London Edition 2023

About the Speakers

Joe Morris is an architect spearheading Morris+Company across two studios, one in the creative district of London’s Shoreditch, the other in Copenhagen. In a career spanning 25 years of professional practice which has achieved widespread international recognition, Joe has increasingly advocated a sense of urgency for fair and transparent practice, inclusivity and equality, through open dialogue and critical debate, whilst encouraging the broader company to take ownership of projects and develop their own careers and interests.
Morris+Company is a growing studio, recently included on the AJ100 definitive record of the UK’s largest architecture practices, and its direction and governance is a shared endeavour across the director team and beyond. Accordingly, each member plays a vital part in driving the practice to achieve exemplar service and output. Joe’s focus is directed towards the Workplace Sector (spearheading the #Office+ Programme), Majors (providing strategic oversight on all major projects) and International (working collaboratively with our Danish Team to build our sister studio in Copenhagen, as well build on relationships in Munich, Berlin, Paris, Buenos Aires, Los Angeles, Oslo).
www.morrisand.company

Alison Brooks, Founder and Creative Director of Alison Brooks Architects London, is one of the UK’s most highly awarded and internationally acclaimed architects. Born and educated in Canada, she moved to London in 1987 and established her practice in 1996. With built works encompassing urban design and housing, private houses, public buildings for the arts and higher education, she is the only architect to have received the profession’s three most prestigious UK awards: the RIBA Stirling Prize, Manser Medal (twice) and Stephen Lawrence Prize.
Her work reflects a commitment to generous, inclusive city-building and a uniquely sculptural design language beautifully demonstrated in her recently completed Cohen Quadrangle for Exeter College, Oxford. Landmark urban projects include Ely Court, London, the Stirling-prize-winning Accordia, Cambridge and Cadence in King’s Cross. Her public and education buildings include Folkestone’s Quarterhouse Performing Arts Centre and the ‘Smile’, a spectacular public pavilion for the 2017 London Design Festival. Private houses continue to serve as a focussed platform for the practice’s design research, from the much-celebrated 2001 VXO House to 2021 RIBA House of the Year, Windward House. She has been invited to exhibit her practice’s work at the Venice Architecture Biennale three times. www.alisonbrooksarchitects.com

Cindy Walters is director and co-founder of Walters & Cohen Architects. Since establishing the practice with Michál Cohen in 1994, Cindy has been responsible for a variety of projects in the UK and abroad, including several schools, Vajrasana Buddhist Retreat Centre in Suffolk, the Gallery of Botanical Art in Kew Gardens, and the Dorothy Garrod Building for Newnham College, Cambridge. She believes strongly in creating beautiful buildings and spaces that have civic and social purpose and encourage a wider conversation about architecture. Buildings designed by Cindy have been called elegant, miraculous and timeless. They are unique to their context, create a sense of place and are loved by the people who use them.
Cindy and Michál provide a supportive, creative environment, one where staff know they are appreciated. Outside the practice, Cindy regularly contributes to academic and professional institutions as an external examiner, speaker, competition judge and mentor. Her long-standing involvement with the RIBA includes being on the jury for the Lubetkin Prize, Stirling Prize, President’s Research Awards, Honours Committee and a member of the RIBA Validation Panel. In 2019 she became chair of the Architecture Foundation. She is also one of the Design Council’s associates, a governor at Regent High School and completed a PhD at the Bartlett School of Architecture in 2022.
www.waltersandcohen.com