Architecture Masters

Our guest this week is the architect Pooja Agrawal. In 2017 Pooja co-founded the social enterprise Public Practice along with Finn Williams. Public Practice places architects and other built environment experts within local authorities on year-long placements – providing much needed skills and experience for the public sector. In the 1970s almost half of all UK architects leaving university went o...

Our guest this week is the architect Larry Malcic. Larry was born in St Louis in the American mid west. He later went on to study architecture at the University of Pennsylvania, being taught for a time by the hugely influential architect Louis Khan. After University it was in St Louis that Larry started his own practice – just over the road from HOK the […]

On the programme this week we speak to the architect Clare Richards. Clare took an unusual route into architecture. Clare started her career as a researcher for BBC television before joining commercial broadcaster TV-am for its launch in 1983. TV-am was hugely influential as the UK’s first nationwide commercial breakfast television programme. It left a huge legacy on the UK media landscape. Its bo...

On the programme this week we speak to Chris Wilkinson and Jim Eyre, directors of WilkinsonEyre. Chris founded Chris Wilkinson Architects in 1983 with Jim joining the practice – now WilkinsonEyre – in 1987. The practice now employs more than 200 people in London, Hong Kong and Sydney. Chris originally studied architecture at the Regent Street Polytechnic – now part of the University of Westminster...

On the programme this week we speak to Francesco Stassi and Alice Tasca, principals of Active Social Architecture in Kigali. This week’s programme was recorded in Rwanda as part of a series of episodes we’re bringing you from East Africa to explore identity and architecture. Identity is the theme of this year’s London Festival of Architecture. Active Social Architecture – or ASA studio was founded...

On the programme this week we speak to Professor Tom Anyamba, Dean of the University of Nairobi’s School of the Built and Environment. This week’s episode was recorded in Nairobi as part of a series of episodes we’re bringing you from East Africa to explore identity and architecture. Identity is the theme of this year’s London Festival of Architecture. The University of Nairobi started life [&#823...

On the programme this week is Rahel Shawl, Founder and Director of Raas Architects, one of the leading architecture practices in Addis Ababa in Ethiopia. Rahel originally studied architecture at the Southern Campus of Addis Ababa University. Soon after graduating, Rahel established ABBA architects in partnership with a friend before going on to form Raas Architects some 14 years ago She’s gone on...

On the programme this week we speak to James Mitchell and Carolina Larrazabal from Orkid Studio in Nairobi. This week’s episode was recorded in Nairobi as part of a series of programmes we’re bringing you from East Africa to explore identity and architecture. Identity is the theme of this year’s LFA. Orkid Studio was founded in 2008 by James Mitchel and Julissa Kiyenje in Cardiff […]

In this week’s episode we speak to Theophile Uwayezu, architect and associate at MASS Design Group in Kigali, Rwanda. This week’s episode was recorded in Kigali as part of a series of episodes we’re bring you from East Africa, exploring identity and architecture. Identity is the theme of this year’s LFA. MASS Design Group was established in Massachusetts in 2008 as a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organ...

For this week’s episode we talk to Adrian Jankowiak and Julita Bhagat, Co-Directors of Nairobi Design Week – an organisation with a mission close to our own hearts, promoting design – in all its disciplines – to a wide public audience. This episode was recorded in Nairobi, the first in a series of episodes we’re bringing you from East Africa to explore identity and architecture. […]

On the programme this week we speak to Meskerem Tamiru, President of the Association of Ethiopian Architects. This episode was recorded in Addis Ababa as part of a series of episodes we’re bringing you from East Africa to explore identity and architecture. Identity is the theme of this year’s London Festival of Architecture. Meskerem studied architecture and town planning at the Addis Ababa Univer...

On the programme this week we speak to the architects Kabage Karanje and Stella Mutegi, two of the three founding directors of Cave Bureau in Nairobi. This episode was recorded in Nairobi as part of a series of episodes we’re bringing you from East Africa to explore identity and architecture. Identity is the theme of this year’s London Festival of Architecture. Kabage was born in […]

On the programme this week we speak to the architects James Gitoho and Charles Ndungu, directors at the Kenyan architecture firm Triad Architects. This episode was recorded in Nairobi as part of a series of episodes we’re bringing you from East Africa to explore identity and architecture. Identity is the theme of this year’s London Festival of Architecture. Triad Architects was founded by New Zeal...

Our guest this week is the architect Jennifer Dixon, Architecture Leader for the global architecture and engineering firm AECOM in the firm’s EMIA region – Europe, Middle East, India and Africa, where she leads a multi-national team of over 500 architects. AECOM provides design, consulting, construction, and management services to a wide range of clients around the world. The firm traces its roots...

Our guest this week is the designer Steven Charlton. In 2008 – in the midst of the global financial crisis – Steven launched the Middle East office of Pringle Brandon, the architecture and corporate interiors firm founded in London by Chris Brandon and former RIBA President Jack Pringle. Pringle Brandon subsequently merged with America’s third-largest architecture firm Perkins+Will in 2012 – with...

Our guest this week is the architect John McAslan. John was born Glasgow and later studied architecture at Edinburgh University before following his father to the United States where he worked for architecture firms in Baltimore, Maryland and Cambridge, Massachusetts. He returned to London in 1980 to take up a job at Richard Rogers’ practice. Four years later he and then colleague Jamie Troughton...

Our guest this week is the architect Rashid Ali. Rashid grew up in Hargeisa in Northern Somalia and then in Manchester in Northern England. He went on to study architecture at Greenwich University and Bartlett School of Architecture, as well as City Design at the LSE. He subsequently worked for Karakusevic Carson Architects – and then at Adjaye Associates – the practice which had been […]

Our guest this week is the 76th President of the Royal Institute of British Architects. Ben Derbyshire was elected by the Institute’s 44,000 strong membership in August 2016 on a platform calling for change – both in the institute and across the profession. After a year serving as president-elect, he succeeded Jane Duncan as President in September 2017. Ben’s career in practice started in 1973 [&#...

Our guest this week made a name for himself working under someone else’s name. For nearly 30 years Ken Shuttleworth worked at Foster & Partners where he led on the design and delivery of such acclaimed buildings as the HSBC Bank in Hong Kong, as well as both 30 St Mary’s Axe – better known as the Gherkin – and City Hall in London. In […]

Our guest this week has led something of a peripatetic life. Born to an Austrian father and a German mother, Christina Seilern grew up in Switzerland before moving to the United States with the intention of studying biology at Wellesley College in Massachusetts. But she soon dropped biology and switched direction to study architecture at MIT and then at Columbia University in New York. After [&#82...

On the programme this week is the architect Tatiana von Preussen. Tatiana originally studied architecture at Cambridge University in the UK. After a year out working for the architecture firm Stanton Williams, she moved to New York to attend Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture to complete her Masters. After graduating in 2007 she stayed on in New York, landing a job at James Corn...

On the programme this week is the architect Annalie Riches – one half of the multi-award winning architecture firm Mikhail Riches. The practice, founded by Annalie and her partner David Mikhail – are known for their considerable track record of beautifully considered housing developments. Annalie originally studied architecture at Sheffield University before moving to Paris where she found work at...

Our guest this week is the architect Eric Parry. Eric was born in Kuwait in 1952 where his father was the country’s Chief Medical Officer, helping establish its health service. When Eric was ten, the family returned to the UK and settled in Liverpool. Eric later studied architecture at Newcastle University in the early 1970s before going on to spend a year in Iran studying […]

On the programme this week is the architect Patty Hopkins. Patty studied architecture at the Architectural Association where she met her future husband Michael Hopkins. After graduating from the AA Patty ran her own practice whilst Michael worked in partnership with Norman Foster. But in 1976 the couple decided to start their own firm together – which went on to become the firm now known […]

On the programme this week is the architect Alison Brooks. Alison was born in Canada and studied architecture at the University of Waterloo in Ontario. As part of Canada’s co-op system, during her studies she alternated between university and practice, gaining experience with many of Canada’s top architecture firms. After university Alison left Canada and moved to London, initially on a working ho...