Architecture & Design Community
December 16, 2025
Open City CEO Manijeh Verghese marvels at Mumbai’s rapid transformation and asks how you can slow the pace of change to a rate that allows its people to shape its future. Marine Drive and the bay as seen from Nariman Point. Photograph by Manijeh Verghese. “On the Churchgate train, past Charni Road station as it […]
October 2, 2025
Skip to content My Kind of Town: Beau Lotto Beau Lotto on how Bruton’s unique mix of culture and community fosters discovery and connection – and why this small Somerset town provides the perfect setting for a new kind of school rooted in interaction, meaning and curiosity. Newtonian physics once told us that space was […]
June 10, 2025
Sharon Giffen explains how Earls Court’s cosmopolitan heritage and an ambitious 44-acre masterplan are set to reignite West London as a hub of innovation, culture and community. Earls Court holds a special place in my family’s history. It is where my mother arrived from Colombia as a young architect backpacking through Europe in the early […]
May 24, 2025
Helen Hare explains why the lessons to be learnt from Milan’s design and fashion industries make it the ideal location for this year’s British Council for Offices Annual Conference. As a long admirer of design, fashion and the built environment, it was perhaps inevitable that Milan loomed largely into view during my research to locate […]
April 10, 2025
My Kind of Town: Tom Lacey Tom Lacey explains how London’s Olympic Park has evolved into a thriving neighbourhood, but kept the wild, unpolished spaces that are a respite from city life. My family and I have lived in Chobham Manor, one of the Olympic Legacy developments, for five years now. An architect buying a […]
February 21, 2025
James Traynor, managing director at ECD Architects, is rooting for Preston to realise its potential to become the perfect 15-minute compact city. Preston’s iconic brutalist bus station has been restored, showing that regeneration does not necessarily equal demolition. Like many northern towns, Preston has an image problem, but scratch beneath the surface and a world […]
November 19, 2024
John Pardey is charmed by Louis Kahn’s National Assembly building in Dhaka, Bangladesh and pays a flying visit to Le Corbusier’s Chandigarh on the way home. Completed in 1982, Louis Kahn’s National Assembly Building is a symbol of Bengali democracy and Dhaka’s jewel in the crown. Words and photographs by John Pardey Dhaka is a […]
April 30, 2024
Hien Nguyen, associate director at MCW Architects, on Ho Chi Minh City, where her family has lived for the last ten years. Formerly known as Saigon, Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC) has been extraordinary in its speed of transformation in recent years. For the last ten years or so, while my family has been living […]
January 30, 2024
Chris Williamson, chairman, WestonWilliamson+Partners on Ilkeston, Derbyshire and how he hopes its rejuvenation can be kick-started. Ilkeston Contemporary Arts (ILKON). “Ilkon” is Old English for ‘everyone’ and was used by Chaucer in the Second Nun’s Tale about Saint Cecilia, who is depicted in one of the stained-glass windows. I had a fantastic free education at […]
November 28, 2023
Architect and academic Greg Bailey on Ljubljana, Slovenia, a stage for life’s rich theatre. A statue of Slovenia’s national poet France Prešeren (1800-1849) with a muse takes pride of place in the city’s central square. ‘Gibanica’ and coffee arrive. The waiter smiles, genuinely. Maybe not quite as big a slice of this delicious traditional cake […]
August 7, 2023
Katy Marks, founder of Citizens Design Bureau, on Sarajevo, the ‘Jerusalem of Europe’ where culture is both a survival tool and the city’s life force. The Bosnian musician Vedran Smailović, known as the ‘Cellist of Sarajevo, played in ruined buildings and often under the threat of snipers during the four-year Siege of Sarajevo on 1992-1996. […]
July 17, 2023
Zoë Barrett, Wayfinding Director at DNCO, on her emotional connection to Gatwick Airport and how it sparked her love of wayfinding. When most people excitedly book a holiday, they ultimately dream of their final destination; relaxing on sunny beaches, exploring cobbled streets lined with shops and cafes, enjoying late dinners in the warm evening sun. […]
13 November 2026
