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A podcast where we ask leading architects, urbanists and thinkers 20 questions over 20 minutes, exploring everything from their ideas and interests to the present and future of architecture and cities. Hosted by Owen Hopkins.

Farrell Centre


    • Aug 17, 2023 LATEST EPISODE
    • infrequent NEW EPISODES
    • 24m AVG DURATION
    • 20 EPISODES


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    Latest episodes from 20x20

    20. Sir Terry Farrell

    Play Episode Listen Later Aug 17, 2023 27:32


    Sir Terry Farrell is one of the UK's leading architect-planners. During fifty years in practice he has completed many award-winning buildings and masterplans, including the MI6 Building, Alban Gate, Embankment Place and The Home Office Headquarters in London as well as millennium projects, such as The Deep in Hull, and UK masterplans including those for Greenwich Peninsula and Paddington Basin. Notable projects in East Asia include Incheon airport in Seoul, Beijing Station and Guangzhou Station in China (the largest in the world), and the Peak Tower and Kowloon Station development, both in Hong Kong. Farrell has longstanding connections to Newcastle. He grew up in the city and studied at Newcastle University (1956–61). He produced the masterplan for regenerating the quayside in the early 1990s, and has since undertaken several major projects in the city, including the Centre for Life (2000), the Newcastle University campus masterplan (2004) and the extension to the Great North Museum (2009). In 2018, Farrell generously donated his practice archive to Newcastle University as a resource for research and public engagement. At the same time, he agreed to give £1 million towards the creation of the Farrell Centre as an ‘urban room' focused on Tyneside which would also contribute to broader national and international debates around architecture and cities and the future of how we live. Sir Terry Farrell stepped back from the practice he founded in 1965 – known today as Farrells – in 2019.

    19. Cany Ash

    Play Episode Listen Later Sep 20, 2022 24:07


    Before setting up Ash Sakula in 1994, Cany Ash worked for the GLC Architect's Department and Burrell Foley Fischer, as well as in New York and Berlin. She has taught at a number of architectural schools as a critic and studio tutor and is an external examiner at Cambridge University. She is an experienced co-designer, leading design workshops with young people and many community groups. She has served on the RIBA Awards Group, as a CABE Enabler, a Client Design Advisor and a Civic Trust Awards Assessor. She is member of the South East Design Review Panel.

    18. Mat Barnes

    Play Episode Listen Later May 26, 2022 27:22


    Mat Barnes is director of CAN – and architecture and art studio which designs characterful buildings, places, objects and spaces that subvert and amplify their social and cultural contexts and respond to their physical bounds. CAN create idiosyncratic and striking projects, underwritten by cultural and historical research, and believe that architecture can and should make the city a more joyful, inclusive and exciting place to live and work. Prior to founding CAN, Mat was an Associate at Studio 54 Architecture where he was responsible for the award-winning Peabody infill housing projects delivered through the Small Projects Panel. He also delivered the complex Arlington Road housing scheme in Camden. He is a former member of STORE, a teaching and arts collective and has delivered lectures on CAN's work across Europe. He has been a guest critic at a number of universities including UCL and Westminster. He consolidated his various creative practices to form CAN in 2016.

    17. Pooja Agrawal

    Play Episode Listen Later May 19, 2022 28:26


    Pooja Agrawal is an architect and planner who is currently CEO of Public Practice. She previously worked as a public servant at Homes England and the Greater London Authority, where as part of the Regeneration and Economic Development Team she helped co-found Public Practice in 2017. Prior to this, she worked at private architecture and urban design practices including Publica, We Made That and G-Tects (New York) and taught at Central Saint Martins and was a Trustee for the Museum of Architecture. Alongside Public Practice Pooja co-hosts spatial equality platform Sound Advice and co-published Now You Know, a compendium of fifty essays exploring spatial and racial inequality. In 2018 and 2019 she was nominated for the Planner's Woman of Influence.

    16. Jayden Ali

    Play Episode Listen Later May 10, 2022 27:55


    Jayden Ali is founder of JA Projects – a London based practice working at the intersection of architecture, urban strategy, art and performance. "We work", the practice writes, "in culturally rich spaces, on projects we love, in places and contexts we care about. "Our approach to architecture and city-making mirrors our social values – places should be diverse, supportive and enriching. "Our work strikes a balance between playfulness and precision, and is driven by a design ethos grounded in observation, participation and collaborative design. "Our ultimate goal is to weave beautiful stories and deliver exciting projects that speak to and for the people they serve. "From ground-breaking exhibitions, through low-carbon buildings, to pioneering urban strategy, our projects intervene both socially and spatially to deliver a more sustainable and more equitable world." Jayden teaches at Central St Martings where he is Unit Leader as well as a Course Tutor on both M ARCH Architecture and MA Cities. He previously taught the Global Free Unit, alongside professor Robert Mull at the University of Brighton, a diploma unit that assists students in making independent projects based upon their personal interest, histories and beliefs. Jayden graduated from the The Cass with a previous degree from the University of East London.

    15. Anne Thorne and Fran Bradshaw

    Play Episode Listen Later Feb 14, 2022 27:49


    Anne Thorne founded Anne Thorne Architects Partnership in 1991. Prior to that she was a founder member of Matrix Feminist Design Co-operative 1980. Her work includes co-housing, the design of affordable passive housing and the conversion of existing houses to low energy standards and primary schools in Brixton and Essex including for children with special needs. Her work has always considered energy efficiency – excluding pollutants using natural and re-cycled materials. Collaboration is key to her practice. He work with artists on the re-design of the subway network at Aldgate included extensive community surveys, working with traffic engineers to enable planting trees in place of the subways. She was Master of the Art Workers Guild in 2019. Frances Bradshaw has been a partner at Anne Thorne Architects since 1995. She has focussed on how women's lives shape and are shaped by buildings and the city, on participatory design, on regeneration and community projects, and on low energy and ecological building design including building to the the passivhaus standard. She has contributed through practice based research, lectures, articles and seminars to developing and forwarding sustainable design and construction, and has been Trustee of the Association for Environment Conscious Building since 2012. Fran studied architecture and trained as a bricklayer. In 1980 she was a founder member of Matrix, the feminist design collective, and is a joint author of ‘Making Space - Women and the man made environment' (1984, reprinted 2022)

    14. Microcities

    Play Episode Listen Later Jan 31, 2022 26:45


    Microcities is the office of Mariabruna Fabrizi and Fosco Lucarelli, architects, teachers and curators. Their current topics of research are the spatialisation of mental processes, the relationship between architecture and information, the evolution of the domestic space. Their work takes the form of architectural projects, exhibitions curatorship and design, and articles on Socks-Studio and elsewhere. They curated the exhibition “Inner Space” at the Lisbon Architecture Triennale 2019 and are currently working on “Database, Network, Interface, the Architecture of Information” for the gallery Archizoom in Lausanne. They published the book Inner Space in 2019 for the publisher Poligrafa. Their works have been awarded and exhibited widely. They are both associate professors at the EAVT Paris-Est.

    13. Fergus Feilden

    Play Episode Listen Later Jul 10, 2021 24:13


    Fergus Feilden is director of Feilden Fowles – an award-winning, London-based architecture studio, which he founded with Edmund Foyles in 2009 following their first project, Ty Pren, a passive long-house in the Brecon Beacons. Today, Feilden Fowles deliver a range of buildings across the UK, producing architecture that is rich in character and distinct in identity. The practice's approach is both academic and hands-on; they engage in contextual research while exploring materiality and craft through large-scale prototypes and models. Projects are underpinned by a strategy of longevity over short-termism, using robust yet adaptable structures and simple but beautiful materials. Fergus is currently working on projects with clients such as the National Trust, TfL, the Science Museum Group and Yorkshire Sculpture Park. Feilden Fowles was shortlisted for the Stirling Prize in 2019, was named BD Young Architect of the Year 2016 and has received numerous RIBA and Civic Trust awards.

    12. Marina Tabassum

    Play Episode Listen Later Jul 7, 2021 25:18


    Marina Tabassum is a Bangladesh based architect, educator and academic. She graduated from Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET) in 1995. The same year, with Kashef Mahboob Chowdhury, she founded URBANA, an architecture practice based in Dhaka. In 2005, Tabassum established MTA (Marina Tabassum Architects). The practice's Bait Ur Rouf Mosque in Dhaka won the Aga Khan Award for Architecture in 2016 Alongside her work in practice, Tabassum is Director of Academic Program at the Bengal Institute for Architecture, Landscapes and Settlements since 2015. She has conducted design studios at BRAC University since 2005 and has also taught an Advanced Design Studio as visiting professor at the University of Texas.

    11. Niall McLaughlin

    Play Episode Listen Later Jun 30, 2021 26:14


    Niall McLaughlin was educated in Dublin and received his architectural qualifications from University College Dublin in 1984. He worked for Scott Tallon Walker in Dublin and London between 1984 and 1989. He established his own practice in London in 1990. Niall McLaughlin Architects make high quality modern buildings with a special emphasis on materials and detail. Niall won Young British Architect of the Year in 1998, he was one of the BBC Rising Stars in 2001 and his work represented Britain in a US exhibition Gritty Brits at the Carnegie Mellon Museum. His designs have won many awards in the UK, Ireland and the US, including RIAI Best Building in the Landscape and the RIBA Stephen Lawrence Award for the Best Building under £1million and was on the Stirling Prize Shortlist in 2013 and 2015. Niall is a professor of architecture at University College London, Lord Norman Foster visiting Professor of Architecture, Yale, 2015, and visiting Professor University of California Los Angeles, 2012-2013 a Member of the Architectural Review Editorial Board and an Honorary Royal Designer of Industry. He was chair of the RIBA Awards Group from 2007 to 2009. He lives in London with his wife Mary, son Diarmaid and daughter Iseult.

    10. Asif Khan

    Play Episode Listen Later May 6, 2021 24:32


    Asif Khan founded his East London-based, research and development led architecture studio in 2007. Ranging across buildings, landscapes, exhibitions and installations, among other things, Khan's practice explores how material and social innovations can fundamentally alter the way people experience and shape their environment, realised through rigorously detailed and delivered outputs. Khan is currently working on the new Museum of London at West Smithfield, Tselinny Centre of Contemporary Culture in Almaty and the Dubai Expo 2020 public realm. Recently he designed the award winning UK Pavilion at Astana Expo 2017 and the Hyundai Pavilion at the Pyeongchang 2018 Winter Olympics. Notable previous projects include the ‘MegaFaces' pavilion at the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics which won the Cannes Lion Grand Prix for Innovation, the Coca-Cola Beatbox at London 2012 Olympics, a finalist entry in the international competition for the new Guggenheim Museum Helsinki from 1700 anonymous designs, and a Summer pavilion for the Serpentine Gallery in Summer 2016. Khan lectures globally on his work and sits on the Board of Trustees for the Design Museum. He was awarded an MBE for services to Architecture in 2017 and the studio were named ‘Architects of the Year' by the German Design Council in 2018.

    9. Kate Macintosh

    Play Episode Listen Later Apr 28, 2021 23:26


    Kate Macintosh is an architect renowned for her ground-breaking social housing projects and latter-day campaigning and activism. She studied architecture at Edinburgh College of Art (now Heriot-Watt University), graduating in 1961. After time working in Poland, Sweden, Denmark and Finland, and then with Denys Lasdun on the National Theatre project in London, she worked for the Architects Department of the London Borough of Southwark (1965-68) where at the age of 28 she won the internal competition to design what became Dawsons Heights, described by The Observer in 2015 as ‘one of the most remarkable housing developments in the country'. In 1968 she moved to Lambeth Architects Department, designing sheltered housing for the elderly at 269 Leigham Court Road, since renamed Macintosh Court and listed at Grade 2 in 2015. Leaving Lambeth in 1972, she went on to work at Arup Associates, Ahrends Burton and Koralek, East Sussex County Architects and Hampshire County Architects before setting up Finch Macintosh Architects in 1995 with her life partner George Finch. Together they designed the Weston Adventure Playground, Southampton for a playground charity, which won a RIBA Award 2005. Today, Macintosh is heavily involved in campaigning for social housing and its vital role in creating humane and liveable cities.

    8. Harriet Harriss

    Play Episode Listen Later Apr 19, 2021 23:04


    Dr. Harriet Harriss (RIBA, ARB, Assoc. AIA, Ph.D., PFHEA, FRSA) is a qualified architect and Dean of the Pratt School of Architecture in Brooklyn, New York. Prior to this, she led the Architecture Research Programs at the Royal College of Art in London. Her teaching, research, and writing focus upon pioneering new pedagogic models for design education, and for widening participation in architecture to ensure it remains as diverse as the society it seeks to serve. Dean Harriss has won various awards including a Brookes Teaching Fellowship, a Higher Education Academy Internationalisation Award, a Churchill Fellowship, two Santander Fellowships, two Diawa awards, and a NESTA (National Endowment for Science Technology and Art) Pioneer Award. Dean Harriss was awarded a Clore Fellowship for cultural leadership (2016-17) and elected to the European Association of Architectural Education Council in summer 2017. Dean Harriss' public consultancy roles include writing national construction curriculum for the UK government's Department for Education and international program validations and pedagogy design and development internationally. Across both academe and industry, Dean Harriss has spoken across a range of media channels (from the BBC to TEDx) on the wider issues facing the built environment, is a recognized advocate for design education and was nominated by Dezeen as a champion for women in architecture and design in 2019.

    7. Adam Nathaniel Furman

    Play Episode Listen Later Apr 16, 2021 21:38


    Adam Nathaniel Furman is an artist & designer of Argentine & Japanese heritage based in London. He trained in Architecture and Fine Art, and works in those areas as well as products, interiors, writing and teaching. My work has been exhibited in London, Paris, New York, Milan, Melbourne, Rome, Eindhoven, Minneapolis, Portland, Kortrijk, Tel Aviv, Veszprem, Mumbai, Vienna & Glasgow, is held in the collections of the Design Museum, the Sir John Soane's Museum, the Carnegie Museum of Art, the National Gallery of Victoria, the Abet Museum, & the Architectural Association, and has been published widely. The atelier has completed, and ongoing projects both internationally (Europe, the US, S America, the Middle East, East Asia) and in the UK. He has lectured internationally, and has taught courses at several universities as well as having been Studio Master at Central St Martins in London, am co-director of Saturated Space at the AA.

    6. Sarah Wigglesworth

    Play Episode Listen Later Dec 15, 2020 24:01


    Sarah director of Sarah Wigglesworth Architects. She is an architect with over 30 years experience in practice. She is acknowledged as a pioneering influence in British architecture. She has extensive expertise in green and sustainable design. Her work is characterised by careful theorising of the issues unique to each project and close engagement with clients and users. In 2003 she was awarded an MBE for her services to architecture and in 2010 was made a prestigious CABE Commissioner. She was awarded Royal Designer for Industry by the RSA in 2012. She has a long standing relationship with academia and for 19 years was a Professor of Architecture at the University of Sheffield, where she led the DWELL research project designing exemplary neighbourhoods and housing for older people.

    5. Space Popular

    Play Episode Listen Later Dec 8, 2020 23:12


    Space Popular is directed by Lara Lesmes and Fredrik Hellberg, both graduates from the Architectural Association in London (2011). They founded the practice in Bangkok (2013) and have been based in London since 2016. Space Popular creates spaces, objects, and events in both physical and virtual space, concentrating on how the two realms will blend together in the near future. The studio has completed buildings, exhibitions, public artworks, furniture collections, and interiors across Asia and Europe, as well as virtual architecture in the Immersive Internet.

    4. Jo Noero

    Play Episode Listen Later Nov 17, 2020 23:13


    Jo Noero formed Noero Architects in Johannesburg in 1984. In 2000, the practice relocated to Cape Town, and now has offices in Cape Town and Port Elizabeth. Noero has designed and built over 200 projects, and has combined a professional career with an academic one, lecturing both locally and internationally. He was the Director of the School of Architecture and Planning at the University of Cape Town from 2000 to 2005. He was a tenured professor at that institution from 2000 to 2015, and is an emeritus professor of the same university. The practice has received both local and international awards, including the Lubetkin Prize from the Royal Institute of British Architects in 2006, the Ralph Erskine Prize from the Nordic Association of Architects in 1993, and the Icon Award for Building of the Year from Icon Magazine in London in 2013.

    3. Farshid Moussavi

    Play Episode Listen Later Nov 3, 2020 20:45


    Farshid Moussavi OBE RA is an internationally acclaimed architect and Professor in Practice of Architecture at Harvard University Graduate School of Design. Moussavi's approach is characterised by an openness to change and a commitment to the intellectual and cultural life of architecture. Alongside leading an award-winning architectural practice, Farshid Moussavi Architecture (FMA), she lectures regularly at arts institutions and schools of architecture worldwide and is a published author. Moussavi was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2018 Queen's Birthday Honours for services to architecture. She was elected a Royal Academician in 2015 and Professor of Architecture at the RA Schools in 2017.

    2. Narinder Sagoo

    Play Episode Listen Later Oct 21, 2020 24:37


    Narinder Sagoo is Senior Partner – Art Director at Foster + Partners. Heading the ‘Design Communications' team, he is responsible for the visual representation of all projects from sketch through to photorealistic representation.

    1. Sam Jacob

    Play Episode Listen Later Oct 21, 2020 19:45


    Sam Jacob is director of Sam Jacob Studio. He is Professor of Architecture at UIC and Visiting Professor at Yale School of Architecture. He was co-curator of the British Pavilion in Venice (2014), is columnist and critic for Dezeen and Art Review as well as Contributing Editor for Icon magazine. Previously, Sam was a founding director of FAT Architecture.

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