“Glasgow must change its internal narrative in order to move forward” came the resounding message from our roundtable guests, very much echoing that which was shared at our recent seminar on Glasgow’s Property Outlook.

Bringing together a brilliant group of built environment professionals, it was agreed that whilst Glasgow may sometimes be hard on itself, the view from outside the city is overwhelmingly positive. Glasgow has so much going for it, and perhaps the challenge is to recognise that more confidently, build on its strengths and turn that belief into action.

From curating the right city centre mix to facilitate Live, Learn, Work, Play (it was concluded Glasgow is currently missing at least one of these ingredients – Live), to unlocking the amazing heritage buildings here, and sharing accountability (perhaps a City Mayor?), all agreed every decision made about Glasgow should come down to its people.

Though, as always, an hour was just enough time to scratch the surface, many motivating discussion points came out of our conversation chaired by Material Source Studio Director, David Smalley. Read on for the highlights below.

Our guests

Short term pain, long term gain

To begin, Session Chair, David, put the focus immediately on the positive, asking, “What are we getting right in Glasgow?”

James R Blakey, Planning & Engagement Director, Moda Group, responded first from an investors’ point of view. “Glasgow is getting its profiling right as a major city within the UK. There are some great senior officers here that understand the need to seduce investors, with the likes of MIPIM and UKREiiF having been ideal platforms to promote Glasgow. Investors have a myriad of different places to go, of course, and when rent control came in, it killed it and they did go elsewhere. But that’s being addressed, and investors will come again.”

Greg Meikle, Regional Director, oobe, echoed this sentiment, “The change in senior officers within the council over the last couple of years has definitely improved things. There’s a clear appetite from them.” Having witnessed the Invest Glasgow team in action at MIPIM and UKREiiF, Greg shared too that the city’s presentation of its offer to investors is currently very strong.

“Could this be said of Glasgow’s presence at these events 2-3-years ago?” David asked.

“Scotland wasn’t joined up,” responded James. “Its collective voice was too small.”

This isn’t necessarily a criticism of just Glasgow, James added, but of the country as a whole. “Scotland has an incredible story to tell,” he said. “And that story needs to be told with the loudest voice in the room.”

This point about being “joined up” was furthered by Bernie Carr, Director & Head of Environmental Architecture, cameron kerr. “We’ve not quite got the branding element right – we have to sell Glasgow as a brand,” he suggested. “We have a great offering; Glasgow is a unique place with its own culture. It’s very welcoming here. And we have lots of assets and venues – the smaller of which need protecting because they offer something different. However, I think there’s a lot still yet to do.”

“Scottish people can be quite grumpy,” shared Greg. Putting his “landscape architecture hat on”, he highlighted the “gripes” around George Square (currently undergoing a major £20–£24 million public realm transformation managed by the Glasgow City Council as part of the broader Avenues Programme). But regardless of public perception, and having witnessed other projects of this kind catalysing a chain reaction of private investment off the back of a council-funded project (“sometimes investors think, well, you’ve put your own money into the city, so we’ll give it a punt”), Greg believes the reopening of George Square could set a positive precedent.

Lisa A Pitchers MRICS, Associate Director at city-based real estate agent, Rettie, has already noticed an improvement to the public realm following the launch of the Avenues Programme. “There’s been a period of constant roadworks so people haven’t yet seen the vision, but walking through the city at twilight and seeing the lights come on, the new furniture and trees, it’s making a difference.”

“There’s inevitably going to be a period of short-term pain,” added Claire McGinley, Associate, HAUS, in agreement with Lisa and Greg. Though “the positive impact to be had will definitely outweigh this,” she noted, looking ahead, particularly in regard to George Square, “Hopefully it will be a civic space that’s flexible enough to be used long term.”

“We just need the patience for everything to roll out,” commented Claire Waddell, Senior Architect, BakerHicks.

“And the council must get it right, this time,” said Alexandra Ritchie, Commercial Specification Manager Scotland, Karndean, “because it’s been done before, and now it’s being done again…”

Summarising this segment of the discussion, Keith Sinclair, Associate, Keppie, determined, “We’re very good at focusing on what’s not going right, but sometimes we need to focus on what is. We’re punching above our weight for a city of this size, and we should celebrate and build on that.”

Spend in the city

Looking at example cities outside of Glasgow, James referenced Manchester, where city centre living has been a priority for some time. “Because if you lived in the city centre, you would spend time in the city centre and ultimately would spend in the city centre.”

This boosts nighttime and retail economy, James added, which has “a spiral effect in attracting additional investors.”

In Glasgow, the architectural infrastructure for this to happen already exists, James suggested, highlighting ‘Raffa’ (Raffaele Esposito, the Strategic Design Lead and Developers Engagement group manager (and former City Design Manager) at Glasgow City Council within the Neighbourhoods, Regeneration and Sustainability department), as being a “custodian of architectural delivery”, “a great ally and orator of articulating what Glasgow is all about”.

“Delivery”, he said, being the optimum word here. Not just proposing a building but having investment and a design underpinned by quality. “This instils great confidence.”

Another plus that Glasgow has going for it is its districts argued Bernie. “Pockets of different things for different experiences.” The foundations are there and with some more connections through transport links there’s huge potential, Bernie believes.

Lisa brought up Merchant City as being the most densely populated district in the city centre currently in terms of residential. That’s because above every commercial premises in Merchant City there are apartments – something not found elsewhere in the city centre with residential accommodation being, as Lisa said, “more scattered across the central business district”. This district also has the feeling of being “like a village,” describes Lisa of her own experience of living within that “community” for 18-years. “We got to know the shop and local café owners.”

Claire W continued, “There is a definite parallel between the places people live and the independent retail and F&B offering in the vicinity. And that’s not something we’re seeing across the whole city centre, there are a lot of empty units.”

“What’s missing then, from Glasgow?” David asked.

“People,” came the group’s reply.

"And the irony is that our motto is ‘people make Glasgow’,” Keith remarked. “But people come into the city centre for work, then go to their homes outside of it.”

Change & choice

“If you break down what people need,” commented Greg, “infrastructure is a massive thing. We’ve got a rail network that closes at 11:30 and serves 10% of Glasgow. If you want to have a 20-hour city, you’ve got to allow people that live, say, in the Southside to come back in of an evening.”

As well as transport infrastructure, there’s also the social infrastructure - doctors, schools, dentists - to consider, suggested James. Quoting the developer Tom Bloxham (Founder of Urban Splash), James said when he was asked what makes a good city centre 25-years ago, Tom responded it’s when seeing children walking to school there. Because it creates a “social network.”

“There needs to be space for families in the city centre as well as for young professionals,” James claimed. To which Bernie pondered, “Do we need families in the city centre? I wouldn’t want to live in a city with my family…”

“Yes, we do,” James answered. “We need to give people the choice to.”

A lack of green space was the point Bernie made as to why he, and others, may not choose to live in a city. But James argued that’s not necessarily the case. And a lack of social infrastructure doesn’t have to be the case either. “Don’t be narrow minded about your city,” came his plea.

“Are we just stuck in the past?” considered Alexandra. “We need to realise things have changed.”

“Things have changed,” said Lisa. “I’ve worked in the city property market for 30-years, and at the start it was geared up for young professionals and investors buying for let. But now, more and more, people are buying the properties to live in.

“In Glasgow (from 2-years of Rettie City Sales Data), the mix is 10% investors buy to let (it used to be almost 50%), 40% first time buyers, 10% parents buying for their children at university, 12% sold to buy in the city centre, 4% retired downsizers and 4% second home buyers.

“That’s people choosing city living. Last year there were 1,000 homes sold across the city, so each year people are making that choice.”

In Scotland, Greg suggests people have had the “privilege of choice”, with plenty of countryside or suburb options in addition to the city centre that are commutable.

Speaking from experience, Claire M believes some city dwellers feel they have no other option after having children than to move out of the city centre due to space restrictions.

“Space is at a premium in the city centre,” agreed Bernie, highlighting it once again as “an issue for families”.

Though James suggests this thread of conversation may be focused too narrow – “This is an international city, a European city, with a profile to match. And you’re competing for international investment.”

Referencing some current projects, public money married up with private pension fund investment is making positive headway, shared James, notably in the build to rent market. In Glasgow, he commented there are 11 pension funds seeking to invest. And that’s exactly what’s needed, he inferred.

One of the biggest issues for people living in the city centre at the moment, James said, is personal safety.

“Especially as a female,” Marie Hosie, Architectural & Design Consultant, Crown Paints, commented, “you don’t always feel safe walking around the city.”

Lisa has heard this occasionally, she said, from parents looking to buy for their children. But in the city, there are always people around, she added. “There are cameras, and bouncers outside businesses.”

This is about perception suggested David, it’s how people view Glasgow.

A slew of negative press about Glasgow city centre following the BBC’s airing of Disclosure: Welcome to Glasgow, a documentary about antisocial behaviour in the city, has skewed peoples’ perception, Lisa believes.

It was agreed around the table though that Glasgow is largely a very friendly city (Secret Glasgow reports it was recently officially ranked as the 2nd friendliest city in the world by the 2026 Fernwayer Friendliest Cities Index, narrowly trailing Mérida, Mexico).

And James mentioned its reputation for being a hub of world-class education – “it’s got a deep educational and cultural texture, and that’s what it’s known for.”

Maximising existing assets

“What are we not making the most of here?” asked David.

“The river,” came the response.

Though development has started, Marie shared, with lines of trees and fairy lights, there’s much more that could be done to ensure the area is populated. That would then allow people to feel safe there at night, it was agreed, through footfall and natural surveillance.

At Developing Glasgow, a new initiative hosted by Glasgow City Council to bring together public and private sector stakeholders, James shared that the river was highlighted as a focus area with huge potential.

There’s the Quays Masterplan, Bernie added, with more public realm planned and some rewilding for the Clyde. “The city is known for turning its back to the Clyde,” Bernie commented, “but it’s a great asset, and every other city in the world celebrates their rivers, so we need to.”

“This circles right back around to one of our original points,” said Greg, “that we don’t shout loudly enough about what we’re doing well. The bridge behind the Riverside Transport Museum, the Govan–Partick Bridge, which connects Water Row in Govan (south shore) to Pointhouse Quay in Partick (north shore) over the River Clyde – great thing.

“We’re working with Peel to see how we can then connect that back to The Glasgow Distillery, and back into the city centre. There’s so much good stuff happening. And preparations have been made over a 3-4-year period with much more to come.”

The “good stuff” Greg references also includes a co-living scheme – “hugely exciting” came the group’s response. And as part of the development of this area, a new pedestrian path has been put in place by oobe allowing people to walk along the River Clyde to reach the Distillery in a way they never could before. “We’re encouraging people to start moving around in that area now,” Greg told us.

“We are a city of masterplans!” exclaimed Bernie. “We’ve got Custom House Quay; King Street Car Park; Laurieston – all of these masterplans…the thing that’s lacking is investment. And coming back to my point about branding,” he added, “are we attracting international investment successfully enough? I don’t know.”

David asked, “what would you like to see?”

“A mayor for the city,” Bernie replied, acknowledging that the comment may be perceived as controversial. “Someone there to deliver the city plans that’s not tied to a political party that can lobby the government…”

… “I think you’re right, Bernie,” said James in agreement, referring to prime minister Andy Burnham’s devolution agenda. “A mayor of the place rather than of a party.”

“Investors need stability, don’t they?” David suggested. “And we all know that Glasgow is a phenomenal place, we just need to make sure the perception is matched.”

As the session drew to a close, the group’s collective thoughts turned to what’s needed in the city to secure success for the future.

“Glaswegians need to be much more visionary and bold,” reiterated James, building on his earlier point. “And they need to take greater risks from a city point of view. It’s all a bit safe.

“Ricky Bell [leader of Glasgow City Council’s local authority] should be challenged to be bolder,” he added, in a final call for action. “Think international.”

A huge thanks to all our guests and to our supporters for this session, Crown Paints & Karndean Flooring – both Partners at Material Source Studio Glasgow.

We’re now taking our Property Outlook seminar and roundtable ‘down the road’ to Material Source Studio London. Book your seminar ticket here.

This week, the first phase of a pedestrianised Oxford Street was unveiled by the Oxford Street Development Corporation (OSDC), and award-winning architecture, landscape and urban design practice, East.

An almost-kilometre stretch of Oxford Street – between Orchard Street and Great Portland Street – is now fully pedestrianised and ready for Londoners and visitors alike to walk, sit and gather.

This major milestone marks the first stint of a transition phase, with ongoing construction for the scheme to unfold across London's most famous thoroughfare. London-based architecture, landscape and urban design practice East is leading the team including J&L Gibbons, Gehl, Publica, Etude and NRP to design the pedestrianisation scheme through its transition phases and the permanent scheme.

East and the wider team were appointed by the Greater London Authority in December 2025, alongside architects Hawkins\Brown who have been developing a long-term design vision for the whole street, from Marble Arch to Tottenham Court Road.

During the transition phase, road markings will be removed and new seating, planting and signage will be introduced. Later phases will be informed through feedback collected from residents, accessibility groups, businesses, workers, transport partners and other Londoners, allowing OSDC with East to assess real-time insights on how the pedestrianised space is being used.

The new traffic-free section will be closed to private motorised vehicles, buses, taxis and private hire vehicles, cycles, scooters and pedicabs. Traffic, including buses, taxis and cycles, will continue on streets running north-south across Oxford Street. Construction of the permanent transformation of the section between Orchard Street and Great Portland Street is expected to begin later in 2027, with completion anticipated in 2028.

East’s work on the pedestrianisation of Oxford Street builds on 30-years of experience designing high streets and public spaces across London and beyond.

Julian Lewis, director, East, commented: “As we have seen from Borough High Street to Eltham, from Croydon to Green Lanes, London's high streets are the public face of the city in all its diversity, its greenery and its energy. We design to preserve and support this energy, maintaining the ebbs and flows of these places which make our neighbourhoods unique. The same is true at Oxford Street – the place where 'Everything glitters and twinkles', as Virginia Woolf wrote in 1931 – a street whose future is set to be as dynamic and bustling as its storied past.”

The pedestrianisation of Oxford Street is the latest of a series of changes on the street over several hundred years. Architecture practice East cites authors Henry James and Virginia Woolf, who have described the spectacle, flow and energy of the street, as inspiration for the new scheme. Making Oxford Street traffic-free promises to further enhance opportunities for people to gather, rest and wander on the vibrant street.

Making Oxford Street accessible for all Londoners has been at the centre of East and OSDC’s work. Nabeel Khan, CEO of OSDC, said: “We wanted to allow Oxford Street to become a destination with a distinct character and a richer more varied life. It offers so much – flagship retail sits alongside next generation workplaces, leisure, culture and hospitality, so we believe we are providing people with more reasons to visit, stay longer and return more often.

"The test phase, in the first stage of works is a vital opportunity for us to learn from people's experiences and work closely with local communities, businesses and accessibility groups to ensure the future street is as welcoming and inclusive as possible. This is the first step towards creating a greener, safer and more vibrant Oxford Street.”

Material choices in the first phase will underscore a sociable atmosphere, where a textured ‘river’ of stone surfacing will support the feeling of movement down the street, interrupted with occasional 'bridges' of larger pavers where north-south streets cross over Oxford Street.

Later phases will offer different moments for pedestrians to rest or move, the architects intend for each section to feel connected, like a thread or ribbon running from Hyde Park Corner to St Giles Circus.

Street furniture is a vital part of the Oxford Street pedestrianisation transition phase. From now, visitors to the street will start to see new constellations of green timber and steel benches. The seating areas are carefully located based on where people move and where rest may be possible without obstructing flow.

Metal green seats provide extensive choices for sitting, meeting, eating or resting, located at regular intervals along the street for accessibility and convenience. Timber seats and tables are located in areas described by East as ‘barges’, meaning areas with special surface textures for those wishing to stop and look around.

During the transition period, East will test configurations of furniture to ensure they are usable, welcoming and suitable. Data from in-built sensors within the furniture will inform the design of the permanent scheme, monitoring the flow of people and duration of usage.

Alongside the furniture, two new public squares will emerge in the new year on the pedestrianised Oxford Street; one close to Holles Street and the other close to Duke Street. These areas will be highlighted with a new surface dressing to make footways level across the carriageway, and to emphasise the fact that Oxford Street has different and distinctive spatial characters along its length.

The transitional scheme takes the first step in creating a forward-looking, climate resilient urban forest along Oxford Street. The designs for tree planting will provide heat island mitigation, carbon capture, rain interception, increased biodiversity and the beautification of the city. As seen in cities across the world, the introduction of trees benefits wider wellbeing, from mental health to stress reduction.

The trees will be grown on site in large sculptural pots until they're ready to be lowered into the ground for the permanent scheme. The greening of Oxford Street will be connected more closely to the surrounding neighbourhoods in terms of wayfinding, legibility, shelter, air quality and spatial experience.

Julian Lewis, director, East, shared: “The transitional design stage will enable Oxford Street to be tested by the public, enabling us to develop permanent designs for the car-free sections of the street in ways that are informed through use. This is how all public spaces should be designed, and we are really excited to be working with the OSDC and our team in this unique way. We're looking forward to testing and reviewing the designs with Londoners as they walk through the transitional spaces.”

Darryl Chen, partner & urban design lead, Hawkins\Brown, added: “This momentous closure signals but the start of a programme of transformation that will see change in time across the whole Oxford Street and the wider West End. As we set aspirations and benchmarks for the whole street including its ecology of side streets and neighbourhoods, we're looking forward to an Oxford Street that works as well as it can for as many as it can.”

At this year’s BCO Conference, a theme was prevalent throughout. One which we feel mirrors a sentiment shared across the entire built environment sector more generally, up and down the UK. Community – “it’s all about the people.”

“The people” in this sense sit within two groups. One: architects, interior designers and all the consultant professionals they work with on a day-to-day basis; collaboration being the crucial factor in allowing the built environment to meet its many complex goals – from sustainability to inclusivity to safety.

And two: the end users that spaces are being designed for, all with exacting and differing needs that require supportive settings allowing them to be the best versions of themselves, whether at work, in education, at rest or play. But also desiring human connection, and for the spaces they inhabit to facilitate this seamlessly.

Inspired by this, for the latest instalment of our Material Moods series, we put the spotlight on Community, inviting 6 architects and interior designers from: BDP; Keppie; Bennetts Associates; INCH; c2:concepts; CRGP, to join us at our Glasgow Studio along with an industry guest of their choice, from: Robertson; Turner & Townsend; Bellrock; Cundall; Race Against Dementia; Atelier Ten - all part of the specification ecosystem, though viewing it through a specialist lens. Whether that's carbon consulting, inclusive design expertise or as a contractor. The group were invited to craft individual moodboard concepts for zones as part of an overarching, cohesive workplace scheme to promote Community; the coming together of people.

The teams set to work exploring the Partner PODs in our newly refitted Studio space, taking time to chat to experts from each brand – another key part of the built environment ecosystem – to make informed material and product specification choices.

What material choices facilitate connection? Are there certain colours, or certain textures that connect us? What role does design play in creating spaces that allow for Community to take hold and flourish? Read on for our teams' interpretations of the brief, and see the collaborative, creative outputs they produced, illustrating perfectly the role that Community plays in our world. Perhaps now, more than ever before.

Lorna Bryden, Senior Interior Designer, BDP & Alan Bryden, Regional Quality Control Manager, Robertson

Zone: Arrival & Circulation

Lorna described her pair’s moodboard as evocative of a Glaswegian “wally close,” entryways, for the uninitiated, to the city’s tenement buildings, where community lies at the heart.

Two tiles from Parkside’s Esmaltes range spoke to this era of homely, localised interior design. This pair rejected drab colours, sometimes the lot of Glasgow’s interiors, Lorna and Alan said, and too often simplified as an extension of our building stock’s characteristically steely facades. Muraspec wallpaper in Burnish proved the perfect circuit breaker, evoking warmth and vibrancy in its winking reinterpretation of an industrial metallic palette.

Also considered in the making of an inviting arrival space were two of CDUK’s materials, chosen to complement Russwood’s European larch flooring in Soft White. PaperStone, seen here in Cabernet and Honey, is a durable composite of recycled paper and natural resin. Crucially, it is warm to the touch, lending a tactile relaxedness to users of Lorna and Alan’s space.

Corian cropped up both as a sample in Travertine Firenza, part of the newly-launched ‘Nature in Motion’ range, and as a worked product from CDUK’s M|R Walls collection, in the style Origami. Guaranteeing no-seam designs, M|R Walls products exemplify the virtually limitless possibilities of how Corian can be moulded and CNC-cut. With their undulating textures, all finishes from this range can be backlit to personalise and add new visual dimension to any “wally close”-inspired space.

Heather Macsween, Associate, Keppie & Emma Flaherty, Project Manager, Turner & Townsend

Zone: Support & Amenities

Heather and Emma set out to create “the best toilets ever.” Also keen to evoke Glasgow’s historic built environment – “red sandstone” was a key reference, and thoughtfully-chosen surface materials proved crucial to pulling this off. Warmth and texture, they noted, can be “sometimes missing” from commercial projects, as can proper consideration of the role amenities play in supporting a workplace community’s wellbeing.

To complement various Parkside samples, including textured tiles from their high-recycled-content Luca and design-driven Earthen ranges, InterplanLam-art’s premium solid surface sample in Siena featured for its marbled finish, as well as its durability and exceptional design versatility.

InterplanLam-art now offers full washroom fit-outs in Scotland, from initial specification to installation, and the Sylvan sample chosen by Heather and Emma exemplifies this process. They built their moodboard concept around bamboo, foregrounding it as an impressive alternative to typical washroom materials on account of its renewability and distinctively natural look. This worked harmoniously with Parkside’s rich raspberries and reds - Agra in Burgundy and BOW by MUT in Bordeaux.

Tying everything together was Muraspec’s Misted Forest mural, a backdrop that is as much a community talking point as it is invitation to private contemplation. Anyone seeking five minutes’ refuge away from the office floor is welcome here.

Karla Duncan, Architect, Bennetts Associates & Jana Bartschova, Associate Director, Bellrock & Lucia Savastano, Principal Sustainability Engineer, Cundall

Zone: Work & Focus

To cater to the full spectrum of ways people want to work, Karla, Jana and Lucia designed pods, hot desks and a workshop – areas, once chosen, that employees feel drawn to settle into and comfortably, lengthily inhabit.

Mohara fabric by ILIV and a Tessera carpet tile by Forbo in “very natural colours” captured the feel of “a tranquil space.” A sample from Autex’s new Emma Hayes collection picked up this visual thread, while working to keep noise from the office floor out.

For all-purpose desk space, another Emma Hayes Autex design was brought in as a divider. Screen-printed onto Autex’s Cube material, this collection boasts the best of Autex’s sustainability and design practices. And Crown paint samples in Belgrave Mill and Regency 4 kept softness and warmth at the sensory fore.

Our trio referenced nature as the ultimate facilitator of community, so for their workshop they spotlit one of Russwood’s Architect Select larch cladding samples, opting for a brushed finish to accentuate the wood’s natural grain. This works for an environment where people come together to play and make, and easy clean-up at the end of the day is guaranteed with their choice of Forbo’s Marmoleum flooring, the colour Meringue chosen from its Cocoa Range.

Lynsey Hutchinson, Senior Interior Designer, INCH Interiors & Gayle Henry, Director of Care Operations, The Office of Sir Jackie Stewart OBE

Zone: Wellbeing & Rest

Bringing ample experience of designing for health and wellbeing, Lynsey and Gayle focused on indoor lounge and outdoor terrace space.

These areas weren’t treated separately. Rather, one flows into the next, not just for the biophilic potential this design choice offers, but for the sense it makes for users of the space who have dementia, are neurodiverse, or are otherwise affected by high contrast visuals. Russwood oak flooring in Honey was chosen, alongside its Thermopine decking, as both options have a similar light reflectance value. Together these materials work as an organic transition from inside to outside, and vice versa.

Six waterproof fabrics by ILIV were chosen for their practicality and subtly contrasting colours, including a sample from the new faux-leather Tofino range. Our pair spoke about the need for different types of seating in both areas, to cater for a range of mobilities, and their fabric choices were equally versatile, with textures and finishes that work outside as well as in prioritised.

Finally, Crown’s Belgrave Mill – a popular choice! – acted as the perfect backdrop for what Lynsey and Gayle referred to as a stimulating “variety” of textures, ranging from the compressed PET of Autex’s Cube acoustic panelling to the soft chenille of ILIV’s Elutor range.

Zoe Phillips, Interior Designer, c2:concepts & Sam Patterson, Embodied Carbon Assessor, Atelier Ten

Zone: Social & Community

Zoe and Sam challenged a contradiction often felt by designers of high-end, high-performing offices: the pursuit of a “wow factor” can muddy the mission to make these spaces feel “safe and welcoming.” They considered the experience of visitors as well as employees, and settled on rich, earthy paint – Crown’s Ruby Chocolate and Forest Vista – to establish a welcoming mood.

Patterns were key to inviting chatter and connection. “We’re not just stationary,” noted Zoe; in groups, we’re constantly moving and talking, and dynamic fabrics like ILIV’s Aludel range, here in the colour Juniper, support and mirror this behaviour.

Sam chose samples for their embodied carbon potential, leading with a punchy example of CDUK’s Polygood surface material. Combining rich plums and reds with flecks of white, this is a material that proves good design can emerge because, not in spite of reuse – the block you’re seeing was once a plastic pipe.

Reuse was highlighted elsewhere in the form of Forbo’s Cocoa Range, which incorporates discarded cocoa husks into the brand’s classic Marmoleum formulation. There is no better function for this kind of flooring than what this pair described as a “kind of tea prep” area, where people might congregate, eat and drink on a surface that is easy to clean, and forgiving in its speckly appearance.

For gatherings proper, Russwood’s oak flooring in the shade ’90 worked for an event space. This product is available in a 6mm thickness, allowing for resurfacing at the twenty-year mark, so builds from the ground up a space that ages alongside the organisation it houses, supporting the long-term development of a workplace community.

Kirsten Davis, Sustainability and Impact Lead, CRGP & Carys Dunn, Part II Architectural Assistant, CRGP

Zone: Work & Focus

Kirsten and Carys selected products for one collaborative area and one smaller meeting room. For the former, flooring textures were mixed to support the high-traffic reality of a communal workspace, with Russwood’s oak flooring in Cask placed alongside Forbo’s Tessera carpet tiles in shades Pickled Spice and Honey Haven.

Our pair used Crown’s new Co palette as a “launch point,” gravitating towards those neutral-yet-rich shades seen elsewhere: Belgrave Mill, Forest Vista and Regency 4. For a feature wall, they chose Muraspec’s Tissera, a covering whose structural design lends it a playful, rippling effect.

This material, Kirsten noted, will last a few refurbishment cycles, so was an obvious choice to guarantee longevity. So too was CDUK’s Polygood, seen here as a light, flecked sample originated from refrigerators. Both have distinctive textures that work to “visually guide” users through the space and provide long-term sensory interest.

For a smaller meeting room, CDUK‘s PaperStone in Siena was chosen for its “wood effect,” and paired with Autex’s Verve sample in the structural style Ridge. Dappled browns and greens blurred for a comfortable, natural effect, with accent fabrics by ILIV, including in the colour Puerto Forest from its PlanetMark-certified range. Darker, richer, a tad more sophisticated than the collaborative space, the vision for this meeting room nevertheless tied in with this pair’s governing idea: a warm, natural, multi-functional workspace, one that works dynamically to support the daily stream of people moving into, around and out of it.

Though all the interpretations of Community were distinctly different, common themes featured throughout: Nature-connected; Belonging; Inclusivity; Sustainability; Durability; Locality – facilitated through colour, texture and finish. Through the literal bringing together of community, and cross-industry collaboration, a cohesive concept was the final result – a visual example of what working together can create.

A huge thank you to all who joined us for what was a joyfully uplifting day celebrating the true meaning of Community.

House of Social is a Manchester destination that combines shared student apartments with a lively, two-floor food hall below - a city centre space designed for people to eat, drink, work and socialise in, open from early morning through to midnight with events and DJs across the week.

When it came to designing this venue, Vita Group crafted an interior to bring people together. Waxman Architectural - a specialist in tiles and a Partner at Material Source Studio Manchester was proud to help shape that with a carefully curated selection of tiles to adorn various zones in the food hall.

The bars and tables were brought to life using Rainbow Cobalt tiles – a glossy, vibrant coloured tile that injects a retro vibe into the space, giving a visual nod to the classic American diner. Their bold, saturated finish gives the bars real presence, acting as a focal point that draws the eye and sets a playful, slight nostalgic tone for the rest of the food hall.

That retro thread continues into the flooring, where Winckelmans chequered black and white tiles were used in part of the space, with an unglazed finish. As well as being hard-wearing and built to withstand the high footfall of a busy food hall, the chequered pattern makes for a brilliant central feature, anchoring the space with a timeless, graphic design.

Working harmoniously to balance out that bold centrepiece, Brooklyn Beige was used across the surrounding floors in a terrazzo effect. This allowed the Winckelmans mosaic to stand out as a genuine feature floor rather than compete with its surroundings, while still carrying the retro theme through the wider space. It also served a practical purpose, creating a clear visual separation between different zones of the food hall simply through a change in tile style, without the need for physical partitions.

The bathrooms were designed and completed using Winckelmans dark blue and white tiles in a chequered pattern, carried right through from floors to walls and vanities. The bold blue-and-white mosaic covers every surface, reinforcing that same modern-yet-retro identity found throughout the rest of the space and ensuring the design language feels consistent from the food hall right down to the finer details.

House of Social’s food hall has fast become a genuine hub for the city – an ideal “third space” for students and locals alike to eat, drink, work and unwind. As you'll see if you visit, Waxman's tiles have played a key part in bringing that vibrant, retro-inspired atmosphere, created by Vita Group, to life.

London-based design studio BOX 9 has led the architecture and interior design for KID, a new 3,300 sq ft restaurant in Soho from chef Sertaç Dirik and restaurateur David Carter.

Set within a Victorian corner building on Frith Street and Bateman Street, KID brings together two former units to create one cohesive restaurant arranged across the ground floor and lower ground. The space seats around 120 guests, with a ground-floor dining room centred around the grill, a wine room that doubles as a private dining room, and a guest-facing lower-ground bakery and events space.

“KID is built around fire, bread, memory and generosity,” says Lou Davies, co-founder of BOX 9. “We wanted the space to feel contemporary whilst deeply rooted in historic Soho, but also layered with the warmth and craft of Turkish hospitality. The challenge was to hold those worlds together with restraint, so the references are felt through material, rhythm, texture and ritual, rather than decoration.”

BOX 9 has worked with David Carter for over a decade across SMOKESTAK, MANTECA, OMA and AGORA. With KID, the studio was invited to create a distinct world for Sertaç’s first restaurant of his own, following his success at his family-run restaurant, the hugely popular Mangal II. The brief called for an interior that could carry Sertaç’s Turkish heritage, family food memories and culinary finesse, while belonging confidently to Soho. The menu reflects the food Sertaç grew up with: humble ingredient-led dishes rooted in the flavours of Central Anatolia, shaped by fire, bread, generosity and techniques passed down through family.

David Carter comments: “It’s been a privilege to work alongside BOX 9 over the past decade, they instinctively understand how design strikes a chord not just aesthetically but emotionally. KID is our most involved collaboration yet, with Sertaç bringing rich Turkish roots and culinary heritage, but with a strong East London accent. BOX 9 have woven this narrative into the heart of Soho."

The central idea is the meeting point between Victorian Soho and Central Anatolia. BOX 9 distilled this into a material-led concept built around brick, fire, craft and ritual. The result is a restaurant rooted in the London street, but warmed from within by Turkish hospitality, handmade detail and the rituals of the table.

The restaurant’s corner site gives KID a strong presence within the historic grain of Soho. Built in 1897, the building sits within the area’s original 17th and 18th Century street grid, and would likely have formed part of a cluster of Victorian townhouses with shops at ground level. BOX 9 has led a full architectural intervention, including structural alterations and new shopfronts on both elevations, responding to the building’s history through proportion, permanence and crafted detail, and using waste brick as the architectural anchor of the scheme to create a contemporary restaurant that feels rooted in place.

The two former units are united through palette and materiality, but subtly expressed with different architectural characters. While the Frith Street elevation echoes the rhythm of a traditional Victorian shopfront, the Bateman Street side takes on a more refined contemporary articulation. The corner dining room at the front of the restaurant remains uninterrupted by arrivals, acting instead as a teasing glimpse into the atmosphere beyond. Surprisingly, guests enter via a quieter side entrance on Bateman Street, where the spatial reveal is intentionally dramatic, with a heavy, oversized door opening directly onto the fire and movement of the central grill.

The grill centres the ground floor. Fire is both a practical and emotional anchor, driving the cooking, the pace of service and the atmosphere of the room. Around it, guests move between banquettes, intimate tables, counter seating and bar seats overlooking the chefs at work.

Materiality lies at the heart of this project. 37,474 Kenoteq bricks and slips are used throughout the restaurant, unfired and made from at least 90% recycled construction and demolition waste.

CDUK's PaperStone post-consumer waste pressed cardboard panels are used for cabinetry, doors and joinery in a Sienna waxed finish, chosen for its durability, sustainability credentials and gently mottled surface. Pyrolave, a volcanic lava stone surface, is used for the wine room tabletops in a deep, moody green. In a restaurant centred around flame, a material formed by volcanic activity and transformed through firing was said to have felt instinctive, bringing depth, permanence and an elemental quality to the room.

The ceiling is softened visually and acoustically with cork joists - chosen for its intensely smoky texture and acoustic properties, and its sustainability credentials. BOX 9 worked with Portuguese producer, Amorim, whose cork is harvested by stripping bark without felling the tree, a process that locks in carbon, supports groundwater retention and reduces risk of forest fires.

Textiles by Arc of Joan bring a strong circularity story. No virgin material is used for the upholstery fabrics, which are reclaimed from the fashion industry, military surplus, or newly woven from waste yarn from the interiors industry. Over-dyed by hand in a palette of burnt terracotta and shadowed moss, the fabrics retain existing markings, repairs and patches as part of their character. Hand-embroidery references tribal kilim symbols and motifs, rooting the upholstery in the wider Turkish textile story without becoming literal.

As a centrepiece casting light over the new staircase, emerging Turkish artist Selin Acikel was commissioned to create an oversized mobile made from patinated cast bronze from recycled copper, paired with off-cut steel rods and forged iron sourced from local fabrication waste streams. The brief drew from the idea of the sofra, the Turkish table not only as a place to eat, but as a site of generosity, speech, hospitality and collective presence.

Lighting has been developed with Occhio, selected for its technical precision, controllability and elegant quality of light. Much of the ground floor lighting is concealed, allowing texture, fire and material to shape the atmosphere. Luna Scura fittings are used in the bathrooms and on the walls of the main dining area, while Luna Basso fittings sit on each of Hendzel’s bespoke tables, softening the more rectilinear brick architecture with warm, controlled light.

Andreu World’s Oru chair has been selected for the lower ground for its comfort, curves and playful energy, while Karakter’s Principal chair and matching bar stool have been chosen for their structural solidity, authorship and longevity.

“KID reflects so much of how we approach hospitality,” adds Davies. “It is not about applying decoration to a restaurant. It is about building a world from the food, the site, the materials and the people involved. Every decision has to contribute to the atmosphere, the operation and the story.”

What does the automotive industry have in common with the architecture and interior design sectors? As it turns out, quite a lot.

A reoccurring talking point in several conversations of late, many parallels can be drawn between the two - from the potentials of Modern Methods of Construction - MMC (very much like car part manufacturing in many ways) to Colour, Materials & Finishes - CMF design.

The latter crossover is what brought us to this particular interview with Rekha Meena - Vice President and Global Head of CMF Design for Volvo Cars.

Guided by curiosity, Rekha has built her career from an MA in textile design to roles in India, Japan, and China, exploring materials, techniques, and craftsmanship along the way through the lens of different cultures. Today, she leads a multidisciplinary team, which decides how a Volvo looks and feels to the people who drive it.

The job, Rekha tells us, sits right between creativity, engineering, and business - "I love that balance."

Balance in Rekha's role is crucial. Balance between sustainability and durability. Premium and affordable. Unique and scalable. By embracing innovation, and specifying materials that sit outside of the usual box, Rekha is turning challenges into opportunities for overarching positive outcomes.

"What I want to show is that you should never have to choose between sustainability and desirability." Read on for Rekha's take on materiality.

Firstly, what’s your professional background?

"I’ve spent the past two decades in automotive design, but it all started with textiles. My Master’s in textile design let me explore all kinds of materials, techniques, and craftsmanship traditions. That’s where I first noticed how much colour, material, and finish (CMF) shape the way we feel about an object.

"Since then I’ve worked across pretty much every corner of CMF design, exploring textiles, upholstery, surface materials, colour, and premium material strategy. Today I lead multidisciplinary teams who decide how a Volvo looks and feels to the people who drive it. The job sits right between creativity, engineering, and business, and I love that balance."

How did you become Vice President and Global Head of CMF at Volvo Cars?

"I joined Volvo Cars Design nine years ago as a Senior Design Manager for CMF. Since then I’ve taken on roles in different countries, including India, Japan, and China. Working in those cultures changed how I think about design. You start to notice how differently people read beauty, comfort, and quality, and that stays with you.

"Honestly, what got me here was curiosity. I’ve always believed CMF is where people actually meet a brand, through what they see and touch. I’ve also long admired Scandinavian design for its simplicity, its craftsmanship, and its closeness to nature.

"My job now is to bring that together with everything I’ve picked up along the way, while building the team and creating distinctive, considerate, and emotionally engaging experiences that reflect the evolving spirit of Volvo."

When it comes to the automotive industry, what does CMF extend to?

"CMF is what gives a Volvo its Scandinavian soul. We’re responsible for every surface you can see or touch, inside and out. Every colour, material, texture, and finish. That means balancing a lot at once, from brand identity and sustainability to quality, manufacturing, and customer expectations. Our ambition is to create timeless design that remains relevant and desirable for decades, creating a distinctive Volvo experience that lasts beyond trends."

Of the three facets of CMF, do you have a favourite?

"Honestly, I love all three. They’re a bit like ingredients for a chef. You need every one of them to make something special.

"But if you made me pick one, I’d say materials. I trained in textile design, so I’ve always been fascinated by how a material can tell a story, create emotion, and influence how people experience a product."

You’re particularly passionate about future materials, utilising recycled denim, industrial waste and beach plastics in your work - tell us more.

"We’re trying to use more sustainable, circular, and recycled materials across everything we make. Volvo Cars is aiming for net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2040, and there’s simply no way to get there without circularity.

"The EX30 was our chance to really challenge the traditional automotive material palette by exploring new natural and recycled alternatives. Reclaimed denim emerged as a material that could create a unique visual and tactile expression on the interiors. We also used recycled window-frame particles to create a decorative surface, turning something that would have been otherwise thrown away into something very desirable.

"That’s what excites me about future materials. They make us rethink what premium means. For a long time, luxury meant using more. Today I think it means using resources more intelligently and responsibly, while still creating something beautiful, desirable, and timeless."

Have you discovered a material recently that you feel has great, untapped potential?

"Natural materials such as wood and wool bring warmth and authenticity that’s very Scandinavian. But where I see real untapped potential is in recycled and renewable materials.

"I see real untapped potential in recycled and renewable materials"...

"The new EX60 has 27% recycled content overall, the highest of any Volvo so far. That includes recycled aluminium, recycled metals in the battery cells, and low-carbon recycled steel. It’s a big step towards creating premium interiors that are both beautiful and responsible.

"We are also exploring and developing many futuristic materials for upcoming line-ups, pushing the boundaries of what sustainable premium design can be."

The interiors in cars must be durable – much like the commercial interiors our audience are designing – how do you balance this with circularity? Does there have to be a compromise?

"Durability is non-negotiable for us. Every material has to pass Volvo Cars’ rigorous testing, because our customers’ safety always comes first.

"We deliberately take a 'secondary-first' approach, which means recycled materials are the first place we look. I don’t see it as a compromise. Every material has to earn its place in the car, recycled or not. The denim in the EX30 proved that waste can become something beautiful. I think the next generation of premium materials will increasingly come from industrial by-products and circular systems.

"They bring their own character while holding up to everything a car demands: quality, safety, and durability."

As well as durability, scalability is a consideration in car production. The materials you use must be available in large volumes. Do you ever struggle with the supply of repurposed materials?

"Repurposed materials are gaining popularity, and the supplier base is growing. But finding a great sustainable material is only the first step. It still needs to meet our quality, durability, safety, and consistency standards like everything else.

"Volume can be tricky early on, but that’s where collaboration can foster innovation. Working closely with suppliers and our engineers, we can help take a promising material from a niche idea to something that works for global production. Once suppliers believe in where we’re going, they’re usually willing to invest and scale with us."

Are there any materials you wish you could use but that aren't currently readily available yet?

"We’re working on some exciting things right now, but you’ll have to wait a little longer to see them! My personal wish is to take materials that already exist and give them a second, third, or even fourth life. The planet already has so much we could be using.

..."the most desirable materials of the future haven’t been industrialised yet"...

"I also think some of the most desirable materials of the future haven’t been industrialised yet. That’s what keeps this work so interesting for me."

Tactility is another factor – how important a role does that play in your material selections?

"The moment you open the car, sit on the seat, and grab the steering wheel, the tactile experience begins. Every material has its own character depending on how it is used. For example, wood should feel natural and authentic, while soft-touch surfaces can create a sense of premium comfort and calm.

"Tactility has been at the heart of Volvo Cars’ design journey from the beginning. Texture, softness, grain, and the surface character of a material can completely transform the atmosphere of a space. The best materials are those that invite people to interact with them, because that’s when design becomes truly engaging and memorable."

How do you go about selecting the colours you use in Volvo’s designs?

"Colour selection can’t be driven by trends alone. At Volvo Cars, we look at Scandinavia itself: the way the light shifts through the seasons, a lake at dawn, or the warmth of natural minerals. We translate those quiet natural palettes into colours that feel calm and authentic.

"For me, creating a Volvo colour is not simply about selecting a shade; it is about translating an emotional experience from nature into an automotive expression. The goal is always to create timeless, elegant colours that are distinctly Volvo."

What's the relationship between colour, materials and finishes?

"They’re not three separate decisions. They work together to create one coherent customer experience. I often like to think of CMF as a triangle, where each element plays a different but connected role.

"Colour sets the emotional mood. It’s what makes a car feel calm, warm, sporty, or modern. Material gives it substance and character. It’s what you feel, whether that’s wool, recycled textiles, denim, wood, aluminium, glass, or polymers.

"Finish brings the two together. Matt, satin, gloss, brushed, polished, or textured – it changes how light interacts with a surface and how the quality comes across.

"Together, colour, material, and finish create the emotional and sensory identity of a Volvo."

Is there a secret formula to getting it right?

"For Volvo, there is no secret formula, only consistency. When colour, material, and finish all express the same Scandinavian story and emotion, the design feels right."

What's next?

"We’re deep into our upcoming line-up, exploring the next generation of sustainable materials with circularity, innovation, and Scandinavian design at the core. At Volvo Cars, they go hand in hand."

According to Material Source Studio London Partner, Brita Group, the question as to how workplace expectations are changing hydration specification may have perhaps seemed slight a decade ago. "Hydration sat in the schedule alongside hand dryers and waste streams: necessary, unglamorous," they said of the past.

But, that position is now getting harder to hold, they shared. As commercial floorplates shrink and the money saved is redirected into amenity, every visible fixture in a workspace is being asked to justify itself twice - once to the people who use it, and once to the people who maintain it.

In the article to follow, Brita explains where that pressure is coming from, what it’s changing about the specification process, and why the criteria extends well beyond aesthetics.

Less space, higher expectations

CIPD research puts 74% of UK organisations as having hybrid working in place, down slightly from 84% in 2023 but still the norm. Fewer desks are occupied on any given day, and property strategies have adjusted accordingly.

What's happened to the space occupiers gave up is perhaps more interesting than the fact they gave it up. CBRE puts flexible workspace at 12% of the London office market, forecast to reach 20% by 2030, with the UK flexible footprint heading towards 50m sq ft. Large single-tenant floors are being carved into smaller, multi-tenant environments run by an operator rather than an occupier, and co-working accounts for a substantial share of that.

The space that remains is working harder. JLL’s Global Occupancy Planning Benchmark Report 2026 puts actual office utilisation at 56% globally against a target of 74%, with the gap between ambition and reality narrowing from 25 percentage points in 2025 to 18. Organisations are taking less space and getting more out of what they keep.

They’re doing it deliberately. Fully remote working has fallen to 10% of the workforce, down from 18% a year earlier. 62% of organisations now require a fixed number of in-office days, up from 49% in a single year. And the share of employees attending three or four days a week has jumped 19 percentage points, to 55%.

Mandates get people through the door. They don’t necessarily make them glad to be there. The buildings winning on attendance are the ones where the daily experience makes the commute defensible, and that argument is won across dozens of small interactions rather than in the reception atrium.

Hydration is one of the few amenities almost every occupant uses, several times a day, in full view of colleagues. Very few fixtures in a workplace get that much contact.

The widening table

Brita is aware that the design team no longer makes this decision alone, and that’s the structural change underneath everything else.

A hydration system installed in a multi-tenant building has to satisfy the architect who drew the tea point, the landlord marketing the floor, the fit-out contractor coordinating the install, the facilities team who’ll keep it running, and the sustainability manager who has to report on it. Those groups don’t always want the same things.

An occupier may want something that looks considered and works instantly. A landlord perhaps wants an amenity that reads as premium to a prospective tenant walking the floor. A facilities manager wants equipment that doesn’t generate call-outs. A sustainability lead wants evidence: consumption data, lifecycle information, something defensible in a report rather than a claim on a brochure.

There’s a fifth voice that didn’t used to be in the room. Workplace and people teams are now routinely consulted on amenity, because they’re the ones answering for attendance and retention.

Their test is comparative and simple: does the office offer people something better than what they have at home? An employee who has a decent coffee setup in their kitchen and a queue for a tired water cooler at work is drawing a conclusion about how much their employer has thought about them - and they draw it daily. Tenant satisfaction and employee satisfaction have become the same measurement taken from two ends of the building.

Each of those priorities is legitimate, and of course a specification satisfying only one tends to get revisited within a few years. Which is the practical reason architects are now looking well beyond aesthetics in this category. Not because appearance stopped mattering, but because appearance alone no longer gets a product through approval.

Occupier and operator

A tension exists between experience and operational burden, and they usually pull against each other.

A more ambitious amenity is generally a more complicated one to run. Multiply that across a building where one facilities management company is now responsible for a consistent standard across eight tenants rather than one, and small maintenance requirements compound fast.

This is where a lot of specification decisions are quietly made. Facilities teams have long memories for equipment that let them down, and we don't blame them. And their influence over repeat specification is greater than maybe most assume.

ESG reporting has sharpened it further. Facilities teams are increasingly the people asked to produce consumption figures, waste data and lifecycle information for buildings they didn’t specify, using equipment that may or may not be capable of telling them anything. An amenity that can report on itself is surely worth considerably more to that team than one that can’t, whatever it looks like.

What actually separates one system from another

If hydration is being assessed as part of workplace experience rather than as plumbing, the criteria changes. Four differentiators come up repeatedly, and the interesting thing is how rarely one product satisfies all four.

Design integration

Start with the obvious question: does the system belong in the room?

For most of the category’s history the honest answer was no. Freestanding coolers were designed as functional objects and retrofitted into schemes that had already been resolved, which is why they so often ended up in a corridor, behind a door, or screened off by joinery invented specifically to hide them. Hydration was treated as hidden compliance. Somewhere the water had to come from, positioned where it would do the least visual damage.

That logic collapses once the tea point becomes client-facing. Contemporary workplace kitchens are designed with the care once reserved for reception, and in multi-tenant buildings they’re frequently the space a prospective occupier is walked through.

Undercounter systems change the terms. With nothing above the worktop except the tap itself, the designer keeps control of the three things that actually determine whether a tea point reads as resolved: the finish, the alignment, and the sightline across the surface. Materiality matters here too. Brushed stainless sits comfortably with the palettes currently specified in commercial kitchens, where a plastic housing in a proprietary colour may not.

Repetition is the underrated part. On a multi-tenant floor the same detail is repeated at six or eight tea points. Get it right and the building reads as coherent, which is precisely the impression an operator is trying to create. Get it wrong and the floor reads as a patchwork of separate decisions.

Sustainability, evidenced

“Reduces single-use plastic” is a starting position, not an answer. Specifiers are asking where the unit is manufactured, what powers the factory, how long the product is expected to last, what happens to the filter at end of life, and whether consumption can be measured rather than estimated.

Water efficiency deserves more attention than it gets. Some treatment methods discard a meaningful proportion of what they process, so a system’s headline environmental claim can be undercut by what goes down the drain to produce each litre. Point of use filtration that treats water without rejecting a share of it, and dispenses on demand rather than running continuously, is doing quiet resource work that rarely makes a brochure. Removing bottled water deliveries takes out the transport, the storage and the handling alongside the plastic.

The wider principle is that a claim now has to survive a spreadsheet. A system producing usage data gives a sustainability lead something to report. One that doesn’t leave them writing around a gap.

Longevity & reliability

Lifecycle cost is doing more work in these decisions than it used to, partly because landlords and operators hold the asset far longer than any single tenancy. A five-year expected service life, a known spare parts position, and a service network covering the building’s actual location are legitimate specification criteria now rather than procurement afterthoughts.

Downtime is the metric that matters in a busy environment. A dispenser out of action for four days in a 300-person building isn’t a maintenance issue, it’s a visible failure of the workplace, and people remember it far longer than the four days. In a multi-tenant setting the damage is worse, because the operator is being judged on consistency and one broken tap on one floor undermines the standard everywhere else.

Capacity belongs in the same conversation. A system rated at 85 litres an hour behaves differently at 11am, when a floor breaks at the same time, than one specified on paper for the same headcount but sized for steady draw. Under-specifying output is a slower failure than a breakdown and it produces the same result: a queue, and a workplace that feels as though it was planned for fewer people than actually turn up.

What separates products here is less the failure rate than what happens around it. Whether consumables arrive before they’re needed rather than after. Whether a fault is known to the facilities team before a user reports it. Whether the person attending has the part with them. These are unglamorous questions, and we know they’re the ones that decide whether a system is specified again on the next project.

Operational intelligence

The newest of the four and the least settled. Connected monitoring is established in filtration: BRITA’s iQ platform reports remaining filter capacity in litres and in weeks, flags devices needing attention through a traffic light view in a cloud portal, and sends weekly status notifications, so exchanges happen at the right moment rather than on a calendar guess. For a facilities team running multiple tenancies from one portal, that’s the difference between a maintenance schedule and feeding into a strategy.

The open question for the design community is how much further the data should go. Consumption patterns across a floor are, in effect, occupancy data, and the appetite for that is not in doubt: JLL found utilisation data now informing 90% of workplace planning decisions globally, up from 70% a year earlier. Whether hydration becomes one of the inputs feeding that, or stays a maintenance tool, is one of the more interesting arguments in the category. There’s a version of it that helps an operator understand how a building is really used, and a version that makes occupants uneasy for exactly the same reason.

Getting it built

None of this survives contact with a programme unless it’s coordinated early.

An undercounter system needs cabinet space, a water feed, power and a waste connection agreed while the joinery is still a drawing. Specified late, we know it can become a coordination problem, and coordination problems are what value engineering feeds on. The hydration point is frequently the item substituted at the last minute for whatever fits the hole left for it.

Early coordination is easier when the information already exists in the format that you as a design team works in. A system published as a BIM object, as BRITA’s range is, can be dropped into the model at concept stage carrying its real cabinet, service and clearance requirements, rather than being held by a generic block that gets resolved on site.

Existing buildings can add complexity, particularly the smaller multi-tenant floors now being created out of larger ones, where a waste connection may not be anywhere near where the tea point wants to be. Systems offering a wastewater container as an alternative to a direct drain connection give fit-out teams a route through that, which we believe is genuinely useful to know at specification stage rather than on site.

Every touchpoint counts

Experience-led design is, at heart, an argument about accumulation. No single fixture makes a building. But a workplace competing for attendance is judged on a running total of small impressions, and the ones registering most are the ones people physically touch.

Hydration is also one of the few places where inclusion shows up in the specification. Someone refilling a bottle before a run, someone making tea, someone who wants sparkling water in a client meeting, someone observing a fast, someone who needs a barrier-free approach to the tap. A single point of provision either handles that range or forces people into workarounds. JLL’s research shows organisations expanding prayer rooms, wellness areas and mother’s rooms as part of the same move towards workplaces designed for a genuinely varied population, and we think hydration belongs in that conversation too.

A worked example: the Extra C-Tap and iQ

Taken together, the Extra C-Tap and BRITA’s iQ monitoring are useful less as products than as a demonstration of what happens when the four mentioned criteria are resolved at the same time rather than in sequence.

The design argument is about restraint. The only element above the worktop is a brushed stainless steel C-shaped tap with an integrated glass touch panel, so the designer keeps the surface. The Tall variant’s clearance takes reusable bottles and larger containers without the tilting that undersized dispensers force on people, which sounds like a specification detail and behaves like an experience one.

The experience argument is about a single point. Ambient still, chilled still, semi-sparkling, sparkling and instant hot, from one tap rather than from a tap, a kettle and a fridge competing for the same worktop. In a shared tea point serving several tenants, that consolidation is doing as much for the design as it is for the user. An optional access panel supports barrier-free environments, which is the kind of provision that costs nothing to design in at concept stage.

The operational argument is where the two halves meet. Leak detection, emergency shut-off and anti-scalding protection decide whether a facilities manager is comfortable putting a system into a busy environment. iQ decides what that manager knows about it afterwards: filter life reported in litres and weeks rather than guessed at, devices needing attention surfaced by exception rather than by inspection, and a weekly position on every unit across a portfolio without anyone walking a floor. Premium user experience at the tap, low operational complexity behind it, which is the combination a modern workplace actually demands.

The sustainability argument is about being able to show your working. A five-year expected lifespan, manufactured in Italy with German filters at facilities running on certified renewable energy, and filtration that removes unwanted substances while retaining minerals. Connected monitoring turns that from a set of claims into a set of figures, which we know is what an ESG report needs.

None of those points is remarkable on its own. For us, they now have to arrive together, because, in our experience, the people signing the specification off are no longer asking the same question.

Beyond compliance

As offices get smaller, more flexible and more openly competitive about experience, the case for treating hydration as a compelling one. The more useful test is whether a system earns its place on four counts at once: whether it looks like it belongs, whether it improves the day for the people using it, whether it stands up to a sustainability report, and whether it makes the facilities team’s job easier rather than harder.

Very few products are specified on all four. That may be exactly why the ones managing it are starting to get specified earlier.

Experience intelligent workplace hydration

Visit Material Source Studio, 120 Saffron Hill, Farringdon, London, to discover how BRITA combines premium design, sustainability and intelligent monitoring technologies to help create exceptional workplace experiences while simplifying day-to-day facilities management. Discover more and plan your visit here.

“Stop talking, and start acting” was the sentiment shared at our property-themed seminar in Glasgow this month.

Discussing the topic of retrofit, repurposing and reconstruction in the context of Scotland's property outlook, an optimistic yet realistic view was shared by our two well-placed panellists with a combination of unique perspectives.

Dr Katherine Gunderson, CEO, Grand Bequest, and Nick Walker, Director, Built Heritage and Townscape, Iceni Projects, joined Host, Material Source Director, David Smalley in conversation - with the backdrop being our own newly refitted Glasgow Studio – where several key themes emerged.

[Side note, Grand Bequest incidentally won the Climate and Environmental Impact Award at the Scottish Financial Technology Awards in Edinburgh on the very night of our seminar.]

From embracing change and learning from others, to harnessing fintech, closing the viability gap, the potentials of public/private regeneration models, and a controversial take on VAT, the built environment community of Scotland was cited as being united in "wanting the same things", yet momentum has been slow to build.

In the article to follow we highlight the evening’s key talking points.

To kick-start the session, David asked, “Where is Glasgow in the grand scale of things?”

Nick Walker, a self-confessed, “adopted Glaswegian” having lived in the city for almost 40-years, responded first, “I think we’re very good at seeing what’s wrong, and not as good at seeing what’s right. We have an incredible townscape within which to work and an abundance of extraordinary buildings, and I do think we bat above our weight on the international stage. Glasgow - culturally, politically, historically, obviously in the past industrially - has got a real weight to it.”

Katherine Gunderson, a fellow “adopted Glaswegian” hailing from America originally, agreed, having just returned from a trade mission in Boston at Fintech Week. “One of the things we were discussing was this bridge that’s being built between Boston and Glasgow, and it’s building upon all the amazing momentum that the ‘Tartan Army’ did for us [during the 2026 World Cup]. This was a really fresh reminder of how many people around the world absolutely love Scotland.

“But,” she added, “we need to capitalise on that better, and I think that’s the opportunity that we have in front of us right now. The Tartan Army opened the door, and now we need to stand up and actually start asking for that inward energy. We have so much potential and so much high-quality opportunity that if we don’t start speaking that language [of fintech], nobody on the outside is going to be able to engage with us.”

“Is there a misalignment with perception and reality in that case?” David asked.

“100%,” Katherine agreed. “People always just imagine Braveheart and 'coos', you know? We really have this huge opportunity to show people that we do have an urban centre; we do have innovation - we have everything. It’s just nobody knows about it.”

The alignment of opportunity and investment is exactly what Katherine’s business is based on. Grand Bequest was developed to “get empty buildings back into use.” Something that “shouldn’t be so challenging” Katherine commented. “But all of you in the room probably know how difficult that broken system really is…” she suggested, adding, “We can’t keep doing handshakes and phone calls. We really have to start pushing into some of the new innovations that are coming out.” Less procrastination, more action.

“What’s changed in Glasgow that makes you more optimistic about retrofit today?” enquired David.

“Well, for a start, retrofit’s not a new thing,” Nick said. “We’ve retrofitted buildings since the dawn of time. I think - and Isla Jackson at Civic made this point last year - we’re just in a bubble. We’re coming out of a modernist bubble where, post-war, everything was about starting again. So, in many ways, in terms of what we’re doing now, we’re relearning from the past. A part of this is challenging some of the systems that are there for various reasons but that aren’t all joined up together.”

Applying this to current examples, Nick commented, “We all hear stories of buildings in the city centre that would be great for turning into a mix use hotel, co-living and residential, but the systems in place don't allow you to do so.

“It’s similar if you want to turn an office building into residential: if you can’t get the bins in and you can’t find cycle storage, then it’s not happening.

“I think people are starting to understand that these systems need to change. They’re being more proactive.”

Simultaneously, Nick believes there’s a “groundswell of understanding that our cultural built heritage is really important.” That’s not to suggest that everything needs to be kept, he pointed out. "It's about being more careful about understanding what we have, before we look to get rid of it!"

"There’s no doubt there’s a viability issue, but we’ve got to find other ways around it.” – Dr Katherine Gunderson

Katherine shared that, in Boston, there is an appointed professional working just on facilitating the repurposing of buildings as part of the “Office to Resi Conversion Program.”

“The developers and all the people in the city wanted it to happen, so the biggest solution was just to pull all the different representatives together in one meeting, and it moves it forward that way. It’s such a simple thing,” Katherine commented.

The key thing here is that there is funding for this, Katherine added. “The biggest change from a finance standpoint was they had to build a tax abatement programme. It allowed them to address those viability challenges by unique ways of looking at taxation, tax credits, all these different tools that government has at their disposal.”

Is this something that could be replicated here?

“For some reason, we’re really scared to innovate and try to play with those mechanisms,” Katherine said. “And that’s where I come in and say, ‘Guys, this isn’t crazy ideas in pubs. This is real world. It’s already up and running. So why can’t we?’”

“How successful has it been?” David asked.

“Very successful, actually,” Katherine replied. “They explained that when this started, 4-years ago, they had over 700 buildings within the city centre. They’ve gotten it down to about sixty percent that are already back into use.”

Mind the viability gap

Nick brought up a Retrofit Breakfast event held by Iceni in London. He described it being interesting to hear from developers in London talking about how in Bloomsbury it’s great because you can get £200 a square foot. But in other parts of London, it’s more tricky because it’s close to £100 a square foot. “In Glasgow, we’re jumping up and down if we get £50 a square foot for office space!” he said, of the ever-prevalent viability gap. “It is an issue,” he echoed of Katherine’s earlier point, “but we’ve got to find ways around it.”

VAT was illustrated as another pressing matter by Nick, “Everyone knows about the issues with VAT, and the fact that there is a punitive VAT system that favours new building over retrofit and reuse, with 20% VAT applied to retrofit projects, and zero % applied to new build projects."

“And you think VAT is a bit of a red herring?” queried David.

“Where I grew up in Belgium, I do know that they changed the system. It’s 6% on retrofit and 21% on new builds,” Nick said. “So what’s happened as a result of that is that everybody is retrofitting. It’s a complete no-brainer. You can see it if you look at my LinkedIn page! I have posted loads about retrofit in Brussels, with lots of photos of exciting projects!"

“But I don’t think we’re ever going to get there,” Katherine stated. “Genuinely, I don’t think the UK is ready for that. I don’t think we’re going to politically get it. It’s such a simple change. Though I’m very interested in action. I want solutions that can actually move forward.

“In Scotland, we’re really good at talking about ideas,” Katherine added, “We’re really good at talking about how good the future would be only if we did these things, and then we go back to our lives.

“I know in the ’90s we tried to push for 5% VAT across the board. That didn’t even get through. So now my opinion is: we’re probably not going to get the UK government to approve some kind of tax revenue reduction. But what we could be doing, what we should be fighting for, is: the money might be taken, but we should be able to allocate where it goes. We’re missing the funding structure where that circular capital can come back.

“Maybe we’re not going to get through the tax legislation, but we should be able to allocate. That might be an easier way for us to come together,” she suggested.

“But we can do both at the same time - fight the battles, but in phases?” Nick challenged.

Councillor Ruairi Kelly (City Convener for Housing, Development, Built Heritage and Land Use, Depute Leader of the Council) was cited as a positive force for change by both Katherine and Nick, “because of what his role is in terms of housing and heritage and land”, "I do think he has a more proactive stance in relation to retrofit," said Nick. 

Similarly, the Council is exploring the potential of the Impact Fund, where feasibility studies are being done “right now” on brownfield sites - some in the urban core – in a suggested attempt to mimic Manchester’s pension capital exchange programme.

“Manchester was so successful because it was a partnership between large pensions and the city itself. That’s where, again, Glasgow and Scotland - we always fall right at the finish line. We want the same things. Everybody agrees. But the infrastructure, the ability for us to actually build these new mechanisms and actually back the pensions and do all the things we need to do - we don’t seem to have that political power yet,” Katherine commented.

Though change is afoot, it remained to be agreed, and now with the leadership of Kelly, in addition to the Impact Fund and new legislation, the Reserved Investor Fund (RIF), “we can start finally addressing a lot of the issues that large-scale capital has in landing in Scotland - all of the little mechanisms that make us unattractive to the investment market are finally getting fixed,” Katherine said.

“I think the other thing that helps is learning from examples,” Nick commented, building on his point about referring to the past. “There are a lot of really interesting retrofits starting to pop up across the city - some quieter, some more visible. And that’s not just retrofitting listed buildings; it’s looking at more bog-standard offices.”

A question was asked by Alastair Miller, Director, FLOAT Architectural Visualisation, in the audience, “Talking about Glasgow, I see there’s a difference between Glasgow and Edinburgh. Big difference. In part due to funding and investment. I’ve been fortunate to work on projects in both cities. Edinburgh: much easier. There’s attraction there, it’s the capital city. Glasgow: it’s still there, but it attracts a different type of investor, I think. Any thoughts on that?”

“I think you’re making an amazing point in the fact that Edinburgh has the Harry Potter effect, right?” Katherine responded, “It’s got a reputation of students and tourists, so it will attract a very specific type of investment.

“Where Glasgow has an unbelievable opportunity - but again, we aren’t stepping up and owning it yet - is to lead Scotland into the regeneration revolution. That’s why I started Grand Bequest here: because if we get Glasgow demonstrating that you can deliver social housing, you can fix the viability gap, you can work at national level, you can do all these things within the urban core, then all the other solutions come together.”

The difference, Nick said, is that Glasgow is “a post-industrial city, whereas Edinburgh isn't, it's the City of Enlightenment. The pressure on land in Edinburgh is completely different. There are plenty of brownfield sites in Glasgow. In Edinburgh, there's nothing available. You have to work with existing buildings."

A joined up approach

For Kay Quillan, Marketing Manager, MLA, Glasgow’s potential is too very evident – and, as Katherine suggests, has not yet been merely met. “We were part of a collaborative group of private sector companies that led a delegation to MIPIM last year. At tomorrow night’s [at the time of publication] Real Estates Dinner, they’re going to be announcing the next delegation for MIPIM 2027.

“And this time it is going to be supported by Scottish Government, which is fantastic. Big progress there: we’ve now got Scottish Government backing, and it’s going to be led by Real Estate Scotland under the 'Invest Scotland' banner with the founding partner companies supporting rather than driving the initiative. Huge. As part of that conversation last year about MIPIM, this is what we were hearing: Glasgow has more opportunities than anywhere else.”

Katherine responded with a point on this – “At MIPIM last year 69 delegates represented Scotland. Guys, we need 3.

“I pushed back against Scottish Government when I heard about that because we need a pipeline of investments that are listed properly, that we know the cost, we know how much money we’re out looking for. This is where my American brain comes in: we should be fundraising for billions of pounds right now. We are still pretending like a £10,000 grant is going to do a damn thing. That’s the problem we’ve got right now.

“In the institutional investment mind, we’re still playing too small. So I was talking to Scottish Government about this literally last week, saying: ‘If we’re going to go to MIPIM, we have to be more professional about it. We have to be more ready for that large-scale capital to land.’ And I still don’t think we’re ready.”

“We’ve got to tackle it all different ways and at different scales. We can’t change the world overnight. The targets have to be realistic. There is momentum building.” - Nick Walker

From the audience, Bernie Carr, Director, Cameron Kerr, asked, “Maybe investing in buildings, or investing in bricks and mortar, is no longer the safe place to put your money that it once was, considering the economic challenges we face, construction viability, and uncertainty around future demand for commercial property. Do private investors still see real estate as an attractive place to invest?”

In reply, Katherine said, “I think property will always have an appetite because it’s a stable asset. You can’t pick a building up and move it. It has amazing characteristics from an investment standpoint.

“Forced appreciation with the ability to regenerate. Taking an asset from negative land value - where a lot of our assets in Glasgow really are - meaning it’s not worth what you have to put into it just to get it back online.

“Negative land value means I have to bring cash to the table just to get somebody to want to take the building. That’s where you get the ‘one pound and a bottle of whisky’ deals. That is still a very serious problem we have here.

“But forced appreciation means you’re allowed to build into that asset, and you can actually make money. Passive appreciation means just having that building back online helps nearby buildings increase in value. One of these buildings will pull an entire community down; one of these projects coming online will pull that community right back up. So real estate always has an appetite.”

In addition to this, Katherine shares another untapped capital stream - generational wealth transfer – “the silver tsunami”.

“The one percenters - the boomers - are having to give their money to millennials and Gen Z-ers, and those people are using words like ‘spend down to zero.’ That’s a new term in the investment space, where literal billionaires, family offices, and high-net-worth individuals are instructing their kids: ‘I’m going to die with only X amount of money.’”

We now find ourselves in “this really strange moment in time” Katherine added, “where all this money is sloshing around, desperate to find a place to go. And those people are now finally saying, ‘I wouldn’t mind if it did some good too.’”

Scotland can benefit from this, Katherine believes.

Nick argued that it was crucial to communicate what an existing building's potential as an asset was. "The thing that can make existing buildings more desirable to potential tenants is their quirkiness, that what makes them different! But it is hard to convince tenants before a building has been retrofitted and renovated.

"This means it can be hard to make projects happen as most projects require an occupier's commitment first. There aren't many speculative building projects, and it is quite hard to convince people to make that leap from a run down 1960s building into imagining the most incredible workspace. That's where leading through example and precedent helps, seeing transformations."

This is where AI comes in, suggested Katherine.

“Technology is so much farther than we understand it to be. The ability to render a building is seconds. The first couple of years when generative AI came out, it wasn’t great - we all saw the nonsense - but now those tools are unbelievable. So the cost and timelines can radically drop if we had the system set up that way, if we had funding available, if more of these things were fixed. Things can move.”

Here, the topic of agents was raised by audience member, Emilia Kenyon, Interior Designer, Graven. And again, generative AI was highlighted as offering alternative ways to visualise designs without the need for Cat A – rip out and refit when a space is tenanted.

Retrofit ready?

Project Development Manager at Hub West Scotland, Rachael Smith, highlighted a recent workshop by Hub West Scotland to ascertain whether Glasgow truly is retrofit ready. “We partner with public bodies in the greater Glasgow area in public sector to deliver projects. We have a Net Zero collaboration group looking at retrofit, these collaboration groups work to bring together public bodies including local authorities: Glasgow City Council, Renfrewshire Council, East Renfrewshire, East and West Dunbartonshire Council, and our supply team.

“What we’re looking at is: is the supply chain retrofit-ready? Is there a pipeline of work there from the public sector? We’re trying to get them to meet in the middle and say, ‘Yes, there’s a pipeline of work. Go and do that upskilling for the design teams and contractors and subcontractors.’

“So where do you feel contractors and subcontractors are in terms of being retrofit-ready? Do you think there’s still some work to be done, or do you think they’re very much there and everyone’s ready to deliver the projects?”

Nick replied, “There are specialist contractors, but most contractors are more comfortable doing the bread and butter work, the new build work. However, it has got to be about learning what works for retrofit, what is practical and what is economical. There's an upskilling opportunity across the whole industry, and there are lots of little initiatives happening already. It's about communication and finding out about best practice from each other. 

“That’s where things like the Retrofit Conference and BE-ST are useful: to build that knowledge, and to make everyone realise they might be doing little bits of work, but it all adds up. It’s about that swell of people. We can all just give up and go home, but if we’re all doing a bit, it will change.”

Katherine added, “My professional life prior to starting Grand Bequest was in supply chain and business science. That’s where I keep going, ‘It’s just a broken system.’ This isn’t even that complicated when you think about how globalised supply chains are.

“The challenge I’d put to your working group: I don’t think it’s ever the supply chain that’s the problem. These are all businesses desperate to pay their subcontractors, desperate to grow their pipeline, desperate to show their bankers they have pipeline coming.

“It’s never really the supply chain. It’s, how are we getting money and support into those bottleneck problems? The bottleneck is finance coming in in a stable, reliable way. I’m sick of these two-year spin cycles of new green jobs this and whatever the hell next this. It has to be stable, and that’s where government needs to come in.

“So the working groups really need to focus on: how do we stabilise the pipeline? Then the supply chain will react. Because it’s so up and down right now, and the viability thing is freaking everybody out, the scale of the opportunity becomes more important. It’s less about: can we do small projects? It’s: how do all of us working on every building build the system and stabilise it? Then the market will kick. It’s a new level of coordination and collaboration that we could not have done without technology.”

As the session drew to a close, for now, David asked our panellists, “Should the audience go away from this session more positive, do you think? Should they be positive about retrofitting Glasgow?”

“Yes. It is the future. Hard stop.” Katherine replied.

“When do you think the viability conundrum will be talked about less?”

“Whenever the next buzzy thing comes out,” Katherine laughed. “The main focus on viability is because that’s the word everybody’s focused on.

“I like that we’re all now focusing on the real system issue, which is unstable capital. It’s this nasty thing where bankers get to decide we’re only doing PBSA and BTR. Banking and finance should not be dictating what quality of product we get in our places. It’s warped.

“We really need to come back together and say, ‘No. Finance, get out of here for a second. We want cat cafés. We want social housing. We want community space that’s not covered in creepy cameras.’ We deserve to say that.

“Glasgow – Scotland - we used to lead the whole world in innovation, and we can’t even talk to our government who are our neighbours getting paid by a different pot. We need to start saying: ‘We’re going to do retrofit. We’re going to be like Paris, and we’re going to say no more of this nonsense.’”

An hour allowed us just enough time to scratch the surface in what is a Pandora’s box of conversation. “We were just getting going. I haven’t gotten any of my spicy stuff out yet!” Katherine said. But in summary, this clearly is an exciting time for Glasgow, and Scotland more generally. The sentiment was positive but called out loud and clear for action. No more talking. Now is the time to be bold.

A huge thanks to all of you that joined us for this session, to our panel, and to our supporters for this event, Parkside Architectural Tiles & Russwood - both Partners at Material Source Studio Glasgow.

Our next seminar event will take place in London on 4 November 2026, get your ticket here.

Over the summer, two of our London-based Material and Product Advisors, Abbie & Katie, attended an open day at Grymsdyke Farm, Buckinghamshire. Formerly an agricultural site, the farm was repurposed in 2004 as a space for designers, architects and researchers to make, experiment and develop new ideas. In August, designer Cãtãlin Filip undertook a month-long residency at the farm, supported by the British Ceramics Biennial. The residency provided access to the farm’s workshop facilities, as well as the time and space to develop new work.

Cãtãlin is a UK-based Romanian artist producing lighting and sculptural objects from clay. Previously an architectural designer, his background is evident in his approach to design, combining ‘artistic expression with functional purpose’. We caught up with Cãtãlin to hear more about the residency, his process and his developing work.

Can you tell us about your background and training?

"I trained as an architect at the Ion Mincu University of Architecture and Urbanism in Bucharest, Romania. After graduating, I moved to the UK and started working with Steyn Studio, a small architectural practice based in London. Being part of a small studio meant I was closely involved in the design process, from developing initial concepts and ideas through to their resolution. I worked on a number of projects there, several of which went on to receive awards.

"My route into ceramics was much less formal. I’m self-taught as a ceramicist and have developed my way of working through experimentation and trial and error rather than through formal ceramic training. That has allowed me to develop my own processes and techniques based on what I want the material to do."

Does your architectural training influence/inform your design practice?

"Yes, mainly through the way I approach concepts and ideas. My architectural training was very much about developing a strong idea or narrative for a project and then finding ways to translate that into a physical form. That way of thinking has carried through into my work with ceramics.

"Materiality and texture were also important aspects of my architectural experience, and these continue to be a big part of my work. With clay, the material itself often becomes the starting point. These processes can produce forms and textures that have a strong relationship to things found in nature. I’m interested in the way landscapes, rocks, hills and trees are shaped and transformed by external forces and the elements over time. There is something interesting in creating forms that have a similar sense of movement or erosion while still revealing traces of the making process."

Why clay?

"I initially designed the Melo Lamp series and it felt natural to make some of the prototypes in clay. As I started working with it, I realised that it could actually be the material I was looking for.

"What interested me was how responsive clay is, particularly in its raw state. I started experimenting with what happened when I subjected it to different forces such as gravity, pulling, stretching and strapping. The material would distort and respond in ways that I found interesting, often producing forms that I wouldn’t have arrived at through a purely designed process.

"Because I hadn’t had any formal ceramic training, I approached the material through trial and error. I think that gave me a certain freedom to experiment without being too concerned with established techniques or ways of working. I could develop my own processes around the forms I wanted to achieve and see how far I could push the material.

"That experimentation is still central to my practice. I’m interested in finding a balance between controlling the clay and allowing its own behaviour to influence the final form."

How did the residency and environment at Grymsdyke Farm influence your work?

"The residency at Grymsdyke Farm gave me the space and time to expand the way I was working. I spent a month there over the summer in August (2026) and having that dedicated period in the studio allowed me to experiment much more freely.

"The facilities were a big part of that. There is a lot of equipment available, including large kilns, so I instinctively started working on a larger scale and experimenting more with glazed surfaces. Working at a larger scale also made me think differently about the behaviour of the clay and how some of the processes I had been developing could be pushed further.

"The environment was equally relevant to the work. A lot of my practice is influenced by natural processes and the way materials and landscapes are shaped by forces such as gravity, wind, water and erosion. Being surrounded by that landscape while working made those ideas particularly present.

"The residency came through the Fresh Award I received in 2025, with the residency supported by the British Ceramics Biennial. It was a great opportunity to step away from my usual studio environment and spend a concentrated period developing new ideas.

"I’ve only just finished the residency, so I’m still processing some of what came out of it. A number of the experiments I started there are already feeding directly into the new work I’m continuing to develop in the studio."

When we visited your studio at Grymsdyke Farm you were working on sculptural furniture pieces, are you continuing this body of work?

"Yes. With my architectural background, I think I’ll always be drawn to bringing some element of function into form.

"I’m very interested in the sculptural aspect of the furniture pieces, but I think having a functional element adds another dimension to the work. It changes the relationship you have with the object because it can be used and lived with, rather than simply being something to look at.

"I’m interested in that space between sculpture and design, and in how a piece can work on both levels. The function doesn’t necessarily need to dictate the form. I’m more interested in finding a balance where the sculptural quality remains important while the object still has a functional purpose."

What’s coming up next?

"I’ve taken this year to focus on developing several new collections and spending more time in the studio. I’ve only recently finished the residency at Grymsdyke Farm, so some of the work I’m developing now is a direct continuation of ideas and experiments that started there.

"I’m working across a few different collections, including sculptural objects, lighting and furniture, and I’m particularly interested in pushing some of the larger forms and surface experiments that came out of the residency. There are also further exhibitions planned for the following year, including the British Ceramics Biennial in 2027, where I’ll be presenting this new body of work.

"The opportunity to show at the British Ceramics Biennial is a particularly relevant continuation of the Fresh Award I received in 2025 and the Grymsdyke Farm residency that followed. The residency has opened up some new directions in my work which I’m looking forward to developing further over the coming months."

We first visited Make Architects last year, having got to know the team in various ways through our own events in both Manchester (James Coop) and London (Maria Tam on our AI roundtable), via interview (Katy Ghahremani), and at the BCO Conference (Ken Shuttleworth) – not to mention the two AiM exhibitions we’ve hosted at our Studios – the most recent currently open in London – where the model making team has been an enthusiastic supporter.

Since descending the steps into the large, open workspace on Cleveland Street, lined with architectural models made from a myriad of materials, and photography of impressive, and recognisable projects, from Eden New Bailey with its 36,000 sq ft living green wall (the largest in Europe) to 30 Duke Street, St James’s (London’s largest commercial steel re-use project with 78% of its structural frame made from reclaimed steel), Make’s HQ has stuck in our minds.

[Side note, if this wasn’t an interesting enough entrance, there’s also the small detail that this building used to be an NCP carpark. Practice founder Ken, in fact, used to park his car there in the 1970s – more on that later…]

Once inside, the environment is a genuinely collaborative one. Everyone has the same desk and chair, but all flex to their user. Pods of people chat, review drawings, explore materials in the dedicated library, curated by friend of Material Source Studio Ian Hunter of Materials Council. There is no physical hierarchy evident here. Ken sits in the middle of the studio. No glass office to the side. And this value system extends through to the fact that Make is employee owned. It has been from the start.

“We are the shareholders”

Make was set up in 2004, and from then, every share sits in a trust that benefits the employees who are in the business at that moment. So nobody “owns” the company personally, Ken tells us when he and Katy Ghahremani, Partner & Director at Make, met with Laura Connelly, Editor, and David Smalley, Director at Material Source Studio, and Katie Hill, Brand Manager, and Paul Kersey of Parkside Architectural Tiles. Everyone is an employee, and at the same time everyone has a stake in what happens.

That sense of ownership has had a positive impact on staff turnover too. At one point, their turnover was as low as 1%. People stay for decades, Ken said. People leave, try something else, and then come back again.

What’s the significance of building the business this way? The answer is simple, Ken said, so the focus stays on the work. “The ambition isn’t to be the biggest architecture firm in the world - just the best. And ‘best’ means designing buildings that actually improve people’s lives, while balancing the needs of each project with the needs of the planet.”

Make’s approach to design doesn’t boil down to a standard formula. Every job is treated as bespoke: the brief, the climate, the location, the budget, the planning constraints, and the moment in time all shape the outcome.

Geographically, they’re strong in London and have a major presence in Asia, with studios in Hong Kong and Shanghai. China has been part of their world for around 15 years, to the point where it feels “like home territory”, commented Katy. They’re also looking at growth in places like Saudi and India, where there’s clear opportunity and demand.

When they work abroad, Make doesn’t pretend to know everything. They often collaborate with local architects, because local knowledge isn’t optional. “You need to understand the politics, the nuance, the way things really get done, and what materials and labour look like on the ground. Without that, you risk designing a pastiche: something that looks like it belongs, but doesn’t actually fit,” said Katy.

They also turn work away. Not because they’re trying to be exclusive, but because projects have to pass two basic tests. First: is it ethical and aligned with climate goals? Second: will the team actually want to work on it? “Because if you can’t get people excited, you won’t deliver your best work anyway, and the whole point is to do work you believe in,” shared Ken.

Climate commitment

When the conversation turns to what’s driving design decisions right now, climate change sits at the top. It’s not a new concern for them, but the difference now is that the industry has caught up. Clients are asking harder questions, and expectations are rising fast. Make has a group called Make Neutral that champions designing for lower CO2.

Another major shift is the growing push to reuse what already exists. The Make team’s logic being: if you can save a building, or transform it through smart design, why knock it down and start again?

“Yes, reuse can be more expensive and more complex, but it’s often the right move - especially if we’re serious about reducing embodied carbon,” Ken said.

Circular economy thinking came up several times during our conversation. Reusing steel from another project. Taking stone off an old building and reusing it. Treating buildings not just as finished products, but as future material banks - resources that can be taken apart and used again rather than sent to landfill.

This does, Ken commented, require systems, testing, engineering sign-off, and the willingness to deal with complexity.

Materials have become a bigger topic for another reason too: safety and responsibility. Grenfell changed the level of scrutiny that everyone should have been applying all along. You can’t assume the materials going into a building are what you think they are. You need traceability, product data, and confidence around performance. You also need to know you’re not feeding unethical supply chains - child labour, unsustainable forestry, or products that simply shouldn’t be on a building.

That leads straight into the Building Safety Act. It’s clearly slowed things down, especially in residential, and it’s created frustrating situations where you’re being asked to decide details years before a building is on site. But there’s also an argument that bringing architects properly back into the process - as coordinators and lead designers - is a good thing.

Even with the challenges, the mood wasn’t gloomy. If anything, it felt like a moment where the industry has to be more inventive. “Reuse and retrofit demand more creativity than starting from scratch,” Katy suggested.

New materials and smarter detailing are moving fast. The goal of genuinely zero-carbon buildings still isn’t fully solved, Ken highlighted, but that’s exactly why it feels like there’s meaningful work ahead.

There’s also the reality of a complicated world: supply chains are unpredictable, timber is harder to source, and global events can disrupt everything from steel to shipping routes. That pressure is clear. But for younger architects coming through, the tools available now are on another level compared to even a decade ago, Ken was keen to point out.

AI came up in a balanced way - not as the “designer,” but as a tool. The team talked about how AI can speed up visualisation - turning sketches into images, images into movies, and making ideas easier to understand quickly. The sentiment was to use AI like you’d use any tool in the belt. “It can help with speed and presentation, but it doesn’t replace judgment, taste, responsibility, or the hard work of understanding a place and a brief,” Ken and Katy agreed.

That idea of “tools” was brought to life when we walked into the model shop. Make has treated physical models as essential from day one, which is increasingly rare now that so many studios outsource.

Making in the Model Shop

In the model shop, three full-time model makers support projects across the studio – “everything from quick foam study models to polished marketing-suite pieces,” Paul Miles, Model Shop Manager, Make Architects, told us. And with today’s tech, “the speed is wild. A Revit model can be exported, cleaned up for print, and turned into physical parts in a couple of hours. Something that used to take overnight can now be done in an hour and a half.”

“Twenty years ago, it would have taken a month of matchsticks and glue,” laughed Ken.

What really stands out at Make is how integrated model making is in day-to-day practice. Almost every project gets a physical model, not just for clients but for internal decision-making, like sketching in 3D. They build a base model as soon as a site is confirmed, then create inserts to test massing options. Hundreds of variations can come and go quickly.

And they even close the loop on waste. The models are often printed in PLA, and when options are discarded, the material can be melted down and reused. It’s a small detail, but it matches the broader mindset - the way you work day-to-day should reflect the future you say you want.

The team also talked about scaling up when needed, sometimes even doing 1:1 mock-ups like full bathroom layouts, just to test how spaces feel in real life.

AI is creeping into model making too. Instead of spending hours modelling small objects from scratch, they’ve used text-to-3D tools to generate small details. These aren’t the core architectural decisions, but they add texture and story without stealing time from the important work.

Materiality matters

After visiting the model shop, we stepped into Make’s materials library. Every product in there comes with data, traceability, and QR codes that link to deeper information. Retaining the expertise of Materials Council, Ian Hunter supports the team, suggests alternatives, and helps bring new thinking into live projects.

Our conversation around “new materials” was interesting because it was said, the real game changer isn’t always something futuristic. Sometimes it’s a return to traditional choices that were sustainable all along - stone, cork, terracotta, ceramics - paired with better sourcing, better detailing, and a stronger plan for reuse.

Longevity matters as much as innovation. If something lasts and can be adapted, that’s sustainability too.

Durability can be undervalued in a world obsessed with the next trend, Paul said. To which Katy responded that “Designing around trends is risky because trends move on quickly. Designing from a sense of place, purpose, and appropriateness gives a building a better chance of still feeling right years later.”

It’s worth noting two exemplar case studies here, which we discussed.

30 Duke Street

30 Duke Street St James’s is an 8-storey office building beside Fortnum & Mason and opposite the Royal Academy of Arts – taking the place of the modernist French Railways House. It reached practical completion in August 2026 and is London’s largest commercial steel re-use project – 78% of its structural frame is reclaimed steel, predominantly from a donor building in the client’s portfolio (GPE’s deconstructed City Place House). Meanwhile, marble, granite, Portland stone, ironwork and mosaic were all recovered directly from French Railways House and worked back into the new scheme.

Reused Portland stone was butterfly-split by specialist masons to double its usable facade area. Marble from original staircases and risers of French Railways House now lines the reception; larger panels that couldn't be reused were cut into tiles for the reception floor. Original ironwork was also carefully rebuilt within the interiors, while reclaimed granite forms the precast piers at street level. Timber handrails that couldn't be reused were donated to Studio Tip, who shaped them into sculptural works for London Design Festival 2024. It’s also the first commercial building in the UK to use CIRCAL 100R recycled aluminium framing above ground.

The Smith

Similarly, The Smith – currently on site, approaching PC late 2026 – sees the careful dismantling, repair and reconstruction of the historic stone facade at 7 Millbank (built between 1915–1929) and development of a high-quality new office building within it.

A disused raspberry farm in Kent was transformed into a bespoke stone library to sort and repair more than 6,000 pieces of dismantled stone. Rebuilding the facade has provided an embodied carbon reduction of 16% and a reduced programme, compared to the facade retention option. The new building is all-electric and uses 100% renewable energy. In this way, the design has future-proofed the scheme to ensure a lifespan of 100-plus years.

As our tour came to an end, we had to ask, “Why choose a carpark for your HQ?”

It was a familiar spot for Ken, who had parked his car there in the 1970s. So when it came onto the market, he persuaded the landlord to let them take it on and fit it out to become the light-filled, collaborative workspace it is today.

As we headed back up the wide set stairs, admiring the models as we went, we reflected on the direct link between Make’s values and its output. Employee ownership, collaboration, in-house craft, and serious attention to materials – it’s coherent. And in a time where climate targets, safety requirements, and supply chain realities are creating seemingly never-ending challenges, that coherence might be one of the most valuable design tools a practice can possess.

Special thanks to Sara Veale at Make for organising our visit.

Make: At a glance

Founded: 2004

Locations: 3 – London, Hong Kong, Shanghai

Team members: 100+

Sectors: Commercial offices, Residential developments, Urban masterplanning, Heritage projects, Hospitality, Education, and Transport

Website: makearchitects.com

Studioshaw announces the completion of Bridge House, an eight-storey, 6,250 sqm mixed-use development at the heart of Hackney Wick.

Delivering 40 apartments alongside dual-level commercial and community spaces, and set beside a new public square, the project marks the practice’s largest scheme to date. Its completion coincides with Studioshaw’s tenth anniversary and the delivery of its 100th project.

Commissioned by the London Legacy Development Corporation (LLDC) following a 2020 competition, the brief called for a residential building and high-quality public realm that could respond with clarity to a complex and highly visible site.

Positioned between the Hertford Union Canal, a redesigned bridge approach and a newly formed square, Bridge House sits at the convergence of changing levels, pedestrian routes and public space. Now, a walking passage and open square align with a new bridge across the canal to Fish Island, creating a cohesive sequence of spaces connecting the building to its wider context.

West and south-facing colonnades extend the public realm into the building, while the ground plane steps gently across a five-metre level change to form a series of sheltered spaces that feel both civic and intimate.

Deliberately distinct from the brick-dominated developments surrounding it, Bridge House proposes an alternative architectural and material language. Its structure is its architecture: an in-situ cast concrete frame, produced less than a mile from the site, is expressed externally rather than concealed behind additional cladding.

A fair-faced concrete façade, exposed slab edges and double-height bays establish a calm, regular rhythm, while grooved GRC panels and a Forticrete blockwork base add texture and depth. Generous windows line the colonnade, creating both a robust edge to the public realm and highly usable internal spaces.

Pink columns set within the balconies introduce colour into an otherwise restrained composition. The columns and slabs were engineered to be as slender as possible, giving the façades, together with stainless steel mesh balustrades, a sense of precision and elegance.

The result is a building shaped directly by its structure, use and setting, with a spatial richness and architectural refinement rarely found in developer-led housing. Crucially, Studioshaw has achieved this elevated civic presence within standard cost and programme constraints.

This material clarity is matched by a strong social ambition. All apartments are dual aspect, improving natural light and ventilation, with generous inset balconies, the majority facing south-west. Deck access replaces internal corridors to enhance the residential experience, while a rooftop garden offers views across Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park and East Bank.

Mark Shaw, Founder of Studioshaw, said: “From the outset, we centred our vision for Bridge House on our belief that good architecture can improve people’s lives; that everyone deserves it; and that a building should belong to the neighbourhood, not just its residents. When I founded Studioshaw ten years ago, this is what we set out to do: create intelligent architecture while minimising its impact on the planet. By working with simple materials, clear construction methods and a strong connection to the public realm, we have created a building with presence, generosity and longevity.

“Bridge House makes a case for an alternative London vernacular in the housing sector, delivering homes of greater quality and architectural refinement within the same economic framework."

"Using the building’s frame as its façade removes the need for additional cladding and demonstrates that good design can add value without adding cost. It also creates a level of spatial complexity and visual interest that is unusual within London’s developer-led housing landscape.”

Bridge House demonstrates how collaboration, careful engagement with planning and a commitment to design quality can produce architecture that is both distinctive and grounded, delivered at the same cost as comparable developments. Standing apart from its neighbours, it offers a confident alternative to the prevailing London vernacular and a civic, highly crafted and socially driven model for urban housing.

Project information

Location: Hackney Wick

Type of project: Mixed-Use

Client: CJ O’Shea

Architect: Studioshaw

Landscape architect: Adams & Sutherland/Ash Sakula

Planning consultant: Daniel Watney

Structural engineer: FORM

M&E consultant: Robinson Associates

Peter Apps is contributing editor at Inside Housing, and author of the Orwell Prize-winning book, 'Show Me the Bodies: How We Let Grenfell Happen', exposing how deregulation and institutional negligence led to the tragic Grenfell Tower fire in 2017.

This book is widely regarded as essential reading for anyone in our sector. As our friend Edward Dymock at BDP put it, "Show Me the Bodies is compelling and harrowing and should be compulsory reading for everyone working in the built environment."

Peter's second book, 'Homesick: How Housing Broke London and How to Fix It' responds to the housing crisis we find ourselves in, signifying a refusal to accept "that no better alternative exists".

Next week, on Tuesday 13 October, Peter will take to our Theatre stage in Manchester for an event - Building Safer Façades after Grenfell - hosted by Material Source Studio Partner, Shackerley Façades, to talk more about the lessons learnt at Grenfell, and how they're being applied almost 10-years on.

Ahead of this, we caught up with Peter to get his insight on some of the key topics that built environment professionals are facing today; from changes to the Building Safety Act to specifying safer materials, glimmers of hope in the property sector, and areas for improvement.

If you've not already booked your ticket for next week, you can do so here.

We are in the midst of a housing crisis - are there any glimmers of hope?

"Yes - more money is going into social housing now than it has been for nearly 20 years and renters have just won security of tenure for the first time in nearly 40. We still have an awful long way to go, but shouldn't let that mean we don't notice the victories that have been won. If you could have told me in 2016 that we'd be building tens of thousands of socially rented homes and abolished no fault eviction within a decade, I'd have been happy to hear that!"

Are there any untapped areas for potential that you’ve identified in your research for Homesick?

"I am interested in the potential for cooperative housing, which isn't exactly a new approach, but has never been used enough in the UK. I think it would be a much better option than shared ownership or Build to Rent for people priced out of owning but not in a position to get social housing. It will face opposition though, because it removes a lot of the profit motivation that normally drives housing development.

"I am cautious about the repurposing of existing buildings. There are too many examples of very, very low quality housing in former offices and shops for me to think we can really look at it as a mainstream solution."

The unprecedented tragedy that was Grenfell has impacted the way building projects now work with a ‘golden thread’ of accountability. In your view, does The Building Safety Act go far enough to ensure peoples’ safety?

"I think there are some very positive parts of the new regime, which alongside new regulations on sprinklers, staircases and the banning of combustible façade materials should give us safer new builds.

"But legislation cannot achieve everything - the built environment is still engaged in a race to the bottom on price and a subcontracting model that makes accountability hard and corner cutting easy."

"We might not be building new Grenfells anymore, but that's a long way from saying we are building safe homes that will stand the test of time."

Do you think it has gone too far in any places, with a knock on effect of slowing development down?

"It's much accepted by everyone now that the BSR's Gateway approach was slowing down both new build and repairs to existing buildings to an unacceptable extent. I think they are trying to turn that around, but there are still examples of projects where it is not working well enough and the delays seem disproportionate.

"I think we have to remember - however - that the evidence not just of Grenfell but the 4,500 buildings around the country which needed remediation was always going to result in a process where compliance had to be confirmed before construction started and accountability was more firmly fixed throughout the project. The real problem is that we weren't doing that before, not that we are doing it now."

Can a balance be struck?

"I think if minor building work to existing buildings was removed from the Gateway process and policed in a different way, if the regulator continued to boost its capacity and if the industry developed its capacity to submit Gateway applications that were in good shape first time around, we would develop to a point where this system worked well enough and gave us a decent level of assurance that buildings were being built properly with delays which people could manage - despite still being occasionally bumpy.

"I think we're moving towards that, but there's still quite a bit of a way to go. Whatever happens, I don't think fully returning to the pre-Grenfell model would be wise."

Your upcoming talk at Material Source Studio is with Shackerley Façade Systems - how crucial is the materiality used for façades in the overall scope of a construction project?

"Façades need to be built out of materials that won't catch fire. It's that simple, really. Once a fire breaks out of a window (which it will eventually) it needs to meet a material that won't ignite. The good news is that that isn't a complex design question, and doesn't force us to give up on other legitimate objectives like insulation performance or sustainability."

What do you think architects should be looking for in terms of safety and certification when they are specifying a façade for a residential building or HRB?

"People need to be very careful about manufacturers' claims, especially with regard to safety and especially if they don't understand the underlying fire science. The Grenfell Inquiry taught us that a lot of what passes for safety assurance is actually marketing speak.

"Use materials you understand."

"Use materials you understand. If you can't, don't trust the sales team to explain what you're using to you. Remember their objective is to win the specification not to build a safe building."

What are your predictions for the future of the housing market over the next 10-15 years?

"Despite my call to optimism in the first answer, I'm afraid they are gloomy. While we shouldn't be too defeatist, there are a lot of problems coming. The rise in interest rates is still moving through the system and has pushed buying out of reach for the generation coming up.

"Rents are going to keep rising. A large cohort of private renters are about to retire without any rent protection - the first time that has happened in living memory. Disrepair isn't being addressed on a systemic level. Climate change is going to cause serious trouble as more and more properties become too hot or too vulnerable to flooding.

"Decarbonisation is partial, slow and unfunded. It is hard to see where the large-scale solutions we need are going to emerge from, but there is no shortage of capital poised to profit from the misery."

What's next for you?

"I wish I knew!"

Don't miss Peter Apps at Material Source Studio Manchester on 13 October, where he will be part of the Shackerley event. He will also be at the Studio for an evening Q&A alongside Isaac Rose, author of The Rentier City, from 5.30pm, to discuss how Manchester's changing skyline has led to unaffordability for some. Get your ticket for that event here.

When you next visit Material Source Studio Manchester, you'll be greeted by Autex Acoustics' newly updated POD, showcasing the just-launched Frontier Raft ceiling solution, plus an extensive range of acoustic panel options in a spectrum of colours, textures and patterns.

The new POD was designed by Bethy Finnigan, during her Design Internship at Autex, alongside Matilda, Autex's Design Lead. Their brief was to reimagine the existing space and create a more engaging experience for visitors. Drawing inspiration from Autex's London showroom, while considering the unique environment of Material Source Studio, the updated installation showcases the breadth of the Autex portfolio through a carefully curated and interactive customer journey.

Softer forms are introduced through enhanced product displays and a more welcoming atmosphere, encouraging visitors to engage directly with materials, colours and textures. By creating dedicated areas for sampling, specification and inspiration, the POD allows you as designers to experience first-hand how acoustic solutions can become an integral element of interior architecture rather than simply a functional requirement.

The refreshed POD now serves as a vibrant showcase of Autex's evolving product offering and provides architects and designers with an inspiring destination to discover acoustic materials that deliver both visual impact and meaningful performance.

Introducing Frontier Raft

As part of the POD relaunch, Autex unveils Frontier Raft, signifying a commitment to evolving its ceiling portfolio with this new extension of the popular Frontier range.

Building on the distinctive linear design language of Frontier, Raft delivers the same bold architectural aesthetic while introducing enhanced sustainability credentials. The system has been developed to maximise material efficiency and reduce embodied impacts, giving designers an option that supports both acoustic performance and environmental objectives.

Suspended as a standalone raft, the product creates visual structure and interest overhead while effectively managing reverberation and improving acoustic comfort. Its flexible design allows specifiers to define zones, add dimension and introduce colour within open-plan environments, making it ideal for workplace, education, hospitality and public spaces.

Available across the Autex colour palette, Frontier Raft demonstrates how high-performance acoustic solutions can contribute to more sustainable interiors without compromising on creativity, functionality or design impact. As an evolution of one of Autex's most recognised product families, it reinforces the brand's commitment to continuous innovation in acoustic design and sustainable manufacturing.

To celebrate the launch of the new POD, Autex hosted a special Colours event at Material Source Studio Manchester, bringing the new palette to life through a curated evening of design inspiration, networking and hospitality. Guests enjoyed a series of bespoke cocktails created by The Alchemist, each inspired by colours from the new collection, transforming the launch into a multisensory experience that explored the relationship between colour, materiality and atmosphere.

Experience Autex's new POD for yourself by visiting Material Source Studio Manchester, 1 Federation Street, between Monday and Friday, 9am-5pm. Click here for more details.

In hospitality design, light has the power to completely change how a space feels.

The same hotel room can feel bright and energising in the morning, calm and private in the evening, and completely restful at night. Yet when specifying an interior, much of the conversation around lighting naturally focuses on luminaires, colour temperature and decorative lighting.

The window deserves just as much attention.

For hotels, restaurants, bars and other hospitality environments, the right light control fabric can influence privacy, comfort, atmosphere and sleep, while also becoming an important part of the overall interior scheme.

For Edmund Bell, a specialist in light control fabrics backed by more than 170 years of textile expertise, and a new Partner at Material Source Studio London and soon Manchester, the starting point is simple: think about what you want the light to do.

Light control isn't simply about blackout

Complete darkness certainly has its place. In a hotel bedroom, effective blackout can make a genuine difference to the guest experience. External lighting, illuminated signage, early morning sunlight and busy city environments can all introduce unwanted light into a room at precisely the moment a guest wants to switch off.

But hospitality spaces need different things at different times of day.

A restaurant may want soft natural light during lunch before creating a much more intimate atmosphere for evening service. A hotel bedroom needs daylight and privacy during the day, but darkness at night. A lobby or lounge may benefit from bright, diffused natural light without the glare and exposure of an untreated window.

That is where thinking in layers becomes particularly useful.

Blackout: when darkness matters

Blackout fabrics are designed to provide high levels of light exclusion and are an important consideration for hotel bedrooms, serviced apartments, cinema spaces and anywhere else where control over external light is essential.

But performance doesn't have to mean compromising the design scheme.

Today's blackout options extend far beyond a purely functional backing hidden behind a decorative curtain. Different constructions, textures, colours and finishes allow the light control itself to become part of the interior.

For the designer, the question becomes less "Where can we hide the blackout?" and more "How can it work with the scheme?"

Dimout: controlling rather than eliminating light

Not every hospitality environment needs complete darkness. Dimout fabrics sit between blackout and more open decorative fabrics, reducing the amount of light entering a space while retaining a softer relationship with the outside environment.

Edmund Bell's decorative dimout fabrics can provide up to 98% light exclusion, depending on the product and colour selected.

That makes them particularly relevant to spaces where mood matters: restaurants, lounges, bars, meeting rooms and hotel interiors where designers want to soften incoming light rather than completely remove it.

Colour should also form part of that specification conversation. The same fabric construction can behave and feel differently across lighter and darker shades, so samples and testing within the actual scheme remain important.

Sheers: privacy without losing daylight

At the other end of the spectrum, sheers allow designers to work with natural light.

They can softly diffuse daylight, reduce the feeling of exposure from outside and introduce movement and texture without visually closing a space. Edmund Bell's sheer offering is designed around this balance of filtered light and privacy.

And their role doesn't have to end at the window.

In contemporary hospitality schemes, sheers can become architectural elements in their own right: dividing restaurant areas, creating softer boundaries between spaces, screening private zones or adding layers within large open interiors.

It opens up an interesting question for designers: rather than simply considering how to dress the window, how else can the fabric shape the space?

Give the guest control

One of the most important ideas in contemporary hospitality design is choice. Material Source's own recent discussions around inclusive hospitality design highlighted the importance of allowing guests to control their environment, with lighting and acoustics identified as particularly influential elements of the hospitality experience.

Window treatments can play a significant part in that.

Layering a sheer with a blackout, for example, gives the guest several possibilities rather than a simple open-or-closed curtain.

They can wake up with filtered natural daylight. Create privacy without sitting in darkness. Reduce glare while working. Or close the blackout when they want to sleep.

For international travellers, shift workers or simply guests hoping for a lie-in, that flexibility can make a surprisingly big difference.

Performance needs to be designed in

Of course, hospitality specification goes beyond appearance and light levels.

Fabrics may also need to meet relevant flame-retardancy requirements, withstand regular cleaning and commercial use, provide suitable durability and, depending on the project, offer additional performance characteristics such as thermal or acoustic properties.

These considerations are easiest to address at the beginning of the specification process rather than once an aesthetic selection has already been made.

It is also important to consider the complete installation.

Even a high-performing blackout fabric cannot deliver its full potential if light can simply enter around the sides or top of the curtain. Track position, curtain returns, overlaps, fullness and the relationship between the curtain and the architecture all contribute to the finished result.

The best light control therefore comes from treating fabric, make-up and installation as one system.

Meet Edmund Bell

For designers, architects, contractors and specifiers who may not yet know the name, Edmund Bell has been working with textiles for more than 170 years.

Today, the company's focus is on helping designers achieve the right balance between light, privacy, performance and design.

Its light control portfolio spans blackout, dimout and sheer fabrics, alongside curtain linings, prints, upholstery and other products for contract interiors.

Rather than approaching light control as a single product category, the aim is to help specifiers understand which construction is right for the environment, how different products perform and how they can work together within a scheme.

Because specifying a hotel bedroom is very different from specifying a restaurant. And specifying a healthcare hospitality space may bring entirely different requirements again.

There isn't one answer to controlling light. There is the right answer for the space.

See, touch and specify

That is also why physical sampling remains so valuable. Fabric is inherently tactile. Colour changes under different lighting conditions. Opacity can be difficult to appreciate on a screen. Texture, handle and drape need to be experienced.

Edmund Bell can now be discovered at Material Source Studio in London, and from the end of October, Manchester too, giving designers and specifiers the opportunity to explore the collections, compare light control options and take away samples for their projects.

Whether the challenge is creating complete darkness in a hotel bedroom, softly filtering daylight through a restaurant or introducing privacy into an open-plan hospitality space, starting the conversation with one question can make specification considerably easier: What do you need the light to do? From there, the possibilities become much clearer.

Edmund Bell - Light work, made easy.

Materiality is central to the creative process at Omar Gandhi Architects, practice founder, Omar, tells us. Fuelled through "honest investigation" into this, alongside place, historical context, and climate.

This value system begins at ideation stage with modelmaking, and continues through to the finished buildings with their striking form, purposeful material selections and an unmistakable playfulness.

Based across Halifax, Toronto and Berlin, every piece of Omar Gandhi Architects' work is distinct. From the criss-cross timber structure of the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia, to the organic Riverbend Library like a 'glacial erratic left behind by time', creativity is expressed by the bucketload.

And, of course, this too is evident in its models. As principal exhibitor at AiM's 'In Progress' exhibition, currently open at our London Studio (until 23 October 2026) and organised by the Architects Index of Modelmaking, run by Scott Miller at Manchester School of Architecture's B.15 Modelmaking Workshop, in partnership with European Cultural Centre (Italy) & Manchester Society of Architects, Omar Gandhi Architects showcases a model crafted for Yonge & Heath Streets, Deer Park, Toronto — anchoring the St. Clair Place redevelopment.

This is for a new civic and cultural landmark bringing together a multi-purpose theatre, event venue, gallery, flexible programme spaces, and a landscaped green roof — also housing what will potentially be a library.

Having bumped into Omar and his business partner, Jordan Rice, quite fortuitously at the opening of the 'In Progress' exhibition, we grabbed some time to chat more about why modelmaking is so central to the practice's process. Read Omar's thoughts below, and pop into Material Source Studio London any time between 9am and 5pm, Monday to Friday, to see the models for yourself.

How did Omar Gandhi Architects come to be?

"I grew up in Brampton, Ontario, Canada and studied at both the University of Toronto and Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia. I started my practice in 2010. I wasn't ready to start my own practice but took on a variety of small unglamorous projects which kept me busy for the first year or two. I was fortunate to have been commissioned to design some small custom homes and from there have built a practice in Halifax, Toronto and Berlin."

Your work feels very symbiotic with nature, blending seamlessly with a building’s surroundings - does that form part of your approach?

"Our work tries to simultaneously build on a culture of an area, and respond to climate conditions - but with an expressive edge which tends to give our work a creature-like form. It's less about blending and more about designing it in a way that it looks as though it always existed there, interwoven with the landscape."

Playful form also seems key?

"We tend to work with clients who are open to the unknown. There is certainly a playful side to our work with is both fun, dramatic and organic. There is a wildness which is central to our work."

What role does modelmaking play in supporting your work?

"We make models through the entire process. Beginning with card, foam, or scraps of wood, there is a rawness to the early stages. As the progress continues and develops, so too do our models, both digital and physical. The most beautiful models grow from an honest process of investigation."

Do you have model makers in the house?

"We do not. We have architects, interns, and students. Historically, it's been something that everyone has participated in. We are in the process of building the core of a fabrication shop dedicated to both modelmaking, exploration and making."

How does materiality factor both in terms of models, and the actual buildings?

"There are various types of models that we process - ones for early investigation and ones for final testing. The final models have typically been built by hand, using wood. While we do utilise CNC and 3D printing in various cases, the bulk is developed by hand, slowly. The process models are usually built with materials which can easily be manipulated, edited, discarded without the pressure of being overly precious with it."

Do you have a signature creative process? Or does it differ per project?

"Our process begins with honest investigation about place, materiality, historical context, and climate. For me personally, many of the early ideas begin with sketching and modelling. We are a highly collaborative studio, so ideas come from different places and then are workshopped and developed as a team. That could mean that the original spark comes from various team members, my partners, Stephanie Hosein and Jordan Rice, or myself."

You’re principal exhibitor at AiM's 'In Progress' exhibition in London - what was the driver for supporting that particularly?

"We believe in the importance of 'making' and the value of modelmaking in particular through the process of architecture. Too often people live only in their computer screens and don't touch materials. It's central to our studio that we produce real objects and learn from them. I was fortunate to have spent some time at the University of Manchester with Scott [AiM founder] a few months ago and really enjoyed the work that the students produce. It aligned with our values as a firm."

You work closely with education providers, is modelmaking embraced in the universities?

"It varies quite drastically, actually. I was fortunate to have gone to a school (Dalhousie University) where modelmaking was integral to the process. There are other schools that are neither equipped for it nor promote the idea of making models as an integral part of the design process."

What’s next for Omar Gandhi Architects?

"We are working along a very broad spectrum, from products like furniture, lighting and scent diffusers to custom houses, retail, cultural projects, libraries and more. We are having a lot of fun producing the work that we are fortunate to have and hope to continue exploring."

Catch AiM's 'In Progress' exhibition at Material Source Studio, 120 Saffron Hill, London, until 23 October 2026. It's free to visit. No booking required. More info here.

'Permacrisis' was named Collins Dictionary Word of the Year for 2022. And, let’s be honest, it could have appeared in the same position in every year that has followed. (In fact, ‘AI’, ‘Brat’, and ‘Vibe Coding’ succeeded it). But the point is, for more than a decade, we have lived through tumultuous times. Chaotic geopolitics paired with the instantaneous form in which we ingest content has had a domino effect on every professional sector, and everyone’s personal lives.

When it comes to property development, all of this plus the impact of stricter regulations, Gateway 2, planning lag, and uncertainty around investment has meant a mass stall on sites across the UK and further afield, leading to a pretty gloomy outlook on the sector’s state.

However, a different sentiment was shared at our recent roundtable in Manchester. One of optimism and hope for the future, the likes of which we’ve not heard for some time.

What’s changed? In terms of the geopolitical situation, not much, really. But on a human level, resilience has come to the fore. And adaptability has been embraced as a result. While the bigger picture remains, the way we deal with projects on a daily basis must endure. The show must go on, as they say. And perhaps we’re now ready to accept that across the whole industry food-chain.

In the conversation to follow, this is illustrated beautifully by our roundtable guests, all experienced and uniquely positioned to comment on Manchester’s residential property outlook. Read on…

Our guests

To begin, Chair of the session, David Smalley, Director, Material Source Studio, asked, “Two years ago, build-to-rent in Manchester could do no wrong. Today, are we looking at a market correction, or the beginning of a more fundamental reset?”

“There is a real structural change happening,” replied Katie Rudin, Housing & Innovation Director, Akerlof. “We're looking 10-years ahead at what is needed. In Manchester – Andy [Burnham] is front and centre - everybody’s looking at this city. I really hope we seize this time while building residential schemes that are fit for the future. Currently, it feels as though a lot of BTR is stuck in the system. Maybe it will start to release, but then it’s who’s building it and how are we making sure it continues?”

“The demand for BTR is still there,” suggested Daniel Bishop, Associate Director, JB+CO. “Investors still want to invest, but they’re asking more questions. Viability is now the driver rather than necessarily getting funders. The funders are willing, but they’re asking more questions. And it comes back to that mix of: who’s going to live in these in 10-years?"

Perhaps the greatest change for BTR was that there was a time when it “always stacked up,” suggested Daniel. “Now there are questions being asked, and it’s more waiting to get there.”

John Williams, Founder, SpaceInvader, agreed, “there’s a lot of chatter about the length of time it takes for these things to happen - getting funding over the line, legals - which makes everything take longer, which means the viability gap just grows and grows. You get to the point where, ‘if we don’t do something in the next couple of months, this doesn’t stack up anymore.’”

Funding, he stressed, is a big part of it. “If that doesn’t resolve itself, then it doesn’t become viable. Even with public and private funding combined, if it doesn’t stack up, it won’t happen. That’s what I seem to see a lot.”

This word “viability” emerges every time we have a discussion around property. “It’s affecting everybody isn’t it?” questioned David. “How are investors, architects, and developers getting over that?”

“Private sale,” responded Pete Skidmore, Senior Associate, UXI Group. “BTR and co-living are more profitable over the long-term than private sale, it's just that some developers are opting against the management aspects in favour of a quicker and simpler model."

Caution applies here, Matt Pickering, Principal, Arcadis, warned – “Sales values aren’t there either.”

“We’re seeing blocks completed at a similar time: one BTR and one for sale. Three months later, the BTR is 50% let; hardly any sales in the block next door,” he added.

This has, in some cases, led to investors “squeezing pips out of everything to try to make it stack up."

“Generally, that’s increasing floor-to-wall ratios; reducing height where possible but maintaining overall gross floor area. Small steps to make a scheme more viable, because there’s a tipping point where it will work.”

“Are you finding amenities are being reduced as well?” asked David.

“For sure,” replied Matt. “The level of amenity and building in future flexibility. We’ve got a few very high-end schemes where we’re still putting in swimming pools and spas, but they’re very few and far between. It’s now multipurpose spaces that could be changed easily.”

Jasper Sanders, Founder, Jasper Sanders & Partners, here mentioned the redefinition of ‘luxury’ more broadly. “Specifically with regards to interior design, we see a much bigger shift happening in the definition of luxury. The real luxury might now be an environment that genuinely helps you recover, for example."

For Lucy Tindall, Associate, PRP, viability comes down to thinking about the end users. “I think it’s ensuring we’re creating homes that people can use at the end, and that people can afford. The BTR market in Manchester and other places has had a lot of higher-end amenities. If you want to appeal to a broader range of renters, you need to reduce those amenities too.”

Gyms and co-working spaces were suggested as the two most used amenities according to the group.

“What about event spaces?” asked Pete.

“It’s that multipurpose use. Co-working is used during the day - what else can it be used for at night, rather than having separate dedicated spaces? It’s about making single spaces multifunction,” said Lucy.

Viability & value

“Rental values have peaked out,” Jasper stated. And this is paired with high land values and construction costs, Gateway 2 slowing processes, and a lack of available council funding.

“Student accommodation - a tier below build-to-rent - has been hit hard first. Parents can’t afford it. Students are questioning choices: ‘Should I get educated at all? AI is going to take my job anyway.’”

The story for BTR is a similar one, he believes. “It’s not too dissimilar in build-to-rent. I wouldn’t say PBSA has collapsed, but no one’s really building anything. Bizarrely, we’ve won three projects in that sector recently, but they’re outliers. Our go-to clients say, ‘We’re building one or two this year,’ whereas they might have built seven or eight, 10-years ago.

“There’s a cap. Cost of living crisis. Wages have stagnated. No one has more money. Meanwhile, in interiors, ambition has gone up and up from Instagram and Pinterest. The cost of supplying luxury amenity has gone up and up, but no one can afford to build it and get a return. That’s the viability equation completely gone. You can’t value engineer yourself out of it. You can increase net-to-gross so far, but eventually the risk is too high. The return isn’t worth it.”

Despite this, as Nathan Cornish of Urban Splash commented on our recent Manchester Property seminar panel, we can’t just sit about - we have to do something.

The conversation returned to the point of viability, and schemes ‘stacking up’.

While BTR “bubbles along”, and PBSA has slowed, could emerging asset classes such as co-living have their time?

“For co-living, there’s not a unified approach across Manchester; authorities differ. It’s a bit more of an unknown quantity,” suggested Pete.

Across the board we’re “at a low point” said Matt, “but it’s picking up again,” he added.

“This year was the first year in over a decade with less than ten thousand homes in Greater Manchester under construction. But numbers coming through planning and going through Gateway 2 are definitely on the up.”

“Housing is on every single local authority’s agenda,” said John. “Everybody talks about it. Government talks about it. It can’t not continue. At the Greater Manchester Development Update conference a couple of weeks ago there was a stat that over 4,600 homes in the Greater Manchester Good Growth Fund are still yet to come through. It can’t stop; it’s too big a part of the agenda.”

“There are proposals for an automatic yes on certain brownfield sites as well, which will likely accelerate it,” Pete commented.

Getting to grips with Gateway 2 is also positively impacting progress, Lucy said. “There’s an adjustment period for Gateway 2: you hit a wall where everything stops and takes months and months. Investors and clients lose confidence. But now we’re getting better at it - companies and the system. They’re getting better at dealing with applications; we’re getting better at submitting them, knowing what to submit, and knowing the questions that come out. We can streamline the process.

“It was never going to be easy at the beginning. Once people get confidence that it’s not as difficult as perceived, we’ll get better.”

“That’s the most positive I’ve heard anybody talk about Gateway 2,” responded David, “so you’re only doing the job you should have always been doing?”

“Yes. Exactly.” Lucy said.

Modern Methods of Construction

This more pragmatic approach to Gateway 2 has led to greater volumes of people in the housing sector considering Modern Methods of Construction (MMC) for their schemes, Katie suggested.

“It’s interesting from the MMC point of view. We’ve had more people from the housing space approach us asking, ‘Can you assist us?’ Because once we hit Gateway approval, we want to be sure of how we build,” she shared.

“They want certainty on timeframe and confidence that everything is exactly as designed. People are coming to us earlier to get the right partner to help them on that journey.”

And this certainly fits into MMC, she added. “Everything is coordinated. It’s how things used to happen. Everything gets designed, then you build it.”

“MMC has been the dream for many years,” suggested Jasper. “It came into focus 20-years or so ago, when it was said out of the 2008 crash, all the industry of construction had gone. Those nearing 60 retired, the skill set left the business, and nothing new came through. It happens periodically. Every recession, people go, ‘it’s not attractive enough to become a painter, decorator, joiner’. Nobody wants to do it.”

The proposition of working in MMC, in factories, warm, dry environments, where skills are nurtured…that’s different, Jasper said.

This echoed a point raised at last year’s roundtable with Autex where Katie Black, Architect at Manalo & White commented on the potential of MMC roles appealing to caregivers due to more accommodating conditions.

The issue here, Katie Rudin flagged, is that most MMC manufacturers are SMEs – “tiny”.

“Everyone’s been throwing money at manufacturers, but they haven’t created a system where lots of people are feeding projects through. We’ve not had a safe way to prototype and then get stuff out the other side. The way we construct isn’t completely repeatable. Working with manufacturers means getting them to skill up, rather than expecting them to turn on and off a tap of a big building with lots of overheads. We need to structurally look at all of that at once.” There’s also the problem of liability, Pete added.

“From an architect’s perspective, if you’re dealing with modular, it isn’t just MMC, MMC is broader. You partner up with modular firms, and you end up being tasked to manage their product. But the liability is an issue: they try to tell you what to draw, and you think, ‘Who’s taking responsibility for this?’ They’ll say, ‘We wouldn’t advise you to do it that way.’ So MMC suppliers need to understand their role and responsibilities. If you need an architect, bring them in-house and use them as part of the product, but then you need to take responsibility for testing. It’s your product.”

Katie said those MMCs that have been successful “treat it like a product”, they “bring designers in-house, own it, and are proud of it.”

Taking a slightly different perspective, a lot of projects at the moment have social value requirements, Lucy said. “Doing modular and sending it off-site to a factory far away doesn’t always deliver social value. They need to train people locally, set up workshops for young people, get them interested. That can be a stumbling block for MMC, because employing local people is a massive part of the social value requirement.”

MMC can be more effective when you scale it down, Pete shared. “In residential: you could have a standard, part-completed staircase. Bathroom pods. You can piece them together; it gives flexibility.”

For the likes of bathroom pods, this can only apply to large schemes, Lucy highlighted – 300+.

Daniel said there can be reluctance from main contractors because of a lack of understanding. “With viability squeezed, any unknowns they’d rather throw out. They don’t want unknown costs they can’t factor in. Contractors rely on relationships; building a new relationship requires trust, and many have been burned. MMC should be questioned because people have been burned badly.”

“Is there any future for MMC then?” asked David.

There needs to be a shift, the group agreed. For social housing, 300-bathroom pods could work well. “It’s using it in the right space, rather than trying to shoehorn it everywhere.”

Emerging asset classes

"If developers are moving away from BTR, what's replacing it?" asked David.

“Multi-generational houses should start to become more of a thing,” said Lucy. “And that’s not just houses but flats as well, where you have a one-bed connected to a two-bed home. People have their own front doors, but the opportunity for a shared living environment. Variety of offer is important.”

Relatively new in the UK, Lucy added that planners don’t quite know how to deal with it because it doesn’t fit the box. The same for investors too.

“But we have been able to do it as part of a social housing model because we’ve had families that need that accommodation”, Lucy shared. A step she feels is very encouraging.

More common across wider Europe, low rise developments lend themselves to this way of multigenerational, community living, Pete said, because residents and non-residents alike can walk through the open, non-gated space. This welcoming approach can be seen closer to home at Salford’s Middlewood Locks.

Just as when we visited Middlewood Locks, city centre townhouses came up during this discussion as a relatively new asset class with potential.

“We’ve had developers who previously looked at BTR towers post-BSA and the fallout. The shift has been to stay below 18-metres. We’ve got one at the moment: townhouses. Not BTR, private sale. It’s come out of the conversation that Manchester doesn’t have any in the city centre. If you want a house, you have to go out,” said Daniel.

Aged living was raised as a segment of residential that’s “not taken off”, suggested Matt.

Though when broken down, many asset classes are ultimately the same product, he said. Just badged differently. “They’re all experience-led residential. Co-living, BTR, PBSA, apart-hotel, senior living - it’s all the same function. As much as architects like to think we shape it, it’s the people who operate buildings and manage communities that create the experience. Same product, slightly different design.”

Normalising uncertainty

“Are we not in a good place?” asked David. “And have we not been since 2008?”

“I think we’re towards the end of that,” replied John.

“I agree,” added Jasper. “We’re three or four-years away from a more positive outlook, potentially even a boom. By 2030, I think we’ll see a sea change towards a brighter future. Strauss and Howe’s theory of ‘Generational Turnings’ describes roughly 80-year cycles moving through periods of confidence, awakening, fragmentation and ultimately crisis, before rebuilding and renewal. Their current crisis ‘Fourth Turning’, is generally associated with the period following the 2008 financial crisis, which is suggested could run until around 2030.”

Manufacturing has been particularly tough, of late, shared Rachel Wylde, Senior Account Manager, Milliken. From supply chain to energy use, geopolitics have had a forceful impact.

“It’s turbulent,” Rachel said, “but even within a 12-month period, you feel people getting more confident.”

Lauren Farrier, Head of Sales - North, Autex Acoustics, agreed. “Though it's been good for us, everything is generally more difficult. Everything that was simple two or three years ago is not now. You just have to pull your socks up and get on with it."

“Volatility is key,” added Daniel, “but I think we’re coming out of it rather than it getting worse.”

“How can we be coming out of it though with what's still going on in the world?” David asked.

“We’ve normalised it.” Daniel said.

Here seems to lie the biggest recent change in the sector. While things may not appear to be different, attitudes are. We must accept that which we cannot alter.

“We’ve got to do something,” continued Daniel. “That’s our business, and we’re working harder to make things happen because we have to.”

Lucy believes demystification is crucial to reinstating confidence in developers. “There’s been so much legislation change recently we’ve started inviting developers to seminars about those changes and how to implement them - demystifying it. Trying to give confidence back in delivering projects: the new legislation is achievable, and we can do it.

“We’ve got to be proactive in educating the construction industry when big changes like the Future Homes Standard come forward. It can look scary to small housebuilders but break it down and make it simple. Same with Gateway 2.”

Speaking specifically of confidence in Manchester, Jasper said, “The city has been remarkably successful at creating a virtuous circle of inward investment. Over several decades there has been a consistency of political and development vision, with long-term masterplans rather than constantly changing direction. That consistency brings with it inward investment from London and internationally, with confidence built by what people actually see.

“Manchester has managed to put a lot of high-quality architecture, housing, hospitality, restaurants and public realm into a relatively compact city centre. The quality of the built environment becomes a signal that the city is serious about its future, which is why development is still happening.

"There are still major masterplans being progressed, significant housing programmes under construction and a continuing appetite for investment, albeit in difficult economic conditions. BTR has been an important part of that story, not as an isolated property product but as one component of a much bigger urban transformation.

"In many ways," he said, "Manchester has created confidence by building confidence.”

As the session came to a close, David asked the guests to summarise, in one word, whether Manchester residential is "surviving, stabilising, or thriving?"

“Stabilising - and on a somewhat upward trajectory,” came the reply.

And after years of frustrated conversation, veering towards the negative, we’ll take that.

The conversation on property now continues at seminars and roundtables in Glasgow and London. Stay tuned for further insight from those regions.

In the meantime, a huge thanks to our guests on this roundtable, and to our supporters for the session, Autex Acoustics and Milliken – both Partners at Material Source Studio Manchester & Glasgow.

Ahrend Zoniq is an acoustic office pod, specially designed for maximum flexibility and scalability. With this solution, you can create zones of calm within the open workspace. Teams, from small to large, can collaborate and meet with the highest level of comfort. In complete calm. Without disturbing others or being disturbed themselves.

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Ventilation

Ahrend has years of experience in designing office pods. Knowledge from this experience has been applied in the development of a smart ventilation system that ensures a pleasant and stable indoor climate in the Ahrend Zoniq.

The smart ventilation system ensures effective removal of old, warm air and the supply of new, cool air. Because users and equipment such as laptops emit heat, old air in the office pod rises. This old, warm air is extracted through the ceiling at the top of the pod.

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Acoustics

Different activities take place simultaneously in the office, each with its own noise level. In an open office environment, colleagues’ conversations are the main source of noise disturbance for employees who need to concentrate. This is because the sound level of these conversations (60 dB) is higher than the ambient noise level (50 dB) in an open office environment.

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In addition, the interior, including the ceiling, is fitted with upholstered panels. These ensure that the space does not echo, allowing users to meet and have conversations comfortably.

Modular & flexible

Ahrend Zoniq is a 100% modular office pod system in which all components are fully demountable and interchangeable. This makes it possible to create zones that effortlessly adapt to the dynamic life of the office. Whether it concerns growth in the number of employees, a new layout or a different function of the space: Ahrend Zoniq is easy to adapt. In this way, businesses can remain flexible, no matter how their organisation evolves.

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Discover more about the benefits of the Ahrend Zoniq here. And explore Ahrend's extensive furniture portfolio by visiting Material Source Studio Manchester, where it is a Partner.

Before the extensive renovation of Salford Cathedral, it was one of those buildings you could pass and never properly see. Then, scaffolding went up. The stone was cleaned. And a long-overdue transformation began to reveal itself.

For the Material Source team, it’s been a familiar landmark on the commute into Manchester: a striking example of how historic architecture can be carefully evolved, where new interventions sit confidently alongside a building’s original fabric.

Keen to understand what’s happened behind the scenes, we recently sat down with Tom Brigden, partner at Purcell, Manchester, to learn more about every detail that has gone into bringing a long-standing community building back into action for its congregation and beyond.

Here, Tom reflects on Purcell’s involvement in the Salford Cathedral project, working in collaboration with the Cathedral Architect, Chris Cotton (was Purcell, now runs his own practice), unpacking the ambition, craft, and technical complexity behind a scheme that brings conservation, accessibility and sustainability into 21st Century alignment.

When you started on the Salford Cathedral project, what was the condition of the building like?

“It was in a really poor state due to a lack of routine maintenance for probably around 50 years. There was significant water ingress through the roofs, and in places it was dangerous - plaster was failing and at risk of falling onto the congregation, so we removed unsafe sections early on.

“There was also loose high-level stonework, particularly pinnacles on the Chapel Street elevation, which posed a risk to the public on a major bus route. Water was coming through the spire as well; on one rainy day it was like a waterfall through the middle of the spire, directly above the high altar, so they had buckets all around.”

What were the main goals of the project?

“The project had several aims. Fix fabric issues: resolve water ingress, improve safety, and make the building dry and secure. To increase capacity: previous reordering (especially from the 1930s onwards) had reduced capacity. In the 1970s the altar was moved to the centre, which shortened the usable space - partly reflecting declining congregation numbers at the time. But the area has since changed dramatically with new residential development and the congregation has grown, so capacity became a problem.

“To improve visitor facilities and accessibility: there were very limited toilets (around three), none truly accessible. The most significant areas at the east end - stone carving, alabaster altars - were inaccessible to wheelchair users. And to improve flexibility: the previous layout made it hard to use the cathedral for concerts or recitals. The cathedral has a strong choral and music programme and wanted more flexibility and more capacity for the choir.”

The ceiling and interior decoration now really stands out – talk us through the design

“The cathedral has been fully redecorated with a new decorative scheme. Originally in the Victorian period it was polychrome - bright and colourful - then from the 1930s onwards it was repeatedly overpainted in white/beige, with layer upon layer of modern paint. That paint covered carved stonework around windows, columns, and arches.

“We removed paint from key architectural elements to reveal the carved detail again, and reintroduced colour. We used written descriptions from the cathedral’s opening (it became a cathedral in 1851) describing colours like an azure blue background and gold stars. We also carried out paint analysis, taking samples and examining them under a microscope to understand the sequence of historic finishes. Some patterns were reinstated exactly by tracing from scaffold.

“Elsewhere we designed new stencils to support new functions and symbolism, including: stars (including a couple of unique ones to commemorate - the bishop gilded his own star); monogram combining “J” and “E” (St John the Evangelist) intertwined with an “S” for Salford; grapes and wheat sheaves symbolising bread and wine.”

How did sustainability factor into the project?

“Sustainability was a core ambition. Early on we used a tagline: ‘to be the UK’s most sustainable cathedral,’ which set a high bar and the client stayed committed throughout.

“Key sustainability measures included a new breathable floor build-up: the previous terrazzo floor (installed over a cold concrete slab) was non-breathable and contributed to moisture tracking up walls and columns. Combined with non-breathable modern paints, it caused paint failure and even stone damage. The new floor improves breathability around the base of stonework.

“Underfloor heating and insulation: installed beneath the new floor, providing efficient heating at occupant level instead of warming the clerestory while leaving floor level cold.

“Re-roofing with reclaimed slate and improved insulation: the roof is now insulated throughout, unlike before.

“Future heat source via open-loop boreholes: the underfloor system will be powered by a vertical open-loop borehole system that draws water from the aquifer, extracts heat, then returns the water back underground, suited to a tight urban site with limited external space.

“Solar PV: installed on a neighbouring diocesan-owned building.

“Environmental secondary glazing: installed throughout (with one exception). Stained glass was removed, repaired, set into new bronze frames, then brought back and set inboard, with secondary glazing in the original rebates. This protects the stained glass, reduces drafts and energy loss, and supports long-term conservation.

“Passive ventilation triggered via a new lantern: humidity- and temperature-controlled louvers open automatically to vent warm, moist air up through the tower and belfry – it’s natural ventilation assisted by sensors.

“New LED lighting and controls: bespoke lighting manufactured by Great British Lighting (Fleetwood), designed with CBG (lighting designers). LED improves efficiency, and scene-setting and zoning are controllable via iPad, with the ability to reprogramme over time.

“Better zoning: spaces like the shop/bookshop and family room can be heated and controlled separately from the main cathedral.”

Did the authorities and consultees support these changes?

“Yes. Salford Council was good on planning and listed building consent. The interior is exempt as a place of worship, so consent ran through the Catholic Historic Churches Committee (acting as an equivalent authority), and they were supportive. Historic England was also a statutory consultee and understood the client’s long-term goals. It is a radical project in some respects, and we’re proud we were able to work collaboratively and secure support.”

Were there any major challenges during delivery that perhaps you’re most proud of overcoming?

“The floor was a huge challenge. It’s a very large area, and we wanted extremely fine joints to enhance the appearance of the Purbeck limestone (with visible fossils). But over large floor plates, standards typically require more movement joints. Achieving the minimal movement joints without issues was difficult. The floor pattern is also complex, using two colours in a checkerboard down the nave and more intricate patterns in the aisles and around the font.

“Coordination was especially challenging because the building isn’t perfectly square and columns aren’t perfectly aligned. On top of geometry, the floor had to integrate underfloor heating, power and data, floor boxes, and fixings for elements like new wrought iron screens and stone furnishings.

“Delivering it required close teamwork between Purcell, the stone supplier/quarry, the specialist installers, the main contractor, and multiple trades. The result is close to perfect, and we’re really happy with it.”

If you take a look at the ‘top places to live’ polls for 2026, the likelihood is that Manchester will get a mention. Most recently, it was the only UK city to feature on Oxford Economics’ new ‘cities to watch’ list. If you live or work here, or in the surrounding vicinity, you’ll probably be unsurprised by this. The city has undergone a staggering transformation in the last 10-years. And as part of it, a wide range of residential asset classes have emerged, catering for all the many ways people want to live - now, and into the future.

Taking stock of how far development has come over the last decade, with a look ahead to see where we’re going next, our recent Manchester Property seminar focused on community living. We asked the question, ‘true or false?’ with reference to the vertical neighbourhoods that dominate the city centre skyline sitting alongside existing estates and purpose-built schemes seeking to fuel social cohesion – how far do these go in spurring, then nurturing, genuine communities? Are some better than others? And whose responsibility is this; does it lie with the developer?

Who better to answer than a panel of experienced professionals from a selection of esteemed property firms: Nicola Wallis, Group Residential Sales & Marketing Director, Scarborough Group International; Nathan Cornish, Group Director, Urban Splash; and Martyn Evans, Creative Director, Landsec. In conversation with Chair, David Smalley, Director, Material Source, this topic of ‘community’ was tackled.

Creating the conditions

Martyn Evans is Creative Director at Landsec. Working on projects including Mayfield, which includes in its masterplan 2,000+ homes across the 30-acre site, plus the regeneration of MediaCity in Salford, Martyn has spent the last 30-years “building parts of cities and communities.”

To set the scene, he said, “Since we were hunters and gatherers, and we stopped hunting and gathering and started sitting down around a fire, we’ve been building communities. And that’s not anything to do with the people who built the mud huts, or the wooden huts, or the concrete buildings, the stone or brick buildings. It’s got to do with people who come together to form communities. The people who built the mud huts, and then the wood buildings, and then stone, and now brick and steel, create conditions in which those communities can thrive.

“That’s about it. We just have to create the conditions. In modern life in central Manchester, it means creating buildings that are beautiful; green spaces around them so you can breathe; and then room for the services that people need.”

The services, Martyn said, should provide range, be “of all kinds”. “Restaurants where you can spend a hundred pounds having dinner, or restaurants where you can spend £1.99 having a burger and fries.”

This, he commented, is very important – “you don’t want to create ghettos or enclaves.”

For Nathan Cornish, Group Director, Urban Splash, the encouragement of community simply starts with quality design. “What creates good communities? I think you can overdo this question. For me, it’s just starting with really good design, employing the right architects and the right designers, having some really strong ideas, and following through with them.”

The example he highlighted was New Islington. “The idea there was dead simple”, Nathan said. “It was designed by the fabulous, now late architect Will Alsop to connect the Ashton and Rochdale Canal, create south-facing bars and restaurants, a new park, and then lots of development plots. That was the combination of ingredients, really, and community as a result just happened.”

The lesson that can be taken from this, he added, is: “Stick to your principles, employ great architects, and the communities will happen themselves. You see a lot of people talking about ‘placemaking’ and ‘communities’, and they’re just overdoing it.”

“Placemaking” as a term has become grossly overused, believes Nathan. And what’s worrying, he said, is that people don’t understand what it means. “We started using that term 25-years ago, and now it feels to me like a lot of developers are using it to meet requirements of local authorities, public procurement partners, all that sort of stuff so I worry it’s not always for the right reasons. For us, it’s genuine.”

In a similar vein, Nicola Wallis, Group Residential Sales & Marketing Director, Scarborough Group International, suggested that by putting the right ingredients into a residential scheme, organic communities will be allowed to form. “What makes a community? I too think it’s all about people. Thinking about how people want to live in your homes, how they want to move around buildings, how they want to move around the neighbourhood. Get the ingredients right from the get-go.”

At Middlewood Locks in Salford, a 25-acre, 20+ year project that’s halfway through, providing 1,300 homes to people seeking city life along with proximity to green and blue space, Nicola shared that the masterplan was very much centred on the residents from the start.

“We can’t force community, but we can create the conditions for people to stay and move around a neighbourhood rather than moving out.” – Nicola Wallis, Scarborough Group International

Longevity – created by flexibility - Nicola believes is crucial to community. “We’ve had residents living in our homes for 8-years now. We’ve got BTR, we’ve got private for sale, we’ve also got private rental landlords. So there are different ways that people can live, and evolve, in the neighbourhood.”

Initially, the Government’s Help to Buy scheme was a positive force in helping first time buyers onto the property ladder, Nicola said, mentioning that “a third of our homes at Middlewood Locks in phase one were sold to first-time buyers on Help to Buy.” Many of those residents have now remained in the neighbourhood, Nicola added. “They’re staircasing up; they’ve moved into townhouses from one-bedroom flats: got married, now having their first babies at Middlewood Locks.”

Reiterating the point that community can’t be forced, Nicola affirmed that with the right ingredients in the mix – including support from the Government and public sector, it can be achieved.

The role of good design

“Why is design such an important part of creating successful places?” asked David.

At Urban Splash, it was Jonathan (Falkingham) and Tom (Bloxham) that put emphasis on this 30-years ago, said Nathan. Jonathan’s background in architecture instilled an “obsession” in the whole team for design detail, he explained.

“We’ve used some of the biggest architects to literally one-person bands. But it doesn’t matter if a practice is big or small; we like whoever has the best idea.”

“We live and breathe architecture.” – Nathan Cornish, Urban Splash

Taking a step back, David asked the panel to consider the ‘why’ behind what they do, “Why does it matter for developers that community is created?”

“Because the only way we make any money is by making people happy,” responded Martyn. “We make places, not property developments. We make places where people live. People stay in places and move up to 2-bedroom apartments, buy a 4-bedroom house when kids come along, and might stay in your Middlewood Locks for 30-years. What more success do you want than that? How else do you describe a successful place?”

Value, he said, is the form of measurement. “What makes a place valuable is by the amount of people who want to live there and who will pay more to live there.”

This then has a positive knock on effect for the community as a whole, Martyn argued. “The rents for the retailers will go up because they have huge success. Restaurants thrive, shops thrive, service businesses thrive and Section 106 affordable housing contributions are able to be viably delivered. We, as private sector developers, win when that happens. Good places are valuable, and valuable places keep our shareholders happy.”

“We’re all in this together, making places for people to be happy. And that makes us happy too, as private sector developers.” – Martyn Evans, Landsec

There’s also a pride that exists, commented Nicola, a feeling when walking around a neighbourhood of “we made that”.

Nathan agreed, adding that at Urban Splash “we don’t just build stuff and always exit. We build stuff and hold. We’ve got a million square foot commercial portfolio, and we’re going to be in these places for 40+ years. We have to think long term.”

From the audience, Peter Menken, Project Director, jmarchitects, asked a question about integrating new communities with those that are existing – “how do you actually ensure the integration of old and new communities?”

Nathan and Nicola (past colleagues at Urban Splash) spoke of New Islington, where public consultation was taken as far as allowing the people living in the existing 1960s low rise estate to choose the architect for their new home. They would be moved just once, Nathan said, and they were genuinely taken on the journey.

Out of 5 architecture practices, the community chose FAT (Fashion Architecture Taste), an art and architecture collaborative first established in the 1990s in London, and renowned for their bold, unmistakable style. The Dutch façadism you can see in New Islington, is the result of that appointment. “That, to me, is genuine consultation with the community that live there,” said Nathan.

At Middlewood Locks, Nicola used the example of the canalside being a place where residents and people from the surrounding neighbourhoods gather together and integrate. Because of this new waterside location, “house prices have lifted significantly across the whole area,” Nicola said.

She also mentioned the community events that are hosted at Middlewood Locks. “Every year now we have a big festival - a big, family, free, fun day out - where people come with a picnic, sit in the gardens, take part in all the activities, and enjoy the space. This is just one example. We make it welcome for everyone.”

Does the size of development or neighbourhood matter to how well community can be integrated and thrive? Martyn says not. It doesn’t take a 30-acre site for this to happen.

“If you’ve only got one building, you can still be part of a thriving community. You’ve just got to work out what your job is. What’s your role, that tooth in the smile? What’s your role in adding something significant to that existing community that doesn’t already exist?

“Every community’s got missing teeth. Every community’s got something that it needs. It’s upon you, as a single player, to go find out what that is, and work out how you can provide it." - Martyn Evans, Landsec

"Because if you can provide it, not only do you embed yourself in the existing community, you do something valuable.”

Challenges: Certainty & viability

One sentiment was shared by the panel as a whole: development has never been more challenging. For that reason, the concept of ‘community’ cannot be just a buzzword, said Nathan. It has to be understood and undertaken properly. And woe betide those that don’t.

“There are so many developers that talk about community, but then they’ve got a fancy PR consultant to front. You’ve got to look the community in the eye directly. You’ve got to face them. You’ve got to take it. Sometimes it can be really difficult. You’ve got to front it up. And if you don’t, that’s all you need to know about the developer. And I’ll stand by this: it is challenging being a developer."

"It’s hugely challenging," added Nicola, "we get curveballs all the time. We’ve had Covid, Brexit, changes of government, interest rate hikes. It’s really challenging. But the ones that genuinely care and are really passionate are the ones consistently showing up when things get tough. They’re still in the market. They’re still trying to find solutions."

Gateway Two was named as a specific challenge, paired with the need for more homes – but, “our hands are tied behind our backs,” commented Nathan.

“Our hands are tied behind our backs" - Nathan Cornish, Urban Splash

“The genuinely passionate developers are the ones still showing up day in, day out, embracing the challenge and trying to find a solution around it,” Martyn agreed.

“You just have to follow Tim Heatley on Instagram. Love him or hate him, the guy’s a genius. You just have to listen to the passion with which he walks around those empty buildings and tells his stories about what he might do in them. It’s a joy to watch.”

“You talk about challenges. Viability is a question. How are you dealing with viability of projects - the difficulty?” asked David.

“It is a challenge. It’s never been harder. Never.” said Nathan.

“Really? Including the Global Financial Crisis?” David probed.

“Yes, including 2008. But at least then there was still finance. People still had money. That one, there was a reason for it: huge debt, then a correction, and the government stepped in. This is like every time you turn a corner, there’s another heavy issue.”

There is, however, light at the end of the tunnel, Nathan shared. “There are signs: there’s a lot of government activity. There’s a lot of money coming in. There’s Local Enterprise Partnership, combined authorities. That’s accelerating and helping things. Even some projects in Manchester city centre now are needing subsidised loans to get moving. That’s really positive. So I think things are turning.”

Though the problem, he said, is the ultimate exit in the residential market. “The BTR market is struggling because of yields. Why would you buy BTR when you can get government gilts at almost six percent. Open market sales are also struggling. So it’s the exit that we are all struggling with.”

“Is the government a key part of viability?” David continued.

“A key part,” answered Martyn. “We come to work every day to sit around a table with clever colleagues and find an answer. As Nathan said, there’s a lot of government money washing around at the minute, but if you want it, if you want to be the company that presents the scheme that is successful in getting grant or long-term capital investment from the public sector, you have to show them you’re doing what they want too. That means working harder to tell a story about the place you’re making.”

“They want certainties?” suggested David.

“They want certainties of what they’ve done before. This is hugely circular: what they want is happy citizens. They want people to have thriving good lives, with jobs and good homes that don’t leak and aren’t mouldy; their children can be happy; and if you’re old, you’re less lonely and you’re healthy.

“So we’ve got to, in our schemes, not just talk about bricks and mortar and glass and steel; we have to talk about people’s lives. We need a checklist: are we helping young people learn better? Are we helping old people be less lonely? Are we helping people who are unhealthy be more healthy and have happier, healthier lives?

“If you can say the way you are designing and working can tick those boxes, then you and the public sector - who understand there has to be public money to fund viability - are as close as you can possibly get.”

Nathan shared that at Urban Splash, the team has a test. “It sounds silly. It’s called the mum test. Would you be happy to take your mum and say, ‘I worked on this myself.’”

At Scarborough Group International, Nicola said, “Ours is slightly different: we ask, ‘would you sell this apartment to your mum?’”

Changing direction

From the audience, Nicholas Tansella, Associate Architect, Hawkins\Brown, asked a question about change, “What happens when you’re on that journey with a long-term plan, you’re delivering that plan, and you feel like, ‘This isn’t going as I intended. This isn’t going in the direction I want it to. This community isn’t going to be as great as I want it to be.’ How do you deal with that?”

Though the panel responded it has never got to the point of not working entirely, things can definitely change, they said.

Nathan mentioned Campbell Park, “We’ve changed, redesigned it a few times, mostly because of the market and the exit. You have to be flexible. Any masterplan, if it’s not got inherent flexibility, it’s a shit masterplan. You’ve got to have that, because whatever you design on day one - especially if it’s a big project - you can absolutely guarantee it’ll be wrong.”

“If you have a meeting today, I can promise you next Monday you’re not doing what you decided in that meeting. Something will have changed,” added Martyn.

“It’s the nature of our business: we are constantly one eye out in the world and one eye on the drawings with the architects and the planners, working out: is it still okay to do that?”

Nicola agreed. “On our third phase of Middlewood Locks, we were doing a full apartment scheme. Covid hit, and we changed our next phase to incorporate townhouses. More of a mix, because we recognised our residents were staying in the neighbourhood and upscaling their homes, and we wanted to harness that. But no one knew at that time how much the market was changing. We just had to go on our gut and a sense of what was right, through experience.”

Audience member, Deborah Fuller, Project Delivery Manager, Manchester City Council, enquired about community-led housing, asking, “Would you support community-led housing as partnerships as private developers? And how do you think we could stimulate the market in terms of community-led housing?”

Nathan replied, “Absolutely. Our business is evolving all the time. We got selected a year or so ago for Festival Gardens in Liverpool. Our proposition was: we’ll be a master developer, we’ll do a few plots ourselves, and we’ll bring in a lot of developers to work with us to accelerate delivery, but also to give variety of tenure and different types of architecture.

“It’s ongoing now. It’s not exactly community-led housing in the way you’re describing, but we’re working with a group called Town. Town are doing basically what you’d describe as a collective at a housing level: everyone gets their own front door, and it’s based around community, communal sharing…

“So yes: if a community can get together and it’s got the appetite, funding, and the way of doing it, talk to me, because we genuinely want that type of ingredient in our development model.”

“And as a developer, you want a mix, don’t you?” suggested David. “Like any business: a mix reduces the risk.”

On that point, David added, “what’s next?”

Nicola brought up later living – “I feel like later living is going to become quite a big model in our cities. The first developments were for young professionals. Now we’ve got multigenerational family living.”

“I’m really interested in high-density, low-rise housing,” said Nathan, adding, “I think the volume housebuilding model needs a drastic shake-up. I just think the idea of building a box with a garden that’s ten by ten, all red brick, and called ‘exclusive’ and ‘luxury,’ needs challenging.”

“We’ve been testing it. We did a really interesting development in Birmingham, where all the houses backed onto a big communal garden. We weren’t sure whether it would work. It’s been a real success. So we’re going to repeat that type of thing, but with some twists.”

And for Martyn, the opportunity in the UK is for greater density. “New York is 4 times as dense as London. 4 times. And there is no sense in Manhattan that if you live in a very dense development, you live in a bad place. Even with low-cost housing the feeling is you live in an exciting place.”

Having lived in the Barbican, Martyn believes those principles apply. “The reason that very dense development works, with beautiful green space, is because it’s maintained beautifully.

“We only think high-rise density is crap because the examples we know were incredibly badly maintained.

“It’s more than just development. It’s about long-term stewardship of communities: how they’re managed, how they’re serviced, how people’s lives are supported, how things are cleaned properly, how common parts are invested in and maintained.

“It’s having respect for the people who help you make money by being part of your community building.”

In summary, successful communities in residential developments come down to 5 things according to our panel: ingredients; conditions; people; long-term stewardship; and care.

A huge thanks to all who joined us for this discussion and asked their questions, to our wonderful panellists for sharing their unique insight, and to our supporters for this event: Cupa Pizarras, Karndean and Parkside Architectural Tiles – all Partners at Material Source Studio Manchester.

The conversation now continues at a dedicated roundtable in Manchester, and seminars in Glasgow and London. Find out more here. And let us know your thoughts over on LinkedIn.

Nicola Wallis is group sales and marketing director at Scarborough Group International, with a career rooted in placemaking and regeneration. On speaking to Nicola, it’s obvious her work is her genuine passion. And a vast knowledge and understanding of the property sector is offered as a result.

After 13-years at Urban Splash, where she helped pioneer city-centre living across the UK, she joined family-firm Scarborough Group International and opened the Manchester office, shaping its residential brand and helping bring the billion-pound Middlewood Locks development in Salford to fruition.

At our recent Manchester Property Seminar, Nicola sat on the panel alongside Nathan Cornish, Urban Splash, and Martyn Evans, Landsec, in conversation with Chair, David Smalley, director at Material Source Studio. Ahead of the event, we visited Middlewood Locks in Salford for a tour around and to have a chat with Nicola about her varied professional life to-date.

In the piece to follow, we document our discussion on what it takes to deliver long-term neighbourhoods, from the partnerships behind major regeneration and the realities of funding and investment, to how design, community, and connectivity are changing the way people live in our cities.

You’ve had an enviable career in property, beginning in the early days of Urban Splash. Can you give us a snapshot of your career to-date?

“I’m the Group Sales and Marketing Director at Scarborough Group International. Before that, I spent around 13-years at Urban Splash, which is where I really got my grounding - and passion - for placemaking and regeneration. I was Sales Director across the UK, so I worked in lots of different regions. I joined Scarborough Group nearly 13-years ago, opened the Manchester office as the first Manchester hire, and set up the residential brand. My first project here was Hatbox in New Islington, and the big long-term regeneration project has been Middlewood Locks, which I’ve worked on for nearly 13-years.”

In a nutshell, who are Scarborough Group International?

“Scarborough Group International is a family business and is one of the UK’s most active regeneration specialists in property development. This year is a big one for us: Middlewood Locks is celebrating its 10th anniversary, and Scarborough Group is celebrating its 50th. We’re a property developer with a very varied portfolio - residential, mixed-use, large regeneration schemes, shopping centres, hotels and commercial.

“A big part of our identity is partnerships and long-term relationships. We often work with the same architects, contractors and consultants, and we also have strong relationships with public sector partners like National Housing Bank, Homes England, Salford Council, and other councils across the UK.”

How do you choose the architects and consultants you work with - and do you always use the same teams?

“It’s a combination of relationships and specialist skill. For a large regeneration project like Middlewood Locks, the team around you is crucial. Our architect at Middlewood Locks is Whittam Cox, and they’ve been involved from day one. What’s special is that many of the people who started on this project are still involved now, and they’re committed to seeing it through. Relationships matter because development can hit many headwinds during the course of construction which are beyond our control - Covid, Brexit, government changes, interest rates, legislation… so it’s about how you navigate those challenges and pivot together as a team.”

When we met for a tour of Middlewood Locks, you mentioned some initial international investment – was that crucial to getting the project off the ground?

"For a development on the scale of Middlewood Locks - around a billion-pound scheme - you need multiple funding sources. Some funding comes from Banks and the public sector, such as bodies like Homes England, but it’s hard to deliver the homes the UK needs without investment from outside the UK as well. For us, it’s about trust and relationships. Our chairman, Kevin, has worked with our joint venture partners in Singapore for decades, built those relationships through his work in Asia, and brought that investment into the UK. That long-term trust is what makes these partnerships work.

“In my first week at Scarborough Group International, I was on a plane to Hong Kong to pitch our Manchester residential business to our now JV partners, Metro Holdings – thankfully, it went well!”

What does your day-to-day look like?

“It’s really varied. I’m involved from the earliest stages - master planning conversations with the architects and the Council - through to branding, marketing and design. I sign off apartment layouts, specifications and finishes, then bring homes to market: sales strategy, pricing, target audiences and overseeing the management of our residential buildings once they are occupied, working closely with our Managing Agents. I am also responsible for customer care and events.

“So, it’s everything from ‘spade in the ground’ right through to moving residents in and supporting them once they’re living here. Even details like naming buildings and streets, or the approach to wayfinding - because the detail really matters and you need everything to feel like part of the same place and brand.”

Can you share an example of how partnerships and community play out?

“A great example is how the Middlewood Locks festival started. A contact at Salford Council asked if I could meet the Canal Association for a cup of tea - they cared deeply about the canal, which runs right through Middlewood Locks, but it wasn’t open or being used. That conversation brought in the Canal & River Trust; we got the work done to reopen the canal, and then we held a festival to celebrate. It was so successful we decided to keep doing it. A lot of the best outcomes really do come back to people, and the building of relationships.”

How has city living - and the property market - changed since you started?

“Fundamentally. When I started selling property in Manchester with Urban Splash, there was hardly any apartment living, and rentals essentially didn’t exist in the city centre. Estate agents only dealt with sales. There was even a development off Deansgate (Rozell Square) which was built in the 70s with lease restrictions against letting - that shows how unheard-of renting in the city was at the time.

“Most buyers were owner-occupiers, and because the market was young, there was huge growth opportunity. Over time, as people moved out, remortgaged, or rented out their homes, that helped build the buy-to-let market. Later, build-to-rent evolved as an asset class in the UK, influenced by other countries such as the US. Today there are many more ways to live in a city - and we’re also better connected to surrounding towns, which gives people more options.”

Which asset classes are performing well, and what do you think is missing?

“Rentals are doing very well. What’s interesting is that some of the ‘headline’ amenities people assumed tenants would want - cinema rooms, dining rooms, podcast studios - aren’t always top of the list. People prioritise transport links, outdoor space, community, safety and connectivity.

“At Middlewood Locks we can also think differently about amenity: it doesn’t all need to sit within one building with a high service charge. It can be spread across the neighbourhood - landscaping, public realm, third-party gym operators - so it builds community and keeps costs more sustainable.

“What’s missing is support for first-time buyers. We need something like Help to Buy - or a new government-backed scheme - because it’s still hard for people to get on the ladder. Help to Buy was a great government-backed initiative that helped first-time buyers into home ownership. In our first phase at Middlewood Locks, more than a third of homes were sold using Help to Buy, and it genuinely brought the average age of a first-time buyer down in our neighbourhood. I think people do want to buy and own their own home; many just don’t have the opportunity because of affordability.”

Do you think the narrative is wrong that ‘people don’t want to buy anymore’?

“I do. From what we see on the ground, people want to buy their own home - it’s freedom, it's security, and it’s also a way of building longer-term financial stability. Homeownership can also contribute to your ‘pension pot’, especially with uncertainty around pensions long-term.”

What emerging trend are you watching most closely?

“Later living. I think it’s an emerging asset class in cities and we need to do more to future-proof developments for it. At Middlewood Locks the demographic is already very varied - first-time buyers in their early 20s through to downsizers in their 70s, plus families, friends buying together, siblings buying together, and mixed tenure including private rental and BTR. We’re seeing later living happen organically already, and I think it will grow as more people plan earlier for how they want to live ‘after work.’”

What’s driving downsizers and later-living buyers into city neighbourhoods?

“A few things: lifestyle, community, security, reducing bills and upkeep, and having amenities and transport connections on the doorstep. There’s also the ‘lock up and leave’ factor - being able to travel and feel confident your home is secure, often with building management and neighbours close by.

“One story that stayed with me: a resident downsized from a family home with a swimming pool that was quite remote after getting a very high quote to replace windows. She moved to Middlewood Locks and said within two weeks of living here, she’d been out more than she had in the previous two months of living in her old home. That’s the lifestyle shift.”

Have you designed Middlewood Locks with later living and accessibility in mind?

“A lot of it is built in through the fundamentals: level access, wide pedestrian routes, good lighting, secure parking, and apartments that are accessible. You can walk through the neighbourhood without dealing with steps in many routes. We’re also seeing people plan across generations - like siblings buying together, and parents buying nearby to visit - so the neighbourhood supports different life stages naturally and is very sustainable.”

What makes Middlewood Locks feel distinctive as a place?

“The combination of proximity to the city with a calm environment. The canal is a big part of it - water brings a sense of peace, and we’ve created landscaping and public realm that feels like a green-and-blue oasis. It’s ‘city living,’ but with biodiversity and pockets of calm, which is quite rare. And the community mix makes it feel like a real neighbourhood, not just a development. Many of our residents move into bigger homes within the neighbourhood as their lifestyle needs change. This is wonderful to see that people are moving around the neighbourhood as opposed to moving out. We are fostering a truly sustainable community at Middlewood Locks.”

What’s coming next for Middlewood Locks?

“The future phases are exciting because the scale and mix will step up. So far, the phases of homes have been on a very human scale, with the tallest building around 12 storeys. We’ll be going up to around 32 storeys for a more iconic ‘flag post’ building.

“The closer we get to the city, the more mixed-use it becomes - more commercial space, active ground floors, a major public square as a sense of arrival, and a half-acre public park by the canal for the community to enjoy. We see it evolving into more of a destination - restaurants, bars, a hotel - and as a gateway site to the city, near Factory International.”

You’ve just become a member of the CyanLines initiative - what does membership mean in practice?

“It's wonderful to be part of such a fantastic initiative. One of the routes comes through the heart of Middlewood Locks along the canal, which is brilliant. We’ll be involved in work to help clear pathways and support the wider vision. It’s about wellbeing and access to green space for everyone - particularly in a city where many people live in apartments and may not have access to gardens.

“As developers, we have a responsibility to get behind initiatives like this, especially where routes pass through land owned or managed by different stakeholders. The more landowners and developers who support it, the easier it becomes to connect the whole network of pathways, parks and waterways.”

Looking back, what do you feel most proud of about Manchester’s regeneration story having played your part?

“The growth has been tremendous, and the city now competes confidently on an international stage. That’s happened through strong council leadership, public sector involvement, and developers willing to take risks.

"I am incredibly proud of the vibrant neighbourhood we are creating at Middlewood Locks, which was once a brownfield site. It’s a genuinely sustainable place where everyone is welcome. So much thought has gone into the masterplan: setting buildings back from the canal to establish an area of space and calm, creating large pedestrian walking routes through the neighbourhood, delivering an abundance of public realm for community events and ensuring every detail has been considered, using the best quality materials to ensure the longevity of what is being created.

"The future phases will deliver more much-needed new homes with amenity spaces, public realm connecting the neighbourhood with more walking and cycling routes to the city. Our vision has always been to create a place that is welcoming and that everyone can enjoy, and it’s wonderful to see our vision becoming a reality."

As well as your role at Scarborough Group International, you sit on the Board at LandAid Northwest – tell us more

“Yes, this is something I’ve done for 4 1/2-years’ now. It’s a brilliant charity that is working hard to end youth homelessness, and ultimately for me this is about giving back. There are some incredible people who work in the property industry who get behind and support LandAid. The charity celebrates its 40th anniversary this year. What an incredible 40-years of raising vital funds to help give people who don’t have a home a safe place to stay."

KI Europe has launched its new Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) Report, highlighting the progress it continues to make across sustainability, people and responsible business practices.

Demonstrating a practical approach focused on continuous improvement, the report brings together all aspects of KI’s sustainability journey, from responsible product design and material choices to long-lasting warranties and community impact. By showcasing key developments and achievements in one place, the report provides a clear view of how KI is embedding responsible practices throughout its operations while creating long-term value for customers, colleagues, and stakeholders.

KI’s commitment to continuous improvement can be seen through its ongoing efforts to maximise recycled content in its polypropylene products without compromising on the durability and quality it is known for. This was demonstrated in 2025, when it reached a minimum of 50% post-consumer recycled content across all colours of its renowned Postura+ one piece chairs, removing 1,000 tonnes of virgin plastic from its supply chain annually. Additionally, the Sebel chair is made from 100% post-consumer waste, and KI’s entire UK manufactured portfolio of polypropylene chairs contains a minimum of 30% recycled content.

The report also highlights KI's design ethos, centred on creating products that stand the test of time. Built for durability, quality and long-term performance, KI's products are backed by industry-leading warranties, with an average warranty period of 17 years across products sold annually. By extending product lifecycles, KI helps reduce the environmental impact associated with furniture replacement while delivering long-term value.

KI’s sustainable efforts have been held to a high standard for decades, with certifications like FISP (The Furniture Industry Sustainability Programme), which promotes best practice across environmental, social and economic sustainability, being held by the company since 2013.

Jeremy McWhinney, operations and finance director, says, “In 2025, we were among the first to achieve certification to the new FISP (S) criteria, which strengthens the link between sustainability and circularity by introducing product-focused requirements. Being an early adopter of FISP (S) reflects our commitment to leading the way in eco-design and end-of-life strategies, ensuring KI remains at the forefront of positive change in our industry.”

“Strong governance underpins everything we do." - KI president, Jonathan Hindle MBE FCSD

Other respected sustainable certifications and achievements held by KI include ISO14001 for over 20 years, SCS Indoor Advantage Gold, SCS Recycled Material Certification and The International EPD system.

Jonathan Hindle MBE FCSD, president at KI, comments, “Strong governance underpins everything we do. Clear accountability, ethical standards and robust policies guide our decision-making and help ensure we operate with integrity, transparency and care for all our stakeholders. We continuously review our processes, risk management and supply chain practices to ensure responsibility and compliance remain embedded across the organisation.”

With decades of experience and as one of the largest global furniture manufacturers, KI places environmental, social and governance principles at the heart of its operations. While proud of the progress highlighted in this report, the company remains committed to continually improving its impact on the planet, its people and the wider community.

Read the full ESG Report to learn more about KI's sustainability journey here. And visit Material Source Studio Manchester to see a snapshot of KI's ESG report along with its latest products on the brand's newly updated POD.

Crown Paints has revealed three new colour palettes exploring how architects and designers can respond to a built environment being reshaped by AI, changing patterns of living and working, sustainability and growing demand for more inclusive, adaptable spaces.

Fragmentation, Belong and Hope form Crown Colour Insights 2027/28, developed with specialists spanning architecture, sustainability, visual culture, material innovation and neuro-inclusive design.

Rather than predicting short-lived trends, the palettes translate wider social, technological and environmental shifts into practical colour directions for the spaces people live, work and connect in.

Fragmentation - A contrasting palette of contemporary blues, muted berry tones and earthy neutrals that reflects a world shaped by geopolitical uncertainty, rapid technological change and the growing influence of AI. It balances the technical with the tactile and the engineered with the human. In workplaces, hospitality and design-led residential schemes, structured contrasts and grounding tones can support focus, adaptability and emotional balance.

Belong - A warm, nature-inspired palette of earthy tones, mineral greens and familiar neutrals responding to changing household structures, evolving work patterns and the need for more inclusive shared environments. The palette is designed to support comfort, navigation and connection, with particular relevance across residential, healthcare, education, later living and community settings.

Hope - A soft, restorative palette of muted greens, mauves, clay pinks, warm neutrals and a gentle blue accent. Rooted in craftsmanship, circular thinking and a more practical approach to sustainability, it champions materials and spaces designed to age, adapt and endure rather than be repeatedly replaced. It is suited to residential, workplace and hospitality environments where longevity and material honesty are increasingly important.

The palettes were developed following a cross-disciplinary insight session in which experts examined the social, technological, cultural and environmental forces likely to influence the built environment over the coming years. Crown's colour team then translated the strongest themes into three adaptive colour systems designed to support different environments, moods and behaviours.

One clear thread running through the discussion was adaptive agency: a growing desire for greater control over the things people can influence at a time of continued technological, economic, social and environmental change. Rather than waiting for stability to return, the report explores how colour and design can help create environments that are more flexible, legible, inclusive and responsive to different human needs.

Kathryn Lloyd, colour specialist, Crown Paints, said: “Colour should not be treated simply as the final decorative layer of a project. It can influence how a space is understood, experienced and used. The conversations behind Colour Insights highlighted some significant shifts facing architects and designers - from AI and changing working patterns to inclusion, sustainability and the need to design for greater adaptability.

“Fragmentation, Belong and Hope translate those forces into practical colour directions that can be interpreted across different environments rather than prescribing a single aesthetic. Together, they are intended to support more confident, purposeful specification and help create spaces that work harder for the people using them.”

The full Crown Colour Insights 2027/28 report, palette imagery and further application guidance are available here.

Next we'll share an article dedicated to the application of the Colour Insights in commercial settings.

With up to eight years* of our lives spent sitting in an office chair, comfort, ergonomics and long-term wellbeing should be the standard, Savo believes, not the exception.

That's why, for decades, Savo has been engineering ergonomic seating that combines intuitive design with exceptional comfort. Underpinned by world-class quality and built to last year after year, every chair is designed to support the way people naturally move and work, helping to improve focus, wellbeing and everyday performance.

Their elegant, timeless design goes well with a wide range of desks and conference tables making Savo “the ultimate choice for work, meetings and breaks.”

A brand-new Partner to Material Source Studio Manchester, Savo brings its wealth of insight-backed expertise to the north west specification community. Visit Savo’s POD in-Studio (upstairs, right-hand side), and contact the team here for a dedicated lunch & learn.

Here’s a preview of some of Savo’s unique products…

Meet Savo Spine

Savo Spine was born form the realisation that furniture must adapt to ever-evolving work methods and environments. Designed to seamlessly blend into various aesthetics and functions, the chair features components that can be easily updated, ensuring longevity and adaptability. Savo Spine’s step-less bracket allows for adjustment of the height of the backrest and headrest for customisable support. It’s modular and flexible features enable users to tailor their seating experience while addressing the demand for furniture that scales alongside the workplace.

Meet Savo 360

Challenged with creating an office chair using as little plastic as possible, Savo 360 is an intelligent and intuitive design piece applying ergonomics through the flexibility of the wood. Crafted by Olle Lundberg, the J-bar and back components leverage wood’s natural yield, resulting in a hybrid product that blends the functionality of an office chair with the aesthetic appeal of a wooden chair. Built to withstand the test of time, each part is separable, allowing for updates and adaptions over the chair’s lifetime.

Meet Savo Soul

Crafted to intuitively adapt to the user’s individual needs, Savo Soul is a fully-adjustable ergonomic office chair that seamlessly shapes to every body and blends into any workspace. The simple but intelligent design offers all the essential adjustments with logically placed levers and controls, ensuring a comfortable and customizable fit for all users. The mesh back twists and flexes back to accommodate movement, delivering flexibility and versatility to every workplace environment.

Meet Savo Soul Air

Ideal for shared and flexible office spaces, Savo Soul Air is constructed with a hygienic mesh back and seat to promote airflow, reduce heat buildup, and ensure effortless cleaning. Instantly intuitive, the chair features Flexi Back- technology that automatically adapts to the user’s weight and movements, offering exceptional comfort and spinal support with minimal adjustments.

Meet Savo Joi

Savo Joi, designed by Ralph C. Schmidt, supports healthier seating habits through movement and flexibility. Its 360-degree mechanism encourages active sitting, engaging core muscles and promoting balance throughout the day.

Meet Savo Studio

Savo Studio, designed by Ralph C. Schmidt, meets the demand for a workspace chair that offers a fresh, retro design while maintaining effective lumbar support and ergonomic comfort. It provides essential adjustments, making it perfect for light-duty work and shared spaces.

Meet Savo Maxikon

Savo Maxikon, designed by Fredrik Torsteinsen and Svein Gusrud, introduced a fully screwless office chair to the Savo collection, simplifying disassembly and reducing material waste. It combines sustainability with bold, functional design – and earned the Norwegian Design Council’s Award of Excellence.

Meet Savo Invite

Savo Invite designed by Jurek Buchacz, blends the functionality of both a meeting and an office chair. Its hybrid design supports both collaboration and individual tasks, and with distinct ergonomic features and sleek design, the chair encourages movement and adapts to the changing demands of the modern workspace.

Meet Savo XO

Savo XO, designed by Jurek Buchacz, meets the evolving needs and regulations of modern office seating. Its innovative Savo Floating Tilt® mechanism provides dynamic movement and continuous support, adapting to users throughout the day. With a high, wide back and fabric or leather options, it blends comfort, style, and functionality for workspaces and meeting rooms.

Discover more here. And visit Savo’s POD at Material Source Studio Manchester, 9am-5pm, Monday-Friday.

More about Savo's research:

• *In a pooled study sample from Melbourne, Australia, employees were found to be sedentary for an average of 6.6 hours while at the workplace. This sedentary behaviour is consistent across various regions, as seen in data from the USA, the UK, the Netherlands, Iran, Australia and Korea. For instance, Americans spend 55% of their waking time, which equates to 7.7 hours per day, engaged in sedentary behaviours, while Europeans allocate 40% of their leisure time, or 2.7 hours per day, to watching television. Similarly, in Korea, adults aged ≥19 years engage in an average of 8.3 hours of sedentary time.

• Additionally, respondents in Iran spent an average of 6.29 hours of an 8-hour working shift in a sitting position, with a portion expressing discomfort with their workstations and feeling fatigued during the workday. In Glasgow, UK, participants spent approximately 76% of their time at work sitting, amounting to an average of 5.7 hours per day. Meanwhile, the Dutch working population reported sitting for an average of 7 hours each day, with a significant portion of this time spent at work.

• In Queensland, Australia, the overall average occupational sitting time was found to be over 3 hours per day, with a quarter of the sample reporting sitting for over 6 hours per day. Finally, office-based workers in various cities across the UK, emerged as one of the most sedentary populations, spending 73% of their workday and 66% of their waking day sitting.

• The calculation for 8 years of sitting was derived from a standard workweek of 6.5 hours per day, 5 days a week, for 47 weeks a year, over 45 years of office life, resulting in a precise figure of 8.45 years spent sitting over an office worker’s career.

Professor Robert Hairstans is head of the Centre for Offsite Construction & Innovative Structures (COCIS) at Edinburgh Napier University and founding director of the Centre for Advanced Timber Technologies (CATT) at NMITE.

An internationally recognised expert in timber engineering, offsite manufacturing and modern methods of construction, he has dedicated his career to advancing sustainable, low-carbon building solutions through the integration of research, innovation, education and commercialisation.

Named Pioneer of the Year at both the 2024 Offsite Awards and Structural Timber Awards, Professor Hairstans is recognised for his transformational leadership, industry collaboration and commitment to accelerating timber construction as a key solution to meeting net zero and housing delivery ambitions.

With all of this in mind, and following the announcement by the UK Government that £10 billion will go towards building thousands more quality council, social and affordable homes, we recently caught up with Robert to ask how he believes timber could play a central role in their construction. 

Can you tell us about your professional background and current role?

"My career has focused on timber engineering, offsite construction, industrialised building systems and sustainable construction innovation. For over two decades, I've worked across research, education and industry to help accelerate the adoption of more productive and sustainable approaches to construction. The emphasis has been on structural timber systems and ancillary products such as wood fibre insulation and includes supply chain integration, commercialisation of research and adding value to the home-grown timber.

"Today, I am Professor of Offsite and Industrialised Construction at Edinburgh Napier University and founding Director of the Centre for Advanced Timber Technologies (CATT) at New Model Institute for Technology and Engineering (NMITE). Across both roles, my focus is on bringing together research, education, policy and industry to develop solutions that help address climate change, improve construction productivity and support the delivery of high-quality buildings.

"More recently, I've been involved in supporting the implementation of the UK Government's Timber in Construction Roadmap, including chairing the workstream focused on skills, capacity and competency across the supply chain. This reflects a long-standing belief that innovation alone is not enough. We also need the skills and knowledge to deliver change effectively. In response to this our existing Timber in Construction Skills (TiCS) programme is a CITB-funded initiative designed to accelerate the UK's transition to low-carbon timber construction through new training pathways, professional development and industry-led learning resources.

"Led by Donaldson Timber Systems, the programme brings together BE-ST, Edinburgh Napier University, NMITE, Timber Development UK (TDUK) and the Structural Timber Association (STA) to build the skills, competence and confidence needed to deliver the next generation of sustainable buildings."

What sparked your interest in timber?

"What first attracted me to timber was its ability to address multiple challenges simultaneously. Construction has traditionally relied on materials that are both carbon intensive and resource intensive. Timber is different. It is renewable, stores carbon absorbed during tree growth and can be engineered into highly sophisticated structural products. At the same time, it lends itself particularly well to offsite manufacturing and industrialised construction.

"Given the productivity challenges of construction this is equally important. Plus, if you add value to local resource you create jobs and value return to society which if through well managed forests has broader environmental gains. So, if we are serious about addressing climate change while improving productivity and housing delivery, then timber has to be a major part of the solution.

"What continues to excite me is the pace of innovation and the opportunity to accelerate this through improved educational models. Whether it's mass timber, hybrid structures, digital manufacturing, bio-based insulation or home-grown timber supply chains, there are still significant opportunities to unlock value from this remarkable material with correct skills and competencies at play."

Has timber been used in any kind of volume for housebuilding in the UK?

"Interestingly in Scotland it has. Scotland is widely recognised as the UK leader in timber frame housing, with timber frame accounting for at least 90% of new homes built in the country according to the Structural Timber Frame Association. This success reflects decades of investment in manufacturing capability, skills development and an integrated supply chain that has enabled timber systems to become the mainstream solution for residential construction. Timber frame is valued for its speed of construction, precision manufacturing, energy efficiency and ability to support Scotland's ambitious net zero goals.

"Whereas the rest of the UK and particularly England has a strong masonry-based housebuilding culture. This primarily because of misconceptions around durability, fire performance and long-term reliability. The reality is that modern timber construction is highly engineered, rigorously tested and capable of meeting demanding performance requirements. However, construction is naturally risk-averse, and changing established practices takes time.

"More recently, the understandable focus on building safety has led to additional scrutiny across the entire construction industry. That's appropriate and necessary. However, discussions around building safety have sometimes overlooked the substantial body of evidence supporting the safe and effective use of timber when specified, designed and constructed correctly.

"Many of today's barriers are therefore less about technical capability and more about confidence, competence, supply chain maturity and policy alignment. These are all areas identified within the Government's Timber in Construction Roadmap."

Can all of these challenges be overcome in the current social and economic climate, taking into account The Building Safety Act?

"I believe they can. The Building Safety Act represents a fundamental shift towards greater accountability, transparency and competence throughout the construction process. In many respects, these principles align very well with timber construction because successful timber projects already depend upon integrated design, precision manufacturing, quality assurance and effective information management.

"The challenge now is ensuring that clients, designers, contractors and regulators all have access to the skills and knowledge required to work confidently with structural timber systems. That's why competency frameworks and targeted education initiatives have become increasingly important.

"The UK also faces a unique combination of pressures: a housing shortage, skills shortages, productivity challenges and legally binding net zero commitments plus a major challenge with respect to retrofit and refurbishment. Timber and wood fibre-based products have huge benefits in this respect and can offer numerous positive contributions across all these areas.

"However, there needs to be a joined-up approach to investment in innovation and education to drive this forward. Out with the old and in with the new talent and products that can make a tangible difference."

What are the sustainability benefits of using timber in housebuilding?

"The sustainability case for timber is compelling. First and foremost, timber is a renewable resource when sourced from responsibly managed forests. Trees absorb carbon dioxide as they grow, and when that timber is incorporated into buildings, much of that carbon remains stored for the life of the structure. Moreover, if these products retain value by employing the principles of circularity such as designing for disassembly and re-use that carbon can be locked in longer. And that carbon is locked into high performing buildings which minimises operational energy use.

"Then there are the broader benefits too. Increased timber use can support sustainable forestry, strengthen domestic manufacturing, create skilled green jobs and the buildings created are not just efficient they are good to be in particularly when biophilic design principle is embraced. If the built environment is responsible for a substantial proportion of the UK's carbon emissions, then it follows that the materials we choose matter enormously. Timber gives us an opportunity to reduce emissions while creating attractive, healthy and efficient places to live."

Are there exemplar uses of timber in housing in neighbouring countries? And lessons we can take?

"Absolutely yes and our work has captured this.

"Some of the strongest examples come from Austria, Sweden, Finland, Norway and France, where timber construction has been supported through long-term government policy, investment in skills, research and manufacturing capacity.

"In Austria for example this has been through a combination of supportive building regulations, public procurement policies and sustained investment in timber research and innovation, the country has developed a highly sophisticated timber construction sector. Sweden and Finland have similarly embedded timber into housing delivery through national strategies that link forestry, manufacturing, skills and climate objectives. In Sweden, timber is now widely accepted as a mainstream construction material for both low-rise and multi-storey housing, supported by a mature, industrialised timber supply chain.

"France has taken a different but equally important approach by introducing public policies and environmental regulations that encourage the use of bio-based materials, including timber, within new developments. Norway has also demonstrated how public sector leadership and procurement can help accelerate market confidence and adoption. The key lesson for the UK is that successful timber sectors do not emerge through technology alone. The countries achieving the greatest uptake have taken a coordinated "forest-to-building" approach, aligning forestry policy, education, skills development, manufacturing investment, planning frameworks and public procurement around shared environmental and housing objectives.

"Scotland demonstrates that this can work within the UK context. Over 92% of new homes in Scotland are now built using timber frame systems, supported by a mature supply chain and strong industry capability. The opportunity now is to scale these lessons more widely across the UK. By combining long-term policy certainty with investment in skills and domestic timber supply chains, we can increase housing delivery, reduce embodied carbon and create greater economic value from our own forestry resources.

"Ultimately, the international evidence shows that timber adoption is as much a systems challenge as a construction challenge. Countries that have succeeded have created joined-up ecosystems that connect sustainable forest management, manufacturing, design, regulation and education. That is perhaps the most important lesson of all."

What are your hopes for timber use following the government's funding commitments for council and social housing?

"I see a tremendous opportunity. The UK needs to deliver large numbers of high-quality homes while simultaneously reducing emissions and improving building performance. Timber can help achieve all three objectives.

"My hope is that local authorities and housing providers move beyond simply considering upfront capital costs and instead focus on whole-life value. Factors such as operational energy performance, resident wellbeing, carbon reduction, build quality and speed of delivery should all form part of the decision-making process.

"See the work we have done on the Edinburgh Home Demonstrator Programme for example, The EHD Programme, which has shown how timber-based modern methods of construction can support the delivery of high-quality, low-carbon homes while creating measurable social, environmental and economic value. Through a series of demonstrator projects, EHD has explored whole-life carbon assessment, digital construction, performance monitoring, circular economy principles and resident-centred design.

"Importantly, the programme has demonstrated that sustainable housing is not simply about building fabric, but about creating healthy, resilient communities and generating evidence that can inform future policy and investment decisions. The lessons emerging from EHD reinforce the case for adopting timber and industrialised construction as part of a broader systems approach to delivering the next generation of affordable and social housing.

"I would also like to see greater support for UK-grown timber and domestic manufacturing capacity. The Government has made clear its ambitions for increasing timber use, strengthening supply chains and supporting economic growth through the Timber in Construction Roadmap. Housing investment provides an important mechanism to help realise these ambitions in practice.

"Ultimately, social housing can act as a catalyst for innovation and showcase what sustainable, low-carbon housing delivery can look like at scale. Which is pertinent given the UK Government's new £39 billion Social and Affordable Homes Programme, described as the biggest boost to social and affordable housebuilding in a generation, provides a significant opportunity to scale the delivery of high-quality, low-carbon homes.

"With ambitions to deliver around 300,000 affordable homes, including at least 60% for Social Rent, the programme should create the long-term certainty needed to invest in timber construction, modern methods of construction and UK manufacturing capacity, while supporting net zero objectives and addressing the housing crisis if whole life value procurement strategies are implemented."

For our readers that are architects and property developers, what's your message?

"My message is simple: engage with timber early and engage with it seriously. Don’t design and then think about using timber, think about your design with timber and natural sustainably products at the forefront of your mind. The construction sector is undergoing profound change. Net zero commitments, regulatory reform, resource constraints and changing client expectations are reshaping how we design and deliver buildings.

"Industrialised and engineered timber solutions have evolved significantly since timber was first used for construction purposes. Today's engineered timber products and manufacturing technologies provide opportunities that simply weren't available in the past. The most successful projects are typically those where timber is considered from the outset rather than introduced later as a substitute material.

"For architects, timber offers exciting opportunities to create beautiful, sustainable and high-performing buildings that people love to be in – I can speak from the experience of my own home BBC iPlayer - Scotland's Home of the Year - Series 8: 1. East and where I work, NMITE student campuses. For developers, it provides a route towards lower-carbon construction, faster delivery and future-ready assets.

"The organisations that invest in competence, embrace innovation and adopt a whole-life perspective will be best placed to thrive in the years ahead. Timber is not the answer to every challenge facing construction, but it is undoubtedly one of the most important materials available to help us deliver a more sustainable built environment."

The 24th edition of the London Design Festival is well underway. And here at Material Source Studio London, we have a full programme of activity happening (14-18 September), underpinned by all the product inspiration you can expect daily from our world-class Studio Partners.

Here we share a snapshot of the 24+ brands with dedicated installations for you to explore every day this week, 9am-5pm, at 120 Saffron Hill. There's also one sneak peek for the week after.

That's because, after the Festival has closed for another year, Material Source Studio remains open. We're a permanent resource. Available when you are to pick up product samples, see our latest material exhibitions, test ideas and meet with our Partners, and your colleagues and clients. We look forward to welcoming you.

24+ brands to explore at LDF 2026

Agua Fabrics

Agua is a four-generation family business, specialising in technical soft fabrics and faux leathers that balance form with function. All its upholstery fabrics are highly durable, fire retardant, waterproof, stain-resistant and anti-microbial.

The first waterproof and fire-retardant upholstery collection was launched by Agua in 2004, and the company now has an extensive range of over 36 collections and over 1000 different fabric choices. From all the teams' years of experience, they understand the needs and requirements of performance fabrics in demanding environments.

Ash & Lacy

Ash & Lacy is a leading global manufacturer and distributor of high-quality brick and metal façade systems, architectural cladding support systems and moveable wall partitions.

With decades of expertise, Ash & Lacy provide complete solutions for architects, specifiers, and contractors, combining performance, innovation, and design flexibility.

The extensive product range includes rainscreen cladding systems, precision-engineered roofing, and perforated metal façades, all supported by expert technical support and quality standards. Supplying everything from a single, trusted source streamlines project delivery and ensures exceptional results.

Committed to excellence, Ash & Lacy shapes building environments with durable, sustainable, and aesthetically striking building solutions.

Arte Wallcoverings

Arte is a passionate designer & manufacturer of sophisticated wallcoverings. The company, owned by the family Desart, has been in play since 1981. Arte wallcoverings adorn the walls of both residential homes and project interiors in over 80 countries worldwide.

Every year, an in-house team of experienced designers creates several new collections. All of these new products must be innovative and trendsetting, while also being of superior quality.

A lot of time and effort goes into research: Arte is constantly looking for new production methods and quality materials. That explains why designing a new collection can easily take more than a year.

At LDF, Arte is launching its new Mysuru collection. Uncover exclusive insight from the Arte team every day this week between 2pm and 3pm. No booking is required, just head to the Arte POD when you arrive.

BRITA

Family-owned BRITA SE has been at the forefront of filtration and water dispensing technology since 1966.

Headquartered in Germany – but now operational across 69 countries globally – BRITA specialises in fully-supported water programs that help businesses achieve their health, wellness, and sustainability goals.

The company’s professional dispenser range, designed and manufactured by BRITA in Germany and Italy, leverages proprietary technology to ensure minimal down time and reliable, high outputs of chilled still, sparkling, boiling, and ambient water.

BRITA UK works closely with the design and specification sector and is pleased to share its BIM library in support of build projects.

Broadview Materials

Broadview Materials is a global group of leading brands specialising in surface materials for interiors. They help customers bring designs to life through solutions that combine quality, beauty, sustainability, and affordability.

By bringing together materials from Arpa®, FENIX®, Formica®, Getacore® and Homapal®, Broadview Materials unlocks new creative possibilities.

Unique textures, colours, and finishes work in harmony to create distinctive and inspiring interior environments. Broadview calls it ‘The Big +’

The added value that comes from bringing together its brands, materials, expertise, and innovation.

By combining the strengths of the Broadview Materials' portfolio, new opportunities are opened for customers to elevate their designs, create unique solutions, and bring their ideas to life.

CDUK

CDUK is a supplier of surface materials and complementary products to the specification market in the UK and Ireland. Having built a strong reputation as the exclusive distributor of Corian® Solid Surface in both the UK and Ireland, CDUK now offers an extended range of services as well as products from a number of leading brands.

A business with over 40 years’ experience, CDUK supports its customers through a journey, as a design partner, from sourcing the best products and materials to helping them unlock their full potential through expert advice and technical knowledge. Its team of industry experts also provides technical advice, sampling and bespoke training courses for designers, manufacturers and fabricators.

Consort Architectural Hardware

A family-owned company established in Birmingham, engineered for excellence and design for over 50 years. Serving a variety of project sectors worldwide, Consort combines heritage craftsmanship with contemporary innovation. Its products meet international performance standards, with certified quality and Environmental Product Declarations supporting sustainable specification.

Consort's bespoke service allows architects and designers to realise unique hardware concepts without compromise, supported by a curated palette of over 20 PVD-applied finishes. The team believes great hardware should blend effortlessly with great design. Consort's role is to provide the quality, finishes, and expertise that let creative visions speak for themselves.

Crown Paints

Crown Paints believes that every pot of paint is brimming with potential. And it wants to put that in the hands of everyone. Because with paint, you can change a room, change a mood, even change a life.

That’s why Crown wants to inspire people to paint their world better, braver and beautifuller (yes, that’s not a word, but this is paint, you can do anything). Crown knows what a positive difference it can make to people and our planet, so it promises to keep pushing what’s possible.

During LDF, Crown Paints is launching its 2027/28 Colour Insights. Drop in on Wednesday 16 September, 1pm-3pm, to hear from Crown's expert team on their influences, insight & application ideas for the colours that will shape the year ahead.

Edmund Bell

Light work, made easy. Edmund Bell specialises in light control fabrics, backed by over 170 years of textile expertise.

Its extensive range of blackouts, dimouts and sheers combines technical performance with considered design, helping specifiers, designers and contractors create interiors with the right balance of light, privacy and comfort.

Enea

Enea is a cooperative furniture brand based in the Basque Country, where it has been designing and manufacturing contemporary furniture since 1984.

From its location in the Goierri area, Enea draws inspiration from everyday life to create durable, sustainable and timeless pieces.

Together is better is not just a principle but a way of working: Enea operates as a cooperative in which many team members are also owners, making collaboration an essential part of its identity.

This shared approach supports a personal, authentic point of view, where design is driven by character, responsibility and lasting value.

Fibo

Fibo is a leading manufacturer of precision-engineered waterproof wall panel systems for interior wet areas like bathrooms, providing a smart way to transform walls.

Combining over 70 years of Norwegian manufacturing expertise with a focus on responsible production and Scandinavian design, Fibo delivers a fully waterproof, durable and low-maintenance alternative to traditional wall finishes.

Ideal for residential, commercial and public sector projects, the integrated system simplifies specification, supports efficient installation and helps reduce project risk; while offering a wide choice of contemporary colours, textures and tile-effect finishes enable the creation of beautiful, high-performing interiors that stand the test of time.

Preview only, launching in Studio on 25 September

Forbo Flooring Systems

As the leading global manufacturer of flooring solutions, Forbo prides itself on offering a truly comprehensive product portfolio with leading-edge products, specifically designed to cater for every area of a project.

Ever since the company began making floor coverings, starting with linoleum more than 150 years ago, the commitment has always been the same: to create better environments in all the spaces in which people, work, live, interact, relax, heal, learn and play.

From entrance to exit, whether new build or refurbishment, Forbo’s integrated flooring portfolio can help specifiers, interior designers and facilities managers to create beautiful and inspiring - yet functional - interiors. Its dedicated and passionate team can work with you to choose the right flooring solutions for your project.

Grestec Tiles

Grestec specialises in supplying premium floor and wall tiles to architects and designers across the UK. Boasting an extensive selection of high-quality porcelain, ceramic, glass, and natural stone tiles that are suitable for commercial, retail, and residential projects, Grestec takes pride in delivering tailored and expert assistance and guidance throughout every phase of your project.

Habitech

Habitech is a leading value-added distributor of specialised products and systems to the custom installation industry.

Covering advanced AV, lighting, control and high-speed network design for residential and commercial integration, our award-winning product range and training work hand in hand with the industry’s most dedicated support, on-line, on-call, even on-site.

Since 2006 Habitech’s client-focused ethos has helped our customers achieve flawless results in the UK’s homes and high streets, proving every time that with the right products, support and training, we’re stronger together.

ILIV Fabrics

ILIV is a British design house creating design-led performance fabrics for hospitality, leisure, workplace and healthcare environments.

With over 40 years of textile expertise, we develop fire-retardant upholstery and drapery fabrics that combine creative design with technical performance.

From contemporary weaves and textured plains to statement prints and luxurious velvets, our collections are created for the demands of commercial interiors, while bringing colour, character and style to every scheme.

Inspired by evolving design influences and developed by our in-house studio, our fabrics draw on original artwork, artist collaborations and extensive archives - bringing together confident colour, distinctive design and a British character that feels unmistakably ILIV.

IMPACT ACOUSTIC®

IMPACT ACOUSTIC® is a pioneering Swiss company in the field of sustainable and high-performance acoustic solutions.

Renowned for its innovative approach, the company specialises in providing recyclable and circular acoustic products made from upcycled materials.

Impact's product lines - ARCHISONIC® Felt, ARCHISONIC® Cotton, and ARCHISONIC® Textile - embody a commitment to sustainability, quality, and cutting-edge design. All its solutions are based on the ARCHISONIC® material line, which offers outstanding acoustic performance and exceptional versatility.

Impact collaborates closely with architects, designers, and developers to create spaces that excel in both aesthetics and acoustics - pushing the boundaries of what sustainable design can achieve.

Join Impact Acoustic at LDF for a Felt Dog Workshop on Wednesday 16 September, 1pm-3pm. No booking required.

Liquidline

Since 2003, Liquidline has been creating premium workspace refreshment solutions that enhance the everyday workplace experience.

Partnering with architects, designers and fit-out companies Liquidline delivers seamless, high-quality coffee and water stations that integrate effortlessly into workplace designs.

From initial consultation through to final installation, Liquidline manages the entire journey, creating an exciting experience for your clients, and taking the weight off the fit-out team.

Liquidline provides CAD files for you to drop into your designs, measure up and provide detailed pre-installation checklist, ensuring everything is covered so your project is delivered on time and budget.

lumenear UK

lumenear brings spaces to life with innovative acoustic lighting that transforms both sight and sound.

Crafted in the Netherlands from sustainable PET Felt, our lighting not only illuminates but also absorbs noise, creating a perfect balance of atmosphere and comfort.

Whether it’s a bustling restaurant, a serene office, or a dynamic public space, lumenear's designs elevate the experience and align with the architect's vision.

With years of expertise and a passion for sustainability, lumenear turns every room into a place people want to stay.

Mode Lighting

Founded in 1970, Mode Lighting is a British manufacturer of architectural lighting control systems with over five decades of industry experience.

Combining technical expertise with a practical understanding of lighting design, Mode Lighting focuses on creating intuitive, reliable and flexible control solutions that enhance the atmosphere and experience of a space.

The company works closely with lighting designers, consultants, interior designers and electrical contractors to support projects from concept through to commissioning.

Manufactured in the UK, Mode Lighting systems are designed to simplify the operation of architectural lighting while maintaining the integrity of the overall lighting design and user experience.

Muraspec Wallcoverings

Muraspec Wallcoverings is an international leader in the commercial and bespoke wallcoverings industry.

With a heritage dating back to 1850, it has developed a global reputation for outstanding product quality, impressive design, exceptional customer service and technical support.

From a UK sales team to a dedicated global network of distribution partners, Muraspec is proud to supply a worldwide client base across the hospitality, healthcare, high street retail, commercial office, cruise ship and residential sectors.

Muraspec retains complete control over the design & manufacturing process by producing all its high-quality, fire rated wallcoverings in-house, and allowing for the shortest lead times in the industry.

Orac Decor

Orac is Europe’s leading manufacturer of architectural elements, made for walls, offering a variety of classic and contemporary coving, panel mouldings, skirting, lighting profiles, and wall coverings that add texture and dimension to interiors.

For over 50 years, Orac has combined craftsmanship with cutting-edge design to create high-quality, lightweight products used in over 80 countries.

Its collections empower designers to enhance both classic and contemporary spaces with ease. With a strong focus on sustainability and innovation, Orac continues to push the boundaries of materials and aesthetics.

Whether restoring period details or making bold, modern statements, its versatile solutions bring personality, structure, and creativity to every surface.

Parkside Architectural Tiles

Parkside is a contemporary porcelain, ceramic, and natural stone tile specification company with over 1,500 designs on offer, including many exclusives, from some of the world’s most dynamic manufacturers.

Whether for commercial, hospitality or high-end residential projects, a knowledgeable team of architectural consultants are able to help specify the right products to match any design brief.

Offering the latest technological innovations and tile trends, Parkside provides an unrivalled bespoke service including waterjet cutting, porcelain worktop fabrication and digital printing on to tiles.

Radii

Radii has been creating aesthetically pleasing private spaces for high-end commercial clients since 1992.

Utilising a design-led and consultative process, Radii specialises in delivering bespoke, adaptable and sustainable glazed partitioning solutions to produce workspaces that meets all technical and aesthetic requirements.

During its 35 years of servicing the London commercial fit-out market, Radii has built up an enviable reputation for the quality of its services and the dependable delivery its team achieves.

Radii's mission is to make the entire journey from concept to completion as stress-free and enjoyable for all parties involved. It has a robust process to achieve this, the use of which has seen the team deliver multiple large-scale projects all to the highest of standards — ‘The Radii Way’.

Schlüter-Systems

Schlüter-Systems offers a portfolio of edge protection profiles, waterproofing and uncoupling membranes, underfloor heating & drainage systems.

Supporting architects, designers and contractors across the UK through combining German engineering with dedicated UK technical expertise, Schlüter-Systems Ltd provides specification support, RIBA-accredited CPDs and hands-on training.

With a strong focus on innovation, quality and service, the company delivers reliable, fully integrated solutions that enhance performance, longevity and design flexibility in residential and commercial projects nationwide.

Whirlpool Bath & Spa Co.

Based in the UK, Whirlpool Bath & Spa Co. hand-builds and finishes bespoke baths and spa systems for architects, interior designers, and property developers. With over 50 bath styles available, and a choice of 4 spa systems, there is a solution for every project.

Whatever the shape, size, or requirement, Whirlpool excels at creating solutions that meet every need – whether bespoke colours of baths and jets, a specific shape or layout, or specialist technical requisites for the marine and healthcare sectors.

Future Materials Library®

In addition to the aforementioned Partner brands showcased in our Studio, you'll also find 100+ materials in our Future Materials Library® from 60+ global designers (including some of our Studio Partners) working to produce innovative, regenerative product solutions.

Find more details of our London Studio Partners here, plus an overview of all that you can do while visiting our Studio. We're open Monday-Friday, 9am-5pm during LDF - and beyond.

"With its pleasant climate, impressive architecture and relaxed atmosphere, Mysuru is widely regarded as one of India’s most charming cities," says Arte of the inspiration behind its latest wallcovering collection of the same name.

"Alongside its magnificent temples and palaces, many yoga studios and colourful festivals, the city is celebrated for its flourishing silk heritage and verdant surroundings with palm trees defining the landscape. It is from this rich interplay of exquisite silk and softly swaying palms that the Mysuru collection draws its inspiration."

Launching during London Design Festival (14-18 September) at Material Source Studio London, Arte invites you to uncover exclusive insight from its team every day between 2pm and 3pm. No booking is required, just head to the Arte POD when you arrive at 120 Saffron Hill, Farringdon, any day this week.

Ahead of the launch, here's a preview of the sumptuous new designs and colourways offered with Mysuru.

Nilaya

Stylised huts are hidden among stately palm trees in this panoramic wallcovering, depicting a delightful place to escape the bustle of city life. Reflecting this feeling, the design has been named Nilaya, Sanskrit for shelter or abode. The landscape is framed by a detailed cannage pattern reminiscent of traditional geometric latticework. The scene is meticulously woven in genuine silk using the noble Jacquard technique. Available in four colourways.

Mandya

The Mandya wallcovering is crafted from luxurious silk. Through a cold-water dyeing process and the use of subtly varied silk threads in numerous shades, the design achieves an exceptional depth of colour. This gentle cold-water dyeing method also preserves the silk’s beautifully fresh, slightly raw character. Natural variations and subtle irregularities within the silk yarn give this wallcovering a distinctive, authentic and understated charm. Available in thirty colourways.

Aranya

The landscapes of Mysuru, renowned for its lush greenery and countless palm trees, were the inspiration for the verdant Aranya design. Featuring exquisitely fine embroidered palm leaves, Aranya means a quiet place among the trees in Sanskrit, a fitting name for this elegant wallcovering design. Available in three colourways.

Visit our What's On page for more details of all the events happening during LDF, including Arte's launch drop-in, here.

And see more of Arte's collections here.

Lucy Crane leads on sustainability at Modus Furniture – a Partner at Material Source Studio Manchester. In October, Lucy will host a panel discussion about what it means to be B Corp, alongside sustainability professionals from TSK Group, The Furniture Practice, Hawkins\Brown and SpaceInvader, a combination of designers, architects and furniture consultants.

Ahead of the event, we caught up with Lucy to discuss how her role as head of sustainability at Modus has evolved organically as client expectations have changed - first through practical pressures like SKA building assessments and the company’s early work to achieve membership of the Furniture Industry Sustainability Programme (FISP), and later through the sharper, faster acceleration brought on by Covid and an increasingly visible climate reality.

Lucy also explains what B Corp certification really involves (and why it’s become significantly more demanding), breaking down the newer impact areas - from purpose and stakeholder governance to climate action, circularity, human rights, and the growing expectation that businesses take part in collective action to influence policy. Along the way, we reflect on why transparency matters more than ever, consider the importance of equity for all, and highlight how the B Corp community’s collaborative mindset can help turn standards into real-world change.

Read on for Lucy’s thoughts on the above and more. And get your free ticket to ‘20 years on: What’s next for B Corp?’ breakfast networking and panel discussion here.

Let’s start at the beginning. What’s your professional background, and what drew you to sustainability?

“I don’t come from a sustainability background. I actually trained to be a homeopath. But life circumstances changed things, and I reached a point where I couldn’t practice.

“Then Jon and Ed - the business owners of Modus - asked me to help with something. At that time, the business was very small, and it was a technical requirement. Clients were asking how we could help them with a building assessment called SKA Rating, which was started by Skanska and held by the RICS (Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors) for a long time, though it recently transferred back to SKA.

“SKA was complex, and it had criteria that furniture needed to meet. The simplest way to meet the requirements was to become a member of FISP, the Furniture Industry Sustainability Programme. So one thing led to another, and before I knew it, it was my job to get us FISP membership.

“We knew nothing at all about sustainability, so I learned on the job. At the time I was juggling being a primary carer for my daughter and working, so it began as a part-time role and evolved very organically as my childcare responsibilities changed.”

How did client expectations influence that evolution?

“The expectations - especially from those specifying, who are usually architects - have grown. Architects tend to be at the forefront of progressive thinking, so those demands have increased steadily.

“Then when Covid came, there was another shift in gear. People’s expectations took a huge leap forward.

“And alongside that, we’ve got the tangible experience of extreme weather events. Even climate change deniers must be scratching their heads. You can see it globally - Valencia, Germany a few years ago, California wildfires. You would have to be extremely belligerent to still deny what’s happening.”

Have you undertaken formal training in sustainability since?

“Yes. A few years ago, I trained under what’s now called ISEP - the Institute of Sustainability and Environmental Professionals. I did a course that led to practitioner status, where you have to be working in a sustainability role and implementing things in a company to attain it. Then I completed the next level up, which gives me the suffix MISEP.”

It’s interesting you say you didn’t come from a sustainability background - did you have early influences?

“I come from a family with definite ‘hippie tendencies’. We were brought up on whole foods when you had to buy them wholesale - there were no health food shops. My mum made her own bread, very ‘Good Life’-style. We had cleaning products that were likely more environmentally friendly before brands like Ecover existed, and we weren’t allowed aerosols because she’d heard they were bad for the ozone layer.

“I even took it on at school, telling the girls after PE not to use deodorant sprays and hairspray. It did not make me popular. And then a couple of years later CFCs became banned. That stayed with me: sometimes we know the thing, and it takes a long time for regulation and policy to change.

“And international policy is powerful - the ozone layer is actually the only global step in the right direction we’ve really made. Everything else is going down, but the ozone layer is starting to repair because of international policy change.”

How did Modus first come across B Corp?

“I remember the first time I saw a B Corp logo. It was in Bristol Airport. There was a big poster for Clipper Tea, which is local to me - based in Beaminster.

“At work, we’d run a sustainability competition asking for the best ideas, and someone said they wanted teabags with no plastic in. I thought, ‘What? Teabags have plastic in?’ I researched it and found Clipper were the only company then without plastic in their teabags. So we swapped all our teabags to Clipper.

“I didn’t know until I saw that airport poster that they were a B Corp. I thought, ‘What is that?’ I looked into it and liked it immediately. I proposed that we go for it, and Jon and Ed said, ‘Let’s do it.’”

What was the initial process like for Modus?

“We spent two years preparing. Back then, B Corp felt simpler. You filled out an assessment and could see clearly: ‘We do this… but we don’t do that.’ It was a framework for continuous improvement.

“It’s similar in spirit to FISP too - an audit-based approach where you can see what you’re not doing and work to improve. FISP is very specific to furniture; B Corp can apply to anyone, but it’s meant to be tailored to your sector.”

Then the B Corp standards changed significantly - what happened?

“After achieving our certification, a couple of years later the organisation behind B Corp – B Lab - decided to overhaul the standard. It changed so much. It moved from the old structure to seven impact topics.

“It’s a significant overhaul. I really like it, but it has made my job a lot harder. The recertification cycle is 3-years so we’re now on the new standard, recertifying in 2027.”

For readers who don’t know, what is B Corp now - what are the seven impact areas?

“The key idea of B Corp is stakeholder governance: the business should benefit everybody - not just shareholders. The seven topics are:

“1) Purpose and stakeholder governance - You have to be clear about the purpose of your business. You can’t just say, ‘We make furniture.’ We had to look at the roots of the company - why Jon and Ed set it up and what their aspirations were. That process was really interesting. It made me realise how much they both care about their roots, being able to offer decent jobs in an area where employment opportunities are limited was really key to their initial dream and has stayed with them.

“2) Fair work - How you treat your workforce - training, development, employment practices. Things a good employer should be doing anyway, though some requirements stretch you.

“3) Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (JEDI) - This is a big change. In the UK we often say DEI or EDI, but it’s called JEDI in the B Corp framework. It goes beyond equality into equity - recognising people don’t all start from the same place. I once explained this to a colleague using an example: if we’re all standing at a gig on the same level, I still can’t see because I’m short. Give me a box to stand on - now it’s fair. It also pushes on accessibility, inclusion, worker voice, and ensuring underrepresented voices in communities are heard.

“4) Climate action - This is fully devoted to carbon assessment, net zero targets, and decarbonisation strategies. You have to be aligned to net zero.

“5) Environmental stewardship and circularity - This includes designing for a circular economy. In my view, it’s smaller than it ought to be, given the impact of furniture manufacturing.

“6) Human rights - This is one of the biggest changes, and likely one of the biggest challenges. The expectation is: map your supply chain, identify human rights risks, develop an action plan, and implement it. There are huge human rights risks in many supply chains: textiles, renewables (slavery risks), electronics (child labour and slavery risks). Even materials like leather can have serious risks depending on tanning processes and sourcing. It’s extremely complex.

“7) Government affairs and collective action - This is the one I love. It creates a responsibility for B Corps to take proactive action - lobbying for positive change, collaborating, supporting research, creating responsible lobbying policies, and ensuring you’re not ‘B Corp on the surface’ while supporting harmful practices underneath.”

Have these changes led to some companies stepping back from B Corp?

“If someone said, ‘We can’t do this now - it’s a shame, we’d love to, but we can’t,’ I’d completely understand that.

“I also think B Lab should support organisations who need more time, or an entry-level ‘working towards it’ stage. Progress is progress.”

Collaboration seems to be key - does the B Corp community work together?

“Yes. For example, I was interviewed by a researcher from Huddersfield University about how being a B Corp affects senior decision-making. At the end she asked if I knew anyone else, and I put a call out in a WhatsApp B Corp group. Within 10 minutes, three people volunteered.

“And for a panel event we ran in London, I asked six people to be on a panel thinking some might say no - every single one said yes.

“So yes, there’s a strong sense that collaboration is key.”

What’s the aim of your upcoming panel discussion in Manchester - what will attendees take away?

“We’ll talk about the challenges of the new standards, and there’ll be focus on government affairs and collective action.

“I hope people come away thinking one of a few things: - ‘I want to become a B Corp.’ - ‘I can’t become a B Corp - so what can I do instead?’ - ‘What changes can I make to the fundamental way I run my business?’

“Because we live in a capitalist society, and I can’t see that changing. So within those restraints, we need to go beyond a Victorian-style philanthropy model - where it’s optional and inconsistent - and build fairness and responsibility into the framework of how business operates.

“Have you heard of the Better Business Act? It’s a UK legislative campaign led by B Lab UK that aims to change company law so that businesses must legally benefit wider society and the environment alongside making a profit. This is through proposing a change to Section 172 of the Companies Act, to make director duties more stakeholder-focused and oriented toward long-term impacts, not just shareholder profit. Mary Portas is actually the co-chair.”

Are there geographic ‘hotspots’ for B Corps in the UK?

“Yes. The UK is the fastest-growing country for B Corps, and they cluster in certain areas: London, Brighton, Bristol, Manchester...

“We buck the trend a bit because we’re based in Somerset (though we have a showroom in London and presence at Material Source Studio in Manchester). But there’s a clear pattern in densely populated, progressive urban areas.

“Once B Corp momentum starts in a place, it snowballs - a domino effect. We need to capture that momentum and keep it going, even though the new standard makes the workload substantial.”

How is Modus handling the workload of the new B Corp standard?

“You have to build a mini team and make sure people support it, otherwise you’ll be lost.

“B Lab gave a year’s grace because of how much change there was, but I’m not sure even that is long enough for some. We’ll do our best - I don’t like failing!”

When we covered the topic of Artificial Intelligence 12-months ago, the question we sought to answer was: what is AI? Just a year on and the conversation has drastically shifted. Not only has AI become known but it's been embedded into all facets of culture. There is, seemingly, no escaping it.

In the built environment sector, early adopters are already seeing the benefits that come with embracing AI, from time savings to sense checking. And in the most part, it's regarded as a friend - albeit one to keep a close eye on. The hope? That it leads to designers being able to do more design, and less of the mundane. And the fear? That it replaces human connection and devalues professional skill.

These are just some of the sentiments to arise from our discussions with you over the last few months about the impact of AI on your world. To provide a snapshot of how it's regarded in the built environment and commercial interiors sector, in addition to what was gleaned at our seminars and roundtables on this theme, here we share 40 Views on AI from industry professionals across the UK and beyond.

Is AI a friend or a foe?

Morven Thomson, Architectural Technologist - Keppie Design

"AI is a friend to architects and built environment professionals, provided we treat it as a tool rather than a decision maker. It has the potential to reduce repetitive tasks, improve access to knowledge and support better informed decisions, allowing us to spend more time on creativity, collaboration and delivering value for clients. However, responsibility can never be delegated to technology. Professional judgement, ethics and accountability must remain at the centre of everything we do. AI will undoubtedly change how we work, but its greatest strength will be enhancing human expertise, not replacing it. That is where its real value lies."

Peter Kerr, Director - Cameron Kerr

"AI should be viewed as a friend, provided it is used intelligently and with professional judgement. Its greatest value is likely to be in reducing mundane, repetitive and administrative tasks that currently consume a disproportionate amount of time in design practice. If used properly, AI can create more space for innovative and creative problem-solving.

"My greatest hope is that AI removes some of the mental drag that has built up around design delivery. Tools such as Revit and BIM have brought benefits, but they have also created a heavy procedural burden, with designers often spending too much time managing models, workflows, data structures and coordination issues rather than thinking deeply about design quality.

"My main fear is less about the technology itself and more about the economics surrounding it. There is a real risk that AI financing becomes overheated, particularly where highly leveraged businesses are being valued on future potential rather than proven commercial resilience. We may also see IPOs or investment events being used by owners and early investors to extract value before the market fully understands whether the underlying business models are sustainable."

Alexander Esfahani, Associate Director & Head of Sustainability - Chapman Taylor

"It depends on the lens through which we choose to look. Pessimism takes hold when technology shapes how we design, rather than deepen why we design, for people, place and planet. Creative thinking must not be lost, in practice or at university, to a fast-food world of architecture generated at speed. Harnessed well, AI can revolutionise our industry, sharpening accuracy, accelerating processes and unlocking ideas. I liken it to a calculator, owning one does not mean you can solve every problem without understanding the mathematics. From the abacus, to the calculator, to AI, progress matters but human judgement must remain central."

Dr. David Charles Reat, Architect/Director of Cultural Studies - Strathclyde University

"AI can be a powerful friend to built environment professionals, but only if designers remain in control of the brief, judgement and consequences. It can accelerate analysis, expand visual exploration and test options that might otherwise take days to compare. But it becomes a foe when speed replaces thought, when convincing images stand in for evidence, or when bias, authorship and responsibility are ignored. Architecture is not just image-making; it is material, social and long-lasting. Used critically, AI can amplify design intelligence. Used passively, it risks producing persuasive futures without accountable foundations, or meaningful human accountability at every scale."

Will Arnold, Head of Sustainable Materials - Useful Simple Trust

"AI is neither friend nor foe – it’s a tool. And like all tools – from calculators to bicycles to a nuclear reactor – its value depends on how we use it. Importantly, it cannot rescue poor strategic decisions. If we choose to demolish a building unnecessarily, no amount of AI will undo the consequences of that choice. But what it can do is support us with such decisions: it can be used to take away low-value tasks, generate insights, sense-check ideas and help communicate complex concepts more effectively. If done well, this frees up more time for the distinctly human work of collaboration, creativity and judgement. Work that is not only valuable, but enjoyable."

Linda Morey-Burrows, Founder and Principal Director - MoreySmith

“AI isn't a threat to good design, rather it's a reminder of what good design really is. By taking on repetitive and administrative tasks, it allows designers to focus on creativity, cultural understanding, and the human experiences that technology cannot replicate. As AI reshapes how we work, originality and judgement become even more valuable. That's why the industry must continue to invest in emerging designers as creative confidence is developed through mentorship and collaboration, not algorithms. AI will undoubtedly change how we design, but it will never replace the imagination, empathy and intuition that define exceptional architecture and interiors.”

Yetta Reardon Smith, Director & Workplace Strategist - Savills Workplace & Design

"AI is a friend, provided we stay in charge of it. It can take on those time hungry tasks (that we secretly love) like data analysis, checking and coordination. What matters is that we grab the opportunities this gives us, whether that is critical thinking time, developing client relationships or coaching and mentoring the next generation. It only becomes an enemy if we let it, if we start shortcutting governance processes or allow it to replace our thinking rather than support it. AI is a neutral tool. Its value, or risk, sits entirely with how we choose to use it."

Pallavi Dean, Founder and Creative Director - Roar

"AI is both - Frenemy . It's a friend because it takes operational tasks off my plate frees me up to focus on the creative thinking. But it's also the enemy I'm actively training to replace parts of my own job. The key is making sure it replaces repetitive work, not human judgment or creativity. Architecture isn't just about producing images - we solve complex problems, understand people and make thousands of interconnected decisions that AI still can't make on its own.

"My biggest hope is that AI removes the work architects don't enjoy. Checking drawings, catching coordination issues, reducing errors and making sure nothing slips through before we get to site. If AI can help us deliver projects with greater accuracy and efficiency. What I don't want is for it to replace creativity. The best ideas come from curiosity, lived experience and conversations, not prompts. I'd rather AI become the world's best design intern/assistant than try to become the designer.

"My biggest concern is misuse. AI produces beautiful images, but it doesn't inherently understand structure, regulations, climate, budgets or how buildings actually get built. There's a danger that people mistake good visuals for good design. I'm also concerned that because ideas are generated so quickly, we lose the value of iteration. Great design isn't usually the first idea. It's what emerges after questioning, testing and refining. If AI short-circuits that process, we risk creating work that's visually impressive but intellectually shallow."

Gavin Hughes, Design Director EMEA - HLW

"It remains to be seen. AI should make our lives easier. Our industry is already at risk of being devalued by increasing pressure to deliver faster and cheaper solutions. If AI fulfils its promise, it could help automate bottlenecks. In practice, however, progress shifts expectations rather than creating wealthy societies with abundant free time. Before rushing ahead out of fear of being left behind, we must consider a long-term model for behavioural change. Consider “The Doorman Fallacy”, and how we might apply it to AI. Ask AI to summarise it for you if you don’t already know it."

David Edmundson-Bird, Principal Lecturer in Digital Marketing, Faculty Lead for AI & Digital Enhanced Learning - MMU Business School

"I think AI, used in the right way, is a friend to designers/architects/built environment professionals. It offers an opportunity to automate those process and functions which are necessary but not appealing to the creative mindset, allowing people to spend more time on the human activities that add value.

"My hope is that businesses will not fall for the trap that AI can replace people - it can be used to enhance work and improve performance. My fear is that businesses will see it as a way of displacing people and then discover that it does not do very much of what humans do in the workplace. They will be forced to rehire, as the evidence shows many of the key AI models are expensive to run and are not the cost-saving panacea that has been suggested. AI is beginning to be embedded in many conventional workplace tools. I think we will stop thinking of it as 'special', it will become a normal part of our lives, like an appliance.

"What will happen next is the inevitable and extreme uptick in cost as the mainstream AI companies begin to reach the end of their money and the inevitable shareholders from any impending IPOs look for profitable return. That will create a sense of an AI divide, because the days of £20 pro accounts will soon be numbered. Not every business or professional will be in a position to afford them, and we'll see a rise in self-hosted, open-source solutions really take off."

Uli Blum, Senior Associate & Co-head - ZHA Analytics & Insights, Professor of Design - Münster School of Architecture

"As an architect, I see AI as a friend. It is our patient critic, available at any hour and never tired of commenting on another version. AI lets us reconcile competing parameters, test more ideas than we ever could have on our own, and see things we previously had to guess at: how a team's collaboration patterns shift when two floors are joined by a single stair, how many people pass each desk on the floor in a day, where focus and communication can coexist and where we have to choose.

"What sets architects apart doesn't disappear, it sharpens. When I can generate fifty options in seconds, the scarce skill is no longer producing them: it is knowing which one is right and why. That is intention, informed judgement, taste and style, and it is the part no AI model supplies.

"So I expect the buildings of the next decade to be better resolved than any before them. Not more spectacular, but fitted more precisely to the people inside, because for the first time we can see them clearly."

Olaide Oboh, Managing Director - Populate

"AI is a friend – but we shouldn't become too reliant on it. It's best used for routine tasks: drafting reports, preparing materials, summarising documents, analysing data. That efficiency frees up time for what humans do best – creativity, judgement and relationships.

"The caution? AI can encourage working in silos, and in our industry collaboration is king. The best places are made in the room, not on a screen.

"We're also designing workplaces with AI in mind, but they'll always be built around people. In real estate we create places for people to enjoy – a human touch is fundamental."

Stephanie Popescu, Project Architect - DMWR

“AI is brilliant at averages. Architecture isn’t. You can't expect AI to think for you. Poor prompts, poor data, poor outcomes. For AI to be better, you need to know how to steer it in the right direction. It’s not going to take away from our creativity and our critical thinking. In the end, it’s our judgement that is the most important thing - can this be built? Our instinct knows why something feels right. AI can’t answer that. It can suggest, but it’s up to us as designers to make the call.”

What are you hoping for?

Kay Sargent, Senior Principal, Director of Thought Leadership, Interiors - HOK

"I hope AI continues to eliminate the arduous and repetitive tasks that consume valuable time in the design process, allowing designers to focus on what matters most: creating meaningful human experiences. Rather than replacing expertise, AI should amplify it, enabling us to apply our knowledge of human behaviour, design strategy, and performance more effectively. The future lies in advancing both the science and the art of design—combining data-driven insights with creativity, empathy, and intuition. AI can help create environments that are more responsive, adaptable, and sustainable. If society leverages it wisely, we could spark a new renaissance in the arts, unleashing unprecedented creativity and innovation."

Stephanie Porfyriou, Project Architect - AtkinsRéalis

"My greatest hope for AI in practice is that it restores the architect's role as a creator. By offloading documentation, data analysis and other administrative tasks to AI, I believe it frees architects to focus on creativity, innovation and the human experience of space. In my view, architecture is fundamentally about emotion and lived experience, which are qualities that technology can support but never replace. By automating routine tasks through AI, we can reclaim the mental space to imagine, explore and create places that inspire. To me, AI can optimise the data, but it cannot capture the soul of a space. After all, people will always remember how a building made them feel."

Julie Lecoq, Workplace Strategy, Change & Human Experience Consultant

"My greatest hope isn't that AI gives us better answers. It's that it helps us ask better questions. I see AI as a thinking partner that can help us challenge our own thinking, explore different possibilities and notice things we may not have considered. It should support human judgement, not replace it. Ultimately, the value of what we create comes from understanding people and the context behind every decision. AI can generate thousands of answers, but knowing which questions truly matter and why is where human judgement makes the difference."

What is your greatest fear?

Maria Tam, Spatial Psychologist - Make Architects

"The most pressing worry or focus I think is preserving our ability to judge what is valuable design. AI is great at churning out output. It can do a lot of our doing. And it's capacity for that will continue to grow. But doing the doing, is also where many professions, not just spatial designers (e.g. architects, interior designers, landscape architects) learn how to assess the value of different design options. We are currently experiencing a surge in productivity because we all now get to act like managers, and AI is like our architectural assistant, doing the doing, as we guide it with our previous experiences of knowing what is good, which we learnt from once being an assistant. But if people no longer get to experience being an assistant, how will they know how to be a manager?"

Blair Boyle, Associate Workplace Designer - Savills Workplace & Design

"Interior designers are skilled workers. With any skill you hone it and improve it with years of practice, with every project you learn more that you take forward with you to the next project. On active jobs there are always surprises that you have to adapt and respond to based on your experience. I fear young designers, those earliest adopters of AI, will use AI as their primary tool to create outputs. They will miss building those essential skills and experience thus will struggle to react accordingly when things aren’t as expected. This creates a knowledge and experience gap that AI cannot fill."

Ed Harris, Partner, Bristol - Purcell

"At Purcell, we hope AI gives our people more time to focus on work that benefits most from their specialist expertise, creativity and professional judgement. Used responsibly, AI can streamline routine tasks, accelerate research and analysis, and improve efficiency, enabling teams to concentrate on maximising design quality, technical problem solving and client outcomes. We see AI as a tool that supports people rather than replaces them: a thoughtful way to improve productivity, reduce administrative burden and allow talented professionals to apply their skills where they add greatest value for clients, communities and historic places."

Simone Fenton Jarvis, Author - The Human Centric Workplace

"My concern isn't AI itself - it's our tendency to trust without questioning. Poor data produces poor decisions, regardless of how advanced the algorithm appears. There's also a risk that we optimise for efficiency while forgetting experience, inclusion and wellbeing. The built environment shapes how people work, recover, connect and belong - those outcomes cannot be measured through data alone. My biggest fear is that organisations mistake prediction for understanding, allowing AI to replace dialogue rather than enhance it. Human judgement should become more valuable, not less. We also need to keep an eye on the impact on the newbie's vs the qualified/experienced/competent professionals - the experienced can question what the newbies might not."

Amir Hossein Noori, Co-Founder & Director - AI Hub

"My deepest fear isn't that AI replaces architects. It's that it lowers the bar of what we accept. Generative tools have collapsed the cost of producing something that looks like design, and I worry we're satisfied with that: seductive, hollow images with no spatial logic, no idea behind them. AI slop. I fear visualisation is overpowering AI's deeper promise as an instrument for knowledge, for interrogating concepts, and for creating genuinely new notions of space. The danger isn't the technology; it's the temptation to stop thinking. Ease of creation is not the same as depth of design."

David Cryer, Associate - AFL Architects

"My greatest fear is not AI itself, but the way it could be misused as a substitute for collaboration. Architecture is strongest when ideas are tested, challenged and improved by a team, with different experiences shaping the outcome.

"If practices begin treating AI as a shortcut, one person feeding in a brief and accepting what comes back, we risk losing that collective intelligence.

"The danger is that early efficiencies are mistaken for better design, and that commercial pressure leads some businesses to reduce teams rather than strengthen them. AI should support human judgement, not replace the people who develop it."

Tom Prendergast, Co-Founder and Architect - BOSCA

"I worry that using AI for design will only help to devalue the skill and expertise of designers. What is stopping Client’s from cutting out the middleman and doing it all themselves? At a time where we are trying to shift the culture around safety, post Grenfell, is it a good idea to be deferring decisions to a technology prone to hallucination?

"AI, by definition, does not have any real lived experience. It cannot create novel spaces that change the way a person experiences the world. A built environment created by AI can only be generic, without a sense of place or purpose."

An inevitable revolution or evolution?

Nick Tyrer, Associate Director - BDP

"At this point AI is inevitable, beyond being driven by global capitalist forces, it sits at the centre of an international arms race between nations who cannot afford to fall behind. We may never achieve AGI or ASI, but the current trajectory alone is sufficient to dramatically transform our industry and the world around us.

"AI is advancing faster than our software, our design tools, or even our design thinking can keep pace with. If AI development stopped today, we would still have a decade of profound change ahead, just from realising the potential of what we already have."

Dr Phil Tetlow, Visiting Professor, Author and Corporate Advisor (formally IBM)

"It’s both. People often forget that artificial intelligence, in one form or another, has been evolving for centuries. Victorian engineers built remarkable wind-up automata, while pioneers such as Alan Turing explored sophisticated concepts during the 1950s. However, the publication of the 2017 transformer paper fundamentally changed the landscape, enabling today’s large language models and triggering a genuine revolution.

"So AI is simultaneously evolutionary and revolutionary. I’d also expand your list of descriptors. When used thoughtfully, AI can be inspirational, collaborative, creative, augmentative, transformative, practical, and empowering, helping people solve problems, generate ideas, accelerate innovation, improve decision-making, enhance productivity, and work responsibly together."

Rebecca Kelly, Creative Director - Jasper Sanders + Partners

"AI is an accelerated evolution, shaking and potentially reshaping the foundations of our sector. Architectural design has absorbed tools from its origin - from Rotring pens and drawing boards to CAD and now visualisation. AI compresses timelines and expands possibility in a way that feels different in scale - it can’t replace authorship or rigorous design thinking, but sits within the process as a collaborator, reshaping how we explore and communicate ideas. The real shift is intellectual: how we define creativity, value judgement and originality when generation is now instantaneous. As technology continues to evolve, our responsibility is to ensure it is guided by human insight, critical thinking, and intent."

Jack Carter, Interior Architect - SpaceInvader

"I’d call AI an evolution, but one that could change the way we work quite dramatically. In interior design, it’s already useful for quick research, testing ideas, mood imagery and taking some of the grind out of repetitive tasks. But the best projects still come from people: understanding a client, reading a brief properly, noticing what isn’t being said, and making thoughtful decisions. Used well, AI should give designers more time for that, not less. For me, the important bit is keeping it as a tool, not letting it become the voice in the room."

Henrietta Walters, Architect and Principal - GA Architects

"I think AI is more of an evolution than a revolution. In the same way that many of us have evolved from the drawing board to CAD and then to BIM, AI is clearly starting to influence the way architects approach and deliver projects, as well as promote and present their design ideas.

"What has stood out most to me has been developing prompts that can be used across all aspects of my professional practice; the critical element is developing prompts that allow me to retain the quality of my design thinking; however, this is not without its challenges.

"If we leave aside the significant environmental and other concerns associated with AI, as a sector we need to reflect carefully on the issue of the homogenisation of design, which can already be observed in the emergence of increasingly uniform interior design trends."

Steve Smith, Project Architect - SPACE

"AI, in my opinion, is more of an evolution than a revolution for the architectural industry. Like the widespread adoption of CAD in the 1980s, AI is enhancing existing workflows rather than fundamentally changing what architects do. It is making certain tasks faster and less labour intensive. Architectural visualisation (CGI), in particular, has seen accelerated change, with greatly increased production times and wider accessibility. However, human intervention remains essential to assess buildability, apply professional judgement, and refine outputs. AI is therefore best seen as a tool that supports and enhances the work of architects rather than replacing it."

Stuart McHendry, Director of Sustainability - Scotch Partners

"I think AI represents both a revolution and an evolution in the design of the built environment. Co-designing with AI is already creating new approaches, testing alternatives more rapidly and helping designers identify solutions that may otherwise be overlooked. However, we are still in a period of learning and development, understanding where AI adds genuine value, where its limitations lie and how human judgement must remain central. Its ultimate impact will depend on how responsibly we choose to use it. This requires clear workplace and professional policies addressing governance, transparency, accountability and ethics, ensuring AI enhances good design rather than simply accelerating existing processes."

Andrew Mawson, Owner - Advanced Workplace Associates

"Roles that are highly repetitive will disappear altogether, unless they exist within a highly regulated environment. AI is going to automate mechanistic tasks within knowledge worker roles too. For higher order knowledge workers AI will give them new tools to amplify their skills by enabling them to do tasks that were hitherto economically unfeasible. There will be new jobs created from AI too and we expect AI enabled entrepreneurs to pop up using AI to develop new products, software and services that we can’t really predict.

"We expect the size and nature of organisations to change. They will be populated high calbre individuals, experts in their subjects, highly tech savvy managing a suite of agents. Organisations will be highly dependent on them, as they’ll have critical knowledge and an understanding of how the agents work. They’ll also have to work closely with colleagues to move the organisation forward. AWA’s knowledge worker productivity research undertaken over the last 10 years puts in a powerful position to provide guidance."

Elaine Varghese Stephen, Architect - MLA

"AI feels revolutionary because of its speed, but for architecture I see it as evolution: another tool absorbed into practice, like CAD and BIM before it. The more I use it for correspondence, technical queries, project planning and management tools; the more useful it becomes. But it needs direction. Architecture begins when somebody cares enough to solve a problem. AI does not. It produces polished output, but polish does not equate to competence. As programmes compress and production accelerates, the architect’s value cannot be reduced to producing information alone. Judgement, responsibility, communication and care become more valuable, not less."

What does the future hold?

Lorna Martyn, Visualisation Team Lead - Morgan Lovell

"My greatest hope is that AI gives us back time. Time to think more creatively, solve problems more effectively, and produce better outcomes for our clients. I would like to see AI integrated into workflows in ways that genuinely enhance quality, efficiency and innovation, rather than simply increasing output. Used well, AI can support professionals in creating more thoughtful, engaging and visually compelling environments while reducing the burden of routine tasks.

"AI is here to stay, and I think the next phase will be less about what the tools can do and more about how organisations implement them. I hope to see greater focus on robust governance, accreditation, security standards and clear usage policies. The most successful adoption of AI will come from organisations that balance innovation with accountability. Technological advancement is important, but the values and principles guiding its use will ultimately determine its impact."

Manu Sanz, Associate Interior Designer - Form Design Consultants

"Since the AI roundtable session in Glasgow, I have been thinking a lot about how AI could actually support our industry in a practical way. For me, it comes back to workflow and efficiency. How can it help practices run smoother?

"I keep coming back to the idea that AI isn’t really optional. It feels inevitable at this point. It’s already creeping into day to day tasks and I think it will only become more embedded in how we work.

"One thing that feels particularly relevant is the rise of AI agents. In simple terms, these go a step further than the usual tools we have been using. Instead of just answering a prompt, they can start to handle a series of tasks on their own, organising information, running small workflows, or helping manage processes with less back and forth. It’s early stages, but you can start to see how this could slot into practice life quite naturally.

"For now though, I don’t see AI replacing what we do. It’s more about taking away some of the repetitive or time consuming parts, helping us move through certain stages quicker and making information easier to deal with. That shift alone can make a big difference.

"For me, the real turning point will be when AI can genuinely come up with ideas that don’t just come from existing references or data. When it starts creating something truly new, that’s when things could really change. Until then, I still see it as something that supports us rather than replaces us."

Connor McGinley, Architect, Project Director - CRGP

"I expect AI to become embedded in almost every software platform we use, to the point where it becomes invisible rather than a standalone tool. Within the next five to ten years, I expect AI to assist with regulatory compliance, specification writing, cost forecasting, programming, sustainability analysis and project administration as standard.

"What I hope, however, is that the profession maintains a clear distinction between efficiency and value. Clients do not appoint architects simply to produce drawings, they appoint us to provide judgement, creativity, leadership and confidence in complex decisions. Those qualities remain inherently human.

"Ultimately, I think the practices that succeed will not be those using the most AI, but those that combine AI with experienced professionals who know when to challenge its outputs, when to ignore them and when to rely on their own expertise."

Jason Taylor, Senior Lecturer, Architectural Digital Design, AI & DELTA Lead - Manchester School of Architecture

"What happens next with AI in architecture will come down to control. The tools will keep evolving, but the important question is whether architects retain control of design thinking, judgement, and authorship as intelligence becomes shared between human and machine. My hope is that architecture stops treating AI as either magic or menace and starts engaging with it critically. AI will be useful across analysis, visualisation, coordination, and decision-making, but usefulness is not judgement. The profession will need stronger digital literacy, clearer ethical boundaries, and a sharper understanding of authenticity if architects are to direct AI intelligently rather than be directed by it."

Paul Dare, Founder - Dare Design Studio

"The biggest impact of AI won't be replacing designers. I believe it will be changing what designers spend their time doing. Routine production work will increasingly be handled by AI, leaving designers to focus on creativity, problem solving and the client relationships that technology will absolutely struggle to replace. I also believe AI will transform the workplaces we design, using real time data to create environments that are more adaptable, efficient and responsive to how people actually work. As the founder of a small design studio, I see it as my responsibility to understand where AI is taking our profession so I can help clients prepare for what's coming, not simply react to it."

Holly Hallam, Co-owner - DLSM Studio

"Like many businesses, the creative industry is benefitting from efficiencies that simply weren't possible a few years ago - supporting the more administrative tasks which has then allowed our designers to focus on deeper creative thinking.

"Working specifically within the hospitality industry, it is ultimately about people. It’s our role, as strategic designers, to understand consumer behaviour, emotion, culture and human connection - things that can't be fully understood through data or AI alone.

"The most successful hospitality environments are often built around intuition and empathy. They respond to how people move through a space, how they interact with others and how they want to feel when they're there and when they’ve left. While AI can support aspects of the research process, it can't replace the human insight required to create truly meaningful experiences.

"I also think there is a risk that as technology becomes more accessible, we see a degree of homogenisation. If everyone is drawing from the same sources and tools, maintaining originality becomes even more important.

"For me, the future isn't about AI versus creativity. It's about how technology can enhance the design process while allowing designers to focus on the strategic and human-centred thinking that creates the most memorable and meaningful spaces."

Lola Ben-Alon, Assistant Professor, Columbia University & Director, Natural Materials Lab

"We use robotic 3D printing and AI-generated design to explore geometries that would be impossible to achieve manually. These tools allow us to handle the material variance of earth which is very unruly, more precisely. However, we always maintain a compassion for digitisation. The machine is another hand in the ritual of making.

"I believe the tactile experience of working with earth is transformative. When you work with these materials, there is a sense of devotion and a transcorporeal connection to the land.

"As we become more reliant on the digital, we risk losing that sensory intuition. Our work tries to reconcile the two: using the digital to celebrate the natural, not to replace it."

Rachel Basha, Founder & CEO - Basha-Franklin

"I believe AI will create opportunities rather than simply replace jobs. It can help us create new products, accelerate research and free up time for deeper creative thinking.

"But nothing replaces the human experience that ultimately is the backbone of our design lens. Travelling, visiting galleries, understanding different cultures and observing how people live are fundamental to good design.

"The real strength comes from combining curiosity, lived experience, human creativity and technology. That is what allows us to remain a fast moving, high performing design studio."

With Truchet, Impact Acoustic transforms natural fibres, eggshell-derived minerals and mathematical order into an acoustic surface designed not merely to last - but to return.

Named after the 17th-Century French mathematician Sébastien Truchet, the new Truchet wall tile begins with a simple geometric principle: rotate one repeated shape, and an almost infinite number of patterns emerges. Across a wall, its compact 200 × 200 mm modules shift between order and spontaneity, allowing architects to compose surfaces that feel rhythmic, expressive and entirely individual.

Yet Truchet’s most important innovation lies beneath its geometry.

The tile is made from ARCHISONIC® Natura Blends, Impact Acoustic's next-generation bio-based acoustic material. Its composition combines 75% cellulose - including visible coconut or jute fibres - with 25% mineral components. Even eggshells find a second purpose here: their calcium carbonate content becomes part of the material formulation, together with natural fire-retardant salts.

Rather than disguising these ingredients, Truchet celebrates them. Fibres, mineral variations and subtle irregularities remain visible, giving the surface an honest tactility that conventional synthetic acoustic materials cannot reproduce. Every tile carries the natural character of what it is made from.

This material intelligence is matched by a genuinely circular approach. ARCHISONIC® Natura has achieved Cradle to Cradle Certified® Circularity Gold under Version 5.0 - placing it at the highest level of product circularity. It is not simply bio-based, plastic-free or made with recycled content. It is designed as part of a closed material loop.

At the end of its first life, eligible Natura products can be returned through Impact Acoustic's Re:Impact take-back programme and processed into new acoustic material. In a construction industry accustomed to extraction, use and disposal, that changes the equation fundamentally: recycling the existing material can be faster and more intelligent than producing new material from virgin resources.

This is the Königsklasse of building materials - not only reducing harm, but designing waste out of the system altogether.

For architects, Truchet therefore offers more than acoustic performance or decorative flexibility. It demonstrates how geometry, natural materiality and circular engineering can exist within one coherent product. The wall becomes a composition; the surface becomes a material bank; and design becomes the beginning of the next cycle rather than the end of the current one.

Truchet proves that circularity does not have to look technical or compromised. It can be tactile, playful and architecturally expressive - and, with every rotation of the tile, create something entirely new.

Impact Acoustic is a Partner at Material Source Studio London. Experience their innovative products in person. And if you're visiting LDF, you can sign up for their Felt Dog Making Workshop here.

Ariane Sanders founded her consultancy, Sonda Studio, based on her own personal experience. After struggling with the office environment she found herself in, plus a hectic daily commute, Ariane began to question whether this was something she was grappling with alone. Turns out, she wasn't.

Throwing herself into understanding neurodesign, Ariane realised just how much the settings we inhabit impact us. And that has driven her to support others through applying sensory intelligence.

This month, Ariane will showcase her expertise with Neuroplaces - the UK’s first B2B exhibition and conference dedicated to neuroinclusive and accessible design.

For the London Design Festival, Ariane has crafted The Reset Lounge in collaboration with Neuroplaces. Designed to be more than a place to take a break from the sensory demands of a busy exhibition, it is an invitation to explore how varying environments create different sensory experiences and how they make you feel.

"The idea comes from something fundamental to the way I work: we all experience our environments differently. What supports one person may not support another."

Read on to find out more about Sonda Studio, Ariane's insight into neurodesign, and where you can experience The Reset Lounge at LDF.

Firstly, tell us about Sonda Studio - what drove you to founding your practice?

"Honestly, a struggle…in amongst the success, the awards, the exciting projects, the career progression and getting to do something I genuinely loved, I was struggling with the office environment I was in.

"The daily commute, the office lights, the noise, being in an office five days a week. It was draining me, and at the time, I thought there was something wrong with me.

"Then I studied neurodesign and started to understand how much the built environment affects us. I learnt to think of our environment almost like a second skin, constantly interacting with us. That understanding made me want to help other people who might be struggling with their environments in the same way I was, and that’s really why I started Sonda Studio.

"The name Sonda echoes the word ‘sonder’, the realisation that every person carries a life as rich and complex as your own. And that idea of recognising individual human experience sits at the heart of what I do.

"So often, as I found myself, people aren’t necessarily aware of their sensory needs or how their environment is affecting them.

"I’ve since trained as a Sensory Intelligence Practitioner, which allows me to help people understand their sensory needs and what they need from their environments. I then look at the environment itself to understand where it supports those needs and where it might be creating barriers.

"I bring those insights together to advise on and design, sensory-aware, neuroinclusive spaces."

Who are your clients?

"I work with organisations that want to create more sensory-aware and neuroinclusive environments, particularly workplaces, coworking spaces and organisations supporting neurodivergent communities."

Has neuroinclusive design become more understood/highly regarded post-Covid?

"It definitely has more awareness, but I think there’s still a lot more that needs to be done when it comes to actually implementing it.

"Post-Covid, everyone thought the office was dead. Then the focus shifted towards efficiency. Companies downsized, hybrid and working-from-home strategies came in, which for a lot of people actually gave them much more control over their environment.

"At the same time, awareness and understanding of neurodiversity has grown significantly, so I think those two conversations have started to come together.

"But the irony is, what we call efficient for space is often inefficient for the people using it. We can optimise an office around square footage and occupancy, but people are an organisation’s real asset.

"So I think what we define as an efficient workplace needs to shift. It’s not just a place to fit people into. It’s an environment that can either support people or create barriers to how well they can do their work.

"And what’s exciting now is that we’re moving beyond simply acknowledging neurodiversity and starting to ask: what does that actually mean for the environments we design?"

What’s the potential of a space being made better by considering inclusivity and wellness?

"It unlocks the potential of every human being to be themselves, thrive, learn and come together to create, collaborate and rise.

"We experience space through our sensory systems: light, sound, movement, smell, touch. And we all process that sensory information differently. Someone might be particularly sensitive to light, while somebody else may seek more stimulation.

"So if someone is trying to work in an environment that's too bright or overwhelming for them, they're having to manage that sensory input alongside whatever they're actually there to do. That's an additional demand, and for some people those environmental barriers can become debilitating. We think carefully about what we put into our bodies, but we don't always think about what we're asking our sensory systems to process all day.

"That's the potential of inclusive design: creating environments that reduce unnecessary barriers and give more people the conditions they need to thrive and do their best work."

What’s most rewarding to you about what you do?

"For me, it’s helping people. There’s something incredibly rewarding about seeing people happy in an environment I’ve designed.

"We spend so much of our lives at work, so knowing that I’ve created an environment that can support how someone feels, how they do their job and how they connect with other people is really rewarding.

"I actually had a moment recently when I was at the Sky Garden, looking out across London, and I could see workplaces I’d designed over the years dotted around the city. And I thought, there are people there right now, working, having meetings, chatting to colleagues and just going about their everyday lives in environments that I helped create. That was quite a special moment."

You’ve been commissioned to design a Reset Lounge for Neuroplaces - tell us more

"Neuroplaces is the UK’s first B2B exhibition and conference dedicated to neuroinclusive and accessible design. Taking place as part of London Design Festival, it brings together designers, architects, workplaces, public venues and solution providers to explore how our environments can better support neurodivergent and disabled people. The event is about bringing the industry together, sharing ideas, products and services, and helping turn conversations around inclusion into real-world change.

"The Reset Lounge has been designed to be more than a place to take a break from the sensory demands of a busy exhibition, it is an invitation to explore how different environments create different sensory experiences and how they make you feel.

"The idea comes from something fundamental to the way I work: we all experience our environments differently. What supports one person may not support another.

"Rather than creating one environment that we assume will work for everyone, the lounge offers 4 different sensory experiences to explore.

"Visitors are encouraged to move through the spaces with curiosity, noticing what draws them in, what they naturally seek, what they might avoid and how each environment makes them feel. The aim is to give people an opportunity to pause and reset, while also becoming more aware of their own sensory preferences.

"The more we understand how environments affect us individually, the better able we are to recognise and communicate what we need from the spaces around us."

Can you take us through the journey of the 4 spaces you’ve crafted?

"Visitors are encouraged to move freely between four spaces, which I’ve called Nature, Movement, Comfort and Create. Each offers a different sensory experience and a different way to pause or reset.

"Nature engages the senses in a gentle, restorative way, drawing on some of the sensory qualities we experience in nature. The space includes pieces from Shapedsound and Huus that have been designed with restoration in mind. Shapedsound’s Sonaform, for example, uses vibroacoustic technology to translate sound into physical vibration, so you don’t just hear it, you feel it through the body.

"Movement challenges the assumption that resetting always means being still. For some people, movement can help with alertness, body awareness and regulation. So this space offers a more active way to reset and demonstrates that what one person needs might be very different from another.

"Comfort explores the idea that comfort is personal. It has been designed as a sheltered space away from the busyness of the exhibition, considering physical, sensory and psychological comfort and giving people somewhere to retreat without completely disconnecting.

"Create gives people the opportunity to engage their hands and attention through creativity. Visitors can create a collage representing their own sensory profile, so the activity also becomes a way of reflecting on what they seek, what they avoid and what they might need from an environment."

Why is it important to have each of those elements in there?

"Because everyone’s experiences are different, I didn't want to create one prescribed, 'relaxing' space, because everyones comfort zone is different. I would love there to be more actually, to show a wider range of sensory experiences and to give more examples of they effect us. It is something I am working on for next year, to create an experience where people can explore the working environment from different sensory perspectives, to help understand our own sensory threshold and other peoples."

Is the idea that one space will appeal to one type of person, or are they more mood/task based zones?

"They’re not really designed around different types of people, but around different sensory conditions and needs. For example, movement, we often think of a reset space as somewhere you need to sit still and be quiet, but for some people, movement can be what they seek when they need to reset or regulate. So that space gives them permission to move rather than asking everyone to reset in the same way.

"Equally, someone might want movement at one point in the day and a quieter, lower-stimulation environment later."

For anyone hoping to consider inclusive design more in their spaces, where should they start?

"I think the first place to start is understanding the people who are actually going to use the space.

"We often jump straight to solutions, like adding a quiet room, changing the lighting or choosing certain colours, but inclusion starts much earlier than that.

"Understand how people experience the environment, where the barriers are, and what different people need to do well. Then look at whether the space provides enough range, choice and control to respond to those differences.

"You’re never going to design one perfect environment that works for everybody, so for me, inclusive design is about designing for the range, rather than the average."

Are there any quick wins when it comes to supporting different people and their needs?

"Absolutely. One of the quickest wins is simply giving people more choice and control over their environment.

"That might mean having somewhere quieter to work, providing different lighting conditions, plants, allowing people to move away from busy circulation routes, or creating different types of settings rather than expecting everyone to work in the same environment.

"Another really simple one is permission. You can provide lots of different spaces, but if people don’t feel comfortable using them, they’re not really offering choice.

"And I think the biggest quick win is actually asking people what they need rather than assuming."

What are you working on as well as Neuroplaces?

"I have a few workplace projects at different stages. I’m also developing the work I’m doing around sensory intelligence, helping people become more aware of how their environment affects them, but also helping organisations understand how they can create environments with greater choice, agency and range. So Neuroplaces has come at a great time as it will be a great opportunity to get feedback on this and develop future collaborations."

What are your hopes for the future when it comes to your field of expertise?

"I really want people to understand their own sensory needs and how their environment affects them, and to have the confidence to say, ‘This is what I need to feel and work at my best.'

"My hope is that we become much more sensory aware, both as individuals and as designers. Because the better we understand those differences, the better we can create environments that give people the choice and support they need to thrive.

"I’d love for sensory intelligence to eventually become as natural to us as emotional intelligence."

The Reset Lounge for Neuroplaces will take place during the London Design Festival from 15-17 September 2026. Find out more and plan your visit here.