Allan Sylvester (Dip Arch, Arb) Studied at the university of north london (now the CASS) and the Bartlett (UCL) and co founded Ullmayer Sylvester Architects with Silvia Ullmayer following a collaborative self build project. He is a visiting lecture at University of Westminster School of Architecture and Cities, teaching on the BA Interior Architecture course, and also a maker of short drone videography films on architecture.

Andrew is a Director at Buckley Gray Yeoman with broad practice experience across multiple sectors that include workplace, residential, higher education and hospitality. Andrew has a strong focus for sustainable development and is lead on several retrofit projects across the UK. These include; Colmore Gate, Birmingham. A large post-modern tower & podium redevelopment in the heart of the city centre that will sustainably rejuvenate the 1990’s office building to create a 200,000 sqft active Grade-A workspace campus. 1 Georges Square, Bristol. A 160,000 sqft retrofit of an existing office block that delivers a city centre headquarters for a British tech-engineering firm. 65 Fleet Street, London. The comprehensive remodel of the Whitefriars north and south buildings to deliver modern student accommodation in the heart of the City of London. The Shepherd Hotel, Mayfair London, that comprises a 3-storey top extension in CLT of the existing hotel building to provide a completely remodelled 85 key boutique hotel, which sits alongside the restoration of the Grade II listed Georgian corner terrace that delivers 16 private residential apartments. 151 Shaftesbury Avenue London, the complete modernisation of the early 00’s office block that comprises top extension with eternal amenity, a new high-performance façade and low-energy services to create a highly sustainable repurposed central London office building. Christchurch Court on Paternoster Square, London, a significant commercial development that remodelled and extended the prominent City building to deliver over 350,000sqft of combined Grade-A office space. 46-48 Bedford Row, London, that sensitively reinstated four Grade II listed Georgian terraces into traditional workspace across 4-storeys comprising a total of 100,000 Sqft. 27 Eccleston Place, rebranded as ‘The Ice Factory’, the transformation of a 150+ year old industrial warehouse building located in London’s Belgravia into a vibrant mixed-use scheme that comprises flexible office space between a retail unit at ground with a top floor restaurant.

Ann-Marie is an Associate Director at Architype, AJ 40 under 40 award winner and 2022 AJ Sustainability Champion of the Year. Delivered Architypes 1st EnerPHit Passivhaus project and Irelands first EnerPHit project in 2011. Since 2021 she also has led the development of an innovative unique methodology assessing retrofit options on large non-domestic education estates in Scotland including a holistic look at whole life carbon emissions impact. With over 30 buildings assessed 3 are proceeding as projects with more in the pipeline. She is external examiner for many university courses across the UK and Ireland, in particular an Msc in Building Performance in TU Dublin and a recently launched Post graduate diploma in Robert Gordon University on Retrofit. She is passionate about climate resilient design and arguably one of the countrys experts on the physics of retrofit including thermal and hygrothermal evaluation.

Basil is Managing Partner of FORE Partnership, the purpose-driven real estate private equity firm that drives social and environmental innovation in the built environment using low carbon strategies, social impact, place making, and design.  Prior to founding FORE, Basil was a partner at Capricorn Investment Group, the family office of Jeff Skoll (eBay), and was Managing Partner of a German property fund.  He spent 13 years in investment banking in New York and London.  Basil is Chair of the children’s charity, the Institute of Imagination, and sits on the board of trustees of the UK Green Building Council, the property industry’s largest membership organisation dedicated to sustainability.  He graduated with a degree in Aerospace Engineering from Cornell University.

Studio Tashima is a London-based studio of architects and designers known for their intuitive and responsive architecture. Their signature is the resourceful adaptation of existing materials and structures, conjuring new uses and atmospheres rich in quality and experience. Seeing their designs as just one of the many phases in a building's life, the studio’s concept of ‘a living architecture’ reflects a deep appreciation for the built and natural environments while bringing something new.

Charles Tashima was born in New York City and studied at Wesleyan University in Connecticut and Harvard University GSD. Upon graduating with the thesis prize in 1991, he received a Kennedy Travelling Fellowship to follow LeCobusier’s ‘grand tour’ of 1911. Here, he focused on the study of vernacular architecture and materials through Eastern Europe, Turkey and Greece.

Charles’ collaborative approach has come from his extensive experience teaching design internationally. He began at the ETH-Zurich while working in the practice of Meili Peter Architekten. Since then, he has been a visiting critic at a number of schools and taught at the EPFL-Lausanne and The Architectural Association, London, where he was Academic Head and a tutor for nearly 15 years. While teaching, he founded his practice, Studio Tashima, in 1999.

Chris is a Design Director with over 15 years of experience, contributing strategic expertise across AKT II’s global portfolio. His work spans heritage regeneration, including the Europa Nostra award winning restoration of Shrewsbury Flaxmill Maltings, the retrofit of London’s New Zealand House, as well as international high-profile new-builds such as the Ismaili Centre in Houston. He champions reuse and a ‘first principles’ approach to pushing the boundaries beyond a codified approach, as well as working with experimental materials to unlock new sustainable solutions. His portfolio includes major projects in the United Kingdom, such as the Maggie’s Centre in Leeds and the forthcoming Cambridge House hotel on Piccadilly, alongside international landmarks like the Zayed National Museum in Abu Dhabi and the Central Bank of Iraq.

David Green has been associated with Belsize Architects for 30 years and a director for half that time. A significant part of Belsize Architects’ portfolio has involved work on existing buildings. The built environment is in his blood as his engineer father worked at the Building Research Establishment (before its privatization) on innovation in the use of concrete. In addition to his role at Belsize Architects, where he champions sustainability, he has also made public contributions to built environment policy, most recently contributing to the Don’t Waste Buildings initiative which is seeking to influence political opinion to ensure our existing stock of buildings is used in the best way possible, both for citizens and for the global environment.

He is not a qualified architect, but was educated as a classicist and then economist at Cambridge and the University of Wales. He had an earlier career in the Bank of England, IMF, FSA and FRC and has co-authored books on global financial regulation and on central banking. In consequence the economics of the construction industry is a particular interest, as is the role of financial incentives in promoting the reuse of the existing stock of buildings.

Eoin co-founded London based ConForm Architects in 2017, with the practice working across the residential, cultural, retail, public, conservation, commercial and office sectors. The practice has established a reputation for transformative, considered architecture and interiors that investigate and interrogate both context and form. Such projects include the AJ Retrofit Award winning Smithson Tower fitout within the iconic Grade II* Listed Economist Building, a hotel and wedding venue conversion in the Loire Valley and the ongoing redesign and an exciting theatre in Surrey.

Graham is a director of Prewett Bizley Architects who are commitment to radically reducing the energy consumption of buildings, with extensive experience in delivering sustainable new-build and retrofit projects using Passivhaus construction methodologies.

Graham has written regularly for various architectural journals and is the author of two books on architectural detailing published by the Architectural Press. He is a part-time teaching fellow at the University of Bath.

Helen is a Director of Burrell Foley Fischer Architects, who have delivered the highest quality projects for the arts, education and heritage sectors for 40 years. Throughout her career, she has developed her design skills to unlock the potential of existing heritage and cultural buildings and find new and sustainable ways for them to contribute to their owners, their users and their communities. Helen is the Director responsible for the refurbishment and remodelling of the Grade II* listed Hall for Cornwall. The new, three-tiered theatre space has enabled the organisation to deliver their artistic vision and provided a new dynamic relationship between performer and audience, whilst conserving and restoring its important heritage elements bringing them into better use.

Hero is Sustainability Director at Max Fordham and leader of their Sustainability team, involved with setting zero carbon strategies on projects and advising on all aspects of sustainability including whole life and embodied carbon.

Her team have worked on numerous pioneering retrofit projects across a range of sectors, from the multi-award winning Engine Shed in Scotland, to 11 Belgrave Road in London which is targeting net zero carbon in both construction and operation.

Hero’s approach to knowledge is that it should be freely shared so the whole industry can design better, more sustainable buildings. She demonstrates her commitment to social and environmental agendas through her involvement with community engagement projects, public consultations and through her contributions to the industry, such as 'The Sustainability Matrix', a communication tool which has been adopted by the industry to help set sustainability targets for projects across the UK.

Hero is a sustainability expert for the RIBA National Awards Panel, a member of the CIOB Sustainability and Environment Special Interest Group and is a LETI collaborator. She is also a BREEAM accredited assessor and chartered environmentalist with Society for the Environment.

J-J studied at Oxford Brookes University before completing his architecture training at The Bartlett, UCL, under Sir Peter Cook, a leading architect and founding member of Archigram. He started his career in Hong Kong with Arquitectonica before returning to the UK to work with Foster + Partners, Paxton Locher, and Sidell Gibson Architects. In 2009, he co-founded Morrow + Lorraine with Julian Morrow. J-J is passionate about working with clients, developers, and innovators who share his vision for sustainable, people-focused architecture that creates real value for both businesses and communities.

Jon joined Barr Gazetas in 2002 and became managing director in 2016, taking responsibility for the studio's governance and relationships. Jon is involved with projects at every level and contributes to all internal design reviews. He manages the growth and development of Barr Gazetas and leads many projects for clients such as The Crown Estate, Grosvenor, British Land and Marsfields. Jon is passionate in his pursuit of new ideas and innovation. He takes a keen interest in nurturing new projects and refining the brief, and the concept with the team. Jon is deeply committed to delivering sustainable design and this is reflected across the practice.

Architecture offers a vocabulary of different professional lives within one field. It is a field in which you can develop yourself and concoct a route towards a manifesto of ideas, underpinning an architecture of our time.

The profession has a duty to conserve our present cultural fabric by way of sensitive adaption, renewal, alteration, amendment, extension or reconfiguration. Conservation and repair brings with it the joy of meeting the long dead architectural mind of the original designer through intense study and the built work. We have to respond to the value of the existing building fabric by using our architectural intelligence and understanding. We do not need a special label. We are architects, not space planners or old building experts or developers' hacks or designers of follies.

There is also the recognition that the language of architecture and cultural artefacts applies equally to the new and the old - I don’t see a distinction between designing a building and designing the repair of a building. To design a new door is identical to the process of repairing an old door within an adopted set of criteria. Each project demands an orderly mind to establish an approach.

Satisfaction also arises from working with fellow professionals who share a willingness to engage with existing and new fabric in a serious intelligent and knowledgeable fashion. Simply asking the client what they want abdicates the need for informed debate and the giving of professional advice. All parties need to grasp a level of understanding equal to the significance of the design task in hand. The absolute responsibility of each contributor cannot be delegated.

The greatest obstacle to communication in any specialist sector of a profession is the distance the generalist needs to travel to reach a level of meaningful engagement with the specialist. The generalist architect isn’t trained in the field of conservation. We often have to start at a teaching level to establish the vocabulary with fellow professionals. They can’t understand what we do if they can’t come some way towards understanding the definitions of the works that populate our language.

Katerina Dionysopoulou is co-founder and director of Bureau de Change, a London-based practice which she founded with Billy Mavropoulos. The practice works across a range of typologies and scales from product and furniture design to major refurbishment and new-builds, combining pragmatism and formality with playfulness, innovation and beauty in every project. Katerina graduated from the Bartlett School of Architecture and trained at Foster+Partners before joining Heatherwick Studio where she led projects such as the UK pavilion in Shanghai and the Olympic Cauldron, prior to setting up her own practice. Recent projects include the Interlock, a mixed-use development in central London with an intricate brick façade. She combines teaching with practice, running an undergraduate unit at the Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL.

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.

Lizzy is a qualified Architect and certified Passive House Designer with 15 years’ experience of design and getting projects delivered on site.

The combination of practical experience as an architect and a deep knowledge of sustainability enables her to build the practice’s expertise, as well as sharing our work more widely. She has excellent communication skills which are put to use talking to residents of homes we’re retrofitting, teaching and enabling staff internally and participating in sustainability groups outside the office.

Lizzy is a director of Loco Home Retrofit, a Glasgow-based co-operative that encourages and enables people to retrofit their own homes. She is also co-chair of the National Retrofit Hub’s Working Group 1, addressing ‘Warm, Healthy, Net Zero’

Louisa is a Partner and Head of Sustainability at Hawkins\Brown. She manages the Environmental Intelligence team who deliver specialist sustainability services. She manages the practice Whole Life Design strategy striving for a regenerative, low carbon, socially aware built environment. She is a member of many cross-disciplinary industry groups campaigning, writing guidance and training for improved performance standards and sustainable outcomes including RIBA, RICS, UKGBC, LETI, CIBSE and was a taskforce member for the UK NZCBS. Alongside she is a Mayor’s Design Advocate, working with the GLA

Marion Baeli is Principal, Sustainability Transformation at 10 Design. Specialising in the existing built environment, adaptive reuse and low energy , low carbon design, she brings in over 20 years of expertise on the design and delivery of large-scale, complex projects that span the whole spectrum of housing as well as office sectors. 

She is a renowned author on low-energy design, recognised for her award-winning book on residential retrofits. Additionally, she contributes to the Westminster Council's Design Review Panel, serves as a frequent guest lecturer at several Universities (UCL, Westminster, Imperial College, University of Nottingham), sits on the board of the UK Passivhaus Trust and acts as an architecture award judge for the RIBA, the Architects’ Journal and Architecture Today.

Mark has designed and delivered multiple award-winning buildings across all scales and many sectors, leading the integration of Penoyre&Prasad into Perkins&Will over the last four years. Increasingly he has focussed his design efforts on large scale retrofit projects - as one of the key necessary contributions of the profession in enabling a low carbon future. He is now at the early stages of establishing and scoping a new practice, less.eco, which seeks to identify a sustainable business model for encouraging and helping clients to build less, to use less, and to truly minimise their planetary and carbon impacts.

TAP have completed buildings across a wide range of scales and typologies including domestic extensions, residential development, community, commercial and leisure-use projects, many of which involve working with existing buildings and historic structures, always with the aim of improving the environmental performance and enhancing the character of the original. Graduating from Glasgow School of Art in 2001 with a First Class Honours and the Glasgow Institute of Architecture prize, Neil founded TAP in 2009. He won the RIAS Emerging Architect of the Year Award in 2017, in recognition of his work at the practice.

Rachel is a Consultant at HUT and promotes sustainable design within the practice. During her time at HÛT Rachel has completed a number of widely publicised schemes including the retrofit and extension of British Land’s first Storey building in Broadgate and redevelopment of a six-storey converted office warehouse in Kings Cross. She is a guest critic and lecturer at the University of Westminster and an advocate for promoting education in the architecture profession. She is mentor to a number of Architects at HÛT and supports their growth within the practice.

Rachel Hoolahan is Associate Director at Orms, where she leads the practice's sustainability consultancy. Rachel has spearheaded research into materials passports, contributing significantly to the firm’s focus on material reuse and sustainable refurbishment.

Sarah is an architect and co-Director of Featherstone Young, a practice with expertise in place-making and social engagement. She is also a member of VeloCity, an all-women, multidisciplinary team re-imagining the village for the 21^st century, creating new homes and working environments in healthy and socially cohesive places. Her projects include the award winning Tŷ Pawb (Everybody’s House), a new model for an arts venue in Wrexham, and a campus for the newly formed Black Mountains College set in the Brecon Beacons National Park. Sarah teaches at Central St Martins, UAL and the Welsh School of Architecture and is on various local authority Design Review panels. Her teaching and practice reflect her interest in the way people shape their environments and how architecture can stimulate, rather than dictate, activity and social interaction.

Sela is an accomplished architect and conservation specialist, and the Heritage and Conservation Lead at Gort Scott Architects. Before joining Gort Scott, she was a Partner at Wright and Wright Architects. Her work is characterised by a strong commitment to preserving architectural heritage while adapting historic structures for contemporary use. She has worked on many internationally important historic buildings, making a significant contribution to the field of conservation and retrofit practice. Sela regularly acts as a heritage consultant and is an RIBA-registered Specialist Conservation Architect.

Shaun is co-founder and director at West Port, where he oversees the design and delivery of all projects while nurturing the sustained growth at the practice. Shaun holds a strong interest in the broadening of both the educational and professional routes into architectural and design practice. American born and of Nigerian descent, Shaun has had a eccletic lived experience, including his time spent studying and working in Sweden, Scotland, and Germany which fuels his desire to see from the perspective of those less-equipped to influence the physical make-up of their neighbourhood. Founded in 2016, West Port under his leadership have been awarded RIBA Practice of the Month (March 2019), are an AJ 40 Under 40 Practice (2020), have been profiled in the publication, New Architects 4 (Architecture Foundation, 2021) and have been shortlisted on or successfully won several bids and competitions in both the public and private sectors.

Soraya studied at Canterbury College of Art, School of Architecture and graduated with a Distinction. After working for practices including Pollard Thomas Edwards and John Miller + Partners, Soraya set up practice in London with her partner Patrick Theis as a Director of Theis + Khan architects.

Theis + Khan have designed award winning community buildings such as Lumen Church in King’s Cross, Bethnal Green Health Centre and Bat and Ball station in Sevenoaks; commercial buildings such as the RIBA office headquarters in Portland Place and many private houses. The mixed-use development Bateman’s Row in Shoreditch was RIBA London Building of the Year 2010 and was shortlisted for the RIBA Stirling prize 2010.

Soraya has been a visiting tutor at Strathclyde university, an external examiner at the University of Westminster and an RIBA judge and chair for the RIBA Northern Ireland regional awards. She has also judged the RIBA President’s Awards for Research, The IBP Journalism Awards, the RIBAJ MacEwen Awards, the AJ Retrofit Awards and What House Awards.. She is a Liveryman of the Worshipful Company of Chartered Architects and was awarded the Freedom of the City of London in 2017. She was a committee member of the Architecture Club, a trustee on the board of the Temple Bar Trust and was on the membership committee of the Worshipful Company of Chartered Architects. Soraya is currently a panel member for Design South East and is also on the Folkestone and Hythe, Canterbury and Dover design panels.

Toby is a Director at BDG architecture + design, leading the architecture team and specialising in development strategy and the adaptive re-use of existing buildings.

Over the past six years, he has led a global program of co-location projects for WPP, the world's largest creative group. Notable examples include the transformation of a derelict telephone exchange in Madrid, a 200-meter long ceramics factory in Milan, and Rivierstaete in Amsterdam (Europe’s largest office building in the 1970s) into vibrant, adaptable, and highly desirable contemporary workspaces.

Additionally, he has overseen significant deep retrofit projects on London's Southbank, including the Sea Containers Building, Rose Court, and One Southwark Bridge (formerly the Financial Times headquarters), demonstrating expertise in building repositioning and revitalisation.

Toby has previously worked at Peter Barber Architects in London, where he cultivated a commitment to cost-effective, high-quality design, as well as with Nabito Aquitectura in Barcelona and The Oval Partnership between London and Beijing.

These roles provided exposure to a diverse range of project scales and sectors, from private residential to large masterplans, consistently emphasizing economic viability, social impact, and sustainable design.

Currently, Toby divides his time between the UK and Brazil, where he recently established a project studio in São Paulo, overseeing the delivery of the latest WPP Campus building, he is also a Part 3 Professional Examiner at UCL.

Tyler has over 35 years of global real estate experience with a unique combination of expertise in institutional real estate finance, investment management, and property development. His opinions are regularly sought, and he regularly writes and speaks on matters relating to real estate investment, development, and policy. He has worked in Canada, the USA, Asia, and Europe.

Tyler is the founder and CEO of Seaforth Land – an award-winning regulated operating partner specialising in Central London Zone 1 office buildings. Under Tyler’s leadership, Seaforth has delivered over 600,000sf of buildings and has forged a reputation for pioneering retrofits delivering experiential buildings that embrace sustainability and conservation. Prior to Seaforth, Tyler was the founding CEO of Lodha UK where he led the acquisition of £400mn in zone 1 sites including 1 Grosvenor Square in Mayfair. Tyler was ranked in the 2014 50 most influential real estate executives. Tyler’s real estate finance expertise was honed at Deutche Bank as a real estate investment banker and private equity investor and at JPMorgan in real estate special situations and in global real assets. 

Tyler’s possesses advanced practitioner knowledge into two fundamental building blocks of our industry: 1) Finance: Across the real estate value-chain of consultancy, investment banking, origination and execution of equity and debt investments, and asset management with unique knowledge of institutional investment strategy and allocations, and; 2) Development: Full investment life-cycle development experience in both emerging and developed markets and through multiple real estate cycles including entitlements, design development, procurement, delivery and stabilization. 

Tyler is also passionate about the role of public policy in the built environment. He has a master’s degree in real estate development from the USC Price School for Public Policy where he has served for 15 years on their Board of Councillors.

Vanessa Norwood is a curator and consultant. She has shaped public and professional discourse on architecture through a series of critically acclaimed exhibitions. Vanessa works with clients from the built environment sector including architects, manufacturers, makers and cultural institutions towards building a low-carbon future. As Head of Exhibitions at the Architectural Association Vanessa was a pioneer of urban installations, overseeing a series of temporary pavilions in Bedford Square. She was co-curator of the exhibition Venice Takeaway for the British Pavilion at the 13th International Architecture Biennale. Vanessa was Creative Director at the Building Centre, London between 2018 and 2023. She writes on the subject of architecture with a focus on materials and is a guest juror at international awards, competitions and student juries.

Vinesh Pomal is an Architect and Senior Lecturer at Leicester School of Architecture, De Montfort University where he co-leads Year 2 and teaches professional practice across all three years on the BA(Hons) Architecture programme. He has over 10 years of professional experience having worked at ButcherBayley Architects, TPBennett, TateHindle, Levitt Bernstein and ECD Architects. His experience designing sustainable communities across varying typologies include school and community projects through to housing projects at all scales and tenures including specialist housing.

Vinesh is an advocate of equality, diversity and inclusion and has co-founded the Asian Architects Association. He was formerly an active member of the RIBA having won numerous hats including RIBA Presidential Ambassador for Young Architects, co-chair of RIBA's EDI committee Architects for Change and sat on RIBA Council representing the London region. He has also undertaken guest reviews at several architecture schools including Sheffield, Ulster, Reading, UAL and Loughborough; sits on the Ealing, Harrow, Sutton and Bexley Health Design Review Panels and judged the RIBA London Awards. He was a founding board member of the Young Architects and Developers Alliance.

Vinesh has published numerous articles in the architectural media including a building review of the Haveli Building at the Hare Krishna temple by Cottrell Vermeulen for the Architects Journal and a chapter on ‘Intergenerational Living: Care for the Common Good’ for Retropioneers: Architecture Redefined, a book published by RIBA Enterprises which talks about topics that will face our future generations.