban design studio. The studio has established an international reputation for sustainable architecture and urbanism and specifically for the design of innovative housing and social infrastructure. Alex leads Mæ’s design direction; the quality of which has been recognized in numerous awards including the RIBA Stirling Prize 2023 and Stirling Prize shortlisting in 2022. Alex also advises government and the Mayor of London on urban and planning policy promoting an agenda of design excellence. He has recently published ‘Towards a Resilient Architecture’, a book that explores how we can design more inclusive and environmentally conscientious buildings and places.
Martyn spent 17 years with Cathedral Group, now U+I, including six years on the board before leaving to become the Development Director at the 1,200-acre Dartington Hall Estate in Devon in 2016. He returned to U+I in 2019 to deliver the creative strategy at the heart of its purpose-driven regeneration development portfolio including major regeneration schemes in Manchester, London and Cambridge and was part of the team that completed the sale of the company to Landsec in December 2021.
Now Martyn is Creative Director of one of the largest regeneration development portfolios in the UK including Mayfield in Manchester, St David’s Centre in Cardiff, Buchanan Galleris in Glasow and the 120-acre, 6,000-home new town in north west Cambridge at Hartree. Martyn is Chair of the London Festival of Architecture and founder of The Young Architects and Developers Alliance (YADA), a networking organisation that fuels partnership and understanding between young architects and developers. He has been a jury member of the AJ's Small Projects, The Architect of the Year, the NLA and the Estates Gazette Awards, writes a regular column in BDOnline and contributes to the Estates Gazette.
Gavin Hale-Brown of Henley Halebrown studied at the University of Liverpool. After qualifying, he worked in Japan. Where he designed hand-crafted traditional houses in remote Western Honshu. This was a big influence on his subsequent work as an architect and, in particular, in terms of attention to detailing and how this relates to cultural specificity in design. In 2005, Gavin and his partner Simon Henley were selected for the 40Under40 UK Architects exhibition at the V&A, London. He has taught at the Univesity of Yonago, Japan and The Bartlett, London. Gavin sits on the International Advisory Board of the Hume Institute, Lausanne and is an external examiner for John Moores University, Liverpool. The studio has worked across Europe and extensively across Russia, delivering masterplanning, housing, education and cultural buildings.
Henley Halebrown are widely acknowledged experts in retrofit, workplace and healthcare design, and in recent years have become renowned for their housing and education expertise. This has been developed over many years from their competition winning, zero carbon, St Mary’s Island Housing Scheme in Kent (2001), to the award of The London Mayor’s Award for Architecture, for Kings Crescent, London and culminating in winning Housing Architect of the year in 2021. Gavin has extensive experience of working with existing buildings both in conversion and adaptive reuse including the Grade One listed Sheridan House and the headquarters of TalkBack Thames TV which received the accolade best of “Best In Europe” 2004 and in 2023 the Architecture Today award for buildings that have stood the test of time. In 2018, Chadwick Hall, for Roehampton University, was shortlisted for the Stirling Prize and in 2022 Hackney New Primary School + 333 Kingsland Road, was also shortlisted for the Stirling Prize was shortlisted for the Stirling Prize. Going on to win the Neave Brown award and the public vote for the prize.
Tanvir Hasan is a Director Emeritus at Donald Insall Associates, having served as Deputy Chairman and London studio lead for over a decade. An accredited conservation architect with a background in academic research, she has led high-profile projects transforming scheduled and Grade I-listed buildings such as The Parliamentary Estate and The Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew. She is currently working with the World Monument Fund in Iraq, providing post-conflict conservation advice to rehabilitate war-damaged cultural institutions while bringing together communities from different religions – a unity severed by the recent violent conflicts of the region.
Lee is an award-winning architect with projects in the UK, Spain, Singapore, India, Australia and Canada. He joined Eric Parry Architects in 2006 and was made board director in 2019. Lee has led many of EPA’s landmark projects including N10 Athletes Village for the London 2012 Olympics, The Research Centre at The Welding Institute Cambridge, One Chamberlain Square Birmingham and The Wilmar Headquarters Singapore. Lee is currently leading the ‘The Salisbury Square Development’ for The City of London Corporation, which will create a new civic quarter in the heart of the Square Mile delivering first-class legal and law enforcement facilities. This includes a new flagship 18 courtroom facility for the HM Courts & Tribunals Service, a state-of-the-art police headquarters for The City of London Police and a new commercial office building to house leading international law firms. Together they create a new ‘Centre for Justice’ to ensure the City’s future as world-class legal centre. Lee is a member of the RIBA and is a registered Architect in the UK and Spain.
Awards: Singapore Good Design Award - Wilmar International Headquarters - Winner / LIAS Award - Wilmar International Headquarters - Winner / WAF Future Civic Award - Salisbury Square Development - Shortlisted / SIA Architectural Design Awards - Winner / MIPIM Asia - Wilmar International Headquarters - Winner / RIBA West Midlands Award - One Chamberlain Square - Winner / BCO Midlands Awards One Chamberlain Square - Shortlisted / RIBA East Award - The Welding Institute - Winner / RIBA National Award - The Welding Institute - Winner
Nigel has held numerous senior positions within the property and regeneration industry in a career spanning over 35 years. From 1992 he was one of the youngest ever chief executives of a FTSE 350 company at Chelsfield plc. That business was taken private in a near £1 billion transaction in 2004, with multiple strategic projects divided between Brookfield, the Reuben brothers and Westfield. He joined Lend Lease as European Chairman in 2005, via the acquisition of the residential developer Crosby Homes. Perhaps best known for envisioning the development of the derelict rail lands at Stratford City, on which the London 2012 Olympic bid was founded, Nigel only left in 2008 with development well underway to become Special Policy Advisor to the Government backed refinancing of the Housing Associations following after the Global Financial Crisis. Convinced that amenity led, large scale new housing development was the only realistic way of approaching residential demand in South East England, Nigel founded Urban&Civic in 2010, with long-term colleague Robin Butler. The company has grown to be the largest Master Developer in the UK and was acquired by the Wellcome Trust in 2021.
A former Audit and Estates Chairman of British Waterways, Finance and Estates Chair of the London School of Economics and Chairman of the Royal Shakespeare Company, Nigel remains Chairman of the respected urban think tank Centre for Cities. He was awarded BD client of the year in his own name in 2008, presented with the Estates Gazette Lifetime Achievement Award in 2016 and an Honorary Fellowship by the London School of Economics in 2020.
Kirsten is a highly accomplished architect with over 25 years’ experience. Her approach - in the work she has been responsible for and within the wider architectural industry - is to encourage diversity in practice, input and delivery. With a portfolio that spans all sectors, notable sports, cultural and leisure projects Kirsten has led include the Wimbledon master plan and remodelling of No 1 Court, Curragh Racecourse, Istanbul’s Arter Gallery, and the Bath Rugby New Stadium.
As Managing Partner of Grimshaw’s London through the pandemic, Kirsten led the practice through significant growth and has driven the diversity in the design work of the practice, as well as promote equity in the workplace and industry. In support of this, Kirsten is a trustee of the Grimshaw Foundation, and is a founding member of Equilibrium Network. Kirsten is now leading the growth of Grimshaw’s new Paris Studio. In recognition of both her leadership of Grimshaw and her architectural work, Kirsten was shortlisted for BD Architectural Leader of the Year in 2020 and won the WICE 2022 Best Female Architect award, with a special commendation as Most Distinguished Winner.
Oliver is an architect, podcast host, and founder of Ackroyd Lowrie, an innovative Architecture practice based in East London employing 25 people. He has 15 years’ experience designing schools, mixed-use masterplans, multi-unit residential schemes, film and photography studios and cultural buildings. Oliver is passionate about bringing the next generation of built environment professionals into the industry, and has set up the AL Academy to work with young people across East London to gain them qualifications in Architecture, and permanent roles at Ackroyd Lowrie.
Prior to founding Ackroyd Lowrie, Oliver spent 10 years at Architype, one of the worlds’ leading sustainable Architects, where he delivered Passivhaus projects including the award winning £24m Highgate School in North London, for which he was Project Architect. Oliver passionately believes in working closely with clients, makers and builders to deliver projects in a collaborative manner. Oliver is a passionate campaigner for the high quality, and sustainable design of Cities. His Podcast, Urban Forecast, seeks to speak to prominent decision makers about the future of Cities. Along with his business partner, Jon Ackroyd, Oliver has co-founded the Breakfast Club Briefings, a network bringing together politicians, planners, and property experts to focus on how our urban spaces can better work for the people that inhabit them.
Anna Mansfield is a Director at Publica, a research based urban design and public realm practice. Anna oversees Publica's projects and the company’s strategic direction. She leads projects for UK and international clients, including local authorities, leading developers, landowners and community, cultural, and third sector organisations. She has particular experience in masterplanning, research and infrastructure - recently working on major strategy projects across London’s West End, community infrastructure planning for several London boroughs and leading Making London Child-Friendly for the Mayor's Good Growth by Design programme. Anna was a Baylight Scholar at the Architectural Association and worked in architecture practice in the UK and Japan before becoming a founding team member at Publica. She is a member of the Mayor’s Infrastructure Advisory Panel (IAP), Vice Chair and member of several London borough design review panels and an external examiner at Cardiff University.
Michelle McDowell is non-executive director at Civic, and uses her 40 years of experience in construction to provide insight and advice on Civic’s strategic direction. Michelle worked at multi-disciplinary practice BDP for nearly 25 years, heading up their civil and structural engineering group. She is a former vice-president of the Institution of Civil Engineers and former chair of the Association for Consultancy and Engineering. In 2020, she received an MBE for services to the construction industry, and lifetime achievement awards from Women in Construction and the European Women in Construction and Engineering. Michelle was also Veuve Clicquot Business Woman of the Year 2011.
Ian McKnight is a Founding Partner of Hall McKnight Architects, the practice he leads with Alastair Hall. Hall McKnight were winners of the BD Architect of the Year Gold Award in 2023, a year in which the practice was recognised with several awards for retrofit and refurbishment projects, particularly the Quadrangle and Quadrangle Building at King’s College London, and the redevelopment and extension of St Mary’s Convent, Wantage, both listed buildings. Ian has over 25 years of experience as an architect. He studied at Newcastle University and the Mackintosh School in Glasgow and worked in London before returning to his home city of Belfast where he joined Alastair Hall and Mark Hackett in 2008, first as a partner of Hackett Hall McKnight, and then Hall McKnight. In addition to many award-winning buildings Hall McKnight have developed several public realm projects, including a public square in central Copenhagen, completed in 2013. Current projects include a public park, several visitor’s centres for prominent heritage locations in Ireland and the UK, and a number of social housing projects in Ireland.
John is a director and trustee of Orms and has been in practice for 27 years. He has experience across a range of sectors and led many of the practices award winning projects including The Standard hotel , 1 New Oxford Street and 16 Old Bailey. Most recently he completed the music led regeneration of St Giles Circus into the Outernet district which has become one of the most popular tourist destinations in the UK. He is a member of the Camden design review panel, London 3.0, the Recolight working group (which is encouraging the lighting industry to embrace circular economy principles and reduce waste) and has judged a number of awards including RIBA London and Civic Trust. John is a strong advocate of retaining and refurbishing existing buildings and has developed an expertise in transforming under utilised buildings. He enjoys working on listed buildings and is currently working on a range of Grade I and II* conversions.
David joined Argent in 1990, he was appointed Joint Chief Executive in 2006 and Managing Partner of the new Argent LLP in 2012 and became Senior Partner in 2019. He is now Chairman of the Related Argent Partnership. David is currently a Trustee of the UKGBC and of the Landaid Charity and Chairman of the Governance Board of the UK Net Zero Carbon Buildings Standard. He also sits on the Advisory Boards of Construct Zero and Standard Gas Technologies Ltd and on the BE News ESG Editorial Advisory Board.
He is a Past President of the British Property Federation and of the British Council for Offices, and has chaired the Piccadilly Partnership in Manchester, the King’s Cross and St Pancras Business Partnership and Manchester's CityCo. David read architecture at Cambridge and is a member of the Royal Institute of British Architects and has served on a number of RIBA practice committees. David received Property Week's Irvine Sellar Award in 2023, won the BCO President’s Award in 2022, and the Estates Gazette’s ‘Outstanding Contribution to Property Award’ in 2019. In May 2015, David was awarded NW Insider Property Personality of the Year, and in April 2014, David jointly won the Property Week Personality of the Year Award with Roger Madelin.
Sarah studied at Bath University and Oxford Brookes University before qualifying in 2009. Sarah worked at a number of practices in Birmingham before joining Panter Hudspith Architects in London in 2007, where she was an Associate until joining The King’s Foundation at the end of 2018 where she is now Associate Director responsible for Architecture and Heritage projects across the UK. Her most recent projects include the restoration of the community owned and operated Braemar Castle and the ongoing retrofit of the large 20th century Fleetwood Hospital in Lancashire, and is championing the charities work in reuse and retrofit.
Philippa Simpson is Director for Buildings and Renewal at the Barbican Centre, leading on a major programme of restoration and renovation across the iconic estate. Philippa studied at the Courtauld Institute of Art and the University of Edinburgh, where she gained her BA Hons and MSc Res in History of Art. Having worked for a short time in the commercial art sector, she became a curator at Tate, working on a range of international exhibitions and gallery projects while completing her PhD at the Courtauld. She then moved to Royal Museums Greenwich to establish and manage an international touring exhibition programme. In 2014 Philippa joined the V&A to deliver a number of capital projects, including the Exhibition Road becoming Director of Design, Estate and Public Programme. In this role she delivered an extensive portfolio of capital projects, led on estate management and maintenance and oversaw design of exhibitions and displays as well as marketing and other initiatives.
Professor Kevin Singh is a Chartered Architect with a career in higher education that spans almost 30 years and is Head of the Manchester School of Architecture (www.msa.ac.uk) , a joint school between Manchester Metropolitan University and the University of Manchester of circa 1300 students which is ranked 5th in the QS world rankings for Architecture. The School currently offers RIBA Part 1, 2 and 3 courses, a Master of Landscape Architecture, MA Architecture + Urbanism, and MA Architecture + Adaptive Reuse, and a Foundation in Architecture.
He co-founded a practice the space* studio in 2000 alongside his academic career (www.tkaspacestudio.com), a small design-led practice which works across new build, refurbishment, and interiors in a number of sectors for an impressive client base. Notable projects are the interior of the English National Ballet, numerous concept designs for Manchester City Football Club, and new build social housing with Wayne Hemmingway. He chairs RIBA Visiting Boards in the UK and internationally, is a member of the Manchester Society of Architects, and is currently an External Examiner at the Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London, and the Mackintosh School of Architecture at the Glasgow School of Art. He also mentors an SME practice in Birmingham.
Karl Singporewala RWA RIBA is an architect, artist and founder of Karl Singporewala Design Bureau. Previously associate director of Jo Cowan Architects and co-director of Barbara Weiss Architects, he was elected as a Royal Academician in 2022, a life-time honour from the Royal West of England Academy of Art. His drawings and maquettes are held in collections world-wide and have been exhibited at numerous institutes including the Saatchi Gallery, Onassis Cultural Centre Athens for the Lumen Prize, V&A digital futures, the New York Institute of Technology, and the Royal Academy of Arts. Karl has worked on multiple published and award-winning residential and cultural projects both in the UK and throughout Europe.
Jonathan Smales is Human Nature’s Founder & CEO. He was formerly MD of Greenpeace UK, a sustainability adviser to the government, and developed some of the UK’s first major sustainability projects. Hands-on with all aspects of the business from masterplanning to policy, engagement and structuring, Jonathan transfers his experience leading and advising on some of the UK’s largest development and regeneration projects to his leadership of Human Nature – including the groundbreaking Phoenix project in Lewes. He is a champion of deep collaboration and its role in shaping the social imagination, Human Nature’s purpose.
Liz is a highly regarded Architect and heritage leader, on the RIBA National Awards Group, and the City of Westminster Design Review Panel. Her passion lies in progressive conservation, and Liz believes designs can be more creative within the constraints and rich context of historic environments, to ensure the long-term sustainable future and vibrancy of our historic places for the communities who enjoy them. Liz is an accredited conservation architect with the RIBA at Specialist Conservation Architect level. Liz features as the Conservation Architect in Channel 4 TV series Phil Spencer’s Stately Homes.
Her expertise in design and heritage has led Liz to key roles on several high profile, large, and complex projects to some of London and the UK’s most significant listed buildings and historic places, including Royal Museums Greenwich, the V&A Museum, Windsor Castle, Kensington Palace, St Bartholomew’s Hospital, and the National Portrait Gallery where she acted as Heritage Architect on the recently completed Inspiring People Project, collaborating with Jamie Fobert Architects. Collaborative working is at the heart of Liz’s approach. Liz is practice Chairman & Regional Director (London & South East UK) at internationally renowned Architects, Masterplanners & Heritage Consultants, Purcell. Purcell are a multiple award-winning international practice of Architects, Masterplanners & Heritage Consultants, ranked in the Top 20 in the Architects Journal Top 100 list of largest UK registered practices. Purcell is ranked No. 1 practice in 2023 World Architecture 100, and at an impressive No. 83 in the WA100 overall.
Amin Taha is chairperson at Groupwork, an employee ownership trust of architects. He teaches at the Royal College of Art and Harvard’s Graduate School of Design and is the architect trustee at the Sir John Soane Museum. The practice’s work has been twice shortlisted for the RIBA Stirling and EU Mies prizes.
Magali Thomson is an architect working at Great Ormond Street Hospital, which is one of the world’s leading children’s hospitals. She is setting out vision to radically transform a polluted and traffic dominated urban street next to the children’s hospital. The vision is for a climate resilient, healthy and child-friendly street. She recently completed an Executive MSc in Cities at the London School of Economics, graduating with a Distinction, building on her passion for equitable cities. She is also a Built Environment Expert at the Design Council, a Healthcare Expert at the NLA and has positions on Design Review Panels for Design South East and Brighton. She previously led a successful education team to deliver award-winning schools at Marks Barfield Architects where she was a director.
Tatiana von Preussen co-founded vPPR Architects in 2009 with Catherine Pease and Jessica Reynolds, a women-led architecture practice built on original and equitable design. The practice focuses on the crossover of art and architecture and designs for cultural, residential, office, public realm and education clients. vPPR has won numerous awards including Emerging Woman Architect of the Year in 2015. Tatiana has taught studios at Columbia University and the Architectural Association, and is also a member of the Tower Hamlets, Greenwich and Barking and Dagenham Design Review Panels. She has previously been a judge on the UK Brick Awards, London RIBA Awards, RIBA MacEwan Awards and the Camden Design Awards.
Jo Wright is Managing Director, Principal, at Perkins&Will. She brings a breadth of knowledge of the UK market with over 30 years of experience and previously director of architecture UKMEA at Arup and a partner at Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios. She has lead the design and delivery of projects across a wide range of scales and sectors, including commercial offices, hospitality, culture, higher education, healthcare, and urban design.
