The Hemp Carbon chair collection by Vepa UK straddles style and sustainability.

This new range while being a variant of Vepa's existing Hemp collection, has a significant addition: material pioneer Plantics has further developed the previously introduced bio-resin into Carbon Capture Composite. The addition of biochar (also referred to as charcoal) creates a deeper, more powerful colour and a modern appearance, without compromising on Vepa's core principles.

The foundation of the chair remains unchanged. 100% biological, natural and recyclable. Developed together with Plantics, based on Vepa's circular design principles and finished with natural linseed oil. No coatings, no additives that hinder reuse. What you see is what the material itself expresses.

"Hemp Carbon not only contributes as a more sustainable product, but also to a healthier environments. By choosing biobased raw materials, we reduce the use of fossil resources and lower environmental impact throughout the lifecycle. This benefits the planet, today and in the long term."

Vepa shares that Hemp Carbon has been crafted to fit seamlessly into the workplace shift towards more homely, comforting settings. The addition of Carbon Capture Composite gives the chair a deep, contemporary colour that suits modern interiors while maintaining its natural character. The subtle colour variations are not imperfections, but proof of a pure material. Each chair is unique.

For users, this is more than an aesthetic choice. Natural materials feel warmer, age beautifully and contribute to a pleasant, human-centred working environment. Hemp Carbon therefore supports both sustainable buildings and the wellbeing of the people who use them every day.

The range comprises: Hemp Fine Carbon / Hemp Medium Carbon / Hemp High Carbon.

What makes Hemp Carbon unique, you might ask?

• The shell is 100% biological, natural and recyclable
• Made from hemp fibres and bio-resin
• Addition of the natural material Carbon Capture Composite for a deep, modern colour
• Subtle, natural colour variations per product
• Finished with linseed oil
• Developed according to circular design principles
• Fits perfectly within modern, sustainable interiors
• A portion of the CO₂ captured during biomass growth remains stored in the chair long-term, contributing to CO₂ reduction efforts.

Hemp Carbon is not just a new colour variant. It is a next step in how Vepa approaches materials, form and responsibility. A chair that demonstrates that sustainability does not have to be light or understated, but can be bold, expressive and timeless.

Discover more by visiting Material Source Studio Manchester & Glasgow, where Vepa is a Partner.

Our latest seminar in Manchester kicked off our focus theme for this quarter: Artificial Intelligence. During the first of our conversations on this hotly debated topic for 2026, forming the focus for our next 6 events, as those of you in the room were privy to, sparks definitely flew. Myths were debunked. And, while questions were answered, many more emerged.

We brought together two experts with a varied wealth of experience, Dr Phil Tetlow - Visiting Professor, Author & IT Architect - formerly at IBM for 24 years, and Jason Taylor - Senior Lecturer in Digital Education & AI Leadership, Manchester School of Architecture. With Host – Material Source Studio Director, David Smalley, asking, "AI: novelty or non-negotiable?", seeking to go beyond the hype to decipher what "AI means to those that are commissioning, designing, and operating workplaces".

Kicking off the discussion, David asked the panellists what they thought the most pressing question may be for our audience? “What’s the burning question they have, do you think?”

Will I be replaced by AI?

“It’s got to be: are architects going to be replaced by AI?”, responded Jason.

Phil agreed, adding, “It’s probably the right question to ask.”

“Should they be worried, then?” David continued.

Jason replied: “Architecture has never stood still. Over the last 50 to 60 years in particular, what Mario Carpo helped frame as the digital turn in architecture has brought repeated paradigm shifts that have changed how the profession works, from computing and modelling through to simulation, fabrication and digital communication.

"AI feels like the next major phase of that shift, but one that is different in scale because it begins to affect not just how we produce design, but how we conceive it. It changes the design thinking process."

As well as in workplace environments, the impact can also be felt in the education sector, Jason added, in terms of “evidencing the way that students learn. How do we benchmark these things?”

Overall, his belief is that, “AI is not necessarily a worry, but it’s a chance for us to be cautious in the way that we utilise the tools that we engage with.”

For Phil, another human emotion comes into play at the mention of AI. “First of all, everybody in the room knows this already, but AI is a big deal. Full stop. End of sentence. New paragraph. A better question is: should I be worried or should I be excited? And I think, in equal measure, both.”

“Why?” asked David.

“Because we are seeing a paradigm shift”, Phil answered, concurring with Jason’s point, but, it’s bigger than that, he suggests. “We’re also seeing a major catalytic effect to a degree that we’ve probably never seen before in humankind.

“There are some statistics you need to get your head around before we even start to talk about AI. You need to realise there are 7 times more people on the planet today than when I was born. I’m just about to turn 60. And the other thing is that there are more people alive today than have ever been alive in the entire history of the human race.

“Now, if you think about that as a scale multiplier: if you get a catalytic shift in capability, if a technology arrives that can catalytically enhance or augment humankind, it’s going to do it in a way like we have never, ever seen before.”

Obtuse improvement, acute negativity

Phil likened AI to the arrival of the printing press or the automobile, “because they’re all equivalent trends”, he commented. “And whenever you ask me about any type of major sea change or advance like that, I always make the following point: what you generally see is obtuse improvement across the board.”

Of course, everything that goes up, must come down. What Phil suggests is the positive/negative opportunity of AI is a seesaw. It’s yin and yang.

A Best Practices Group Contributor of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), Phil spoke about how the overhaul of HTML in 2005, which led to the birth of the World Wide Web as we know it today, is akin to what’s happening with AI. “What you saw with the World Wide Web is education standards rise across the globe. You saw massive employment opportunities. In certain parts of the world, you saw a level of poverty decrease. Good thing, you would say.

“If you talk to Tim Berners-Lee about this, he’ll say, ‘Everything about the World Wide Web was positive.’ And I’ll say, ‘From an obtuse standpoint, yes.’

However, Phil warned, “you will also see acute negativity.”

While the World Wide Web has opened up a wealth of positivity for so many, it has also facilitated things that are “really, really dark”. “You will see the same thing with AI”, Phil said.

As an IT architect with 3 decades’ worth of chartership, Phil suggested that the whole point of architecture is that “it’s a profession, and we are custodians of an elite set of practices.”

For that reason, a responsibility lies with architects as professionals, Phil believes, “it is incumbent upon us as a profession to make sure that the obtuseness of AI is bred to do good for the profession and ultimately humankind. But at the same time, it is incumbent upon us as professionals to make sure that when we do see the acute negative effects of AI, we minimise them, or at least control them.”

Jason asked how many people in the audience engage with AI, and the response was surprising, he said. “I would expect more, in all honesty.”

Taking it back to its basics then, Jason explained that AI is not capable of independent thought, “The key thing with AI is that it is effectively a pattern recognition system. It can tell you what a correct answer looks like; it doesn’t necessarily know what a correct answer is, depending on the dataset that you feed it."

Focusing specifically on the education sector, David asked Jason, “You’re teaching people in this world - they’re at the start of their careers. What are they thinking at the moment? Because the message seems to be: if you’re great, you can take advantage of this. If you’re at the lower levels of data-entry-ism and so forth, you might be in trouble?”

It’s an interesting one, Jason said. Not just for students, but also for people who have been in practice for a while and have not kept pace with how digital literacy has evolved. “With the rise of BIM, game engines, digital twins, algorithmic design and now AI, the challenge is often knowing where to begin.”

“Specifically, for BA1 and BA2 students who are brand new into the field: what should they be learning?” asked David.

With the accessibility of AI relatively new to the end user, Jason said strategies are in their relative infancy.

At the University, Jason shared, “We typically promote teaching students traditional architectural workflows. My team teach the whole digital strategy for our school, effectively, and that covers technical drawing, 3D modelling and BIM, visualisation, environmental simulation and computation.

“But at what point does AI stop sitting alongside these skills and start displacing traditional architectural processes? That is something we, as academics and architects, are having to test in real time with students, because the boundary is shifting fast and it is already beginning to redefine what architectural literacy and professional readiness look like.”

Who’s in trouble?

Referencing a documentary by the artist Grayson Perry 'Grayson Perry has seen the future', which had aired the evening previous to the session, Phil shared that one of the comments made was “mediocre intellectuals” - “I think he was targeting academics”, said Phil – “are in trouble, because AI is going to take that out.”

“However”, he added, “and there is a ‘however’ in that. I would guess most people in the room are familiar with the word evolution, because we’re involved in an evolutionary process here. I bet there aren’t many people in the room who’ve heard of or understand the word co-evolution.

“This basically says that if you look at something that’s evolving, what actually happens is at the same time, the environment that thing is evolving in is also evolving.

“So on the point about lower capability or mediocre capability: what is probably going to happen is that the profession will morph in such a way that it can accommodate that type of capability as well. Predicting how you get that counter-morph is the subtlety that is really, really hard to assess. But in the short term, yes, it’s worth being mildly nervous about the immediate effects of AI.”

This short-term view of the immediate effects is not really what we should be interested in, added Phil. “The long-term effects are far more profound and far more interesting, because we don’t know how it will develop. It’s like when penicillin arrived or the atomic bomb, the immediate effect was, in the case of the atomic bomb, catastrophic. But actually, since the dropping of the two bombs in World War II, we’ve had no further nuclear incidents as a direct result of that. We will see similar types of episode with AI”, he believes.

Similarly, he referenced the automobile. “When the automobile arrived, it killed the Pony Express. It killed a whole load of professions and industries. But at the same time, gas stations evolved, motorways were built, and service station sandwich operators started to sprout up. So for every negative, there will be a counter-positive.”

“Because of the depth, breadth, and scale of AI - especially the rate at which it’s evolving - the world within which our children and our children’s children will go to work will not be the same as the world we see today.” - Phil Tetlow

Concern for the future generations was shared by Jason. “I have a 3-year-old daughter at home and I’m genuinely concerned: what am I educating her for, for the future?

"My concern is that human interaction is a core part of human development, and something we risk losing if we automate too much of everyday life. If routine experiences such as speaking to people in shops begin to disappear, then we have to ask what that means for social development, empathy, and the future of humanity more broadly.”

Grappling with the machine

“What’s the key thing then, if a student comes to you and says, ‘What should I be focusing on?’” asked David.

“Digital literacy”, said Jason. “For my students, we still teach analogue drawing; we’re teaching traditional processes. And we treat AI as just another paradigm shift, another tool, effectively.”

The key is to “understand the limitations of that tool in its current form”, he added. AI is currently limited, Jason believes, though AGI - Artificial General Intelligence - described by Google as: a hypothetical type of AI that can understand, learn, and apply knowledge across any intellectual task at a human or superhuman level. Unlike current "narrow" AI, which excels at specific tasks, AGI would possess generalisation, common sense, and autonomous problem-solving capabilities - will change the landscape yet again.

“AI in its current form isn’t as intelligent as the way human brains are today.” - Jason Taylor

On the point about digital literacy, David asked “what should people be focusing on – because it’s not just LLMs (Large Language Models such as ChatGPT) is it?”

Jason said there are “two schools of thought”. There’s the traditional side of skills – such as what the Manchester School of Architecture BA students are taught: technical drawing, building information modelling – “the kind of skills you want your graduates joining you in practice to have”, commented Jason.

But in terms of AI “sitting on top of that”, Jason said, “it’s understanding that AI is a multimodal system. It’s not just an LLM. It’s not just ChatGPT or Claude. It’s image-based visualisation… it’s video-based stuff. We’re now getting to the point where some of our students are using Grasshopper inside Rhino, which is fantastic, I’ve been teaching that for years, but they’re now using AI within Grasshopper. They’re feeding it things like building information, UK planning regs, building regs, RIBA stages of work, and they’re using that to make informed design decisions as part of their design process.”

With this in mind, “What are humans adding to the process?” David asked.

Being human

“AI shouldn’t replace human thought”, Jason replied. “AI is good at looking at data and crunching numbers, and it’s good at knowing if something’s efficient, reducing redundancy. But it can’t necessarily tell us how things feel, or what’s good for the culture of an environment. It can’t really understand the arts, for instance.”

Phil agreed, highlighting that architects, in particular, are well-placed in a technologically advancing world. “Architecture lives as a profession at the overlap of multiple disciplines. What that means is: every single person in this room, if you declare yourself as being an architect, by definition you are polymathic; good at many skills. That’s what AI is good at as well: it’s good at many skills.

“If you want to survive, you need to lean in on that ‘polymathicism’, if there is such a word. Being a specialist is probably a sure-fire way to extinction, because the AIs will replicate it before you, if they’re not doing it already.

“The other thing Jason has mentioned is the one thing we need to focus on more than ever: being human. Because AIs are not human, and there are qualities that we inherently have as biological beings that AI does not have, qualities like empathy, kinship, appreciation, brotherhood, sympathy. All of those things can be emulated by an AI, but they’re not for real. And you can certainly spot them.”

Providing the specific example of supplier-client relationships, Phil commented, “you’ll never get an AI to do that properly. Never, ever. Because people don’t buy off the back of a contract. Real work is won on a golf course. It’s about human contact. The sociological stuff. Waking up in the morning and making a phone call to somebody. That’s where the magic is.”

In this way both AI and humans have their place, Phil believes. And by bringing both elements together, that’s the “sweet spot”. “AI with the very essence of humanity, that’s your sweet spot. In two words, that’s what I call professional practice”, Phil added.

To add, Jason said, “critical thought” is where “we really differentiate between human thinking and AI thinking.”

At this point the danger of deep fakes was brought up in the conversation. AI can now produce video that looks so real, it’s being accepted as authentically legitimate by even the most discerning of social media users.

“A big part of what we will need to teach students in future is how to think much more critically and how to verify the authenticity of what they are seeing. A good example is the deepfake video showing Neil deGrasse Tyson saying the Earth is flat: someone most people would regard as a credible and authoritative source, but the video itself was fabricated. That is exactly why critical thinking and source verification will become such important skills in an AI-shaped world.”

“Think in the gaps. Find the crack, widen it. That’s what we should be doing with AI”, Phil said.

“There’s a lot of stuff that’s obvious about AI”, Phil continued. “If you want to be really, really clever with AI, you’ve got to look at the stuff that’s non-obvious. Don’t ever prompt an AI cold; you’re just wasting your time.

“What I do is: I never ask an AI a question. I always give it the answer and I say, ‘What have I missed?’ And that spirals you off into a whole universe of stuff which is filling in the spaces in my personal inadequacy.

“If you do it properly - predicate it properly - and with mathematics, you can get answers back which are enlightened, controlled, pinpointed, professional.”

Where’s the value?

“Where in the workplace lifecycle will AI create real value?” David asked.

For Jason, the real value of AI lies in helping architects deal with complexity and information at scale. “That could mean handling large datasets, interpreting client information, finding patterns in surveys, or supporting analysis across the workplace lifecycle. Its real contribution is not just reducing repetitive tasks, but strengthening the evidence base for better design decisions.”

“Then we should critically analyse what that AI tells us as a result”, added Phil. “And this is the big point: give it the stuff you don’t want to do, or that takes a lot of time, but then critically analyse it. Be a human. To give you that time to focus on what it is you want to do.”

Phil said this can be considered in two words: “menial and monotonous”.

“AI is good at everything. So it can augment and improve at every point in the traditional work cycle,” continued Phil. “You need to make AI good at the things that you’re not good at. You need to decide where in your work cycle you’ve got weak points, use AI to help you analyse where you’re weak, and then try to get it to augment in areas where you are inefficient.”

In short, Phil suggests, “getting AI to do what you cannot, and to bring out the best in you.”

To do this, Phil encouraged the audience to get AI to “assess what you’re not good at” by, quite literally asking it, “What am I not good at?”

Ascending ordinary

The conversation on AI in the workplace can sometimes feel one-note. AI can rewrite your emails. It can make the minutes at meetings. It can organise your diary. But for Phil, if we look at that bigger picture, it is capable of so much more than that. And as Jason alluded to earlier, magic can be made when humans and AI join forces for more than the mundane.

Speaking of Material Source Studio Manchester, where this session was held, Phil likened the wealth of inspiration on offer to “the type of thing that AI is blisteringly good at” – offering inspiration.

“There are some materials out there [in the Studio] I would never have imagined in a million years existed. But if you were to walk into that space out there and go, ‘I’ve got one of these things and I’ve got one of those things - what happens if I bring them together?’ AI is trained on such a breadth and depth of experience and knowledge now, that if it doesn’t come up with something you haven’t thought about, you haven’t asked the question properly.

“You could walk out there with an AI, and it will create miracles before you. That’s a super, super powerful environment, because catalysing inspiration will take you to places you’ve never been before.”

In this way, we must “push AI – not just accept what it spits out”, said Phil. “The mundane type of stuff won’t bother us. Ask it to write a tender. Then ask it what’s missing. Or what the client’s missed. Then ask it to write a second submission that tells the client where they could have been better, and you can reply with something different to every other architect or supplier that’s going to contribute as well.”

From the audience, Milan Cvetkovic, Sales Director, Agua Fabrics, asked a question to the panel, “My sense is that technology, AI, the internet, is actually enfeebling humanity, because it’s making things easy. So my opinion is that those that retain core human skills, high emotional IQ, the ability to take in lots of data and analyse it, will succeed. They will become highly sought after. Do you agree?

“Yes and no”, responded Phil. “We need to be careful with that. The best way I’ve ever heard it described is something called 'Metaman'.

“If you look at evolution on the planet: first, the first stage of evolution is we went from chemical soup into single-cell organisms. Then there was a mega jump forward where single-cell organisms evolved into multi-cellular organisms, of which we are probably the pinnacle example today.

“There are a lot of theorists saying we’re now at the next major jump in evolution: we’re moving to be a multi-cellular organism, in other words, planet-scale. The planet is thinking on its own.

“We’ve seen examples of that: the Arab Spring, overthrowing regimes. If you look at it at the 'Metaman' level, the cumulative effect of every single human mind with all technologies within reach and every capability, we are about to ascend into a hyper-intelligence like we have never seen before.

“So at the plural level for humanity, this is a big deal. What it means at the singular level is the obtuse/acute. Probably, at the individual level, I would worry about kids today who’ve got their head buried in social media, or who are screaming at ChatGPT to get their homework done. What’s that going to do to them and their lives? In some cases, it’ll be devastating.

“But at the opposite end of the scale: it’s an easy bet that we’re going to cure cancer within 20 years. It’s a matter of which one do you want, ladies and gentlemen?”

“Does AI block the imagination?” asked Vian Hussein, Interior Designer, Fidget.

“Really good question - I think it comes back to how you approach the use of AI”, replied Jason.

“For our students, we say: you can use it for initial elements of design thinking - design ideation. Because it’s not much different than looking at magazines. For those elements where you’re looking for inspiration, design is inspired by design, I think it’s ok. But then the problem is having that student or designer tearing that design apart and understanding it…”

...“This is where the subject of authorship comes in, isn’t it?” suggested David.

Jason raised the issue of dataset ethics and authorship, referencing 'Adobe Firefly' as part of a wider debate in architecture and design. He noted that early concerns focused on copyrighted material being used without permission and on outputs echoing individual designers’ visual languages, but stressed that Adobe has since done significant work to move Firefly towards ethically trained data.

John Blakeman, Founder, JB-ID, asked a question on this point: “With Adobe coming under scrutiny for having scraped information from people - that is happening on pretty much every single API that’s out there now, and there’s no legal action, or very little. Why?”

“There is legal action, but it is very slow to materialise,” responded Jason. “The difficulty is that AI systems and data centres are distributed globally and governed by different legal frameworks, which makes it extremely hard to enforce clear restrictions on AI generation.”

Phil likened the situation to Pandora’s box. “It’s all out of the bag now. We can’t put it back in.”

Malissa Geersing, Senior Project Designer, Mather & Co, has encountered this type of activity within the profession. “Can a creator still call themselves a creative if, technically, it’s AI that’s created the work?” she asked the panel.

Jason mentioned collages, “I’m sure all of you remember back to architecture school: you had to make an architectural collage. You’re chopping up other pieces of work to make something new. Now, if you chop something up enough to constitute a new body of work, the original person does not retain authorship for that - the new person does. That’s the way copyright law defines a new body of work. Same as if you take a photo of a building: is it the architect of the building that owns it or the photographer? Same concept.

“So when it comes to AI, it comes down to: where was that data coming from? What is that AI powered on? Is it an ethically trained dataset? Is it open-source imagery? What stage of the design process - thought process - did that person apply AI? Has it come up with initial ideas and then they worked into it further, or did they apply it at the end stage?”

For the Manchester School of Architecture students, it’s about critical thinking, Jason shared, “We don’t let them just type in a text prompt, generate an image, and submit it, because there’s no critical thinking there. If a student has done a sketch, brings that in, uses an AI to get the structure of what they’ve designed, and then applies stylisation, well, that’s not much different to rendering.”

“It’s not always cut and dry. Some designers can use AI and still be classed as designers, absolutely. It’s just using it ethically.” – Jason Taylor

Phil said, we must not “confuse effect with cause” – “Please don’t confuse the machinery with the need for the machinery in the first place.

“This thing about abstraction and standing back, being multiple boxes away to understand the problem properly, I would like to think that traits like inspiration and artistry are entirely human. They stand apart from the tools that can replicate the capability.

“The individual, the professional who came up with the thought to create the art in the first place is the artist, not the machinery that was used to follow through on that request.

“That’s a very subtle separation of concerns, and that type of abstract consideration is going to become fundamental to professions like architecture in the future.

“John asked about copyright and lawsuits. It upsets me, because the honest answer is: shit happens. Greed gets in the way. And what you’re looking at is a different case of ‘shit happens.’ But as professionals, if you can stand away from it and say, ‘The real problem is not the surface presentation; it’s the root of the surface presentation,’ then you are properly in the zone. It’s nasty when it’s happening, but it’s not the real problem.”

Another’s perspective

“When clients say, ‘I want an AI-enabled workplace,’ what should our audience think?”, David asked.

“Firstly, if that client were to feed that question into an AI, it would get a very efficient response. The AI would probably understand straight away what it thinks the person is asking for, and most likely will get it completely wrong”, said Jason.

“And this is why we train as architects and designers, because it’s our responsibility to translate what that client is asking”, he added.

“If I were that client asking all of you individually, ‘How could you design me an AI-enabled workplace?’, how would you interpret what I’m thinking?

“As I said earlier, AI is multimodal. Are we talking the Internet of Things? Are we talking thermal comfort? Are we talking the way it’s designed, the way it looks? Information. What is an AI-enabled workplace these days?”

…“That’s the key question - it deserves a question back”, continued Phil.

“It comes back to the point that Jason raised. You can interpret that question in multiple ways. But if you go in at the menial level - the monotonous and the mediocre - if what they’re really asking for is, ‘Can you take out all the stuff that we don’t really want to do?’ then yes: you can do that tomorrow.

“But as an architect, I would say: ‘Do you want us to elevate it to the next level? Are you after the capability to allow AI to elevate your excellence?’ That’s a different conversation.”

Alison Tordoff, Fidget, asked, “Do you think AI will ever be able to manage a project from start to finish?”

“The technical answer is that AI is lousy at planning at the moment”, responded Phil. “And most of the stuff that happens in projects isn’t mechanics. It’s human.”

“AI can’t manage things going wrong on site, can it?” prompted David.

“It can’t”, said Phil. “Now, having said that, the flip side of the coin is: the professional process of planning is mechanical. It’s Gantt charts, etc. If you prompt an AI properly now, you can get it to plan for you. But is it responding in the way that we, as professionals, would consider to be professional? That’s another question.”

Phil commented, “like all these things with AI, it’s a yes and a no answer. It’s about the context within which you ask the question, and the way you want the replies back. Multiple skins of the onion.”

“Everybody’s got to up their game - not just architecture, but you name it. Any white-collar job you can think of: the game’s just changed.” - Phil Tetlow

“AI isn’t a fad. This is a tsunami that’s hitting us all, and it will affect every aspect of our lives. This is the real deal,” said Phil.

“I completely agree. Like the rise of the calculator, AI is another tool and another paradigm shift that is here to stay, but what makes this one significant is that it begins to affect not just production, but the design thinking process itself.”

As the session drew to a close, for now, David asked two of our audience members for their top takeaways from the discussion.

For Craig Mitchell, Workplace Design Manager, Government Property Agency, it was “AI needs to be negotiated, and we are the polymathic custodians of our realm”, that he believed were key.

"Don't let it saturate your work; understand new ways to address the upcoming lack of human face-to-face experience; enhance critical thinking; and give AI your redundant tasks but analyse them”, were some of the other points he raised.

For Tom Prendergast, Director & Architect, Bosca Design, the focus going forward should be to understand “how AI will impact on the next generation.”

Though time had beaten us and the conversation was brought to a pause, AI will continue to be a focus for our upcoming roundtable session in Manchester – stay tuned for the key talking points from that next week. And at our seminar in London on 7 May. Get your ticket here.

In the meantime, a huge thanks to our guests for joining us and asking enlightening questions, to our brilliant panel for their insight shared, and to our supporters for this event: Agua Fabrics, Autex Acoustics, sixteen3 – all Partners at Material Source Studio Manchester.

Something to add? Let us know on LinkedIn.

Top takeaways at a glance

• Don't worry but be awake to the scale of change.
• AI is not novelty, but it is reshaping architectural practice. Those who intelligently engage will have a clear advantage.
• As routine production becomes more automated, human value shifts upwards towards judgement.
• The real question is one of control: design cognition, judgement, and authorship remain central. Whether intelligence is human, artificial, or hybrid, the future belongs to those who can 'direct' it rather than simply 'react' to it.

Through our workshop, the latest addition in the Material Moods set, we asked both design professionals and emerging next generation designers to interpret 'belonging', translating it through creative expression into a palette for an interior design scheme.

What became clear through each team's interpretation is that belonging has an individual meaning to us all. It might be an enablement of self-expression and individuality. Perhaps it's encouraging community and a sense of familiarity. Ultimately, belonging is a sensation that we believe can be nurtured in design. On the day of our workshop, a sense of it in practice could physically be felt in the room. And this empowered the people within to craft 10 very different narratives – no two the same.

Though for some teams, a link to nature through the selection of neutral tones was favoured, for others tactility, warmth, and texture took the fore.

Take a deep dive into our group's interpretations and resulting creative expressions...

Louise Grimes, Director, M1NT Studio & Delaney Arias, Student, University of Salford

A hospitality scheme designed around the use of Autex Acoustics’ panels, Louise and Delaney set out to create a space that felt simultaneously rich and restorative.

Their concept balances the need for both sociable and solitary spaces - designing environments that are warm and inviting for connection, while also offering quieter pockets for reflection. Softness is central to their design thinking: the selected textures feel approachable.

The result is a palette that wraps occupants in comfort, fostering the kind of ease in which genuine human connection can take place.

Sarah Syson, Director, Claremont & Jacob Bennett, Student, University of Salford

Belonging, in its most primal sense, is a survival instinct - a deeply ingrained human need to be part of a tribe and to feel secure within a group. Sarah and Jacob’s palette for the workplace responds to that impulse through material truth.

Earthy browns, sage greens, and grounding neutrals recall the natural world from which we all originate. Surfaces that feel instinctively familiar, unforced, and honest. The result is a workplace that doesn't perform belonging; it simply evokes it, cocooning occupants in the tones and textures of somewhere we have always, collectively, called home.

Quentin Petrykowski, Design Manager, Claremont & Tasnia Islam, Student, University of Salford

‘Unity’ and ‘functional comfort’ are how team members Quentin and Tasnia described ‘belonging’. For them, it’s a meeting point of inclusivity, comfort, and function. Their palette positions depth over delicacy, rich, dark natural tones are layered with matte Paperstone surfaces and stone-textured finishes. "We need to be mindful of the certain functionality of a space, while bringing in softer and more comfortable tones. Belonging is functional comfort."

Amy Ackerley, Senior Interior Designer, BDP & Amelia Tillott, Student, MMU

The natural world is the one environment we all have in common - and it is from here that Amy and Amelia’s palette takes its creative cues. Built from the ground up with flooring as its foundation, earthy muted tones are lifted by natural greens and purples, with tactile surfaces that mirror what might be found outside. Inclusive by instinct and familiar by nature - this is a palette that quietly aspires to work for everyone.

"Belonging is a sense of comfort. It's also inclusivity - catering for lots of different types of people from different backgrounds, and making sure that all users of the space feel comfortable using it, and feel like they can express themselves."

Andrew Murray, Senior Interior Designer, 74 & Ella Neary, Student, University of Salford

Conceived from Ella’s final year project of a destination for cultural music exchange amongst migrants, this palette is both conceptually and practically comforting. Considering different cultural perspectives of colour, deep and inviting blues and greens were chosen to craft the space, interlaced with a tactile mix of glazed and terrazzo tiles, real wood flooring, wallpaper, and soft upholstery. Each material is chosen to feel welcoming.

Even the tile profiles are deliberate: curves are selected over hard edges for softness. A palette designed to make everyone - from every background - feel at home.

Ellen Findley, Interior Designer, Sheila Bird & Emily Oakes, Student, MMU

‘Nostalgia’ and ‘like-mindedness’ shaped how Ellen and Emily responded to ‘belonging’. Looking outward before looking in, the team have taken inspiration from Manchester's architectural heritage to inform a retail concept rooted in its location.

Heritage coloured tiles from Parkside Architectural Tiles - some sourced locally from Preston - form the backbone of a palette that is sympathetic to existing facades and the city's material history.

Drawing the street into the space through colour, texture, and material honesty, ILIV's products become integral to this approach. Its heritage-inspired fabrics provide the connective tissue between the building's past and the interior's present.

Emily Adams, Interior Designer, KIN, Bethany Nixon, Interior Designer, KIN & Eleanor Candlish, Student, MMU

Design trio for the day, Emily, Bethany and Eleanor positioned their palette as a spatial metaphor for community itself. A neutral centre branches into three distinct zones, each with its own character, yet all bleeding seamlessly into one another - much like the individuals that make up a group.

Forbo's flooring solutions were pivotal to achieving this. Its multi-tonal specks carry colours across zones, merging spaces with quiet effortlessness.

The palette is simultaneously cohesive and individual, reflecting the team's core belief that belonging means having both a place in the collective and the freedom to stand apart. Texture and colour flow through the scheme like a shared language.

Sarah de Freitas, Creative Director, AXI & Sneha Nair, Student, MMU

Built on the premise that belonging doesn't require perfection, Sarah and Sneha’s palette embraces imperfect pairings of colour and material - each surface distinct, nonrepeating, yet collectively harmonious.

The palette is designed for an inviting hospitality bar and lounge scheme, interlaced with sustainable material choices. Warm amber-orange punctuates throughout, deepened by recurring purple accents, and grounded by creamy and earth-inspired neutrals.

Lucy Durkan, Associate Director, Chapman Taylor, Kirsty Barr, Interior Designer, Chapman Taylor & Niousha Mehran, Student, MMU

Grounded in Niousha’s university research into how people experience comfort, this palette was built with the restorative qualities of the natural world in mind. Warm timber flooring and charred timber cladding from Russwood were chosen specifically to counter the cold that metal and stark neutrals can impose.

Natural surfaces are a timeless backdrop that subconsciously signal safety and stability. A quietly generous palette that induces occupants to feel exactly where they are meant to be.

Saskia Taitt, Creative Director, Studio Taitt, Miles Taitt, Director, Studio Taitt, & Leila Ratcliffe, Student, University of Salford

Safety and warmth are Studio Taitt’s and next generation designer, Leila's conditions for evoking a sense of belonging - and this residential palette is built entirely with these in mind.

Beginning with a Muraspec mural wallcovering of a forest-scape with unfurling mountains, the scheme draws outward to wood tones, pale naturals, and the rusty warmth of autumn foliage. Flowing across three distinct spaces in the home, the palette is unified by the colours of seasonal changes.

Discover more on how the concept of belonging was interpreted by our group.

EDIB. Hidden behind the acronym, you will find Equity, Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging. All very human. Though acronymically, it can feel intimidating. Absent of the human touch that the words suggest, perhaps.

While our seminar and roundtable events have sought to find the true meaning of EDIB and the words encased within, for this dedicated workshop, the latest addition in the Material Moods set, we focused on how the feeling of 'belonging' might be interpreted, and creatively expressed by designers.

We brought together a mix of design professionals, ranging from individual practitioners to global firms, including 74, AXI, BDP, Chapman Taylor, Claremont, KIN, M1NT Studio, Sheila Bird and Studio Taitt, along with emerging, next generation designers from Manchester Metropolitan University and The University of Salford preparing to enter the sector through their first architectural and design roles, plus representatives from our Partner brands.

Together, we set out to explore how physical environments can influence human emotion, and what that sentiment might look like aesthetically. All had varied backgrounds and varied views. But all were given a common focus on which to collaborate on one level: to creatively interpret and express the concept of 'belonging'.

Here are some of the themes that emerged during our initial discussion on what belonging meant to the group...

Safety & comfort

Belonging begins with the body before it reaches the mind. When a space truly works, occupants feel an instinctive sense of security and ease the moment they cross the threshold - a quiet signal that this environment is not a threat. A successful space is simply somewhere you can "spend quite a lot of time in, without thinking about it too much", said Andrew Murray, senior interior designer, 74.

"Functional comfort" is how Quentin Petrykowski, design manager, Claremont, described 'belonging'. Comfort is the cumulative result of every material decision made in a room - and it is the non-negotiable foundation on which all other aspects of belonging are built.

Inclusivity & community

Inclusive design resists the idea of a default user, asking instead who might feel unseen or underserved - and designing outwards from that question. As put by Amy Ackerley, senior interior designer, BDP, 'belonging' means, "catering for lots of different types of people from different backgrounds, and ensuring all users of the space feel comfortable using it".

The most powerful spaces do not merely accommodate differences - they are shaped by them.

Authenticity & self-expression

'Belonging' is not about blending in. At its most meaningful, it is the freedom to be fully oneself within a shared environment. Belonging is "feeling that you can be yourself and stand out, as well as being involved in what everyone else is doing", commented Bethany Nixon, interior designer, KIN.

Spaces that foster authenticity offer variety and character that reflect the richness of the personalities occupying the space, rather than a single curated aesthetic.

Warmth & homeliness

There is a reason the word 'home' appeared frequently and perhaps instinctively when designers were asked to define 'belonging'. It is the environment against which all others are unconsciously measured.

Amelia Tillot, student, MMU, put forward her view that designing for a sense of homeliness comes through employing, "hand craftsmanship and surfaces that are inherently tactile". An atmosphere that feels inhabited rather than staged, the use of warm materials that call to human touch, are how our spaces can evoke a sense of homeliness. This kind of environment gives people permission to relax in a way that cooler, more clinical environments rarely do.

Nature

Humanity's relationship with the natural world runs deeper than aesthetics. Drawing on the shades and shapes that tap into a subconscious desire to be close to organic surroundings, Sarah Syson, director, Claremont, explained, "nature subconsciously gives a sense of belonging".

Familiarity & nostalgia

'Belonging' is often experienced as recognition - the feeling of encountering something that resonates with personal or collective memory. For Ellen Findley, interior designer, Sheila Bird, and Emily Oakes, student, MMU, belonging is sympathetic, nostalgic, and represents a feeling of likemindedness.

Designing with "heritage colours" and "being sympathetic to existing façades" were Ellen and Emily's methodology to honour the context a space inhabits. When a design acknowledges where it comes from, the people within it are more likely to feel that they belong there too.

Ease & effortlessness

Some of the most impressively designed spaces are the ones you stop noticing. When design is working at its highest level, occupants are simply present, unaware of the decisions that got them there.

'Belonging', according to Bethany Nixon, interior designer, KIN, Emily Adams, interior designer, KIN and Eleanor Candlish, student, MMU, "has a sense of ease about it" and allows "being able to be yourself and not put on a persona".

Stability

To belong somewhere is to feel that a space has permanence - that it existed before you arrived and will endure long after you leave.

As expressed by Kirsty Barr, interior designer, Chapman Taylor, "Something will come before you and something will come after you - the space is almost that steady ship beneath, and the people are what's transient within". Grounded design choices that resist trends and honest materials offer something increasingly rare: “the sense that you are exactly where you are meant to be”.

Click here to explore how these sentiments fuelled 10 creative expressions of 'belonging' using our Partner brands' products.

The new Tennessee Performing Arts Center (TPAC) - designed by BIG - Bjarke Ingels Group and William Rawn Associates (WRA) with HASTINGS Architecture - extends the vibrancy of downtown Nashville across the Cumberland River, emerging as a cultural anchor for the city's reenergised East Bank.

Designed to welcome the community from all sides, with the performance venues clustered at its core, the new TPAC supports a range of artistic programming while building upon Nashville’s rich legacy in the arts.

Situated on a waterfront site neighbouring Cumberland Park and the Tennessee Titans’ Nissan Stadium, the new TPAC includes four performance spaces - the multi-function Grand Broadway theatre; a dance and opera hall; a flexible black box theatre; and an intimate cabaret space - as well as rehearsal studios and classrooms. As TPAC transitions from its current location downtown, the 307,000-sq-ft centre will serve as the new home of the Nashville Ballet, Nashville Opera, and Nashville Repertory Theatre while creating venues for travelling Broadway shows, dance performances, and community events.

“This new centre represents the future of the performing arts in Nashville and across our state. For more than four decades, TPAC has brought world-class performances and transformative arts education programs to Tennesseans. Our new home will allow us to welcome more audiences, support more artists, and expand the impact of the performing arts in communities across Tennessee.” - Jennifer Turner, President & CEO, TPAC

“The new home for the Tennessee Performing Arts Center is designed like an urban and cultural connection – between the east and west bank of the Cumberland River, between the old and the new Nashville, and between all of the performing arts.

"Visually, it bookends Broadway as a beacon from across the river, drawing the cultural life of downtown across to the East Bank.

"Designed to be welcoming on all sides, the centre is accessible from above and below the bridge, making the lobby a cascading public space for the daily life of the neighbourhood."

"The façade is composed of aluminium tubes bundled like organ pipes or steel chimes, undulating from vertical to horizontal to provide openings and canopies for the audience and performers passing through. The result is like a flowing public pavilion in the park that, as the new home for TPAC, provides the inclusive and inviting character that its program and performances deserve.” - Bjarke Ingels, Founder & Creative Director, BIG

TPAC’s reflective metal facade, composed of an array of aluminium tubes, creates a dynamic, sculptural volume that looks different from every vantage point in the city. Taking cues from an undulating theatre curtain, the arches on the exterior lift to reveal the activity within.

Upon arrival, guests are welcomed by a light-filled atrium that draws the energy of the city inside. Two lobbies connect the performance spaces: the main lobby at street-level with views of the river and proposed waterfront park, and an elevated lobby fronting the landmark John Seigenthaler Pedestrian Bridge. A grand staircase, central lounge, and cascading concrete slabs invite patrons to congregate before, after, and in between performances – reinforcing TPAC’s role as a social gathering place within Nashville.

Within the Broadway Theatre, floating wood-clad ‘trays’ organise the seating into intimate clusters, each staggered in height for optimised sightlines. The opera and dance hall is designed to enhance the views of the dancers’ feet, while the balconies reinforce a visual continuity with the stage.

The Black Box Theatre places the audience directly in the performance, eliminating the proscenium ‘picture frame’ that traditionally outlines the stage and allowing for different seating configurations tailored to each production. The Cabaret features a stage that extends into the audience, creating an intimate atmosphere complemented by banquet-style seating.

“At the heart of TPAC’s new home, four venues will create uniquely memorable theatrical experiences, celebrating the ‘vibrancy of theatre in Music City.’ Each venue expresses its own personality while heightening audience experience and connection – an intimacy between performer and audience and a sense community among audiences of all ages.” - Cliff Gayley, Design Principal, WRA

A transparent rehearsal space offers visitors a glimpse behind the scenes, while a sensory room offers a calming environment during performances. Crowning the building, a roof terrace features sweeping views of Broadway, the Cumberland River, and the Nashville skyline.

Outdoor staircases connect TPAC to the river, integrating the centre into Nashville’s new East Bank district and enhancing connectivity with the city beyond. Landscape design by OLIN surrounds the building with diverse plant life and pockets for public outdoor performances, gathering spaces, and play groves.

"While typical performing arts centres have a clearly defined front and back, the site conditions of TPAC offer a unique opportunity to hide the back-of-house under the bridge, allowing the public space to surround the building on all sides. The dual entrances and wrap-around lobbies activate the entire perimeter - from ground level to bridge level - connecting audiences to the venue’s surroundings.

The halls are designed to accommodate a range of performances, with cascading mezzanines that connect the orchestra level to the balcony levels above. The central lobby will continuously pulse with energy, uniting patrons from different performances before and after each show." - Thomas Christoffersen, Partner, BIG

TPAC will join BIG’s growing portfolio of cultural projects, including the Hamburg State Opera, the Suzhou Museum of Contemporary Art in China, and the VLTAVA Philharmonic in Prague. Construction is expected to begin in 2027, with a projected opening in 2030.

Muse is a nationwide placemaker. Its whole ethos is built around long-term regeneration, with a simple aim: leave communities socially and economically better off than when it arrived. That long-term view, Stuart Rogers, national operations director, tells us, shapes everything.

Stuart was a panellist on our very first seminar at Material Source Studio Manchester 5-years’ ago. And his comments have never left us. An advocate for true sustainability, Stuart’s passion for innovative, future-facing materials, certifications and processes is palpable. When we first met, he highlighted graphene concrete.

And his recommendation for a material with untapped potential when we met this time, 5-years’ on? Timber. More on that to come.

As well as the sustainability of buildings, the sustainability of people is also extremely close to Stuart’s heart. He is a board member of the charity, LandAid, a fantastic organisation working to end youth homelessness in the UK.

With both ‘hats’ on as recently appointed operations director at Muse, and as LandAid board member, Stuart and I had a chat about how the constant thread of “leaving things better than when we found them” guides his (very busy) day-to-day.

“We’re not just delivering buildings. We’re trying to change places in a way that lasts”, began Stuart. “Sustainability sits right at the centre of that approach, but not in the narrow, headline-grabbing way the industry sometimes falls into.”

"The priority for us is creating sustainable communities, the buildings are only one part of the jigsaw"

Muse has, sometimes - potentially to its own detriment, Stuart says – been particularly humble about its achievements – “we obsess about delivering buildings, not just talking about delivering buildings”. Over the last few years, the developer (through its ECF joint venture partnership, with Legal and General, and Homes England) has delivered some truly exciting projects, including Eden, New Bailey, in Salford – “A place of firsts, it’s designed to achieve net zero carbon in operation, meaning a reduction on running costs of up to 60% compared to a Grade A office.” It’s a distinctive space in the city thanks to its living wall façade, the largest in Europe with 350,000 plants and 32 different species attracting birds, bees, and bugs to support biodiversity. There’s also Greenhaus nearby, comprising sustainable, accessible, and affordable eco-friendly homes.

Just two examples of how Muse’s dedication to sustainability works in practice, there are countless others, Stuart explains Muse’s approach is set out in an internal framework called Our Sustainable Future, developed in 2021 and applied across every project in the portfolio.

“It’s managed with proper oversight, and the key point is this - it isn’t just about carbon. The framework is built around five pillars; net zero carbon, social value, health and well-being, nature, and circular economy. Under each pillar there are mandatory KPIs, with a baseline threshold, a desired target, and a stretch target. Then beneath that is a deeper layer of best-practice metrics - usually 11 or 12 measures under each heading - so projects can be assessed with real data, not just good intentions. That data is captured across projects nationwide, which means lessons are shared and decisions can be made with evidence”, Stuart shares.

The standards are deliberately high. In fact, Stuart said that since 2021, Muse hasn’t hit its aspirations on everything on a single project - because the bar is set above common industry benchmarks.

The mindset is honest: “if you push hard and get close, you’ve done a really good job”. It’s a culture of admitting where you fall short, learning, and improving every time, rather than pretending everything is perfect.

That expectation is set from day one. “Consultants, partners, councils, and contractors inherit the sustainability approach through the brief, and contractors take on contractual responsibilities tied to whatever targets are appropriate for that scheme.”

Crucially, Muse likes sustainability that can be proven. That’s why third-party certification matters, things like Passivhaus, BREEAM, Home Quality Mark, NABERS, and high EPC targets. Not because badges are “trendy”, but “because certification forces you to prove performance instead of relying on marketing.”

“Greenwashing is one of my biggest frustrations”

“Greenwashing is one of my biggest frustrations”, commented Stuart “You see hoardings claiming, ‘net zero from day one’ or ‘the first ever zero carbon building,’ and often it’s just a slogan. Muse’s preference is simple: don’t say it unless you can evidence it against a recognised standard, checked independently. If you’re serious about being responsible, proof matters.”

Speaking of the Eden scheme, Stuart said, “We wanted to deliver higher sustainability standards than ever before for a new build office, but there was a fixed budget. Instead of simply adding cost, the challenge became: achieve the target and find the savings elsewhere. That created a practical feedback loop; questioning materials, stripping back what wasn’t needed, and improving what mattered. It also created real learning, especially around air tightness and how one design decision can affect other outcomes like ventilation and health.”

This consideration of people is central to Muse’s sustainability approach, Stuart adds. Providing genuine, tangible benefits that make a difference to the way someone lives.

“On Greenhaus, an average 68% reduction in energy bill costs wasn’t just a claim - it was real-world impact for residents. And when the homes are affordable, that impact matters even more. Lower bills put money back in people’s pockets, especially for people who need it most. It’s the difference between just getting by and having room to breathe. Sometimes it’s the difference between relying on a food bank and being able to afford the bus to a training course that leads to a job. Those ripple effects are huge, even if they’re hard to measure.”

Tracking energy is one thing, monitoring equipment can do that. Tracking the full economic impact is much harder, Stuart said. “There are models and reports that estimate long-term value, but it’s difficult to fully trust headline numbers because assumptions can be stretched.

“In the end, the most ‘real’ evidence often comes through people’s stories: the resident who’s moved into stable housing, the person who’s gained independence, the family who’s able to plan ahead. That kind of change doesn’t always fit into a KPI, but it’s the whole point of the work.”

What’s also striking, Stuart noted, is how innovation spreads when you treat it as shared learning.

“Greenhaus wasn’t originally an ECF-led brief, it came from a partner pushing for high-density Passivhaus, which was rare at the time. But once the team leaned in, it became a teaching project. People on site took ownership of quality in a very practical way, right down to making sure there were no gaps bigger than a few millimetres. Floors were air-tested as the building went up, not just at the end. The result wasn’t only better performance; it improved overall build quality and reduced the need for extra quality monitoring because the Passivhaus process demands that discipline anyway.”

That’s why “Passivhaus principles” without certification can be a problem, Stuart believes. Designing fabric-first is a good start, but if it isn’t verified through construction, “you can still end up with a performance gap”.

“Certification isn’t about being precious. It’s about making sure the people living there actually get what was promised.”

Zooming out, Stuart said that Muse’s view of sustainability is really “a view of what makes a place work over decades”. Mixed use helps, but not as a gimmick. The goal isn’t to force a building to be used 24 hours a day in a way that feels unnatural. The goal is a proper mixed-use community: a blend of homes, workspaces, hotels where needed, and crucially a mix of tenures: owner-occupied, build-to-rent, affordable, social, so the place doesn’t become segregated. “Ideally, you shouldn’t be able to tell who lives where. Everyone should feel like it’s for them.”

Because Muse projects often run for 15–20 years, the real test, Stuart shares, is what happens when Muse eventually steps back. “Does the community feel ownership? Do people feel stewardship? Have local people had opportunities because of the regeneration - jobs, skills, pathways into the industries being created on their doorstep? That’s the version of sustainability that lasts.”

“Need” is the anchor. Muse won’t build apartments just because it’s fashionable, or insert the same “market hall” idea into every town. Some places have a strong market heritage where a modern take can genuinely bring life back to the high street. Other places don’t. Same with hotels, offices, and different types of housing - it has to be based on what the area needs, not what makes the easiest business case in the short term.

That’s why early engagement matters. Muse does formal public consultation, but it also does what it calls “community conversations” from day zero, often even while bidding for work. The point is to listen before decisions become fixed. And that listening has real consequences: the first phase you assume will happen can change completely once you understand what the community actually needs.

Muse isn’t always arriving to “make” a place from scratch. It is a “place grower”, Stuart explained. “Most sites already have communities who are proud of where they live and understand what their area is missing. The job is to work with that, not over the top of it. It also means supporting local businesses where possible, especially independents who can easily be crushed by rents and rigid leasing terms.

"Sometimes the most useful thing a developer can do is listen, test ideas, and create conditions where local business can survive.”

Returning to a point made by Stuart at our first Material Source Studio seminar in 2022, on graphene concrete having massive untapped potential, I asked "what’s next?"

“Timber”, Stuart replied, “I love it.”

Having got a “fully designed up mass timber frame office”, which he worked on for St Helens 3-years’ ago, Stuart said the initial feedback he had internally was it would never get past the insurers. However, bringing insurers into the design process before planning, instead of hoping it worked out later, is a practical lesson that was learnt, and applies far beyond timber. Though the scheme is currently on ice, it’s a fully designed and deliverable scheme, Stuart said. And if it went ahead in the North West, it would be the first of its kind.

“The frustrating part is that viability can still stall good ideas: in some towns, office rents don’t currently support even a standard steel frame building, never mind an enhanced timber one. But building a proven, insurable model now means it can move to the right location when the opportunity comes.”

Alongside place-making, Stuart also has a strong commitment to helping people in immediate need, and that’s where LandAid comes in. For those who haven’t come across it, LandAid is a property industry charity tackling youth homelessness. Getting involved can start with something simple: sponsoring, donating, joining a team for a challenge, or turning up to events, but ‘the why’, Stuart says, is powerful once you hear the stories. A passionate sentiment shared by all those we’ve spoken to about LandAid over the last couple of years.

Stuart shares that the North West has already seen direct impact through projects supported by fundraising and gap funding, including new accommodation provision, Salford Foyer.

"It becomes impossible to shrug off as ‘someone else’s problem’"

“The bigger point is that youth homelessness is growing, and it can happen to anyone. One story shared by a young person, how quickly life can unravel through circumstances outside your control, can change how you see the issue forever. It becomes impossible to shrug off as ‘someone else’s problem’”, commented Stuart.

If you want to get involved, the simplest route is to connect directly with LandAid through its website (landaid.org.uk) or reach out to people already active in the cause such as Stuart.

Beyond LandAid, there’s a similar spirit in support for places like Salford Youth Zone, an incredible facility giving young people somewhere safe to go, learn, play sport, be creative, or simply breathe. “For some, it’s the difference between going home into pressure and walking into a space that supports them. Again, once you visit a place like that, it’s hard not to want to help.”

And while all of this is happening, the regeneration pipeline keeps moving. Across the North West and beyond, Muse is working on major long-term schemes: low-energy affordable housing projects through joint ventures, coastal regeneration opportunities like Marina Village in Barrow, big multi-phase regeneration at Salford Crescent, community-led projects like Prestwich Village, and large-scale town centre delivery like Oldham with thousands of new homes planned in a true mix of tenures.

Add in Stockport’s continued phases, industrial and logistics projects, and a national footprint that stretches into Yorkshire, the Midlands, London, and the South West, and you get a sense of the scale Muse works on.

“Not talking about delivery - actually delivering.”

What ties it all together, and perhaps summarises Stuart’s get-it-done attitude is a simple focus: delivery. “Not talking about delivery - actually delivering.”

That’s where reputation comes from in regeneration, Stuart adds, especially when you’re asking communities and public-sector partners to trust you over decades. “Do the work, prove the outcomes, share what you learn, and leave the place better than you found it.”

This was the question posed by AiM - the Architectural Index of Modelmaking, and MSA - Manchester Society of Architects, at the conclusive event of Making Matters: a month-long exhibition and programme of activities held at Material Source Studio Manchester, celebrating architectural modelmaking in all its exquisite artistry.

Having originally existed as an exhibition at the Venice Biennale, it was a real treat for UK architects and designers to have the chance to see an expanded version of the installation here in the North of England. Something AiM Founder Scott Miller and MSA President Simina Ionescu were mutually driven to make happen.

Ahead of the closing party, a dedicated roundtable brought together a group of wonderful minds from varying disciplines, including established and future modelmakers, academics and developers, to discuss the relevance of architectural models, and the skills used to craft them, in a contemporary, ever-more digitally reliant world.

The energy in the room was that which you only get when passionate people gather to discuss a topic that’s symbiotically meaningful to them. And though the conversation took many twists and turns, one common thread existed throughout.

Thinking through making

Modelmaking is tactile, a bit unpredictable, and full of small surprises, the group agreed. People cut, fold, build, experiment, get things wrong, adapt, and learn. And there’s something in that hands-on process that doesn’t translate fully on a screen. Not because digital tools aren’t powerful – it was suggested that they are - but because making with your hands forces you to face gravity, tolerances, material behaviour, and real-world messiness. It’s not just about producing a final object. It’s about "thinking through making", shared the group.

"Is modelmaking still a vital and inclusive driver of architecture culture, or are we at risk of losing it as AI and digital workflows accelerate?"

The discussion pushed beyond nostalgia. This wasn’t 'models are lovely, computers are bad.' The bigger question that was set out to explore was: is modelmaking still a vital and inclusive driver of architecture culture, or are we at risk of losing it as AI and digital workflows accelerate? And when 'modelmaking' was said, it wasn’t just in reference to the polished showcase piece. It meant process models, context models, quick tests, rough prototypes, the half-built thing on a desk that, Simina said, “often sparks the best conversations in the studio”.

A wealth of experience

The wealth of experience expressed by those around the table reflected how wide this topic really is, with many facets and aspects of appeal, both personal and professional.

Catalina Cheptene, Undergraduate, Manchester School of Architecture, openly admitted she used to hate modelmaking back in school, until university turned it into “something calming, almost like unwinding in studio.”

Anna Gidman, Architect, Educator & Climate Action Leader, who heads up the degree at Manchester School of Architecture and also works with the Architects Climate Action Network’s Natural Materials Group, believes modelmaking is a crucial aspect of the architecture syllabus.

Writer Phil Griffin, a long-time observer of architectural modelmaking, shared a deep interest in how different people relate to models - not just "architects talking to architects".

Simina Ionescu, Senior Architect at OMI and recently appointed MSA President, traced her own modelmaking journey back to the B.15 Modelmaking Workshop (which Scott heads up) and the push to normalise it in practice (including 3D printing) even when people have sometimes needed convincing.

Stephen McCusker, a Lecturer and Practitioner, described making early on, drifting away from it in practice, and then coming back to it because something "felt that it was missing".

Scott Miller, Founder, AiM, trained commercially as a modelmaker and now runs B.15 Modelmaking Workshop, describing this whole Making Matters project as a response to frustration: “too much of the profession is screen-based, and craft skills deserve more visibility, more respect, and more room to shape design culture.”

Awais Shahid, Founder & Director, Atzaro Real Estate, brought a developer’s, and for many in the room, client-side view. For him, models help to see massing, detail, and context quickly, and they can be a powerful tool when presenting to planners.

Cassidy Wingrove, Associate and In-House Modelmaker, FCB Studios, spoke from a place many in the sector would envy: he makes models all day. His background spans set design for theatre, and stop motion animation, as well as product design and, now, architecture.

Richard Youel, a specialist Modelmaker who runs Studio Youel, supports practices with models when they don’t have the facilities or the in-house expertise to make them, both process models and presentation models.

Senior Architect and University Tutor, Adam Plastow joined from WW+P Architects to share his experience from leading the practice’s Manchester studio model shop. Adam also shared a personal passion for carpentry.

Hanif Shah, a BA2 Architecture Undergraduate at Salford School of Architecture, possesses a deep-seated interest in human connection in architecture, with modelmaking "coalescing through the core of each project as an iterative and investigative process."

Laura Sanderson, Architect, Educator and Creative, has seen, throughout her career, the benefit of modelmaking, especially when working with the community. Laura referenced in particular, her work with children and young people, who seemed to take to modelmaking as a way to express their ideas more quickly than drawing. 

Instinct has led Eleanor Swire, Mistry Swire Architects, to ensure modelmaking has been built into her own practice as a constant for every project. Something that's quite unique, the group believed.

All joined Chair of the session, Shaun Jenkins, Head of Architecture, J2, in an open, candid discussion.

Inherently human

To begin, Shaun asked a warm-up question, which was intentionally human, "what’s one way model making still excites you?"

The answers pointed to something bigger than technique. People talked about the model as a magnet in the studio. “Put even a rough model on a plinth and suddenly everyone gathers around, talking in a way they don’t when they’re behind screens. It becomes a shared focus, a way of making conversation happen naturally. And in an industry where people often work in silence like 'medieval scriptoriums,' that matters more than we admit.”

"It becomes a shared focus, a way of making conversation happen naturally."

Phil challenged the guests to discuss something potentially uncomfortable: even when models bring people together, are we still mostly just architects talking to architects? He believes models should travel, to move into other spheres, to bring in engineers, M&E teams, wider communities, and anyone else affected by what gets built.

Scott responded, “Plan drawings can shut people out unless you’re trained to read them. A model is different. You can put it in front of anyone, and they can engage instantly. It doesn’t require translation in the same way.”

The “anyone can engage” theme was consistent. Eleanor described using models in domestic projects where clients will live in the spaces being designed. "When clients can pick up a model, hold it, turn it, and point at it, they gain control. They stop feeling like architecture is something being done to them."

Laura added another layer, "Children often model faster than they draw because they’re less self-conscious. Give them 'junk' materials and they’ll build something architectural, quickly." In that sense, model making can be both fast and slow at the same time - fast to visualise and test an idea, slow enough to make you enjoy thinking again.

The conversation then moved into culture: “When do practices decide to make models, and is it inclusive?”, asked Shaun.

A spectrum of modelmaking

Eleanor spoke about the spectrum that exists for modelmaking, starting with a context model, and then using scraps of card to test ideas, right through to presentation models. At OMI, Simina described a shift: models aren’t only for the final reveal anymore. Faster fabrication methods and iteration (often via 3D printing) are bringing models into earlier design stages, including meetings where several iterations sit side-by-side so everyone can compare angles and massing properly.

Awais offered a contextual reality check, "Models can help win work", he said. He described a pitch situation where one architectural practice arrived with a physical 3D model, and it became the thing that sold the scheme compared to other bids that stayed on PDFs and early CGIs.

But he also laid out the tension that hangs over all of this, "time costs money, fees are tight, and if modelmaking becomes a premium add-on, it can affect competitiveness". He values models, but he also has to watch the bottom line, and he said it plainly, "unless clients are willing to pay for it, the economics can push modelmaking out."

"Unless clients are willing to pay for it, the economics can push modelmaking out."

That led to an important point that not every practice, or architect, needs to work the same way. Some architects sketch, some paint, some model, some do all of it. Phil reminded us that even Norman Foster won competitions with a handful of watercolour drawings. Others build their thinking through physical making. The message wasn’t “one true method.” It was plural - different tools work for different people, and the best approach is often a mix.

Education came into the spotlight next. Catalina spoke about peer pressure, "students sometimes feel pushed to have the best Rhino model or the slickest digital output, even if that isn’t their natural way of thinking." She described starting her first MSA project by going to B.15 Modelmaking Workshop and feeling like physical model skills changed how people saw her work. More importantly, she pointed out the learning difference. "When something fails in a model, you understand why, be it gravity, structure, material behaviour. When something fails in software, sometimes you only learn that you don’t know the correct command yet."

Others concurred, the best design tutorials often happen with models on the table. Screens can make a tutor feel like they’re being dragged around someone else’s viewpoint (“left a bit, up a bit, back a bit”), shared Anna.

“A physical model is direct. You point, you discuss, you test options fast. It also helps with confidence. People can be scared of workshops, especially post-pandemic, but the work students produced at home during lockdown proved something: you don’t always need perfect facilities. Necessity can make people more inventive", she added.

Equitable tools

This is where access and fairness came in. Laura raised the risk of inequality, “not everyone can afford expensive materials or equipment which means we need to constantly push back against the idea that you can only make great models if you can afford it” … “and beautiful models can hide weak architecture if we’re not careful," continued Awais.

"Some of the best models come from cheap materials," suggested Hanif. Cereal boxes, scraps, found objects, anything salvaged. Adam described running “dumpster dive models” in studio: no new materials allowed, just whatever you can find. "Suddenly, those who were afraid to ruin nice card became fearless, and their ideas took shape quickly."

“You don't need money to make good models.”

For parity, this point around whether models can be deceptive was further probed. “A beautiful, handcrafted model can present a building as more refined than it will be on-site, was the response. Materials change, budgets shift, planning alters the scheme”, commented Awais. That’s not an argument against models, he added, it’s a reminder to be honest about what a model is for. Is it to test massing? Explain circulation? Explore structure? Sell a vision? If you’re clear on the “why,” the model becomes a strong tool instead of a shiny distraction.

From there, the conversation naturally landed in the digital future: AI, renders, rapid prototyping, and whether any of it threatens professional model makers? Richard made a strong case that some practices and clients still want warmth, weight, imperfections, and real material presence, qualities that are hard to replicate digitally. He also stressed that models and visuals are usually a package: "drawings, renders, and models working together, each speaking to different audiences."

In-house, he’d seen how model making can drive design itself, not just represent it. He described a project where an evolving physical model helped a client understand the design so deeply that it became an emotional turning point “once they saw it, they broke down in tears."

Some of the strange side effects of AI in design workflows were highlighted. AI can generate images fast, but those images often don’t resolve like real architecture. You zoom in and the logic breaks. That can push teams towards more conceptual physical models because the details aren’t trustworthy yet. At the same time, the group was clear - AI and digital tools aren’t going anywhere. They’re another set of tools, like the laser cutter, CNC router, or 3D printer. "The danger isn’t that they exist," said Scott, "it’s the mindset that says new tools mean old ones must be thrown away."

An honest practice

One of the points of the night that truly resonated with all was related to honesty. A physical model is constrained by reality - gravity, structure, thickness, connection. A CGI can become pure marketing if nobody is careful, especially in planning contexts where non-technical decision-makers may focus on a single flattering image. Models can help ground those conversations, especially when context matters - shadow, height, massing, and how a building sits in its surroundings. And when you’re dealing with tall buildings, interchangeable model components can make options feel real in a way that other mediums can't.

Still, modelmaking wasn't heralded as the answer to everything. Phil warned against ‘fetishising’ the process. Turning modelmaking into pure craft rather than a useful option. "Not everyone is comfortable making things with their hands, and not every good building comes from a model." The key takeaways were to keep the option alive, keep the craft visible, and don’t lose the learning that happens when ideas are tested in the physical world.

"Keep the option alive, keep the craft visible, and don’t lose the learning..."

The night ended where it began: with community. The roundtable was never meant to produce a final verdict on whether modelmaking 'wins' against digital tools. But rather it was meant to keep the conversation moving across many disciplines. That’s the real future-proofing. Not choosing one tool forever, but building a culture where making, testing, failing, adapting, and sharing are still normal.

From Manchester to Venice and back again, Making Matters is really about that; keeping architecture human, collaborative, and hands-on, even as our screens get increasingly smarter.

If you'd like to get involved in future exhibitions by the AiM, visit the-aim.co.uk. MSA is keeping the model conversation going through its introduction of a dedicated Modelmaking Award at this year’s MSA Awards, more details can be found here.

Katy Ghahremani's career trajectory reads like the wish list of an undergraduate architect. From a Part One role at Future Systems during the recession of the 1990s (at the time the practice was bidding for the Tate Modern), to a stint at Enric Miralles' office in Barcelona, followed by Foster + Partners, and then joining at the start of Make Architects in 2004 along with the brilliant Ken Shuttleworth, it's safe to say Katy has a wealth of experience.

When speaking to Katy it's impossible not to feel enlightened. EDIB means a lot to her personally and professionally. It's clear that she truly loves distilling this experience she's built up over her time with the aforementioned practices to share with the younger generations of architects and interior designers coming up.

It's also no coincidence that Make gives opportunities to Part One and Two architects rather than "parachuting in senior people." A nurturing, supportive thread runs right through the organisation. This energy is palpable when you walk through the door, descending the ramp lined with architectural models, into a vast, open plan space whose previous life was an old NCP carpark that Make's founder Ken and the team repurposed themselves. Once inside, the environment is a collaborative one. Everywhere you look task chairs are gathered around drawings, models and materials, with people of all seniorities busily chatting away. It's a joy to see. More a live workshop environment than what you might expect of a traditional architecture practice.

Katy's support of young people similarly extends to her work with universities such as UCL. This is in addition to advisory, trustee and board roles for the London Property Association; the Built Environment Trust; and the Westminster Design Review panel.

Having recently spent a very enjoyable hour with Katy at Make's HQ to chat about how EDIB relates to both practice and projects, we were keen to share our conversation with you. Here's how it went...

Can we talk through your career to-date?

“I did my degree in Edinburgh. And when I did my Part One, we were right in the middle of a massive recession here in the '90s. A lot of my friends were going to either Berlin or Hong Kong, and I actually managed to get a job at Future Systems, which was unbelievable at the time. I was so happy. There were only 4 of us, including Jan [Kaplický] and Amanda [Levete]. So that was a really amazing experience because that was at the time they were doing the competition for the Tate Modern. Just mind-blowing.

“During the recession, RIBA said that you could do Erasmus as part of your Part One work experience. So the University arranged for me to go to Barcelona for a year. This was transformative in terms of working in practice. It was post-Olympics, just as the city had completely reinvented itself. I had the opportunity at the end of my semester in Barcelona to work at Enric Miralles' office for a couple of months as well. An amazing year out.

“When I came back, I did my diploma at the Bartlett, which was fantastic. Then I got a job at Foster + Partners, where I worked for 7 years with Ken [Shuttleworth]. One of the key projects we worked on together was Electronic Arts' (EA) European headquarters in Chertsey, Surrey. I loved working with such a dynamic company doing architecture and interior design. And I think that’s where my love of interiors really began.

“When Ken decided to leave Foster + Partners and set up Make Architects, I thought it would be great to join him – it was a very exciting time. I’ve been with Make since the beginning in 2004.”

What an incredible wealth of experience! During your 22-years at Make, how has your role changed?

“When we started, we were a very young company. A lot of us were the same age in our 30s. We’ve grown up with the practice. I was made director 10-years ago, which was an honour and a privilege. I was really pleased to be asked. My role has changed, but everyone’s has in a way as we’ve gained more experience.

“I've leaned into my interests in interiors for hospitality and residential, which has been a lot of fun because those sectors are really changing as well.”

What does your day-to-day look like?

“Every day is different! It's really good fun. I may have external meetings - I'm usually working on multiple projects, so there'll be client meetings that I need to go to. It’s great to have physical, real-life meetings back, but of course there are a lot of Teams meetings, particularly with our global clients. This morning we were on a call with Beijing.

“The other side of my role is to support the teams here. That might be doing a design review or supporting in relation to a specific challenge in terms of working with consultants or clients. It might be a design challenge, but it's also sometimes thinking more broadly about how you move a project forwards. It’s not just the design. We need to think a little bit more strategically.”

With your passion for architecture and interiors in mind, how do you consider the two on projects?

“Historically, design was seamless. Think about Frank Lloyd Wright. You started with the architecture masterplan, then you did the interiors and you might even do some pieces of furniture to go in there as well. In more contemporary times, we split it all out. But I actually think design is design. It's all about scale. So, you do need to have an understanding of both scales. A scale that works at architecture does not work at interiors and vice versa. My favourite projects are the ones that we do all the way from the outset all the way through to the styling elements, because actually, those are really important to bring a space to life.

“Having said that, we don't always have the opportunity. It's quite rare to have the opportunity to go all the way from the outset through to those little moments. So we're really happy to work collaboratively. We’ve done both, where we've done the architecture and then collaborated with an interior designer to do the interiors, or we've been the interior designer and worked with the architect.

“We've also done a couple of projects where the scope has been split between two different interior designers. So, although we're designing different areas, it's within the same building, so there needs to be collaboration there to create a more holistic experience. In workplace, or wherever that may be.”

Are there ever any challenges with collaborating in this way?

“It all depends on how the team gels together. I think if the team is really respectful of one another, you can actually get so much more out of it, and that's whether it's an internal team or whether it's a team of lots of different companies. It's about the individuals at the end of the day, the people within that team.”

You’ve been involved with many award-winning projects, such as Temple House, Nobu, and recently Hornsey Town Hall – all very different. Does your approach change depending on the sector?

“I think that there is a commonality to the projects, which is not about style or design. It's much more about looking at a proposition, whether it's a building or a site or whatever it is, and asking, where are the opportunities? How do we create emotion? What are the spaces, and what are the uses? It’s always really great to work with the person who's going to be bringing that building to life, and by that, I mean, for example, on Hornsey Town Hall, we worked very closely with the operator who was going to be managing the space – that’s not the client.

“On Temple House, we worked directly with the hotelier because he was the one with the vision. It's about working with the end user, to really have a vision, and then it's about how we deliver that vision.

“Once you have the vision for what the building is going to be and how it's going to feel and be used, it's then about flexibility. And the design flows out of that. And it doesn't matter if it's new build, or if it's heritage. The same applies.”

How do you go about researching what the end users want?

“For Hornsey Town Hall, we did a lot of consultation work. It’s really important on a project to consult with the community. But they cannot tell you what they want if they haven’t seen it. They need to respond to something. We worked with a lot of specific groups within the community, such as the Crouch End Festival and the Creative Arts Trust – those that would be delivering events and experiences in the community region.”

EDIB is one of your passions – firstly, can I ask how you’d refer to it?

“We call it EDI, and I think the new B Corp term is JEDI – Justice, Equality, Diversity and Inclusion. For me, the term isn't important. It's the meaning behind it.”

What does the sentiment mean to you?

“I think it’s really important because the wider the team, the better the outcome. It kind of goes without saying in a way, because if you have different ways of looking at something, you’ll logically get a better outcome as you've explored more viewpoints.

“It’s obviously a massive subject, but it starts with how we position ourselves externally, so when people are applying to jobs here they can see that there are people like them. Role models are really, really important. For you to see yourself reflected in an organisation is important. All the way through to how we then put teams together, to then understanding that from a diversity, inclusion, and neurodiversity perspective, as everybody's got different strengths. We want to enable people to be the best version of themselves, rather than putting them into positions where they’re set up to fail. That’s not productive for anyone. As well as that, it’s providing support to create a sense of belonging. So people feel part of a team and don’t feel isolated.”

This feeling is palpable when you walk through the door, with people huddled around drawings, chatting, and discussing plans and models. You can’t fake that, can you?

“You can’t. And as an employer we’re really transparent. Everybody’s aware of everything. On a personal level I’ve become more and more interested in this as a topic, beyond just the seven protective characteristics, as I have neurodivergent children. Seeing it from that side, I can understand which situations they thrive in, and which they don’t. It’s crucial we create spaces – and I don’t just mean physical spaces – where people can thrive.

“For client projects, it's about making sure that we are designing with variety and flexibility in mind, because what's right for one person is not right for another. Hospitality, in a way, has been doing this forever. Because if you go to a really great restaurant, for example, there are always the tables which are in little nooks and crannies where you can be away and it's quieter, and there are always the tables which are right in the middle of things which some people love to go and sit at.

“With hospitality, this has been about guest experience, and I think we're now beginning to bring it into workplace design and all of the other sectors.”

Is EDIB something that a client would bring up?

“It depends on the client. Sometimes we don't even bring it up. We just do it. I think it's about gauging whether the client is interested or not. For example, we did a workplace where the client was very aware that a large portion of their employees were neurodivergent because of the type of work they did. So they definitely wanted to make sure that the design catered for everyone. That was great as the client was invested. Some clients aren’t interested. Maybe because they think it’ll cost more. So in that case we’d just do it anyway. From our perspective, it’s better to get those principles into a scheme to make sure it’s really inclusive. That’s better for everyone.

“This is no different to where sustainability was 20 years ago when clients were like, ‘Well, why would I do that? It's going to cost me extra money.’ And so even then, we would do sustainability by stealth. But now it’s totally embedded. In another 10-15-years’ time, inclusive design will be too.

“We've been very good in the last decade to make sure physical accessibility is addressed, but there is more to do on the emotional and mental impact of your space.”

How do you measure EDIB and whether it's been successful in a space?

“We have done a post-occupancy study on some of our buildings, and quite a few of them we’ve commissioned, or the client has commissioned a third party. We like that, because it’s independent. So it’s without bias. Which can exist without us even realising, just from the questions we ask.

“The important thing is, having done the post occupancy, to feed it back to the team and to the studio so that it doesn't just sit on a shelf gathering dust. In any building, there's things to learn. Even if it's been successful, I'm sure that it's never perfect. Nothing's ever perfect. So how can we improve for the next project?”

You don’t really know how a space will be interacted with until there are people in it, do you? How do you feel about Cat A?

“We're taking some thinking from other sectors across into workplace, such as in the residential sector, we would give clients a choice in finishes i.e. it’s the same material but in different finishes. By putting certain aspects together, you can create a very different look. We don't do that in workplace. Why don't we give the tenants a choice in how their toilets will look, for example?”

Is there a golden rule for making spaces more inclusive?

“I think it's about not just having one space, because one space will only cater to one type of individual. It's always about having multiple experiences within the space. And usually, we're designing a building rather than just one space, so we're able to cater for that.

“We've got an in-house spatial psychologist, so we've been exploring what does belonging mean from a scientific perspective? How do we engender that? So it's about creating spaces where people can come together to connect with other like-minded people.”

You’re involved with universities including UCL. Do you think for the younger generations that EDIB is already ingrained in their minds?

“I think in a way it works the other way around now. Sometimes I've overheard students say, 'Oh, well, I don't want to be in that unit because all the tutors are white and male,' – it’s almost the inverse.

“When I was part of the RIBA Architects for Change group, we did quite a lot of research into professional drop-offs, looking particularly at gender and ethnicity. And it was at key stages - applying to university, and then actually going to study architecture, then at Part One, then coming back from Part One, then at Part Two people make specific choices. And I think that goes back to my point where if people can't see people like themselves ahead of them, they might change direction. So it's really about making sure that if you are a diverse organisation, you are portraying yourself so people can see it. Because if they don't see it, they don't know, and therefore they won't apply.

“I listened to a really interesting presentation by Black Females in Architecture just coming out of Covid, and there was a really powerful part where people were talking about their own personal experiences. It was completely anonymised, but somebody was reading it. The comment was ‘If I can't see that there's a black woman architect in this practice, I won’t even apply for a role there.’

“Things have changed radically; we mustn’t forget that. When I started in practice to now…the way contractors behaved around the table. There were no female clients. But we just need to keep going – we’ve still got a long way to go.”

What’s next for you?

“I love seeing my teams thrive doing projects, and just being there to catch them when they need that extra bit of support. We recruit a lot of Part One and Twos so they can grow with the practice, we don't parachute in senior people. And it’s the best thing watching somebody grow from when they're in their early 20s to then leading a meeting with a client. I'd like to be able to do more of that. And I also love doing all of my roles outside of the day job.

“I co-chair the EDI committee for London Property Association. I'm a trustee of the Built Environment Trust. I sit on the Westminster Design Review panel. I sit on the Industry Advisory Panel for UCL's Engineering and Architectural Design MEng course. All of these things which are external but tangential to the project work.

“They’re all great because I learn so much from everybody else around the table that I can bring back to practice. That dialogue is really fascinating for me.”

New for 2026, Material Source Studio London is an exhibition venue at Clerkenwell Design Week (19-21 May).

Over the 3-day programme, we're hosting 30+ events, from workshops to seminars, tastings to making.

You can explore exhibits from 23+ world-class built environment brands - our Material Source Studio London Partners.

We're exhibiting 100+ regenerative material innovations from around the globe with some never-before-seen installations - more details on those to follow.

And this is all within 1 inspirational destination, located just a 1-minute walk from Farringdon Station in the heart of Clerkenwell.

To help you plan your visit to 120 Saffron Hill next month, here are some useful links:

• What's On during CDW 2026 - Discover all the events happening here at the Studio with links to book your tickets

• Discover our Partners - Explore the brands you can get to know better during CDW and beyond

• Check out our Future Materials Library™ - With an evolving roster of hundreds of material innovators

• Meet, Work, Browse - Here's a snapshot of what you can do here at the Studio as an architect, interior designer or property professional - during CDW, but also every week following - our usual opening hours are Monday-Friday, 9am-5pm

• Sign up for Clerkenwell Design Week 2026 - If you're not yet signed up, get your free festival ticket here

More details of our programme will be unveiled over the coming weeks - stay tuned to our site and social channels.

ILIV's launch of the Tofino collection bolsters its portfolio of faux leather fabric options.

Combining refined aesthetics with high-performance functionality, Tofino comprises "a premium woven-look faux leather, expertly engineered through an intricate print and embossing process to create rich depth and texture, evoking the character of woven fabric while delivering exceptional durability."

Available in 14 colourways, Tofino achieves 300,000 Martindale rubs and meets leading FR standards, including BS5852, BS7176, IMO 8, and EN1021-1&2, shares ILIV.

Enhanced with ILIV's advanced Protect+ technology, Tofino is waterproof, stain-resistant and antimicrobial, with proven suitability for outdoor use, making it a dependable choice for high-traffic and multi-purpose environments.

Responsibly produced, halogen-free and vegan-friendly, Tofino is non-toxic and recyclable, reflecting ILIV's commitment to both performance and sustainability.

Explore the full collection with take away samples at all Material Source Studios in Manchester, Glasgow and London. Discover more here.

No.1 Ancoats Green is the first site to complete under This City, Manchester City Council’s housing development company.

The scheme, by Manchester-based Buttress Architects, delivers 119 thoughtfully designed apartments across two buildings, comprising 28 one-bedroom and 91 two-bedroom homes, along with 10 contemporary townhouses – 8 with three bedrooms and 2 with four – carefully arranged to overlook a revitalised and expanded Ancoats Green. 30% of the homes will be made available at the Manchester Living Rent, ensuring that the development is affordable as well as high quality.

Jasper Sanders + Partners was appointed directly by Buttress Architects to design and deliver the scheme’s resident amenity spaces, which are located on the ground and first floors of Alabaster House, and to curate a cohesive interior specification for both the apartments and townhouses. The goal was to ensure a high-quality, unified living environment across the development, aligned with the project’s strong commitment to delivering meaningful social value with sustainable credentials.

Cllr Gavin White, Manchester City Council’s executive member for housing and development, said: “Completing No1 Ancoats Green is an exciting milestone for This City. I’ve been following the progress of this development from the beginning and it’s brilliant to start welcoming residents into their new, quality homes. With the newly refurbished Ancoats Green and the city centre on the doorstep, this is surely one of the most attractive developments on offer right now. And importantly, 30% of these homes are genuinely affordable and capped at the Manchester Living Rent meaning as many people as possible in the city can access them.”

The project forms part of a broader public realm strategy that positions Ancoats as a low-carbon, sustainable neighbourhood, with a strong emphasis on active travel, walking, and cycling. Essential to the design is ensuring that the development contributes to Manchester’s 2038 Zero Carbon ambitions by providing well-insulated homes that will lower energy costs for residents. An extensive landscape scheme and a significant number of new trees have been planted as part of the placemaking public realm works, whilst the townhouses also include a parking space with electric vehicle charging points, and private gardens to the rear.

“A key urban design aim was to connect the development to the surrounding neighbourhood and establish a relationship with the nearby Miles Platting and Ancoats Green”, Ben Tabiner, director at Buttress Architects commented. “To achieve this, the apartment blocks are arranged on either side of a new green street, creating a strong connection across the site and encouraging movement through the area and beyond. The scheme’s material palette takes cues from the immediate neighbourhood of Ancoats, adopting a palette of red brickwork in complementary tones, whilst also recognising the transitional nature of the site.”

The amenity interiors were developed in direct response to This City’s overall brief, with the studio undertaking a detailed analysis of both ground and first floor layouts to accommodate the required functions. On the ground floor, a generously-scaled residents’ lounge - flooded with natural light - occupies a double-height space designed for lounging, casual coffee breaks, and informal social interaction. Above, the mezzanine level provides quieter, more focused settings tailored to home working.

These workspaces overlook the vibrant activity below and enjoy expansive views across Ancoats Green, reinforcing the interior’s connection to its natural surroundings. The result is a welcoming, healthy environment that encourages social interaction, fosters a sense of community, and feels both grounded and uplifted by its relationship with the landscape.

“The interior scheme draws inspiration from the wildflower gardens of Ancoats Green, visible through the amenity’s two-storey glazed façade” Rebecca Finney, creative director of Jasper Sanders + Partners, explained. “Subtle, grounded hues evoke a sensory connection with the surrounding landscape. The palette is warm and inviting, yet purposefully avoids predictability through distinctive tonal combinations - rich claret, soft cornflower blue, buttery cream, and shaded taupe with undertones of khaki.”

A considered mix of stained timbers, metals, and woollen fabrics enhances the space’s tactility, with longevity and functionality central to its design. Together, these elements form an interior language that is both thoughtful and unexpectedly vibrant, while remaining closely aligned with the architectural character and broader context of the site.

No.1 Ancoats Green is said to mark a vital milestone in the evolution of affordable housing in Manchester, setting a new benchmark for future development. As a key urban connector between the neighbourhoods of Miles Platting and Ancoats Green, the project helps to establish a richer, more vibrant sense of place for the local community. Beyond its architectural and urban contribution, it is rooted in the ambition to improve the everyday lives of the individuals and families who will call it home.

“We wanted the apartments to feel instantly warm and safe, somewhere to settle” Jasper Sanders, director of Jasper Sanders + Partners, concluded. “The amenity space though brings a more expressive energy - a calm hub with places to focus, connect, or simply breathe. It’s a great place to live.”

The new London headquarters of music copyright specialists Ice Services has been transformed by award-winning creative consultancy Motive as a brand-led workplace rooted in purpose, culture and collaboration.

Located at Devonshire Square on the City Fringe, the project builds on an existing fit-out by Hop Interiors and translates Ice Services’ mission — by songwriters, for songwriters — into a tangible, story-led environment designed to support both focus and connection.

Ice Services is known for combining highly complex music copyright technology with a warm, people-first culture and a distinctive sense of humour. While the wider brand was still evolving, the company had a clear understanding of its values, enabling Motive to translate those principles into physical form through narrative, craft and detail.

At the heart of the office is Ice’s Greatest Hits — a bespoke installation created from staff-submitted favourite albums. Reimagined CD covers replace artist names with employee names, and album titles with job roles; celebrating individuality while acting as a shared cultural reference point. Drawing attention to personal favourites from across the team, the installation has become a focal point for conversation and debate throughout the workspace.

Relationships sit at the core of Ice Services’ work, reflected outside the boardroom where key strategic partners are displayed in translucent, ice-like resin blocks. The pieces offer a playful nod to the company’s love of wordplay and its flagship technology platform, Cube, and have become emblematic of the space — with CEO Peter de Mönnink even bringing one into a company-wide meeting as a point of pride.

Bespoke artworks designed by Motive line the hallways, reinforcing Ice’s founding purpose. Inspired by album liner notes and inner record sleeves — the often-overlooked feature where artists reflect on their creative process — the framed works feature b-roll imagery from classic records, with hand-written stories applied directly onto the glass. The approach references the origin of every licensed song: ideas formed with pen in hand before becoming protected data.

Two hand-painted murals frame the open-plan workspace in a monochromatic palette. Undulating wave forms echo audio recordings as they move through platforms and gates, mirroring Ice’s copyright technology where music is translated into data. Subtle references to code are embedded within the artwork — a level of detail that reflects the company’s technical precision.

In quieter working booths, framed artworks created from streaming data visualise Ice’s most-played tracks, translating global listening figures into graphic compositions. Songs by artists including The Weeknd and Ariana Grande become infographics, reflecting Ice Services’ unique multi-regional offering.

“Ice’s dedication to honouring the songwriter provided a powerful focus for the bespoke installations. Exploring the relationship between company culture and the birth and journey of a song led to some genuinely inventive ideas. We’re delighted with the outcome and with how seamlessly the artworks integrate into the existing sleek space.” - Rob Venice, Founder and Creative Director, Motive

“During our recent office move, bringing genuine art and personality into the space was a key priority for us, so we wanted to work with someone we could trust to deliver that. Motive did exactly that. Rob took the time to understand our brand and presented a creative approach we could adapt to our budget — collaborative and refreshingly flexible." - Stella Comninos, Senior Executive Assistant, Ice Services

The result is a workplace that supports Ice Services’ rhythm of work while clearly expressing its purpose, values and culture, using mediums that provoke conversation and unity. Functional yet expressive, the space tells a story of collaboration, creativity and belonging — shaped by the people and music it exists to protect.

As we shift our editorial and events focus from EDIB and inclusive design to the non-human sphere of artificial intelligence, we're taking some time to consider the collaboration between people and technology. In this case, with a particular emphasis on how machines are supporting humans to meet the very real climate-related challenges we collectively face.

Leading the way in embracing technology, craft and human skill to harness the potential of natural materials is Columbia University's Natural Materials Lab.

Founded by Lola Ben-Alon, Assistant Professor at Columbia GSAPP, the direction of the Natural Materials Lab and the Building Science and Technology curriculum are under her expert charge.

Lola specialises in earth- and bio-based building materials, their life cycle, supply chains, fabrication techniques, and policy. She received her Ph.D. from the School of Architecture at Carnegie Mellon University, and holds a B.S. in Structural Engineering and M.S. in Construction Management from the Technion, Israel Institute of Technology.

After spotting a clear synergy between the work of the Natural Materials Lab and the ethos of Material Source Studio to champion innovation from embryonic stage up, Lola got in touch to share more insight into the work of the University, and to explain how new technological tools, including AI and 3D printing, are helping enhance making processes for greater planetary consideration.

This truly is fascinating stuff...

Firstly, can you please introduce us to the Natural Materials Lab?

"The Natural Materials Lab at Columbia GSAPP is a unique, trans-disciplinary, and dirty lab space. We combine low-tech machinery and digital fabrication with raw, earth, and fibre-based building materials across all scales—from the microscopic behaviour of a soil binder to the macroscopic impact of a full-scale building.

"We often describe the lab as a ‘dirty’ place, and I say that with a lot of pride. Unlike traditional scientific labs that prioritise sanitised, sterile environments, our lab is filled with the smell of earthly materials and it offers multiple tactile engagement possibilities. We are sifting soils, mixing recipes, and experimenting with ‘primal binders.’

"We act a bit like chefs; we develop material recipes, test them, and iterate constantly to see how we can transition the building sector away from ‘frozen,’ static assemblages toward materials that are living, breathing, and circular."

What drove you to founding it?

"My career has been a series of hairpin turns. I grew up in a small town near an arid landscape, where questions of material scarcity and environmental conditions were ever-present. While I was always drawn to design, a scholarship in structural engineering at the Technion provided a technical foundation that would later inform my approach to architecture. Parallel to my engineering studies, I embarked on a three-year program in Curatorial and Exhibition Design, which taught me to understand materials not only as structural components, but as vessels for narrative and public engagement.

"This duality—the technical and the curatorial—culminated in a Master's thesis focused on computation and construction management, and ultimately in a PhD at Carnegie Mellon University, through which architecture emerged as a synthesised trajectory that brought these domains into a shared framework, challenging how we think about the material ground itself. What really drove me was a hunger to understand the disconnect between how we build and how the earth works.

"During my PhD, I traveled to DIY workshops to learn rammed earth, cob, and light-straw clay. I realised that you can’t truly own earth materials—the techniques are so accessible and primal that they belong to everyone’s ancestry. I wanted to create a space that validates these ancient, low-carbon traditions through the lens of modern engineering and digital technology."

Who's involved? And how does it connect with the University on a wider scale?

"I direct the lab and we have a team that ranges between 10-15 people, composed of a diverse group of post-doctoral researchers, graduate students, and lab assistants, from fields including architecture and design, but also engineering, environmental science, curatorial practices, cinematic studies, and more. So backgrounds ranging from environmental politics to textile design.

"The Lab is a highly collaborative ecosystem. Within GSAPP and across Columbia University, we are deeply integrated into the wider community and collaborative efforts. We work closely with the Columbia Climate School and the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, where we’ve actually built physical installations. We also collaborate with the Preservation Technology Lab because, to move forward, we have to understand the history of how we once built without burning materials, before the era of high-heat industrial processing."

Can you tell us about some of your current projects?

"We have several parallel tracks running right now:

• 3D-Printed Earth-Fibre Basketry: An active research track exploring rope-like earth-fibre composites that reinterpret traditional basketry through contemporary additive manufacturing.

• Earthen Rituals: A major project focusing on AI-generated earthen bricks and complex geometries, featured in high-profile 2025 exhibitions.

• Muddy Makings – Natural Materials in Digital Commons: A 2025 project/workshop series focused on reconciling natural materials with digital commons and fabrication.

• BioMud Fabric & Heated Garments: Recent and active experimentation into all-natural soil-based textiles and wearable thermal earth garments.

• Grounded Chairs: Development of 100% organic, biodegradable, and thermally-regulated seating systems."

What does sustainability mean to you?

"To me, sustainability isn’t just a carbon metric or a LEED certificate. It’s about metabolic sustenance, labor equity, and community solidarity. It’s asking: 'How can the act of building support the people who shape the materials?'

"If a material can't eventually return to the earth without harm, is it truly sustainable?"

"It means seeing buildings not as objects but as unending flows of matter and energy that are forever tethered to the places they were borrowed from."

What materials have you found the most untapped potential with?

"We’ve been looking at everything from straw and hemp to more ‘forgotten’ fibres like banana fibre and dung. In our research on 3D-printed earth, we’ve found that by maximising fibre content, moving from the 2% fibre found in traditional cob to 64% volumetric fibre in our ‘light straw clay’, we can create materials that aren't just structural, but have incredible thermal insulation properties."

Are there any materials you feel have potential yet to be harnessed?

"Most modern ‘earth’ construction uses a high percentage of cement to ‘stabilise’ it, which defeats the environmental purpose. The real untapped potential lies in raw earth, using the natural chemistry of clays and the mechanical interlocking of fibres to create durability without the carbon footprint of chemical additives."

What's the aim of the Natural Materials Lab? What do you hope to achieve?

"The aim is to imagine and invent socially equitable and ecologically sustainable futures. I hope to prove that natural materials aren't just for small-scale DIY projects but are viable, high-performance solutions for the mass building sector. We want to bridge the gap between the high-tech world of digital fabrication and the low-tech wisdom of traditional craft."

You mention using digital/AI to support your work - are these emerging tools making your work easier?

"Yes, absolutely. We use robotic 3D printing and AI-generated design to explore geometries that would be impossible to achieve manually. But ‘easier’ is a tricky word. 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."

Do you think as our world becomes increasingly reliant on digital, a focus back on nature has never been more important?

"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.

"Our work tries to reconcile the two: using the digital to celebrate the natural, not to replace it."

"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."

For anyone interested in finding out more, where should they go?

"You can visit our website at Columbia GSAPP or our Instagram page: @naturalmaterialslab. We also frequently exhibit, we’ve recently had work at/in:

• La Biennale di Venezia (Venice, 2025) - Featuring the Earthen Rituals installation.
• Interview at The Architect's Rolodex - A Podcast by Cookfox
• Lola Ben-Alon of The Natural Materials Lab - Material Kitchens for Medicinal Bricks, The Architectural League of NY Prize
• Cooking with Clay - Natural Materials Lab’s Lola Ben-Alon encourages compassion for digitisation, Metropolis Magazine
• Columbia Professor Takes a Down-to-Earth Approach to Building Materials - BlueBeam Built Magazine

Can you tell us about any live built environment projects where the Lab's materials are being used?

"We continue to monitor our earlier ‘living laboratories’, such as the Farm to Building rammed-earth pavilion at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, which is an ongoing study of how raw earth weathers in the New York climate, and our Raw Earth Sgraffito Pavilion at Reid Hall in Paris, which explores urban bioclimatic cooling. These projects aren't just one-offs; they are long-term data sites for how natural materials perform in the real world."

Do you think the building sector is more open to the use of innovative materials than it was?

"We are at a turning point. The industry is waking up to the fact that concrete and steel are responsible for a massive portion of global emissions. However, the ‘one size fits all’ mindset is still a major barrier. The sector is opening up, but we need to update our building codes and regulatory frameworks to acknowledge that natural materials, if engineered correctly, are just as innovative as any synthetic product."

What's the most reassuring stat or find in the Lab's projects that gives hope for the future?

"One of our most exciting finds is that by switching to bio-based and natural materials, we can shift carbon emissions by approximately 60 years. Because these materials sequester carbon during their growth (like straw or hemp) and require almost no energy to process, they provide an immediate climate cooling effect that synthetic materials simply cannot match. Seeing that 64% fibre-mix hold its shape in a 3D printer for the first time gave us immense hope for high-performance, natural insulation."

What's next for Natural Materials Lab?

"We are moving toward upscaling. We want to take our ‘recipes’ out of the lab and into mass construction. We’re working on earth building codes analysis to help policy-makers understand how to permit these buildings. The future is about making the ‘dirty’ work of the lab the ‘clean’ standard for the city."

Cundall’s move into Bank House marks one of the most significant moments in the firm’s 50-year history.

The 10th floor of this new landmark building is now home to their global headquarters, a space that reimagines what a modern workplace can be. The firm helped design the Pilgrim Quarter redevelopment and has finally created a home within it, a full circle moment after decades working in the region.

From the earliest conversations, sustainability and wellbeing were not vague ambitions. They were required outcomes. Cundall wanted a workplace that would set a standard for future global offices. Biophilic design became one of the core pillars of that ambition and Benholm was chosen to deliver the planting approach that would make these goals real, visible and effective for everyday use.

“The design philosophy for the building was to create a space that would be focused on wellbeing for the staff, a space that gave elements of biophilic qualities, and created a variety of different work environments within the one office space.” - Eleanor Howe, Senior Interior Designer, Space Solutions

A comprehensive planting specification and positioning plan was developed for the project team, ensuring each species was selected and placed to complement lighting conditions, spatial flow and design intent. This level of detail allowed the planting to support wellbeing, zoning and visual harmony throughout the headquarters.

To help achieve Cundall’s vision for a flexible, people-centred workspace, Benholm introduced mobile planting dividers that bring greenery into the open-plan environment while shaping zones for collaboration, quiet work and social connection. These living features soften the interior architecture, improve acoustic comfort and create a restorative atmosphere that enhances staff wellbeing.

A key focal point in the reception area is the illuminated moss wall water feature with Cundall’s logo set into the glass. A continuous sheet of water runs down the surface, adding movement and reducing ambient noise. Behind the glass, a preserved Nordik Moss wall provides a natural, textured backdrop that reinforces the company’s commitment to sustainability and biophilic design. The surrounding planter is populated with robust species such as Dracaena, Aglaonema, Philodendron Congo and Asplenium, creating a structured landscape that enhances the impact of the feature as staff and visitors enter the workspace.

The biophilic language established at the entrance continues into the boardroom, where preserved moss forms a calming, textural wall that improves acoustics and softens the formality of the space.

Across the wider workspace, planting plays a central role in shaping Cundall’s collaborative, people-focused environment. Lush greenery is integrated throughout the social and cafe zones, softening architectural lines and creating inviting places for informal interaction. Bespoke planters define circulation routes and provide natural privacy around meeting rooms.

High-level planting and thoughtfully positioned dividers bring consistency to breakout spaces and encourage moments of pause and connection. In the open-plan desking areas, integrated planter units introduce calm, biophilic cues that support focus and wellbeing. Together, these planting solutions create a cohesive, restorative workplace that reflects Cundall’s commitment to sustainable design.

The installation phase was carefully planned and executed to meet the deadline for the grand opening, with Benholm's team delivering and positioning all planting with precision and sensitivity to the final interior finishes. This ensured the workspace launched exactly as envisioned, with lush, fully established greenery enhancing every area.

Benholm continues to care for all live displays with a comprehensive maintenance service including watering, feeding, trimming, pest management, cleaning, and free replacement of any declining plants. This means the planting will remain vibrant, healthy, and impactful long after installation, supporting long-term operational excellence in Cundall’s headquarters.

Cundall Global HQ (Newcastle) has also been Shortlisted for a BCO Northern Regional Award in the "Fit Out of Workplace" category. Good luck to all the teams involved!

For more details of how Benholm can support in bringing your biophilic design vision to life, click here, or visit Material Source Studio Glasgow where Benholm is a Partner.

Milliken’s brand new capsule floor tile collection ‘The Sisal Edit’ draws its inspiration from the tactility and textures of plant fibres, in particular: sisal, seagrass, and jute. The collection is led by a natural aesthetic, neutral colours and biophilic design, but interpreted for more practical use in heavy wear environments such as the workplace or hospitality interiors.

The Sisal Edit has been created by the Milliken in-house design team and made from the company’s manufacturing plant in Wigan, UK. It celebrates the trend for natural fibres and softer colours (sun-washed and neutral, with chalky whites, warm oat, soft taupe and pale clay) in interior design. And reflects a shift toward a natural and tonal softness. This trend aligns perfectly with Sisal Edit’s muted and earthy colourways, offering designers a way to create calm, grounded spaces that feel special and comfortable.

The Sisal Edit has three designs: Looma, Zagora and Meela. In each a variety of weaves are used to create different textures, patterns and levels of durability. They all reinterpret organic textures for today’s work, public and living spaces. They offer both elegance and sophistication, paired with a refined tactile and textural appeal, resulting in a premium appearance while maintaining the highest standards of performance with sustainability.

A collection crafted for interiors that demand versatility and style while being heavily used, such as hospitality environments and build-to-rent apartments. The Sisal Edit delivers a high-end look and feel with the durability high-traffic spaces require. WellBAC® Comfort Plus cushion backing significantly improves underfoot comfort and acoustics.

It helps to create a quieter, more comfortable experience thanks to superior sound absorption and cushioned backing. By mitigating wear and tear, WellBAC® extends the lifespan of Milliken flooring, reducing its life cycle impact and makes re-use easier.

The optional addition of Milliken’s TractionBack® friction coating to the cushion backing enables glue free installation. Minimising waste and potentially harmful VOCs. Glue free installation also facilitates re-use of the carpet tiles.

A companion collection is also available, where budget is paramount, a 'value engineered interpretation': The Sisal Edit Retold – a lighter weight construction using Milliken’s WELLBAC® Comfort backing. Although less highly textured than The Sisal Edit a sense of depth and weight is created using Milliken’s patented Millitron® printing technology.

As with all Milliken flooring collections, sustainability is at its core - responsibly designed to meet today’s environmental standards, supporting green building schemes without compromising on design. The Sisal Edit is part of Milliken’s M/PACT™ programme which off-sets the full cradle-to-gate carbon footprint and is manufactured in Milliken’s UK manufacturing base certified to: ISO9001:2015 / ISO14001 / ISO45001 / ISO50001 using renewable electricity.

The recycled content of the Sisal Edit collection is 59% by total weight, and of the face fibre 100% Nylon including 40% ECONYL® recycled fibre. The backing has 95% recycled open cell polyurethane cushion backing. Sisal is certified Cradle to Cradle Silver, Declare Red List free, Indoor Air Quality — Certified for IAQ: CRI Green Label Plus and GUT.

Milliken & Company has been recognised with a 2025 EcoVadis Gold rating, placing the company among the top 5% of more than 150,000 organisations evaluated globally. This achievement reflects the company's strong performance in labour and human rights, environment, procurement practices, and ethics.

Find out more about Milliken's latest collections by clicking here, and by visiting Material Source Studio Manchester, where it is a Partner.

"Fred Perry belongs in and around Soho. From the mavericks and mods who wear it, to world famous jazz clubs and dive bars, to the brand’s former head office in Golden Square, the Laurel Wreath has always been found on these historic streets."

Legend has it that one night in the mid-sixties, troublemakers exiting the famous Flamingo club scaled a drainpipe and broke into the then local Fred Perry shop. They ignored the tennis goods and went straight for the new coloured shirts in bold colours with contrasting twin tipping in 5-4-4 ratio. The brand responded with a new direction, and the polite world of English lawn tennis could only look on in horror as their sport was mugged by youth culture.

Fred Perry stakes its claim to the streets of Soho with a new home on the corner of Lexington Street – a flagship location designed to marry a conceptual shopping experience with the legendary energy of the area and its significance to British music and art. Fred Perry partnered with longtime collaborators Brinkworth for a thoroughly modern take on its deep connection with Soho and its rich musical heritage. This is not just a shop: a meeting point for like-minded individuals and an event-ready space to celebrate all things Fred Perry as the company gears up for its 75th anniversary in 2027.

The store needed to be deeply rooted in the locale, whilst also speaking to all the diverse subcultures who have adopted the Laurel Leaf as their emblem, from Rudeboys to mods, Northern soul heads to rock-and-rollers. What unites them all is an attitude, which the new store has in spades, referencing past culture without ever collapsing into nostalgic clichés. Elevated design channels the ‘mod’ mindset of looking forward, in a fitting spatial expression for a British style icon.

“If music is the vehicle for culture, then here, we want it to guide us architecturally. Not in pastiche but inherently, subtly, beautifully” - Katie Pengilly, Associate Director, Brinkworth

Brinkworth worked with Fred Perry to develop the ‘BIG Sound’ concept, steering an architectural expression in which sound becomes a crafted element of the space. A range of design features take cues from vinyl and music culture, shaping the store's atmosphere and echoing the rhythm, energy, and heritage of Soho and Fred Perry. Fixtures reference sound system culture by imitating classic speaker cabinets, with Friendly Pressure providing bespoke audio equipment to soundtrack this new space for all occasions.

Another key musical touchstone that informs the overall store design is a very local bastion of live performance and a long-time partner of the brand: Oxford Street’s 100 Club. The independent venue’s fabled red paint and iconic photography from the many, many great nights shared together are replicated in the fitting room and at the cash desk. Nostalgic nods to one of London’s best-loved clubs intrigue and comfort the customer as they both try and buy the latest Fred Perry pieces.

The materials palette is softened and warmed, with rich reds, timber panelling and black wrinkle paint. Elements of the existing fixturing system are resampled. An archive wall on the first floor is a flexible place for brand storytelling, able to integrate digital and static graphics, light boxes and archival product, it’s an exhibition-style space for Fred Perry fans who have travelled to the brand’s spiritual home. A ‘shirt wall’ elevates the shirts as icons of youth culture. Display plinths and low product density allow for contemplation and appreciation.

In approaching the building, Brinkworth evaluated the existing store as a clear and workable shell, retaining architectural elements that could be reappropriated into the new design, much like Fred Perry’s continual adoption and reinterpretation by its cultural fringes.

The Laurel Leaf emblem is rendered here inventively and in large scale using neon as an artistic tribute to Soho’s colourful past. A giant white emblem illuminates a window in the Lexington Street facade, while a laurel infinity ceiling mirror uses blue glass to cast a colourful glow down the curved staircase.

A giant tennis ball makes a bold statement on the ground floor in a natural white, referencing a time before the demands of colour TV viewers led to balls being manufactured in yellow. Visible from the street, the sculptural piece captures the tension between the UK’s establishment and its rebellious youth cultures.

“For our Soho homecoming, we wanted to reference our history in the district and our subcultural heritage in a way that feels modern and relevant. We chose to work with Brinkworth as they ‘get’ our vision and can innovate and surprise while maintaining the continuity of our design language. Our Lexington Street shop is deeply rooted in place while also speaking to Fred Perry’s global fanbase in a way that they recognise and love.” - Richard Gilmore, Managing Director, Fred Perry

“As a brand, Fred Perry are up there with some of the clearest thinkers when it comes to what they stand for, which has always made it a joy working with them. The Soho flagship store speaks to the brand’s rich heritage in Soho and music culture, but balances nostalgia and with the 'mod' mindset of looking forward.” - Sonny Cant, Design Director, Brinkworth

Fred Perry Lexington Street is now open

Since January, we've hosted 7 events on the topic of Equity, Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging (EDIB). Comprising 3 seminars and 3 roundtables in Manchester, London and Glasgow, and 1 Material Moods workshop on Belonging in Manchester, we've gathered cross-regional insight, painting a detailed picture of what inclusive design means to the UK's built environment in 2026.

The information gleaned has been, in some cases, surprising. And in the majority of cases reassuring. EDIB is clearly moving up the agenda for designers and clients alike. It's been likened to sustainability 15-years ago, before it became 'a given'. We're on a journey. But that's a good thing. Though we've got a long way to go, progress is happening.

Widening our discussion on this topic, we've pulled together 40 Views from some of our guests and panellists at seminar and roundtable sessions, with additional commentary from our wider Studio communities. Read and watch their comments below...

What does EDIB mean to you/your practice/your clients?

Frances Phillips, Architect and Associate, BDP, part of the BDP Gender Equity Group, & Co-Founder, urbanistasNW

"It is important to recognise how societal influences shape our assumptions about others. Approaching situations with balance and curiosity helps challenge these preconceptions. Encouraging people from diverse backgrounds to enter the built environment professions brings a wider range of perspectives and lived experiences, strengthening our ability to understand different user needs and create richer and more inclusive design solutions.

"While broadening entry into the profession is essential, retention and progression are equally critical. Ensuring that a range of perspectives is represented at decision making level allows the profession to remain attuned to the social contexts it works within and to deliver designs that better reflect the needs of the communities they serve."

Stephanie Porfyriou, Project Architect, Architecture & Masterplanning, AtkinsRéalis

"EDIB means creating environments where people feel seen and heard. Early in my career, I often hesitated to speak up because English isn’t my first language, which taught me how transformative feeling confident to contribute can be. The AtkinsRéalis values guide my approach: Safety in building an atmosphere of trust, openness and respect, Integrity in doing the right thing and listening to every voice, Collaboration across diverse teams, Innovation shaped by different perspectives and Excellence in delivering people centred outcomes. These values ensure that inclusion isn’t an afterthought but embedded in how we design, communicate and engage with the communities we serve."

Stephanie Kyle, Associate & Inclusive Design Consultant, Floyd Slaski

“There’s a saying: don’t judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree. If we give everyone equal support – i.e. equality – we’re not playing to their strengths. But if we give people equity, we give support in different ways to level the playing field.”

Yan Wing Le, Director, Common Practice

"EDIB is deeply personal to me. My family arrived in the UK as refugees when I was three-months old. As a woman of colour from a low-income background I often felt I had to work twice as hard to progress in architecture. I loved the profession, but I didn’t always feel like I belonged. Now, as co-director and founder of my own practice, I’m in a position to shape a more equitable and inclusive workplace. I believe our differences enriches our thinking, and our varied cultural experiences are essential to creating built environments that truly serve and represent everyone."

Carmen Macri, Principal Mechanical Engineer, Property and Buildings – Building Services, WSP

"EDIB is about creating environments where everyone has fair access to opportunity, feels respected, and can meaningfully participate. At WSP, EDIB is embedded in how we design, collaborate, and deliver value to clients. It shapes our culture as much as our technical outputs, ensuring our work reflects the diversity of the communities it serves.

"For me, EDIB carries personal meaning and as someone originally from Bucharest, Romania, I have always felt included, valued and supported at WSP, which reinforces how powerful belonging can be.

"Clients increasingly expect evidence based, people centred approaches aligned with social value and inclusive design frameworks, and embedding EDIB helps us deliver better outcomes, stronger engagement, and places where more people can thrive."

Mark Bradshaw, Director, iPWC Ltd Workplace Consultants

“The key to designing for the future is to assume that everybody is different. But the only way to capture how to accommodate their requirements is to engage with the workforce. Not to work off a plain brief.”

Ray Pang, Co-Founder & Director, Match Lighting Studio

“EDIB for me, means designing for the people that are going to use the space. To give them that sense of belonging, that they can be there and be included.”

Gemma Copp, Project Architect, DMWR Architects

"For CHQ Group (including DMWR Architects Ltd), EDIB for us represents a commitment to creating a workplace where all our employees feel valued, supported and that they can contribute to the company and the work they do. For us it shapes how we collaborate internally but also externally on how we design projects for or clients ensuring our projects reflect a wide range of perspectives and ideas.

"We feel that this strengthens our culture by encouraging fairness, opportunities, and celebrating the diversity of backgrounds, skills and experience each of our employees brings to the team, while fostering a sense of belonging to help us thrive. Our approach enhances the quality of our work as inclusiveness leads to more thoughtful, responsive and great design outcomes, being an Employee Owned Trust supports our employees by allowing their influence and hard work to shape the company we are today."

Rob Venice, Founder and Creative, Motive

"Tenants come to Motive for the ‘I’ and the ‘B’, which in turn drives the ‘E’ and ‘D’. Today it’s not enough for offices to be purely functional or Instagrammable. Top tier workplaces need emotional depth, where people feel seen, take pride, and develop a sense of ownership.

"We work hard to truly understand who a client is, beyond their external brand, and translate those qualities into experiential design. Stepping into an office should consciously and subconsciously guide people through a company’s narrative and purpose. These defining design details create connection between a business and the people it wants to attract and keep."

George Gravil, Graduate Sustainability Engineer, Cundall

"EDIB is vital to my practice and role as a sustainability engineer, as I support clients around the world to achieve WELL v2 certification and WELL ratings. My team recently supported a client in the MENA region to achieve the WELL Equity rating, a symbol of an organisation’s commitment to inclusive design, employee health and EDIB. To me and my clients, EDIB is not only about inclusive design but also implementing policies and operational systems which are tailored to all. These must then be reviewed and verified through post-occupancy surveys to ensure they have made an impact on improving the health and wellbeing of employees."

Emily Adams, Interior Designer, Kin

"For me EDIB is about designing spaces where everyone feels genuinely comfortable, seen and welcome rather than just simply accommodated. If we’re responsible for shaping environments, why wouldn’t we want every end user to feel a sense of belonging? For that reason, it is embedded in my process from the outset. EDIB isn’t a tick box exercise, it’s a design mindset that influences spatial planning, circulation, materiality, lighting and acoustics. Considering diverse abilities, backgrounds and neurodiversity leads to richer, more thoughtful spaces for everyone. Inclusive design doesn’t dilute creativity - it strengthens it, by forming spaces that feel human, connected and purposeful."

Nick Walker, Director - Built Heritage & Townscape, Iceni Projects

Rachel Kerwin, Head of Property & Facilities, The AA

“I think people make EDIB too complex, why wouldn’t we just use a bit of considerate design so that everyone can use spaces in the same way?”

Nargis Treherne, Workplace Strategy & Design Lead, Deloitte

“To me, EDIB is about recognising that individuals will have different needs, and creating conditions that enable everybody to thrive and flourish in their own way.”

Ariane Sanders, Founder, Sonda Studio

"It is a way of thinking. It isn’t a checklist. Every person is unique, and that is something to celebrate. This is what Sonda Studio is built on. The word ‘sonder’ means recognising that everyone’s life is as complex as our own. I approach people, projects and life with space for the unknown, and curiosity to understand different narratives, perspectives and needs. This includes how people sense, process and feel within a space, understanding their lived experience and designing for that range. We should aim to create a sense of belonging, where inclusion becomes belonging."

Ashley Salmon, Founder/Creative Director, Zero Gravity Design

"EDIB is the difference between a workplace that looks good and one that genuinely works for everyone. Too many spaces are still designed around a narrow definition of the “typical” user, which means exclusion gets built in quietly: through layouts, lighting, acoustics, culture, and access. At Zero Gravity Design, inclusion isn’t a tick-box or a trend, it’s the baseline. Designing for accessibility, neurodiversity, dignity and belonging creates stronger teams, better wellbeing, and more resilient organisations. For our clients, EDIB isn’t about optics. It’s about people feeling safe, valued, and able to thrive. If people don’t feel they belong, the design has failed."

Carly Wise, Director, DOVE Interior Design

"To DOVE, EDIB is about designing homes that genuinely reflect and support the people who live in them. That can mean prioritising discretion for high-profile clients, creating prayer spaces with considered orientation and light, or tailoring schemes for neurodivergent users through calm palettes and reduced sensory stimulation. Accessibility is equally vital, from wheelchair circulation and worktop heights to intuitive layouts that support physical and mental wellbeing. We see inclusive design not as a trend, but as the foundation of good design, thoughtful problem-solving that results in spaces where every client, regardless of lifestyle or needs, feels comfortable, understood and at ease."

Thomas Parker-Register, Senior Architect, Ridge & Partners

“EDIB for me means there being an equal opportunity for everyone within a place. It’s about feeling like they belong in the same place - in one place.”

What are the key challenges in ensuring EDIB is supported and promoted in your day-to-day?

Matthew Gavin, Associate, Fletcher Rae Architects

"EDIB has become more complexed as we further our knowledge of human behaviour/physical and mental differences. How quickly this has changed presents a challenge to a society that is fixated on habits and unable to change as quickly as knowledge is learnt.

"Facing EDIB with a closed mind and unwilling to look from another person’s perspective, this could be down to how complex EDIB has become within society. People have become braver in speaking out about injustice, I feel this has created a scenario where people in power are scared to make changes or decisions through fear of being called out."

James Lait, Senior Interior Designer, SpaceInvader

"One of the key challenges in supporting EDIB is balancing diverse needs within a single space. Different users may respond very differently to lighting, acoustics, colour, layout or levels of stimulation, so creating environments that feel inclusive without becoming generic can be complex. There can also be budget and programme constraints, whilst another challenge is moving beyond compliance to create spaces that genuinely support wellbeing, neurodiversity, accessibility, and cultural inclusion, while aligning with the clients’ aesthetic ambitions, and operational requirements.

"Early conversations about how people use a space are vital, combined with post-occupancy feedback. Internal workshops at SpaceInvader help us challenge assumptions and consider a wider range of needs, particularly around neurodiversity, accessibility, and cultural inclusion. Clear guidelines and evolving best-practice standards are valuable, but it’s listening to lived experience and being willing to adapt designs that have the biggest impact on making schemes genuinely inclusive."

Kevin Kendrick, Operations Director, Morton Fraser MacRoberts

Ash Wilson, Director, Sculpt

"We find that a lot of clients still see these aspects as a 'nice to have' or a tick box exercise to cover the bare minimum. We have had clients in the past argue to not have accessible facilities because they 'wouldn't use them very often'. I asked them how many times they had needed to use their fire alarm and the answer was zero - despite it costing them a lot of money and having regular testing. Another argument is also cost and space limitations. A restaurant simply wouldn't open a restaurant in a certain unit if they couldn't fit their kitchen in, but accessible spaces needing more space seem to be optional.

"I would love for clients to ask questions about EDIB as part of every project, and give it equal importance as other aspects. There are always things that are prioritised in projects and I'd argue that some things could be brought way higher in the list without adding costs to the overall project. It feels like an uphill struggle at the moment in most areas of our work."

Is there one thing that's fundamental to creating EDIB-enhancing spaces?

Dr Catalina Ionita, Senior Architect, Chapman Taylor

"Creating EDIB-enhancing spaces begins with genuinely understanding the people who will use them. Inclusion cannot be retrofitted; it must shape the design process from the outset through listening, co-creation, and empathy. The most successful places reflect the diversity of their communities not only in accessibility, but in how safe, welcoming, and empowering they feel.

"This requires moving beyond compliance toward human-centred design, considering lived experience, cultural identity, and everyday activities. When people see themselves reflected in a place, they develop a sense of belonging. Ultimately, inclusive environments are not defined by physical features alone, but by the social value and agency they enable."

Andrew Bissell, Partner - Lighting Design, Ridge & Partners

"A key requirement is that you need a client who is on board from the outset and all the design and engineering disciplines are also at the early meetings. To create places which work with respect to EDIB requires a variety of bespoke solutions rather than a blanket one size fits all, that can only happen with all disciplines attending and inputting to meetings. There also needs to be a continued reminder throughout the design and construction phases of why early decisions were made. An agreed rule book if you like with rules which can’t be broken."

Katie Shepherd, Associate Director, P+HS Architects

"If there’s one fundamental principle in creating EDIB-enhancing spaces, it’s recognising that the built environments shape community, opportunities and belonging. Homes and neighbourhoods are not neutral; they either enable people to participate fully in life or quietly exclude them. As designers, we have a responsibility to move beyond minimum standards and imagine environments where everyone feels safe and supported. That means designing for difference as the norm, not the exception. When we embed equity at the heart of residential design, we don’t just create better buildings, we help build fairer communities and a more inclusive future."

Jessica Noël-Smith, Architect, Researcher and Founder, Beyond Access

"What is most fundamental in practice is recognising that EDIB is about respecting and upholding all people’s basic human rights. As designers, we must recognise and understand how we play a crucial role in the everyday lives of any person interacting with a space we’ve been involved with creating - and that these spaces have the power to enable or disable, to welcome or exclude. In terms of my own research and consultancy work this means going beyond mere minimum compliance, towards rights-based spatial design, and steering well clear of the tick-box compliance culture which falls so very short of equitable access and inclusion."

Paul Dare, Founder, Dare Design Studio

"One thing that feels fundamental to creating EDIB enhancing spaces is genuinely understanding the people you are designing for and not assuming you already do. As designers, we can sometimes fall into the trap of thinking we have the answer before we have really listened. For me, it always starts with conversation. Getting under the skin of how people actually use a space, how they feel in it, and where things might not be working for them. That is where inclusion really begins.

"There is a clear shift happening from diversity as representation to belonging as an outcome. And you feel that in a space. When it is right, people are more comfortable, more confident, and more themselves.

"There is also a commercial reality to this. McKinsey found that companies with the highest levels of diversity are 39 percent more likely to outperform financially. So this is not just about doing the right thing, it is about creating environments where people can genuinely thrive.

"Good design should not just look right, it should feel right for everyone who walks through the door."

Gillian Duthie, Director Facilities Management & Workplace Experience, BlackRock

Louise Grimes, Co-Founder, M1NT Studio

"Designing any space is ultimately for the End User, whether for functional business operations or more experiential settings. Understanding users’ needs early in the design process is a must, it allows for EDIB considerations from the outset. Facilitating stakeholder engagement with a duty of care to meet the needs of those using their spaces.

"Human centric design should be at the heart of any project, embracing flexibility and adaptability to support a wide range of people, offering inclusivity and a sense of belonging for clients and their end-users across all sectors. Whilst endeavouring to cater for all in striving for equity. Committed clients, investing in EDIB principles are seeing real business benefits in staff retention and return users, boosting both productivity and profit. Early adoption is far easier and more cost effective over retro fit."

Aurelie Rivkah Tshiama, Curriculum & Learning Experience Architect for Creative and Founder-Led Businesses

"One thing that is fundamental to creating EDIB-enhancing spaces is recognising that space always reflects identity. The built environment is never neutral. It implicitly communicates who a space is designed for and who it is not. For me, equity and belonging begin with understanding people’s lived experiences and translating those insights into spatial decisions such as layout, accessibility, materiality and atmosphere. In my work and teaching I encourage designers to start with a simple question: who is this space recognising? When identity becomes the starting point of the design process instead of an afterthought, inclusion becomes something that is embedded within the space itself."

Lucia Mills, Interior Designer, DLSM Studio

"Creating EDIB-enhancing spaces is as much sensory as it is spatial and fundamentally, I feel that it is important to use design to encourage choice. Rather than designing for an imagined ‘average’ user, it is important to design environments that can help acknowledge and celebrate difference. By removing invisible barriers and creating adaptable environments, we can empower individuals to choose what feels comfortable and safe for them. This can be achieved by thoughtfully choreographing lighting and acoustic levels, introducing varied seating layouts and designing spaces that are able to transition through the course of the day."

Katherine Usher, Associate Interior Designer, Ryder Architecture

"Empathy is fundamental to creating inclusive spaces. Truly inclusive environments come from understanding the diverse experiences and needs of users. When designers approach projects with empathy, they consider accessibility, comfort, cultural representation, and flexibility, moving beyond one-size-fits-all solutions. This ensures EDIB principles are embedded in practical design decisions. Applying this approach can be challenging. Designers must balance inclusive ambitions with constraints such as budgets, timelines, and existing building limitations. Inclusion can also risk becoming a compliance exercise if awareness among stakeholders is limited. Ongoing dialogue, education, and advocacy are essential to ensure empathy remains central and EDIB is meaningfully integrated into the design process."

Evelyn Gallagher, Senior Strategic Consultant, MLA

"EDIB is all about people, we are all unique, have our own stories to tell and perspectives to bring, which makes the world a rich and fascinating place. It is fundamental for designers to be curious, to embrace and try to understand as many of those perspectives as possible. The more we can empathise with people, put ourselves in their shoes and understand what is important to them, the more we can design spaces through that multifaceted lens. Spaces that are universally better for everyone and where no one feels like they are “other” or different. People engagement early on in any project unlocks this key ingredient of understanding. Be curious, ask questions, and educate yourself and others."

Sarah Moulson, Founder and Director, White Circle

"If there’s one thing that makes a space truly EDIB-enhancing, it’s feeling psychologically safe. You can have beautiful finishes, artwork and furniture, but if people don’t feel comfortable being themselves, the design isn’t successful. The best spaces quietly say, “You’re welcome here.” By designing around furniture that supports different body types and mobility needs, to softer lighting, thoughtful acoustics, clear wayfinding, inclusive restrooms, multilingual signage, and artwork that genuinely reflects the community. Great design isn’t just about how a room looks — it’s about how it feels. When people feel safe and considered, belonging within that space naturally follows."

John Brazier, Founder & Director, FORM Ideas Studio

"Designing for everyone from day one. For us, placemaking and inclusive design should never feel like something added on to tick a box. It has to be embedded from the outset. It is about balancing different needs properly, without making anyone feel singled out or accommodated as an afterthought. The best spaces have a warmth to them. They feel open, easy and human. Our aim is simple. We want people to feel part of something. Inclusion should empower and bring people together, not separate them. If a space achieves that, we know we have done our job properly."

Lucy Galloway, Associate, MLA

Jasper Sanders, Founding Director, Jasper Sanders + Partners

"The fundamental ingredient in creating EDIB-enhancing spaces is strategy. Design must begin with listening, understanding who a space is for and what it needs to enable, rather than relying on assumption. Inclusion is rooted in dignity and legibility, embedded within the spatial framework and reinforced through considered choices of colour, tone and material. To humanise space is to prioritise visibility, accessibility, sensory awareness and social connection as core principles, not aesthetic add-ons. These are not optional gestures. When people can recognise themselves in a place and navigate it with ease and confidence, a genuine sense of belonging follows."

Stevie Leigh, Director & Head of Manchester, MLA

"At MLA, our in-house workplace consultancy team plays a crucial role in guiding clients through complex change processes. Our strategic consultancy approach is grounded in data — we draw insights from previous projects, post-occupancy evaluations, and client feedback to continuously refine and strengthen future schemes.

"Successful transformation within the built environment depends on more than design alone. A committed client team and visible leadership buy-in are essential to drive and sustain change. Clear internal policies, transparent communication, and targeted training further support this process, helping to embed inclusivity and champion long-term behavioural and cultural shifts."

Sean Camm, Creative Director, Moss Home Design Studio

"At the heart of every inclusive space is intention. When we design from a place of empathy and awareness, rather than trends alone, spaces naturally become more welcoming and accessible. In my own practice, I consider how a space will feel to someone walking in — whether they feel calm, safe, represented and at ease. This might be through thoughtful layouts, sensory comfort, or ensuring the environment feels warm rather than intimidating. True belonging is created when people feel considered before they even arrive. Design has the power to quietly communicate: you are welcome here, exactly as you are."

If you had a magic wand, what would you do to help promote EDIB in the built environment?

Helen Griffith, Director, Dreamcatcher Interiors

"If I had a magic wand, I’d make inclusive design the starting point of projects rather than an afterthought. EDIB should be embedded from the first conversation, shaping spaces that reflect real people, diverse lifestyles and lived experience. I’d also simplify the way we communicate as an industry, less jargon, more honest, human language that invites clients into the process instead of excluding them. Most importantly, I’d ensure lived experience has a genuine voice within design teams. When people feel seen, heard and considered from the outset, spaces move beyond aesthetics and begin to create a lasting sense of belonging."

For our latest roundtable in Glasgow, which rounded off our EDIB series for 2026 - taking us from Manchester, to London, to Scotland - we flipped our original question on its head to anchor the discussion in why inclusive design really matters, and - genuinely - who to - asking EDIB: what’s the point in going beyond bare minimum?

From safety, to retention, wellbeing and commercial value, our conversation highlighted once again just how crucial inclusive design is to every sector, every person, and every business. Though, is it always viewed in this way as a priority for clients?

Much ground was covered in just an hour, with the conversation funnelling yet more insight into our quarter-long discussion on Equity, Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging, comprising 7 events on this topic between January and March.

With ‘flexibility’ said to be one of the key demands for would-be, Built-to-Rent (BTR), PBSA or co-living tenants [Source: British Property Federation], one may assume that just as in workplace and hospitality settings, EDIB is entirely applicable to the residential sector too. Read on to find out what our guests think…

Our guests

To begin, David Smalley, Material Source Studio Director & Chair of this session, asked a question to establish what the ‘bare minimum’ actually is: “What are the minimum standards?”

“Our starting point with any project is NPF 4’s Six Qualities of Successful Places”, replied Heather Macsween, Associate, Keppie Design. “Inclusivity is mentioned within that, and that’s something that has to be followed.

“In Glasgow, we’ve got the SG1 - The Placemaking Principle [a key Supplementary Guidance document for Glasgow City Council that outlines how new developments should be designed, planned, and delivered]. This should be dealt with over and above the Technical Handbook”, Heather added.

In terms of going a step beyond, Glasgow, specifically, is looking to progress, Heather shared. “Thankfully, Glasgow is bringing a feminist urban city lens into their urban design panel, and my understanding is as part of that, they will be developing a feminist urban toolkit that developers can use to start to inform their designs better, which I think is a fabulous step forward”, she commented, to lots of interested nods from around the table.

In England, the bare minimum is Part M, said Stephanie Kyle, Associate, Floyd Slaski Architects. “As we know, the dimensions in there are from the 1950s”, she commented.

In Scotland, the regulations are based on Part M, clarified Anna Campbell-Jones, Director, Habitus Design, and are “not significantly any better”.

Lynsey Hutchinson, Senior Interior Designer, INCH Architecture + Design, suggested that BS 8300 is “the base” for accessibility. And it’s soon to be updated, which the guests agreed will make it much more useful.

For Catherine Campbell, Architect, Ryder Architecture, who has recently qualified as an architect, the Technical Handbook, she said, is the go-to guidance for students. With the BS 8300 used as additional guidance on top.

“So if you achieve Part M, legally, you're in the right place. Is everybody on the projects that you're working on getting above that minimum standard?” asked David.

“No”, responded Stephanie. “On the projects that I audit from other architects, it's hard to get them to even comply with Part M”, she shared, in reference to the inclusivity consultancy work that Floyd Slaski carries out with other practices.

“And that's from the architects. It's not the contractors that are fighting - it's the designers that feel there's too much to go through.”

Toilets, Stephanie said, are the root of the majority of issues. But stairwells she noted too.

At Space Zero, Kirstine Robinson, Associate Director, said that PAS 6463 – Designing for the Mind - is being bedded into the practice’s design process, with the team advocating for beyond bare minimum.

Stephanie shared that when the BS 8300 is updated later in the year, the PAS 6463 will be included too. Though she doesn’t hold much hope, because “Part M has also been updated multiple times, and still every time it’s got old dimensions in it that don't accommodate for sports wheelchairs, for example. It tends to be that new things get added, but the content that’s already in there isn’t being reviewed.”

Inclusive design: What’s the point?

“What's the point of inclusive design if nobody seems to be that bothered about it?” David asked.

From a dementia point of view, Lynsey said, it’s about “safety”. “There is a lot of research and evidence around falls. Most falls tend to happen in ensuites or in corridor areas, and it’s a lot to do with tonal contrast at thresholds. People will high step a perceived change in level and that changes their gait.”

Heather believes it’s “fundamentally important that everyone in society is catered for and welcomed and included” for altruistic reasons, and for commercial benefit too.

“For some of our clients, the thing that's super important to them is retaining top talent”, she shared. “And some of those talented people may come with diverse needs.” Though this applies to workplace, the same applies to educational settings, and attracting residential tenants.

This point around what drives inclusive design – altruism or commerciality - was highlighted by Kirstine, who suggested the question should perhaps be: “Inclusive design: Why wouldn’t you?”

“If you design a residential building for the minority then you are going to automatically benefit the majority”, she commented.

“If you consider your lighting appropriately, and you consider your acoustics appropriately, you might be a neurotypical person who doesn't even notice but actually, subconsciously, you're going to want to stay longer in that space.”

With clients, it was suggested by Kirstine that the framing of the conversation in this way i.e. “some of it you see, and some of it you don't, but it all benefits your bottom line”, is precisely why we should be asking: “why wouldn’t you bother?”

Why it’s worth the bother

“Disabled people make up 25% of the population”, shared Stephanie. “So, when I've got a really difficult client who doesn’t believe in inclusive design, I say, ‘think about the 25% of the population that has a lot of spending power that you are missing out on’.”

It could be something as simple as having accessible information on a company’s website, Stephanie added. Wayfinding has been a constant thread throughout all our conversations on EDIB. And that starts long before a person has crossed a building’s threshold. Transparency around accessibility here is key, Stephanie suggests. “If there are three steps into your building – say there is. Then people know what to expect. If your business is LGBTQ+, tell people it is.”

With the standards, it’s mostly about physical accessibility, Jennifer Scullion, Interior Designer, CRGP Limited, said. But echoing Stephanie’s points, “it's about everything else that makes that a usable space”. “The most successful designs are the ones most thought out. And success is shown in footfall or occupancy. For designers, inclusive design is the backbone of our considerations.”

For Anna, a recent project with The Nook had the principles of EDIB at its heart. The only way to ensure the success that Jennifer mentioned, Anna said, is to engage with the end users that will actually be using the space.

“We had lots of conversations with service users, with staff, and with people with lived experience. Part of a designer’s job is to marshal feedback from a wide range of people, with very different experiences – some of which may contradict one another – and to make sense of that. It’s an enjoyable challenge”, Anna added, “and we must cheerfully accept that the feedback will impact on our designs.”

This sentiment was shared by Lynsey, who mentioned a project with the Dementia Services Development Centre, and the University of Stirling, where an apartment was designed to support healthy cognitive ageing. "The project used virtual reality to design a modern home, and the feedback was extremely useful."

Assumption, it seems, is almost the anthesis of inclusive design. Kirstine commented that it’s amazing what older people think younger people want and need in reference to projects in education where teachers and students are brought together for feedback sessions.

At Floyd Slaski, Stephanie said, “We do lived experience stakeholder engagement on every single project we do.”

Though this undoubtedly provides insight, a bias exists that impacts the voices of minority groups filtering through. “The people that normally respond to being asked for feedback are the most opinionated people, the most confident, most neurotypical people. With public consultations for a residential scheme, it's normally retired people who've got lots of time.

“What we see with public engagement sessions are that they’re held in buildings that are not accessible with really bright lights so all the people that you need to turn up are not going to turn up”, Stephanie suggested.

“You really have to adapt your stakeholder engagement; you need to consider whose opinions you need. And if they don’t have much time – people with lived experience’s time is valuable - you have to consider an incentive. Their advice should not be free.”

This point on lived experienced resonated with Scott Jardine, UK Sales Manager, Vepa UK, who shared that his whole mind-set has changed since accessibility has become a priority for a close family member.

Highlighting an instance where public consultation had led to positive results, Heather mentioned the Aberdeen City Centre and Beach Front Masterplan. “Aberdeen is quite interesting in that it's probably one of the only cities I can think of in Scotland where you can get off the train and in 15 minutes you can get to a beach. But the city really wasn’t connected.

“What the council wanted to do was engage young people to ask them what they wanted from the beach front. And the outcome is an unimaginable play structure. We could never have imagined something like that ourselves.

“We worked with a Scandinavian play designer who specialises in this. And it’s now on-site. The results are going to be unbelievable, and we would never have come to that conclusion unless we'd gone through that process of engagement.”

“How do you engage with people when you don't know who they are yet?” David asked. “How would you engage with a community that's about to occupy your buildings?”

“We get a lot of data from the operators”, Heather replied. “But that data could be from anywhere, for example, London or Manchester where the BTR market is more mature than it is in Glasgow.”

Making meaningful progress

Although the term ‘neurodiversity’ was first coined in 1928, it feels like a relatively new concept, David suggested. “What meaningful progress have we made?” he asked.

Lynsey said there is more of a general awareness now, which hasn’t existed before. “I think more of a general awareness is helpful for all of us as designers and architects, because people then understand better why we're designing in the way that we are.”

In terms of the specifics around material choices, this might be avoiding shiny surfaces.

According to the group around the table, manufacturers and suppliers are providing better options, plus education through dedicated CPDs on designing for neurodivergence.

Stephanie suggested that as well as greater awareness of neurodivergence, there’s also a greater acceptance. Just as there were “no left-handed people – of course, there were”, there now seems to be more neurodivergent people, because it’s integrated into society. And it’s driven through “councils, clients, universities, for example, they're really pushing neurodiverse inclusive design, especially in higher education. So, because they're demanding this as part of their deliverables, manufacturers are having to catch on to it.”

From the perspective of a supplier, Mark Falcus, Specification Sales Manager, Parkside Architectural Tiles, expressed the importance for knowledge sharing in the industry to keep up with regulation change, plus new research coming to the fore, so that the products adapt accordingly.

Bettering BTR

Putting the focus on the BTR segment of the residential sector, David asked how inclusive design applies there?

“The Glasgow market still has to mature off the back of the Housing Bill and its amendments”, Heather responded.

Speaking of a project with a recent client, Heather shared they were “particularly good at giving us the freedom to develop inclusive design ideas.”

After consulting with an ESG consultant “early on”, Heather said that giving people choice was crucial.

The benefit of getting this right is “a thriving community of people who want to stay in the development in which they live”, Heather added.

For Catherine, the co-living concept is an “exciting one” due to the potential for intergenerational living. Glasgow now has a co-living policy, Catherine shared, to “drive meaningful progress in the city in terms of inclusive residential typologies.”

The Social Hub was highlighted as a success story in the city.

“It's interesting as it's the first one in the UK, and they chose Glasgow”, commented Anna.

“It’s adopted that Live, Learn, Work, Play model, hasn’t it?” continued David. “And the conclusion seems to be those developers, and the funders, are creating spaces to attract as broad a spectrum of people as possible? To build a community?”

Lynsey agreed that co-living and the likes of The Social Hub are more set-up to foster community than PBSA or BTR to some extent with a short term, transient resident base.

“You’ll only get a sense of community for a short time before people move on. Whereas if it’s intergenerational living, you're going to have longer term people ageing in place, and they’ll want to stay for the community.

“Community can only be built if the space allows it to – encouraging interaction through lobby spaces or a garden. It’s not the big events that people put on, but the small, day-to-day activities that create opportunities for a sense of community to grow”, Lynsey said.

This point on social interaction being facilitated by the built environment was echoed by Kirstine. Though she argued that support is needed on the operational side too. “I think it's about your management structures and it's about the training that you give to your staff. You were talking earlier, Stephanie, about the language that you use.

“It's about how you present information to people so that everybody can access the same information in as many different ways as suit them. It's bringing all of that together and realising that you can make the most ‘on paper’ inclusive space or residence, but unless you've got the people and you've got the process all working together holistically then it will fall down.”

Places for everyone

Heather raised the importance of not making assumptions about who may live in a private residential scheme, such as BTR or co-living. Referencing a project of this nature, Heather said there was initially push back on including a play space within the development, as it was assumed the demographic of residents would be young professionals. However, in actual fact, it was single parents that resided there in the main. And so the play area became one of the most used spaces.

There’s also the matter of rent – Jennifer argued the average cost of living in the city centre is not very inclusive. “Glasgow is a working-class city. And in the developments where you have gyms etc, the rent is expensive.”

This comes back to the notion of consultation, added Anna. To understand what the community truly needs.

When that’s done properly, people will recognise their feedback within a place, and that gives them a sense of ownership, she said. For The Nook with SAMH, “we were really excited that the people using the space would see evidence of their input”, Anna commented. “You could tell from the smiles on their faces they felt ‘this is my place’.”

As the conversation drew to a close, the group shared their final thoughts on what belonging looks and feels like in residential settings.

For Stephanie, a residential development alone cannot make people feel they belong.

“You can create the most sensory friendly, physically inclusive space, but if someone then changes something – they cook mackerel in a shared kitchen, for example – it’s then perhaps not sensory friendly for someone else.”

The same goes for people feeling they can be their true, authentic selves without being judged for their religion or sexuality by others, Stephanie added.

In this way, the built environment is shaped by community and culture. It’s not down to the bricks and mortar, Stephanie suggests. As architects, “all we can do is design as inclusively as we can to foster the best community and culture that we can”, she believes.

This is made slightly easier in BTR schemes over co-living, Heather said, as they are managed schemes. “For the staff there, looking after the residents is the core of their being. It’s down to employing amazing people.”

“Marrying the physical space with processes to help people connect is key”, agreed Kirstine. “To facilitate those chance encounters”, added Heather.

In reference to Glasgow, Scott said, “The slogan here is People Make Glasgow, so architects create the spaces, and the hope is that the people will make them work.”

As always, the hour flew by, but the insight shared provided a brilliant glimpse into how the concept of belonging is considered in private residential schemes – a growing market for Glasgow. When we return to this topic in 12-months’ time, we’d imagine the landscape we’re discussing will be much changed.

In the meantime, a huge thanks to our guests, and to our supporters for this event, Vepa UK & Parkside Architectural Tiles – both Partners at Material Source Studio Glasgow.

Top takeaways:

• New regulations are coming next year - watch this space
• Inclusivity goes beyond physical accessibility to include welcome, identity, and psychological safety
• Stakeholder engagement is key, and there is complexity in doing it well
• Meaningful progress has been made - but there's a long way to go
• Covid was a catalyst for more visible neurodivergent needs
• “Belonging” is the outcome goal, but it's difficult to guarantee through design alone - operations must support
• In Scotland, attention is increasingly being paid to feminist and broader inclusive lenses in urban design review - all agreed this is hugely exciting.

Collect - the leading art fair for contemporary craft and design - recently returned to Somerset House for its 22nd edition.

Spanning ceramics, glass, lacquer, furniture, jewellery, metalwork, wood, textiles and paper - the fair continues to push the boundaries of traditional craft techniques as we know them. It also paints a picture of the evolving material landscape, presenting alternative craft materials such as denim, moss and shopping bags, as well as spotlighting those embracing digital technology in their practice. It's a hive of creativity, showcasing emerging names alongside master craftspeople.

Fair Director, TF Chan, in reference to his first year at Collect's helm, commented, “Collect has always been the place to encounter ambitious contemporary craft, and to see how galleries champion artists who bring together exceptional skill and imagination. While we deepen this commitment, we are enhancing the fair’s role as a platform for collectible design, where unique and limited-edition furniture is presented with the same care as museum-quality craft. Our 2026 exhibitors reveal how seamlessly these worlds come together, and how craft and design are integral to wider conversations about material culture and contemporary life.”

Here, we reflect on some of our craft highlights from Collect 2026...

Elliott Denny

'Ceramics Side Table' by Elliott Denny is a modular system designed during his time at the Royal College of Art. Elliott’s self-crafted system uses a set of extruded elements that can be assembled and reconfigured in numerous ways, allowing for different variations and complete experimentation in form.

'Stoneware Coffee Table' is a ceramic and glass coffee table made from a brick system developed by Elliott. From bench and table bases, to room dividers - this piece can be used to create a variety of furniture configurations.

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Heather Gibson

Heather Gibson’s ceramic practice is shaped by her daily encounters with the River Thames. Throughout the making process, she considers the layered histories entrenched in its banks. The works on display at Collect such as ‘Sediment Trap’ and ‘Fluxing Shore’ were developed during a year-long residency at County Hall, crafted with the river’s tidal rhythms in mind. The action of constantly revealing and concealing became a method for thinking about time, visibility, and material memory.

Inspired by the fragments found along the shore, particularly pottery shards, the works are made using a range of clay bodies inspired by her finds from the river bed. From iron-rich stoneware that bleed, to glaze to translucent porcelain that glows from within. Each material contributes its own voice, influencing form, surface, and outcome. Some forms are hand-built using slab construction, and others slip cast with embedded inclusions. balancing functional familiarity with abstraction. Poured slips and layered glazes flow across surfaces, recording gesture, gravity, and movement.

Sitting between past and present, function and fiction, Heather’s work offers a materially charged and painterly interpretation of the River Thames' geological history.

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Jihyun Kim

Jihyun Kim - a ceramic designer from South Korea - melds tradition with enchantment in her craft. Her work is now internationally recognised for her signature ‘gloop glaze’ technique, showcased at design events like Milan Design Week and the British Ceramic Biennale.

Currently creating from her studio in South East London, Jihyun explores organic forms and mythical narratives – crafting both sculptural and functional elements from her imagination.

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Irina Razumovskaya

Responding to sociopolitical shifts, Irina Razumovskaya's work featuring bulging vessels embodies the visceral weight of transition.

Throughout her craft practice, Irina uses a variety of materials to bring her pieces to life including both stoneware and porcelain clay, glazes, recycled raw minerals and glass. The sculptures - 'Tar' and 'Ichor' explore the loss of "home" through material metaphors of grief, capturing a moment where structural certainty breaks to reveal a resilient, transformative, and deeply introspective core.

'Venom', inspired by the folklore of the looking glass, reimagines the mirror as a site of absorption rather than reflection. This work challenges internalised voices of comparison, inviting a communal space where identity is no longer measured by competition, but by a shared, restorative meeting of selves.

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Edmund Davies & OTZI Studio

An architect, turned potter Edmund Davies fully took to ceramics after completing a BA in Architecture. A love for making and crafting utilitarian structures calls to the similarities between the two practices.

Collaborating with OTZI studio - also based in Norwich like Edmund - their tables crafted together are a study in elemental harmony. A frame of local native hardwood provides a structural skeleton, paired with a tactile, leather-wrapped base. The ceramic top, decorated using a wax resist glaze and fired to stoneware, offers a tactile and earthly depth and texture.

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John Creed

Working with both precious and non precious metals, John Creed finds the process of hot forging metals completely "magic". The physicality of the process is important to him, drawing in three dimensions.

John Creed creates large scale and small, intricate works for both domestic and public settings. Whatever the scale, he is conscious of how the work will inhabit its immediate and wider surroundings, and the interaction it will have with the viewer. Balancing function and expression, he is particularly intrigued by the configuration of junctions - especially when bringing together dissimilar materials.

At Collect 2026, John displayed new works - elegant sculptural shapes that are imbued with insect and arachnid references, bringing movement to the metal in new ways.

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Gizella K Warburton

The works of Gizella K Warburton take on a raw and simple materiality. However, beneath the surface are layers of detail revealed as light and shadow cross through the fragile forms.

Gizella's abstract compositions evolve through the tactile and contemplative process of drawing with paper, cloth and thread. Mark making is an intrinsic part of her practice: ‘shadowed, scratched, stained, scarred, pierced and stitched’. To make, she engages in a web of ritualistic processes: wrapping, weaving, binding, knotting, suturing and burning - moving from one to the other.

"My work explores an intuitive response to linear, textural and light detail within landscape and surface. The materiality of cloth, paper, thread, wood and paint connects me to an innate human urge to make marks. To decipher the meaning of our physical and emotional landscapes, and the transient nature of the warp and weft of our lives. The slow tactile intimacy of stitching is a mantra."

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Bringing up to 1,600 homes and £6m of public realm improvements to the Edgbaston area of Birmingham, New Garden Square is a showpiece development creating a new community in the heart of the city.

Shackerley, and cladding contractor, Datum Group, were involved in the facades for two residential buildings from Moda. Shackerley’s SureClad®️ SureStone®️ façade system, a low porosity engineered stone, which is fire rated A2-s1,d0 to BS EN 13501-1, was specified for the project in two colourways; cream and grey, enabling the project to benefit from a homogenous material and joined up supply chain, while each building retains a distinctive, individual aesthetic.

The exceptionally complex requirements for a total façade area of 6636m2 were manufactured to order at Shackerley’s ISO 9001 certified Lancashire factories, including 5,828 3000x1200mmx20mm slab-to-slab spanning facade panels, and 1,995 mechanically-fixed mounted reveals.

Façade complexity

The Shackerley team worked on the New Garden Square project for three years prior to orders for the façade system being placed, including a huge amount of collaborative work at design development stage to revise the layout of the façade panels to achieve the most economical use of materials.

The façade system manufactured by Shackerley for the two buildings comprised 7823 panels and involved a variety of bespoke details, including ventilated panels and bracketed returns, which improved buildability, ease of installation, and consistency.

The 3000x1200mm slab-to-floor slab face spanning panels were just 20mm thick, and weighed only 50kg/m2.

The 1,995 mechanically-fixed mounted reveals, which were custom-made to order to the precise dimensions of the façade design, reduced installation time on site as well as enhancing the finish of the façade.

210 vented panels were also manufactured by Shackerley, using water jet equipment to create the vent apertures in the flat SureStone®️ panels, which delivered a precision finish with absolute consistency.

Custom fabricated bird boxes installed on level two and the top floor of each building were one of the most complex aspects of the façade. Eight bird boxes were manufactured to attract different bird species (5 sparrow and 3 swift) and Shackerley was required to mechanically fix custom-made sections of SureStone®️ material to aluminium bird box frames. The completed bird boxes were then fixed to the relevant façade panel within the quality assured environment of Shackerley’s factories, before being delivered to site as an installation-ready façade detail.

Detailed calculations for designing the fixing system were carried out to determine how many SureClad® brackets would be needed to make the fire breaks work, due to the complexity of the chamfered window details. Thanks to Shackerley’s advanced manufacturing facilities and technical expertise, all SureClad® fixings were factory installed in the exact locations required.

Bespoke design

All Shackerley’s SureClad®️ façades are supplied to order as installation ready panels, with pre-fitted aluminium brackets, which are secured with stainless steel undercut anchors to ensure a robust and durable façade, with no cutting or drilling required on site.

To install the facades, Datum Group used Shackerley’s SureClad®️ Hang-on carrier system, which has been especially designed to enable easier, neater and safer installation of heavier façade panels, without stressing the panels.

The level of precision and manufacturing excellence involved in producing the details for the two residential buildings at New Garden Square cannot be overstated. Almost every panel manufactured by Shackerley involved a rake cut, and the manufacturing requirements also included special angles for brackets and custom designed and manufactured brackets to meet the design requirements.

The same team of experts at Shackerley were involved in the project throughout the design and construction phases, ensuring a high standard of knowledge and collaboration throughout. The project is an excellent example of the design versatility of the Shackerley SureClad®️ system and SureStone® façade material, and the company’s advanced UK manufacturing capabilities.

To find out more about Shackerley façades, visit Material Source Studio Manchester, where Shackerley is a Partner. You can also book onto a technical CPD. Contact the team here.

EDI & Belonging: Culture or place? is the question we posed to two wonderfully experienced panellists: Kevin Kendrick, Operations Director, Morton Fraser MacRoberts, and Gillian Duthie, Director Facilities Management & Workplace Experience, BlackRock, at our recent seminar in Glasgow. Our first of 2026 in Scotland, and the third seminar in our EDIB series, taking us to London, and Manchester prior to that.

"It starts as a culture, and location/the physical space should be an expression of that", suggested Kevin. And for Gillian, “The place is important, because without that, there's no culture. Just like a brand, it needs to be seen”, she said.

While there is clearly an altruistic drive to implement inclusive design, and to support a culture that facilitates belonging, it’s increasingly becoming apparent there are financial gains to be made for those that get it right.

This is highlighted in recent research by McKinsey, which shows a strong business case for EDIB, linking diverse executive teams to higher profitability.

With practicality and reality in mind in terms of how EDIB looks - and performs - we put the focus on the sharp end of the inclusive design conversation with our two panellists, responsible for promoting positive employee experience, collaborating closely with architects and interior designers, all while keeping an eye on the bottom line.

What’s the significance of belonging?

To begin the session, Host, Material Source Studio Director, David Smalley, asked our panellists to recall a time when they felt a significant sense of belonging.

For Gillian, “It felt more significant when I felt I didn’t belong”, she said. Speaking of her first foray into the hospitality sector at the age of 16, it was work experience at a hotel in Edinburgh where she learnt the importance of making everyone, employees and guests alike, feel they belonged. And the consequences of not doing so.

Though it didn’t put her off. Quite the opposite, in fact. Gillian went on to work in hotel general management for 15-years, across the UK and US, with this incident “forging her path forward” and fuelling her desire to craft positive experiences for people through the places they go to every day.

David asked whether having had this experience as a young person has driven Gillian to particularly consider young people in the work she does? To which Gillian said it has, especially for attracting and retaining the best workplace talent.

For BlackRock, workplace experience begins before people actually enter the physical building, Gillian added. “A lot of people commute to Edinburgh from Glasgow, because of house and rent prices, so we put on a shuttle bus.”

This sentiment has reoccurred during our discussions on EDIB with wayfinding said to be a crucial element of inclusive design. And one that takes cues from the hospitality sector.

For panellist Kevin, a sense of belonging was truly felt when, in 2022, Morton Fraser, one half of the now-merged business, Morton Fraser MacRoberts, moved their Glasgow office to a smaller “cosier” space. “It was a modern office designed for exactly how we wanted it, it was smaller and cosier, and I was really struck by the impact that the physical environment had on our people”, Kevin commented.

Previously, people would “shrug their shoulders”, he added, when asked whether the office environment was important. They were largely indifferent, Kevin said. Even cynical: as long as they had a desk and a computer to work, who cared what the space was like? But after the move, the positive impact on morale and ensuring a sense of belonging had been “surprising”, in a good way, Kevin shared.

Because of having a single floor plate, accidental collisions have been allowed to happen, continued Kevin, the watercooler moments that could not have happened previously. “Sky-high cabinets of storage, desks and pedestals - there were just so many physical barriers that we removed in the new office and created this central focal space through which people would be coming to hang their coat up, use a locker, get a cup of tea, have a discussion. These ways and spaces just didn't exist previously in the office.”

Engaging the end user

At BlackRock, the change management piece around workplace is an important one, Gillian shared. When moving its Edinburgh office from the financial district to near Dundas Street, the decision was met by the employees with mixed reviews, she said. “We engaged our employees to communicate how much better the new office would be. A lot of them didn't understand that until they walked in the door. We got 80% there, but when they got into the building, it was really impactful.”

The task of designing the space was a mammoth one, Gillian commented, because of the sheer scale of the building – BlackRock went from having 60,000 sq ft to 140,000 to support the growth of their teams. Architecture practice MLA undertook the challenge, transforming the complex site, comprising a heritage building with a listed façade, a connecting ‘link’ and a modern atrium building. It had been vacated several years before and was at risk of deteriorating if it remained unoccupied and unheated. Guided by the environmentally conscious BREEAM design principles, it was thoughtfully refurbished to enhance environmental performance and occupant wellbeing.

Prior to this, Gillian said the office lacked “connectivity” – “And that's what the stakeholders were looking for”, she said.

Part of MLA’s process was to speak to the stakeholders. As BlackRock is founder-led, Gillian highlighted that everyone from the CEO was keen to be involved because “they care about the company, and those working for the company.”

Though it would be impossible to speak to everyone, the key user groups were consulted, Gillian shared. For those that are neurodivergent, the consensus was that lighting and acoustics were most impactful to their day-to-day.

“In our old office, some people commented that the sunlight and internal lighting combination made it difficult to work. We have quite large screens in the office. We've got a lot of technology. So, addressing that was crucial.

“There's acoustic panelling above the desks. We didn't have that before. There are separators between the desks. Largely banks of six – in the previous office, we had more noise. We invested in noise cancelling headphones for every employee as well, so they were able to take calls and feel that they were able to set a space where they weren't being heard or where they couldn't hear others.”

This was a response to learnings from Covid, Gillian added. “Covid taught us that people, having been able to control their environment, now want to do that in the workplace.”

Control and flexibility also underpinned Morton Fraser MacRoberts’ recent move of their Edinburgh office, said Kevin.

As many stakeholders were consulted as could be in the “speed at which we had to move due to the available space that was on the market, and our own lease expiring in our current office”, Kevin commented, but “we had a model that worked in 2022. It was extremely successful. And the objective really was to try and replicate that in Edinburgh.”

Not only did they manage to achieve that, Kevin suggested, but they were able to make improvements – attributable in part to a larger floorplate in Edinburgh than had been the case in Glasgow.

The addition of a wellbeing room and social areas, plus flexible furniture including “beach huts”, which moved the firm away from screened off desks, has paved the way for more natural collaboration.

One of the stakeholder groups consulted during the process was the employee resource group for neurodiversity. “They recognised that the office was designed with really good principles around inclusivity, particularly neurodiversity, with colours, textures, fabrics, and there’s not so many hard surfaces except the desks. Though there is some tension, I think, between what the businesses’ requirements are, and maybe what certain individuals’ requirements are - one of the things being high partitions around desks.”

This was something the firm decided to remove to avoid barriers and instead opt for more open plan. The compromise has been to allow for the creation of “lots of different types of spaces” so there’s something to suit peoples’ different needs.

This approach was the same for BlackRock, Gillian shared. With 4-days per week working from the office mandated, the importance for variety is key, she believes.

“If you can't work from your desk, because you're highly distracted, you can move away and it's not just a singular space, there are many different spaces.”

“For those with very specific needs within the business, how do you cater to them?” David asked.

“There are a lot of different businesses that sit under BlackRock”, Gillian replied, “and the one you’re probably thinking of are our traders?” she suggested.

“They work a lot of hours. They work in a high technology environment because they have to be on three or four different systems at one time. They have to be in a quiet area. It's noisy for them, but the surroundings have to be quiet.” For a team this specific, they’re given their own floor, Gillian added. And their workplace experience is shaped by seamless technology – “if you want to do something in that space from a facilities point of view, you're doing it on a Sunday at 6am and you've got an hour - otherwise there's no chance!”

Though working with many different workplace needs in tandem can be a challenge, Gillian believes it comes down to understanding, and making sure people feel heard.

Design that’s seen and heard

From the audience, John Amabile, Interior Designer, asked, “How did you deal with people's expectations and disappointments?”

Gillian said that, sometimes, it was about “saying no, without saying no”.

Because of having so many different work streams and opinions to take on board, BlackRock commissioned MLA to carry out a change management programme, which Gillian said, “worked phenomenally”. “We haven't done that in any other office, and actually we’ve now built that into our future models”, she added. This involved town halls and workshops to keep the entire team updated on the behind-the-scenes of the project.

Rachel Wright, Senior Interior Designer, MLA, who worked alongside client Gillian on the new BlackRock Edinburgh office, added from the audience, “When there's feedback coming in, I think the best thing is communication and visibility and being seen; allowing people to feel heard.

“Being a part of the process from day one of the interviews was an amazing opportunity as a designer, because I'm not just behind a computer doing drawings and telling the builders what to do, but actually being there to welcome staff, and to see them realise that what they said in a workshop a year ago has been included in their new space.”

On this process, Kevin commented, “It lends a lot of credibility when the designers are prepared to speak to the staff.”

Putting focus on the tangible ‘ROI’ of implementing EDIB principles in workplace design, Shannon Conway, Co-founder, Picture This, asked, “I'm interested in the measurables of it. We know that when you create a workspace that people like it enhances their wellbeing, potentially their health, but also it helps you retain and attract talent. Though it's quite early days in your offices, have you seen any effect on people's health? Have you measured it?”

Both Kevin and Gillian agreed that a good indicator of this is occupancy rate.

At Morton Fraser MacRoberts, where there are no mandated requirements about being in the office, the occupancy rate is 75% Kevin shared. And at BlackRock, Gillian said it’s 90%. While Fridays are quieter at Morton Fraser MacRoberts, they’re typically busy at BlackRock, perhaps because of the running club, Gillian suggested.

Investing in individuals

From the audience, Nick Walker, Director – Built Heritage & Townscape, Iceni Projects, asked, “How do you design a workplace for everyone, when not everyone knows what they want?”

“Flexibility is huge for inclusive design”, Gillian replied. “We have height adjustable desks everywhere – all of them. A huge investment. All our chairs are ergonomic. There are footstools for those that want them. And plenty of spaces away from peoples’ desks.”

Jade McKenzie, Studio & HR Coordinator, Collective Architecture, asked the panellists, “What was the significant difference post-Covid?”

“I think, looking back, Covid increased the focus on the individual”, responded Kevin.

“Managers were asked to check in with their staff, and find out how they were doing, and often it was nothing to do with their work but from a well-being perspective. I think that has continued into the post-Covid world where this focus by organisations on their staff's well-being has continued, and they’re trying to bring that into the workplace in a way that I don't think they did before.”

Alison Stobie, Part 1 Architectural Assistant, BDP, asked Gillian and Kevin for their “main lessons learned, and their next steps in responding to those?”

Engagement, for Gillian, will always be key. “Not everyone was engaged from day one, some people got engaged at different points and that was a little bit derailing for us. To engage as many people as possible from the start is important, and to appreciate those different points of view.

“Learning lessons is a constant - I love talking to people and understanding their point of view and what we can do better. And that’s something we account for, and budget for, and will do into the future.”

While BlackRock is a corporate juggernaut, not all clients are on this scale, highlighted Kevin Fitzpatrick, Principal Architect, BakerHicks, asking, “What learnings can apply to projects where there’s a limited budget?”

Panellist Kevin believes it’s about establishing priorities, both in terms of the business, and what the workplace needs to do. Then prioritising according to those uses.

For his team, “We see the office as a place for these encounters, making connections, having conversations. So we're prioritising spaces that will facilitate that and ensuring less of the physical barriers. It’s back to flexibility.

“Everybody has these slightly different preferences, requirements, needs, adjustments that might need to be made. The smaller you go, the more flexible the office has to become. If you've got a cavernous amount of space, you can do pretty much everything and tailor to every need. Where you're shrinking that space in square footage, you then have to make spaces serve multiple purposes.”

In practical terms that could be a place for a telephone call, to have your lunch, to have a one-on-one with a team member - it's multi-functional space that “was a really important part for us because we had quite a tight amount of space that we had to fit all of that into”, Kevin added.

In reference to the different needs that Kevin speaks of, Jo Rees, Architect, 3DReid, asked what the feedback was “from women, and people of colour, as well as those that are neurodivergent?”

Kevin responded it came back to flexibility of use. And that was where the creation of the wellbeing room came from. Whether used as a space for prayer, or by nursing mothers expressing milk, or those requiring some time out, the purpose of that room can be interchangeable, Kevin shared.

“Does the multifunctional room really work for its various purposes? Are there any conflicts between the needs of the different groups of people who might want to use it?”, asked Felicity Parsons from the audience.

Though Kevin believes it is being used “for the purposes that it was designed”, he added that perhaps to make it more “useful” it could be opened up further – i.e. it’s not the most used room in the office – interestingly, “it's probably the least utilised space”, he shared.

Though the hour’s discussion only allowed us to scratch the surface, it provided yet more rich insight into the inclusive design conversation, which continued over food and drinks into the evening, and then onto a dedicated roundtable the following day. The key points from which will be shared very soon.

To summarise, some of the top takeaways from this session included:

• Engage all stakeholders
• Design flexible solutions
• Learn and iterate
• Utilise expertise
• Give people autonomy and choice

A huge thanks to our panellists, to our guests, and to our supporters for this event – Autex Acoustics and Crown Paints – both Partners at Material Source Studio Glasgow.

Something to add? Let us know on LinkedIn.

Karndean Designflooring has launched a new collection of designs inspired by the beauty of nature and offering enhanced slip resistance.

Available now for specification, the Opus range presents a refined portfolio of wood and stone designs for any setting where wellbeing, safety and aesthetics are equally essential.

The carefully curated Opus collection introduces five new stone designs and five woods, including four with options in a smaller herringbone size, expanding the existing range to a total of 31 designs. Each new design has been crafted to capture authentic character, timeless beauty and enduring style, combined with a 36 plus wet PTV (pendulum test value) slip resistance rating. This enhanced slip resistance is built into the product, ensuring reliable performance throughout its life and making it suitable for areas where safety is a critical concern, such as commercial kitchens and hotel lobbies.

“Each new design started with a genuine material; from reclaimed oak and prime white oak to dolomite, marble and terrazzo,” commented Richard Allen, commercial sales director at Karndean Commercial. “Our intention was to capture the beauty of each wood and stone while giving designers the opportunity to explore patterns, textures and design features, even in the most demanding commercial spaces.

“We believe that beautiful spaces should also be safe underfoot, which is why the new Opus designs offer designers the freedom to achieve the aesthetic they’re looking for without compromising on technical performance. With this launch, we are upgrading the specification of our entire Opus collection to offer a superior slip resistance rating.

“So whether it’s a hospitality venue, a shared living environment or a busy public space, the expanded Opus range delivers a go-to solution for supporting wellbeing in any setting, with superior slip safety, long-term durability and design authenticity.”

Engineered for functionality without sacrificing visual quality, the Opus collection brings reliable safety to the hardest working commercial spaces. In restaurants and bars, where flooring must balance ambience with resilience, Opus allows designers to specify one cohesive design across different areas while maintaining confidence underfoot.

"Flooring plays a particularly crucial role in both physical and emotional safety. It is one of the few design elements experienced visually, physically and intuitively." - Richard Allen, commercial sales director, Karndean

In aged living developments and spaces designed to support neurodiversity and disability, the Opus collection enables continuous flooring schemes that support orientation and comfort while ensuring safety in higher-risk areas. By integrating slip resistance into the design itself rather than relying on visually intrusive surface textures, Opus helps create inclusive environments that remain calm, familiar and easy to navigate.

The new Opus range also offers designers a responsible choice. The collection aligns with the Karndean Evolve® sustainability strategy, focusing on long-term material responsibility, independently audited supply-chain transparency and product longevity. Specifiers benefit from products that protect indoor air quality with low VOC credentials, long-lasting surface protection that reduces reliance on harsh cleaning chemicals, a take-back scheme for installation offcuts and up to a 15-year product warranty in commercial settings.

With its authentic handcrafted designs, long-lasting slip resistance and durable construction that is easy to maintain, the new Opus collection is set to become a flooring choice for commercial specifiers working on future-minded projects and healthier buildings, enabling confident design where style and performance go hand in hand.

Meet the new designs

Metsu Oak: Named after the Dutch golden age artist in homage to the tannery where the original wood was sourced, Metsu Oak embraces the natural beauty of imperfections, offering a timeless tone and rustic charm with an earthy palette and weathered look reminiscent of reclaimed oak. Available in a 48” x 9” plank and matching 18” x 3” herringbone.

Leyster Oak: Inspired by reclaimed oak from the Netherlands, this design embodies the natural beauty of reclaimed oak with its earthy variations and visual texture, highlighting the natural beauty of the wood’s knots and black marks. Available in a 48” x 9” plank and matching 18” x 3” herringbone.

Vermeer Oak: Named after Dutch painter Johannes Vermeer because of its subtle, refined character, this design is inspired by reclaimed oak from the Netherlands and embodies timeless charm, blending rich, warm tones with organic character with the natural beauty of knots and tannin marks on a 48” x 9” plank, also available in 18” x 3” matching herringbone.

Barolo Oak: Inspired by prime-grade European white oak, Barolo Oak brings warmth to interiors in 48” x 9” planks. Showcasing delicate grain and smooth surface patterns, this design introduces a rich, mid-tone warmth that offers a grounded aesthetic with a clean, contemporary aesthetic.

Geneva Oak: Defined by soft, pale-honey hues and subtle grain variations, this design will elevate both contemporary and classic interiors with an atmosphere that is both sophisticated and inviting. Available in a 48” x 9” plank and matching 18” x 3” herringbone.

Oscuro Terrazzo: Creating a bold and dynamic aesthetic with rich grey tones contrasting against an intricate terrazzo design, this design is ideal for creating impactful focal points in contemporary settings. Available in an 18” x 18” tile.

Platino Terrazzo: This design combines soft grey tones with subtle terrazzo detailing to create a balanced aesthetic that adds distinctive character without overwhelming the space. Available in an 18” x 18” tile.

Pamplona: Adorned with delicate fossil patterns and subtle veining, Pamplona highlights the soft grey tones and natural beauty of Dolomite, perfect for creating sophisticated interiors with a timeless appeal. Available in a 24” x 24” tile.

Valencia: Inspired by Dolomite stone from Northern Spain, Valencia features soft, cool grey tones with subtle natural markings. Delicate veining and a smooth texture create a calming, harmonious aesthetic, perfect for contemporary or classic interiors seeking a timeless, modern natural look. Available in a 24” x 24” tile.

Sillano Marble: Sourced from Tuscany, Sillano Marble captures the natural elegance of Italian marble, blending soft blue and tawny tones. Available in large 24" x 24" tiles, it brings a sense of calm and sophistication.

For more information and to request samples, visit karndeancommercial.com/whatsnew, and head to Material Source Studio Manchester & Glasgow where Karndean is a Partner to experience the products in situ.

For our first seminar of 2026 in London on the topic of Equity, Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging (EDIB): Workplace saviour or some way to go? we invited the brilliant Stephanie Kyle, Associate Architect & Inclusive Design Consultant to join Host, Material Source Studio Director, David Smalley, on stage to unpick as much as an hour would allow in relation to this complex theme.

Stephanie is no stranger to the stage at Material Source Studio, having been a panellist in Manchester, and soon to be a roundtable guest in Glasgow. And that’s because when it comes to the consideration of Equity, Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging in design, her expertise is unparalleled. With the lived experience of autism, combined with a career in architecture, being AJ100’s first ever Changemaker of the Year in 2024, and authoring the Neurodiversity Design Guide now used in 188 institutions globally, Stephanie is considered one of the UK’s leading voices in this field.

And that’s significant, because when it comes to inclusive design on an international scale, the UK – Stephanie shares – is leading the way with its standards and guidance. Though that’s not through a lack of interest in other countries, she states. “I’ve recently been in Saudi Arabia with the Department of Business and Trade to explain what inclusive design is. It's very different in the UK, because when I talk to clients and architects here about inclusive design, the assumption is that everybody knows what it is, but that nobody wants to actually do it because they think it's expensive.

“Whereas in Saudi Arabia, they didn't even know that it was an option. So, when I started explaining to them that we can actually design for other things in addition to supporting wheelchair users - as soon as they had that understanding they were so eager. The sentiment was ‘we want this now, we’ve got the money, and our government is in place to push things through straight away’ - it was a completely different attitude. In this way it was more about education than a conscious resistance.”

Defining EDIB: What does it mean?

“There’s a saying: don’t judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree”, said Stephanie. “If we give everyone equal support – i.e. equality – we’re not playing to their strengths. But if we give people equity, we give support in different ways to level the playing field.”

“Don’t judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree”

This relates not only to disability, Stephanie commented, but in general, “it’s not giving everyone the exact same thing; it’s giving people what they specifically need.”

As we’ve highlighted before, there are a plethora of words that orbit the EDIB conversation. With that in mind, David asked Stephanie to define some of the key terms.

Hyperfixation

“Neurodivergent individuals and people with neurodegenerative conditions will have hyperfixation typically”, explained Stephanie. “The best way to describe it is almost like an obsession – a special interest your brain focuses on and something you can go back to under times of stress or routine change because it’s what you know.”

This could be a hobby – taken up with passion – or within the built environment it could be a flashing light that becomes a point of obsession.

For Stephanie, the Building Regulations were the subject of hyperfixation for her aged around 10. This became very handy for her role as an architect later down the line, she said.

In the UK, hyperfixation can be viewed as a positive attribute in an employee specialising in a particular field. Whereas in the US, Stephanie said attitudes are different. “Here, sometimes people refer to this as a strength, but that’s not the case everywhere.”

Stephanie shared the stat that “only 15-16% of autistic people are employed full-time [Source: National Autistic Society]. And typically, they are employed in a role that is of special interest.” That could be academia, for example, in a research role.

Masking and code switching

"Up until last year, you may have heard the term EDI (Equity or Equality, Diversity & Inclusion) without the addition of the B. Now, Belonging has become a part of the conversation – but what does it mean in this context?" asked David.

“Belonging essentially means being able to show up to your workplace as your true, authentic self, without having to code switch or mask”, Stephanie responded.

“Belonging essentially means being able to show up to your workplace as your true, authentic self”

“Masking means suppressing your natural traits”, she explained. “So if you're autistic, it’s trying to suppress some of your autistic traits to fit in a little bit better. Whereas code switching means presenting an alternative version of yourself. And someone might have multiple versions of themselves that they have to present depending on the environment that they’re in.”

Using the example of having a regional accent and changing it slightly to communicate more clearly, Stephanie commented masking and code switching could apply to all manner of things. “It could be to do with disability. It could be to do with affluence. It could be to do with your gender. So, for example, a non-binary person may code switch if they don't feel like the place that they're going to is as welcoming to non-binary people.”

If there’s a gender-neutral toilet provision then they may be less likely to code switch, she suggests.

This is why environments that cater to lots of different needs are so crucial, especially in workspaces, Stephanie added.

“A big chunk of implementation is down to culture, isn’t it?” asked David.

“Essentially, if you work in HR, you should know the difference between the definitions”, Stephanie replied. “If you're working in anything else, it doesn't really matter if you don't know the difference. As architects, we design for people. We design for the end users. So our goals have not changed, really. We are providing the most welcoming spaces that we can create.”

Although we can’t design spaces that are 100% perfect for 100% of people, “there are so many things that we can do that improve the environment for 95% of people 95% of the time”, Stephanie said.

Sensory over & under stimulation

“Every human is exposed to 11 million pieces of information every second”, shared Stephanie. “The majority of people, neurotypical people, can filter that down to about 40 pieces of information. But neurodivergent people and people with sensory processing difficulties can't filter that down as much. Which can be incredibly overwhelming.”

“Every human is exposed to 11 million pieces of information every second. The majority of neurotypical people can filter that down to about 40.”

In reality, this could be someone hearing the sound of electricity. And another person seeing the flickering of a light that other peoples' brains tune and filter out.

Therefore, when designing environments, we must “minimise as much sensory information as we can so that the environment is less overwhelming”, Stephanie said. “Essentially, we don't want to be contributing more.”

The top three considerations to note, Stephanie added, are: acoustics, visual input, and lighting.

EDIB in practice

From the audience, Misha Stefan-Stavrides, Principal at SCRArchitects, asked a question on the theme of hospitality and the assumption that all rooms should be standardised.

“The issue is that if you try as an architect or a designer to bespoke every room to suit every person or attitude, it becomes financially unviable to do so. And the operators just won't have it. What would you suggest in that case?”

“One of the things I talk about as a design strategy or design principle for every building type is a hierarchy of social-ness”, responded Stephanie, using restaurants as an example.

“Typically when you go into a restaurant, you've got the more social part towards the front in the bar area where people are coming and going so it’s a bit noisy. Then a step further back into the restaurant you've got the family seating which is a little bit calmer. And in the last layer are your booths where it's a lot quieter and more private. The design might be more muted, and there could be more by way of acoustics.”

This mirrored the point made by Tony Matters of Faber & Company at the previous night’s roundtable – noise isn’t necessarily a bad thing in hospitality settings – in some settings it’s actually the preference.

This hierarchy can be applied to any building type, said Stephanie. And it caters to people that are both hypersensitive and hyposensitive i.e. requiring more or less stimulation.

The importance of choice and autonomy also formed Stephanie’s response to a question from Megan Grace, Specialist in Contract Fabrics at ILIV, who enquired about the use of patterned fabrics in commercial and hospitality settings. “If pattern is used, there should be some plain fabrics too”, Stephanie said. Just as there should be different furniture options – high stools, high backed chairs, comfy sofas.

Revisiting another talking point raised at the previous evening’s roundtable, Mike Lambourn, Design Lead, PriestmanGoode, asked whether London’s unique, largely heritage building stock and transport infrastructure is hindering EDIB-supporting design?

Stephanie believes that we must think more widely than only considering physical disability – though that is of course important, just 3% of all disabled people use a wheelchair full-time. So with that in mind, and the fact 80% of disabilities are non-visible, and there are 900 non-visible disabilities to consider, she suggests there’s a lot we can do besides making buildings physically accessible that can make them more accessible anyway.

“80% of disabilities are non-visible, and there are 900 non visible disabilities to consider”

“A lot of that is down to your finishes, down to your wayfinding and navigation, looking at how people naturally use a space, looking at desire paths and how we can improve experience. It's impossible to find solutions for absolutely everything. But there are a lot of commonalities. And that comes down to calm, clarity, and control”, Stephanie commented.

Some practical examples of this are the use of universally recognised symbols on signage in airports – “everyone knows the symbol for toilet, regardless of which language they speak”.

Jonathon Osborne, Graphic Designer, iDEA, asked whether it can be a case of style over substance with wayfinding graphics over-engineered to be beautiful rather than functional?

Stephanie said that the best way to design wayfinding is by using dyslexic friendly fonts; using sentence case for all signage in buildings; and not relying on one means of navigation. “You can't just rely on text. You've got to have text, number, and icon.”

Tony Kho, Senior Technical Project Leader, Trehearne Architects, asked for some advice around the use of natural materials – “What’s your opinion on biophilic design?” he asked Stephanie.

“Biophilic design is fine as long as it doesn't cross over too much into trypophobia”, replied Stephanie – an aversion to clusters of small holes, that’s “a really common phobia, more so than claustrophobia or fear of heights”, Stephanie shared.

In the built environment, this can be found in the materials used i.e. metal with perforated holes used as part of a facade. In nature, the inside of a sunflower, coral and honeycomb also feature triggering patterns for the 1 in 7 people trypophobia affects.

With biophilia, it’s better to use natural geometries, shapes, and forms such as rounded edges - “because it takes our brains significantly more times the power to process a straight line than it does a curve”, Stephanie explained.

Sharan Kaur, Country Manager UK & Ireland, Orac UK, asked whether there are cost effective quick fixes that can be made to promote more inclusive design?

Speaking to end users is crucial, Stephanie responded. “Provide different colour palettes for their opinion and see what they think. You have to paint the walls anyway!”

Likewise, in reply to a question from Ali Sanuk, Architectural Technologist, Chapman Taylor, around how to embed inclusive design into schemes where there’s a particularly strict brief on the materials that can be used, Stephanie said a simple switch from gloss paint to matt can make all the difference.

Myth and misconception

“What’s the biggest misconception about inclusive design?” asked David.

“That we should only consider physical disability”, said Stephanie, “Of course we should. But there is more to think about.”

David asked whether this is because the physical side is mandated? To which Stephanie highlighted that Part M is extremely outdated – "a lot of the dimensions in there are based on wheelchair sizes from the 1950s."

BS 8300 is better, she added, as it’s more detailed, and it’s soon to be updated. There’s also PAS 6463 – Designing for the Mind – which was published in 2022 and is said to be regarded as useful to the design community.

“No one designs badly on purpose”

Another misconception about inclusive design is that it’s more expensive, shared Stephanie. And it’s not, she said. “If you’re retrofitting things at stage five it might be. But not if you’re considering them from the beginning.”

“It's impossible for architects to know everything”, said Stephanie. “I'm an architect myself too”. But through asking end users and engaging consultants, she believes that’s key to ensuring inclusive solutions.

“Where are we on the journey?” asked David. Referencing a comment made at the previous night’s roundtable that suggested in 15-years’ time, EDIB will be where sustainability is now.

“It's definitely gaining momentum”, Stephanie replied. “Every year we do these talks and we say it's getting better than it was, it's always getting better than it was.

“Everyone thinks neurodiversity is a really new term, but it was first mentioned in 1928, so it's not that it's a new subject, it's just that now it's becoming more of an issue in the real world. The more people push it, the higher up the agenda it will go.”

As the conversation on stage drew to a close, the discussion continued over food and drinks in our Studio, once again serving as a reminder as to how important this topic is for so many people. We're now taking the theme of EDIB on the road to Material Source Studio Glasgow for our seminar and roundtable this week. Get your ticket here.

In the meantime, a huge thanks to all who joined us and asked thought provoking questions, to Stephanie Kyle for sharing her wonderful wealth of insight, and to our supporters for this event, Orac UK, Crown Paints, ILIV - all Partners at Material Source Studio London.

5 top takeaways

1. Our brains process 11 million pieces of information every second. Neurotypical individuals filter this down to around 40. Those that are neurodivergent may not be able to do this in the same way.

2. 3% of all disabled people are full-time wheelchair users.

3. 80% of disabilities are non-visible.

4. There are over 900 non-visible disabilities to consider.

5. It takes our brains significantly more times the power to process a straight line than it does a curve.

With an understanding that the support of neurodiversity is crucial across all sectors, including education and workplace, KI Europe is furthering its longstanding commitment to "creating environments that support different ways of thinking, learning and engaging."

Through research-led design and close collaboration with architects and specifiers, KI is helping organisations translate inclusive principles into practical, everyday solutions.

Neurodiversity recognises the natural variation in how people process information and experience their surroundings. With more than 1 in 7 people estimated to be neurodivergent, classrooms, universities and offices are increasingly seeking ways to ensure spaces work with individuals rather than expecting individuals to adapt to the space.

KI shares that their clients are asking how interiors can better support sensory regulation, movement, focus, and wellbeing. And KI believes furniture plays a pivotal role.

KI’s dedicated seating portfolio reflects its commitment to neurodiversity. The Cogni seating collection incorporates sensory surfaces, a heel wheel, flexing back and comfort ledge to enable subtle movement. The Ruckus Chair supports multiple postures with five seating positions, 360-degree use and multifunctional armrests, while the Postura + One Piece Stool offers both low and high-back options for comfortable and adaptable learning settings.

Products such as KI’s Ricochet Wobble Stool are increasingly specified in both specialist and mainstream settings, for all ages. The stool offers 12 degrees of stable rocking motion and has been designed to help children and adults maintain engagement and concentration, with the freedom to move.

KI’s wider product range offers an array of solutions suitable to environments from education to higher education and into the workplace. Including acoustic solutions from Bejot, lounge furniture like Take5 which allows a ‘sit as you like’ approach and multiple table and workstation solutions which allow for movement, adaptivity and flexibility including Scrum Flip Top Tables and the full Sit-stand collection.

Materiality and colour are equally important. KI works with design experts, teachers and students to develop calmer palettes, muted tones, and softer contrasts that reduce visual overstimulation while maintaining warmth and identity within spaces. Designing for neurodiversity is often framed as a social responsibility, but it also brings measurable performance gains.

Spaces that reduce sensory overload and support autonomy tend to be calmer, healthier, and more productive for everyone.

“Neuroinclusive design isn’t about a single specialist product,” says Alison Mallett, director of education furniture, KI Europe, “It’s about providing options that allow people to find what helps them feel comfortable, calm and able to concentrate. When choice is built into the environment, inclusion happens naturally and discreetly.”

By embedding flexibility, dignity and user choice into its products, KI aims to help clients create environments that are both inclusive and productive.

Discover more by clicking here, and visiting Material Source Studio Manchester, where KI Europe is a Partner.

SpaceInvader has completed a nearly 50,000 sq ft office interior for Virgin Media O2 across five floors of Island, the new 10-storey, 100,000 sq ft, net zero carbon workspace on John Dalton Street in Manchester.

The building, completed in late 2024 for developer HBD, was designed by architects Cartwright Pickard with Cat A interiors by EPR Architects.

With the new tenancy agreement signed in October 2024, SpaceInvader was appointed for the fit-out project against "stiff competition" from major-name architectural firms because of their ‘outstanding creativity and deep understanding of the culture of the city of Manchester’ according to Barbara Johnston, senior property programmes and project manager at Virgin Media O2.

SpaceInvader kicked the project off with a series of co-creation workshops with the team based at the existing Virgin Media O2 Wythenshawe office in South Manchester. The workshops were aimed at pinpointing design priorities, as well as discovering what the team liked or didn’t about their existing offices. The project then followed a strict ideation schedule before a 22-week construction programme by lead contractor Overbury, which hit all its milestones before the team moved in at the end of 2025.

The Manchester office is now one of the core UK offices for Virgin Media O2 and occupies floors five to nine of Island, with the majority of the floorspace housing the operator’s customer centre team, with the Virgin Media O2 corporate teams, the event space, and a quiet library and wellbeing space on the eighth floor. The ninth is home to the catering offer and accompanying bookable working lounge facilities.

The floorplan was marked out from the start with the best viewpoints over Manchester, to ensure these would become social and communal areas, so that everyone in the team benefitted from the best views at some point in their working day. The building boasts fantastic views in all directions as it’s now the tallest building in the vicinity. Views include Deansgate Towers from the southern elevation; the town hall and library to the east; the rooftops of the oldest sections of the city to the north and Deansgate, looking towards Salford, to the west.

The client brief set out a number of clear priorities, including the reflection of the brand spirit and the design of a best-in-class office space positioning Virgin Media O2 as an employer of choice in the region. The office environment needed to provide current and future employees with an environment that supports high performance work, enables hybrid working and provides amenity and lifestyle services to serve employees’ daily lives.

Additional requirements included reflecting Mancunian culture and promoting the local community; achieving BREEAM Outstanding and WELL Platinum accreditations and embodying a focus on sustainability and wellness.

“From beginning to end, this project had its end-users at its heart” John Williams, director/founder of SpaceInvader commented.

“The initial co-creation and senior leadership team sessions allowed for a thorough understanding of requirements, so that we could create a scheme that seamlessly combined brand and local identities. The new workspace includes focused working environments; collaborative settings; training and meeting rooms of varying sizes and 1:1 spaces – all designed for flexibility, accessibility and human connection.”

The final scheme is a highly vibrant and dynamic environment, with each floor inspired by a different aspect of Mancunian culture. It uses highly sustainable materials, furniture and fittings throughout with high consideration of user wellbeing and neurodiversity. Beyond providing workspace, the fit-out offers supportive amenities including catering, working lounges, wellbeing and quiet library space, as well as faith rooms and returning parent rooms. Very much on its way to achieving both BREEAM Outstanding and WELL Platinum standards, the project proves that performance and impact can be delivered through design intelligence and purpose-led construction – and look fantastic at the same time.

“This is not just a beautiful scheme” John Williams concluded, “but a testament to the entire team: a workplace brief, design and fit-out that have been set down and achieved with determination and intent to look after the climate, its users and local community.”

Challenges included incorporating the different needs of each type of operation (i.e. the contact centre and corporate teams); creating connection between colleagues split over so many floors; connecting the floors, and employing the huge number of different finishes, joinery types and furniture that would be needed, based upon the differing concepts for each floor.

A new landmark staircase now enhances vertical connectivity and encourages movement, while supporting collaboration between teams across multiple floors. Spatial planning within the narrow wing and angled façade of the building required a thoughtful and considered strategy and the design team’s approach was centred on a clear structural rhythm that could be repeated across all working floor plates.

This supports intuitive wayfinding for end-users while prioritising wellbeing at the desk. To ensure ease of navigation, functions are consistently positioned in the same locations on each floor. Where variations occur, spaces retain a similar spatial role but differ in use; for example, the returning parent room and the multi-faith room are located in the same position as other supporting facilities, ensuring consistency while responding to different needs.

A key part of the brief was to ensure that as many spaces as possible were fully accessible to all users.

The inclusion of large-format meeting spaces placed pressure on the remaining floor area but the introduction of curved partitions – an integral part of the visual wellbeing identity, inspired by natural forms – became pivotal in resolving fire strategy, DDA compliance, and headcount requirements. The use of curves enhances the performance of the floorplates and create a softer visual environment for all.

Desking, meanwhile, is all positioned along the perimeter to maximise access to natural daylight and to avoid cellular interventions in the majority of spaces, with blinds provided to support different working conditions. The building is equipped with air quality sensors that notify users when windows should be opened, supporting the WELL and BREEAM strategies.

SpaceInvader’s response to the design brief creates a true sense of place in the city centre, with a scheme that includes employees’ responses to the question of what best defines Manchester.

Answers were collated and the top five were: sport; science and industry; pop culture; music and venues. These then became the themes which determined the materials, colour palettes, shapes and forms on each floor. The approach created a strong sense of place and also enabled clear identity and subtle wayfinding throughout the building.

In addition to these themes, the design sought to convey the overall idea of Manchester as a progressive city, especially on the environmental front, with its city-wide commitment to regenerative design and the creation of forward-thinking spaces suited for both today’s and tomorrow’s citizens.

To reflect this, the designers created a ‘Ribbon of Oxygen’ at the heart of the scheme, in the form of a continuous biophilic element woven through all open-plan working areas. Integrating planting in both expected and unexpected locations, the ribbon guides occupiers naturally towards spaces for focus, collaboration and restoration. It enables a calibrated transition from higher-energy ‘Amp’ and ‘Huddle’ social spaces to calmer, more biophilic-led environments, supporting productivity, wellbeing and neurodiverse needs through the provision of a variety of settings.

The front of the eighth floor houses the main entrance and reception for visiting guests, located alongside an interview room and a key meeting room that can be sub-divided into two spaces as required. A feature bleacher staircase serves all the teams and functions as a venue for team gatherings and town halls, doubling as a working lounge when not in use.

The bleacher staircase connects the eighth floor to the ninth floor working lounge, which supports informal working and can also be enclosed with an acoustic curtain for bookable team meetings and development sessions. The opposite flank of the ninth floor houses the staff canteen.

The front areas across each floor have been treated as high energy spaces, encouraging collaboration, accidental meetings and breakout usage. This is expressed via the material palette and selection of furniture, as well as by artwork.

Artworks were variously produced by the in-house team through a ‘Wonderwall’ competition maximising staff creativity and uncovering hidden talents - as well as installations created by the branding team. The back spaces of each floor have been designed to encourage a calmer palette to aid concentration and productivity.

The CAT A general lighting has been retained throughout the CAT B fit out as an important part of the project’s sustainability strategy. Ventilation and MEP equipment have been retained where possible also. Acoustics have been increased in all areas to support the functions across all floor plates, with acoustic baffle systems used in working areas and acoustic wall panels and acoustic ceiling spray used in meeting rooms and communal spaces, such as the reception and bleacher stair space.

The visual identity of each floor is rooted both in Manchester’s cultural DNA and the synergies between each floor’s concept and the Virgin Media O2 brand ethos. In each case, the design has gone "way beyond the cliché". The sports floor for example, could easily have been reduced to a focus on the city’s red and blue football teams, but additionally references skateboarding, tennis and rugby instead – especially with O2 being the England rugby sponsor for both the men’s and women’s teams.

The fifth floor draws its energy from Manchester’s dynamic sports scene — not just football, but tennis, watersports, rugby, and even skateparks. Shapes and forms drew inspiration from the skateparks under the Mancunian Way, whilst mesh screens represent the tennis scene. Movement, community and team spirit are expressed in the social spaces through vibrant colours, expressive forms and energetic materiality.

Accidental meeting points, huddle zones, tea points and meeting rooms feel lively and uplifting, encouraging people to connect and keep moving. As people venture into the wings of the building, this bold palette gradually softens into a calm, biophilic-led design that supports wellness, focus and productivity. The balance of high-energy and quiet zones offers meaningful choice, especially for neurodivergent users seeking different sensory and noise levels.

Arriving on the sixth floor, the visitor is greeted by two large training rooms wrapped in a bespoke mural by artist Andrew Wolfenden, celebrating Manchester’s legacy of science and industry, from the industrial revolution to cutting-edge innovation. The material palette here is refined and understated, echoing precision, progress and curiosity. As with the floor below, the design gently transitions into a more natural, biophilic atmosphere toward the rear, supporting quieter working styles.

The seventh floor bursts with colour, texture and creativity, taking its cues from Manchester’s artistic pulse and its influence across TV, film and gaming. Playful furniture and vibrant communal spots encourage people to gather, chat and create. These high-energy areas are balanced with a series of focused support spaces, including decompression rooms, 1:1 pods and facilities such as a returning-parent room. Each floor offers its own amenities, keeping user needs at its centre.

The beating heart of the eighth floor is the feature bleacher staircase, forming a striking reception and event space inspired by the atmosphere of recording studios. Artwork here celebrates Manchester’s iconic music heritage, whilst its forms echo the fluid, expressive nature of sound. This area effortlessly transforms from hosting large-scale events to accommodating informal catchups and small team gatherings. Focused work zones follow the calming approach of the lower floors, with a serene library space located beside the wellbeing room and providing a quiet retreat for reflection whenever needed.

Home to the catering and social hub, the right side of the ninth floor space invites users to eat and recharge, while the left side expands into a flexible working lounge and collaboration space. The design throughout is inspired by the architecture and interior character of the O2 Apollo Arena, one of Manchester’s most popular venues. The result is a warm, social, and atmospheric space that brings people together at all times of day.

Space planning is centred around creating an impact on entrance and a place where different teams can congregate and collaborate.

The front of the floorplates contains the high-energy usage areas, such as tea points and a breakout space, before moving around into the wings of the building, where the design moves into supporting structured and unstructured work through focused working desking, broken up with ‘Huddle’ (collaborative) spaces, meeting rooms, 1:1 spaces and supporting amenities.

Signage across the scheme follows the Virgin Media O2 property brand guidelines, whose preferences for oak were a good match for the material palette. To create a differentiated feature in the Manchester location, SpaceInvader, together with the client branding team, created ‘portals’ at the entrance to each floor plate with a floor level number, with the design suiting each floorplate and theme. The visual identity of floorplates also helps colleagues intuitively with wayfinding.

Quality and longevity were fundamental to the project’s sustainability and operational strategy. Every material and product was therefore assessed for durability, suitability, and long-term performance, ensuring that low embodied carbon did not come at the expense of build quality or maintainability.

“We successfully used materiality by applying different colours and finishes across all floors”, Bethany Gibson, associate at SpaceInvader commented, “thereby creating different atmospheres in a considered and consistent manner, whilst at the same time using only the minimal number of suppliers. Sustainable materials were used across all floors and we sought to specify manufacturers who run take-back schemes for their products or similar.

Accessibility, meanwhile, has been another huge success of the scheme, with virtually every single room on all five floorplates made accessible, with the curved corridors proving to be a particularly innovative contribution to this in terms of wheelchair turning space.”

There was one item the Wythenshawe team insisted came with them to the new premises: Hamish the Horse. Hamish was the pet name granted by the team to the lifesize horse lamp originally designed by Swedish design studio Front for Moooi in 2006, as part of their animal collection (comprised of a pig, horse and rabbit).

The SpaceInvader team ran with the challenge of finding a good home for Hamish and created his own bespoke stable on the eighth floor, directly opposite reception, so that as many people as possible get to say ‘hello’ to Hamish each day.

“It’s been a genuine pleasure working in partnership with SpaceInvader throughout this scheme”, Rodney Hogg, property director of Virgin Media O2 commented.

“The team’s professionalism, attention to detail and commitment to excellence have been consistently evident and have greatly contributed to the successful outcome of this project. The result is a new workplace that not only meets our needs today, but will support the wellbeing, collaboration and success of our people for many years to come.”

March is officially B Corp Month. Held annually, the global campaign led by B Lab seeks to "celebrate, promote, and raise awareness of Certified B Corporations". It highlights businesses meeting high social and environmental standards, showcasing how they go "beyond" standard business practices to create a more inclusive, equitable, and regenerative economy.

One such organisation, Buttress Architects, with offices in Manchester and Leeds, recently reaffirmed its commitment to responsible and ethical practice by completing its latest B Corp recertification, achieving an impact score of 141 (a significant increase from the practice's initial score of 81.4 in 2022).

This result places Buttress among the highest-scoring B Corp-certified architecture practices in the UK, and the leading practice headquartered outside London [Source: B Lab UK].

Keen to learn more about what being B Corp means to the day-to-day project work of the Buttress team, we caught up with Matthew Burl - a director, and leader of the B Corp recertification process.

If you've ever pondered what's behind the B Corp badge, read on...

Can you tell us your role at Buttress and what it entails?

"I’m a director at Buttress, and my role combines strategic leadership with hands on involvement in the projects and initiatives that shape the practice. I work closely with our project teams to ensure we deliver work that has meaningful impact - socially, environmentally, and culturally. A key part of my role is also driving our commitment to responsible business, including leading on B Corp and ensuring that we measure our progress, and that our purpose is embedded into every part of how we operate."

B Corp comes under your charge – what drove you to embark on that?

"For us, becoming a B Corp was never about obtaining a badge - it was about formally committing to the values we already held and creating a transparent framework for accountability. I was driven to lead the process because I believe strongly that architecture has a responsibility that goes beyond buildings. We shape communities, heritage, and places where people live their lives. B Corp gave us the structure to measure our impact, improve where needed, and keep challenging ourselves to do better."

What does B Corp mean? And why is it important?

"B Corp is a global standard that measures a company’s social and environmental performance, governance, and impact. To us, it’s a way of saying: we’re serious about being a force for good, and we’re willing to be assessed on that.

"It’s important because the built environment has enormous influence - from carbon emissions to social value - and practices like ours need to take a leading role. Being a B Corp brings rigour, transparency, and continuous improvement. It ensures that our decisions, from strategic direction to day to day operations, align with long-term value, not short-term gain."

You’ve just received recertification with one of the highest scores outside of London for an Architectural firm– congrats! How was that achieved?

"It’s a huge achievement for the whole team. Recertification has been significantly more demanding than initial certification, and this time we improved our score across every impact area.

"We achieved this by treating B Corp as an ongoing, practice-wide commitment rather than a one-off exercise. We started this process straight after our original certification, using it as a starting point not the destination. Over the last three years, we strengthened our governance, formalised policies that were previously implicit, expanded our community initiatives, enhanced environmental monitoring, and embedded social value into our project processes. We also invested in our people - through wellbeing, development pathways, and transparent career frameworks.

"We see B Corp not as a badge, but as a tool for accountability, continuous improvement and collective leadership within the profession."

"Becoming an Employee Ownership Trust has also played a big part in this achievement. Moving to an EOT model reinforced our commitment to transparency, shared responsibility, and long term thinking — all principles that directly align with the B Corp ethos. It’s helping us create a stronger, more engaged practice where everyone has a stake in our success and our impact. We believe that our collective ownership will be a powerful driver in pushing our standards, culture, and performance further forward."

B Corp feels more than a tick-box exercise for Buttress?

"Absolutely. B Corp only works if it becomes part of who you are. For Buttress, it guides decisions at every level - from procurement choices to project briefs to how we support our colleagues. It shapes how we engage with clients, collaborators, and communities.

"We see it as an ongoing promise: to keep questioning, keep improving, and keep aligning our commercial success with positive impact. It’s a mindset more than a checklist."

What’s the benefit to clients?

"Clients increasingly want partners who can demonstrate integrity, transparency, and responsible practise - and B Corp provides reassurance that our values translate into action. It means they’re working with a team that brings:

• Robust governance and accountability
• A clear approach to sustainability and social value
• A people-first culture that supports better project outcomes

"Ultimately, it supports clients in achieving their own social value and sustainability ambitions, whilst strengthening the cultural and environmental legacy of the projects we deliver together."

Can you tell us about some of the projects you’re working on at the moment?

"We’re currently working on a range of projects that reflect the breadth of the practice - from heritage-led regeneration to community-focused spaces and major cultural assets.

"Right now, we’re involved in the new welcome centre for Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral, our ongoing work on at Coventry city centre Cultural Gateway, and the delivery of new homes in Collyhurst as part of Manchester’s major neighbourhood transformation programme.

"We’re also advancing several Passivhaus residential schemes, completing the Workington Innovation Centre to support local economic growth, and contributing to the ongoing development of the National Railway Museum in York. Each of these projects embodies our commitment to creating places with lasting social, environmental, and cultural value."

What’s next for Buttress - B Corp related, and beyond?

"Our next step is to build on the momentum of our recertification and push even further. We’re focusing on deepening our sustainability data, expanding our social value measurement, and continuing to evolve our governance to support long-term resilience. We’ll look back at the pledges we made in our first years of certification and establish new targets.

"Beyond B Corp, we’re investing across the practice - from design technology to heritage expertise - and strengthening our role in shaping places with purpose. Growth for us isn’t just about scale; it’s about impact. We want to continue proving that a values-led architectural practice can deliver great design while doing the right things for people, communities, and the environment."

This was the question we posed to a group of senior built environment professionals, hailing from all around the world, at our recent roundtable in London.

The theme of this discussion, led by Material Source Studio Director, David Smalley, was to consider whether if all legal compliance and regulations were taken away, would inclusive design still be a primary focus for designers and clients alike?

The returning sentiment was that while codes provide a necessary baseline, high-quality design is inherently human-centric. From offering choice and control, to sensory neutrality and the practical challenges of ensuring the execution of truly inclusive spaces, much ground was covered across hospitality and beyond.

Read on for a summary of the key discussion points…

Our guests

To begin, David asked the group, “If we removed Part M, PAS 6463 and every compliance checklist tomorrow, how confident would you be that the hospitality spaces we design would still feel welcoming to everyone? And what does that say about how we currently approach EDIB?”

In the restaurant world, ‘EDIB’ as an acronym rarely comes up, shared Tony Matters, Creative Director, Faber and Company. “This isn’t something many restaurateurs bring up”, he said. However, “these factors would likely be addressed in the environment anyway”, he added, “through different types of seating, quieter areas, more flexible areas, the lighting not being too bright…”

Where EDIB does become a talking point though, Tony suggested, is in relation to gendered toilets, and staff facilities.

For Sophie Borel, Senior Project & Design Manager, Cheval Collection, designing for EDIB is designing with neuroarchitecture and neuroaesthetics in mind.

"Everyone needs to come into a space and feel comfortable,” she commented. “And for that to happen, we believe that environments need to offer a refined, neutral backdrop. They should have some character, but never be overpowering. When a guest arrives in one of our lobbies, there’s a very subtle scent and quietness. It’s all about the service. And they’re designed for everyone to feel at ease.”

“Environments need to be blank canvases”

Diana Duran, Project Designer, OBM International, believes that in an “overloaded society” with 24-hour media, designers would find soothing solutions for hospitality environments whether EDIB principles were mandatory, or not. “Our natural response would push us either way to get to that point. The code just helps as a base.”

Erica Fornara, Interior Designer, OBM International, continued on this point on the need for soothing spaces as “sensory sensitivity is not fixed.” For example, “Being jet lagged can heighten a person’s sensitivity just as if they were neurodivergent.”

Christina Stein, Senior Interior Designer, TP Bennett, describes a “gradient of energy” to suit peoples’ changing needs throughout the day. “Everyone goes through phases throughout the day. So, when designing one space, it must cater to as many moods and characteristics as possible. And consider the fact those might change depending on whether a person wants to socialise, or have some privacy, or collaborate."

The role of the interior architect, she said, is to "make a difference for our clients" through offering expert consultancy on how to craft those aforementioned settings to suit all. "The client can go and find a meeting table and six chairs, no problem at all, but I’m the one who might open their mind about different meeting settings. We need to be having the conversations early on though, and it’s not necessarily framing this as 'inclusivity', but simply designing an environment with different potential settings.”

While evidently clear there’s a strong moral imperative from those around the table to ensure inclusivity is central to their schemes, there are other stumbling blocks in reality, David points out. “Is there push back from contractors?” he asked.

“If it’s D&B you can write it into the employer’s requirements”, suggested Henrietta Walters, Principal, GA Architects, “that would then lock the spec in and it can't be changed.”

Having specialised in designing for autism since the 1990s, Henrietta says it’s most common when working with local authorities that GA Architects would take a design up to RIBA stage four before it’s passed over, at which point the control over spec is relinquished. For that reason, “From feasibility to stage four, we always try and fight to ensure that what we've designed will stay in, because we know what the impact will be long term if it's then changed.”

“Covid was the great equaliser”

For Megan Dobstaff, Principal & Design Director, Gensler, “Covid was the great equaliser in terms of how we approach inclusivity.”

The conversation, she said, became more commercially-driven – “it turned into ‘how do we attract people back? As designers, it’s our responsibility to attract as many people to a space as possible. If you're designing restaurants, that restaurant should be booked out. You shouldn’t be able to get a reservation at it. It's the same with hotels. They should be places that people want to go to. If it's a workplace, every seat should be filled.”

Here Megan added that there is a key difference between hospitality and workplace. While someone might choose to visit a bar, restaurant or hotel because it caters to their wants and needs – they have choice, they can either go - or not go. When it comes to workplace, the environment has to work harder once people are there, because the choice as to whether they should go or not has been taken away.

Individual interpretation

In any design situation, Gordon Byrne, Creative Lead Designer, Oktra, believes it comes down to “human usability.”

“The guidelines are open to individual interpretation”, he added. “But as designers, we know that what we’re designing needs to be accessible. And to do that we must put ourselves in other peoples’ shoes.”

“So it’s about asking the end users?” suggested David.

“It’s important we engage with all stakeholders”, commented Henrietta, “but that can be difficult – if you’re working on a school, the pupils might have left by the time a project is complete. Though they’re an important part of the mix, plus teachers, management, cleaning staff. People often forget to engage with the cleaners.”

The question as to whether a space can be easily maintained is a crucial one, added Henrietta. “When considering EDIB, and the likes of including carpet to reduce noise, for example, thorough cleaning methods must also be communicated to ensure they are feasible. What’s the point of doing the O&M manual if no one’s going to read or use it?”

The key, she said, was to engage all stakeholders at the start of the project to ensure no surprises later down the line. Plus to remind them at each stage what the focus is.

Another point around end users came from Erica who suggested there should be no hierarchy in spaces in terms of ‘this, over here, is accessible’. Making a point of difference should be avoided, she believes. “The most important thing is to create a space that is welcoming to everyone. Any ‘special solution’ should be the solution for all.”

For Tony, who’s been designing restaurants for 15-years, from working on the Savoy to small neighbourhood restaurants, specificity is key. "We must be really specific about who we’re designing for.”

In his experience, though, it’s not always the desire of the client to implement inclusivity supporting measures. Particularly through the installation of accessible toilets should there not be a legal requirement.

“It’s not unusual to find a restaurant without [accessible toilets]”, said Henrietta, “but I always think that if you're refurbishing something then you automatically start from the point of ‘how do we make everything better?’”

Harj Vagha, Head of Design, Loop Interiors, suggested that it could perhaps be more difficult in the city.

To which Tony replied that “[At the start of] 7 out of 10 restaurant projects we work on, you cannot get through the front door in a wheelchair without a struggle.” Likewise, it’s a similar experience here in London when pushing a pram, shared Christina.

All types of bodies, all types of minds

“Is there ever the perception that designing for inclusivity stifles creativity?” David asked.

“If you put an unnecessary label on it”, replied Henrietta, referring to the orbit of buzzwords that surrounds the concept of Equity, Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging. “They mean nothing”, she added, “the term that we use is that we’re creating low arousal spaces or low arousal environments which is much better than calling it ‘neurodiverse friendly’ or something similar.” “Inclusive design should feel natural”, added Sophie.

In relation to the workplace sector, Megan shared, “What I've learned going through this process of designing for all types of bodies and all types of minds is that for every move you make, you need to make the opposite. Because there's no way to design truly for everyone, but the best checks and balances systems for any space is where if you have seats looking at a huge screen, you need to have seats looking away.”

“It’s Yin and Yang”, suggested Harj. “And giving people choice, with different profiles set up to suit different needs so people feel in control of their day."

In hospitality, specifically serviced apartments, the same idea applies, said Sophie. “We want our guests to live to their own rhythm. We give them choice through flexibility and control.”

Since Covid, this has been reflected in briefs from clients, agreed the group.

“In the commercial office sector, it used to be ‘we have X amount of people so we need X amount of meeting rooms’.

“Now, our brief is ‘make it better than home’. Covid accelerated it all - it has really pushed the envelope of office design for us”, Harj added.

“Our brief is ‘make it better than home’”

Joining the discussion from the perspective of supplier, Neil Lutterloch, Account Manager, Parkside Architectural Tiles, concurred that their briefs from clients – i.e. architects and designers - have changed too. “For the last 5-years it’s been about recycled content, UK sourcing, and carbon footprint – not just for the product but the company as a whole.”

Just as sustainability is now the norm, in 15-years' time, the same will be true of designing for inclusivity it was suggested.

Beyond aesthetics

With some clients, it was highlighted there can sometimes be a tussle over aesthetics versus performance, with the way a product looks winning out. Though for Sophie on the client-side, “looking pretty isn’t good enough – we have to be more pragmatic than that”, she said. Any products specified for use at Cheval Collection have been tried and tested by the housekeeping team. "That could be 10-20 fabrics to see which performs best up against the likes of fake tan – this is an exercise in cost management – we’d rather replace a cushion than an entire sofa."

“Looking pretty isn’t good enough – we have to be more pragmatic than that”

When working with external client teams, this is where the guidelines can instil a sense of fear into designers to advise their clients on making the best decisions, said Gordon, “I always prefer to deal with the client who is going to get to make the choice”.

Considering specific design examples, David raised the conundrum of wooden floors and exposed ceilings perhaps looking good, but not performing in terms of acoustics.

Tony raised an interesting point that in hospitality settings, acoustics have to be treated very specifically to the particular setting in hand. “For a fine dining setting, you’ll likely want quiet. But in an all-day brasserie, probably some level of noise.”

“How does this relate to the need for covers?” asked David.

“Covers is the drive”, said Tony, “restaurants base their business model on the number of covers. In London the tables are closer together. But we have to strike the right balance between that, lighting and acoustics.”

Colour was also brought into the conversation, with Erica suggesting that super luxury for an adult audience is now “much darker, and moodier.” For families, a brighter tone is often applied.

In restaurants and retail, colour and lighting temperate is hugely important agreed Erica and Tony, with green avoided as "it can make food look rotten".

When designing for neurodiversity, colour again is crucial. In a collaborative study with Kingston University, Henrietta shared that for creating spaces suitable for people with autism, a pastel palette works best. “No matt, no pattern, and nothing shiny”, she said.

Traditionally, primary schools have always featured primary colours, Henrietta added. But for a lot of children, this is too much, she suggested. “My pet hate is to assume all children like bright colours…”

Megan highlighted the importance of contrast and differentiation between walls and floors so people can move around a space with ease. “Turning your renders into black and white is an easy way to check as it will show the hue and chroma of your materials.”

As the session drew to a close, for now, Diana added biophilia into the mix. “When we see plants we feel better, and that’s in our genes from centuries ago.”

Though living walls have gained popularity over the last few years, this was regarded as a “fad” by some around the table. “It’s more about plants in general now”, said Henrietta.

The conversation continued the following night with our seminar, EDIB: Workplace saviour or someway to go? Stay tuned for our write-up of the key takeaways, coming soon.

In the meantime, a huge thanks to our guests, and to our supporters for this roundtable event, Parkside Architectural Tiles – Partners at Material Source Studio London, Manchester & Glasgow.

Do you have something to add? Let us know over on LinkedIn.

5 takeaways at a glance

1. Choice & control: Effective spaces provide a "gradient of energy," allowing users to choose between high-activity areas and low-arousal, quiet zones.
2. Acoustics and lighting: These were identified as the most critical elements in hospitality. While some environments, like brasseries, benefit from "clatter," others require careful acoustic rendering to prevent sensory overload.
3. Colour theory: The importance of matt finishes and nurturing colour palettes were highlighted.
4. Sensory neutrality: Some luxury operators favour "blank canvas" lobbies - devoid of specific scents or loud music - to ensure all guests feel comfortable regardless of their sensory sensitivities.
5. Practical challenges and maintenance: The friction between aesthetic intent and operational reality was noted. In hospitality, materials must pass "housekeeping tests". In public sector projects, designers were said to struggle to protect inclusive features from being "value-engineered" out by contractors.

The three floor, 46,000 sq ft location for flexible workspace providers Myo offers a wealth of high-spec meeting rooms and event areas right in the heart of the City of London.

Architects Basha Franklin designed the space to create an ‘exceptional experience’ for occupiers and guests alike, achieving this through a strong emphasis on wellbeing, sustainability and community.

Radii joined this fit out in late 2023, where the team worked on the design, supply and install of a tailored glazed partition package for 28 office and meeting rooms.

On Level 2, the Radii team designed and installed a stunning Glide framed glazed screen into quad telescopic track between the reception and adjoining communal area.

Large meeting rooms on Levels 2 and 4 comprised Parallel 100 (Rw 50 dB) double glazed partitions with red and blue framework respectively; Parallel 100 and single glazed Linear 30 variation screens with bronze and grey frames were utilised elsewhere in the space depending on acoustic requirements.

All aluminium was finished in Radii’s dedicated in-house PPC line, with the bronze finish also used on aluminium faced tech panels. Partitions were accompanied by 64mm timber veneered acoustic doors (Rw 41 dB) and double glazed pivoting Hogan doors (Rw 39 dB).

Finally, Radii’s own high-performing FirePro steel-clad fire rated screens rated at E60 were installed on all three levels.

If you're interested in collaborating with Radii on your commercial scheme, discover more by clicking here, or visiting Material Source Studio London, Manchester & Glasgow where it is a Partner.

By Jemma Saunders, Colour Specialist, Crown Paints

Colour in commercial design has long been treated as a visual finishing touch – something to express brand and create impact. But it’s becoming much more than that. Colour shapes how a space feels and how well it works for the people using it. Used with intent, it can support wellbeing, strengthen navigation cues and create environments that are more inclusive by design.

From aesthetics to experience

Designers have always understood, instinctively, that colour affects mood. But today, that intuition is increasingly being supported by research – and by real-world feedback from users.

In commercial settings especially, spaces must now do more. Workplaces should feel focused and functional while still encouraging collaboration; healthcare environments should be calm and reassuring while maintaining compliance, cleanliness and clear wayfinding; and hospitality spaces need to balance atmosphere with comfort, creating spaces that feel welcoming, distinctive and memorable for every guest.

Colour is central to achieving that balance. Subtle shifts in hue, saturation and contrast can transform how a space is perceived and experienced – influencing everything from stress levels and concentration to a clearer sense of flow through the space and ease of navigation. When applied with intent, colour becomes a means of shaping experience rather than simply decorating it.

Neurodiversity and the sensory conversation

One of the most significant developments driving this change is the growing focus on designing neuro-inclusive environments. With an estimated one in seven people in the UK identifying as neurodivergent*, there is increasing awareness that environments are experienced very differently depending on sensory sensitivity, cognitive processing and perception.

What became clear was both a strong appetite to design more inclusively – with 92% saying neurodivergent-inclusive design is becoming increasingly important* – and a genuine knowledge gap around how elements such as colour, contrast and sensory stimulation affect people in practice. These findings come from Crown Paints’ Designing for Neurodiversity report, informed by research with architects and specifiers.

Neuro-inclusive design challenges us to move away from designing to a single ‘norm’. Yet many practitioners say they’re still building confidence in how to apply this in practice: 79% of architects and specifiers report a knowledge gap within their own organisations around the impact of colour, contrast and sensory stimulation*.

It underlines the need for a more considered approach – looking at colour in context, and how it works alongside light, texture and acoustics to reduce sensory load and make spaces easier to use.

Highly saturated palettes and visually busy schemes may energise some users, while causing discomfort or fatigue for others.

This doesn’t mean designing bland or neutral spaces. Rather, it’s about balance, choice and clarity – understanding when colour should stimulate, when it should calm, and how different zones within a space can respond to different needs.

Workplace: performance, focus and flexibility

In the workplace, colour psychology is increasingly tied to performance. As offices evolve into hubs for collaboration, social connection and focused work, a single, uniform colour strategy no longer makes sense.

Different tasks require different sensory conditions. Softer, low-contrast palettes can support concentration and reduce visual fatigue in focus areas, while brighter accents and higher contrast can energise collaborative zones and aid orientation. Colour can also reinforce behavioural cues – for example, using calmer tones to signal quiet zones and bolder accents to frame creative or social areas – helping people adjust their pace and expectations as they move through the workplace.

At Crown Paints’ historic headquarters in Darwen, the revitalised Liz Hickson Academy was designed with neurodiversity in mind, using distinct zones and contrasting colour moods to support different ways of working and unwinding. It pairs the high-energy “Hangout” games room with the calmer, nature-inspired “Hideaway”, using contrasting palettes and finishes to encourage social connection while also creating space for wellbeing and quiet retreat.

Crucially, neurodiversity reminds us that control matters. Designing environments with a range of colour experiences – rather than one ‘middle ground’ solution – allows users to choose spaces that best support how they work on any given day. That flexibility is fast becoming a marker of good workplace design.

Healthcare: calm, clarity and reassurance

In healthcare settings, the psychological impact of colour is particularly pronounced. When a space can feel high-pressure or emotionally intense, colour can help steady the experience – easing sensory strain and supporting a calmer, clearer atmosphere.

At Cygnet Kenney House in Oldham, a mental health hospital for women, the design brief centred on creating a “home away from home”, using a warmer off-white to soften the clinical feel and help people feel more at ease. This sat within a wider, considered palette shaped around how different rooms are used – from a bright, welcoming reception with subtle accent colours, to calmer social spaces where tones were matched to furnishings for a more harmonious, less institutional experience.

Muted greens, soft lilacs and warm neutrals are often associated with calm and reassurance, helping to create environments that feel less institutional and more human. This matters particularly in settings used frequently by older people, where age-related changes in vision – and, in some cases, cognitive decline – can make busy schemes harder to interpret. In these contexts, contrast remains essential: carefully considered colour differentiation between floors, walls and doors can significantly improve navigation and safety, without the need for excessive signage.

Defining spaces through colour can also help distinguish between clinical, social and restorative spaces, allowing environments to flex between stimulation and sanctuary. These principles don’t only benefit neurodivergent users; they create spaces that feel more intuitive and comfortable for everyone.

Hospitality: atmosphere without overload

Hospitality environments perhaps face the greatest balancing act. They must create character, mood and memorability – while remaining comfortable and inclusive for a wide range of guests.

Colour plays a vital role in establishing identity and ambience, but overly intense palettes, high-gloss finishes or excessive contrast can contribute to sensory overload. Increasingly, designers are exploring more layered approaches: combining grounding base colours with moments of accent and texture, and using colour zoning to offer guests choice – from lively, social areas to quieter, more subdued settings.

This approach was reflected at Hedsor House Hotel in Buckinghamshire, where ten individually themed bedrooms were refurbished with schemes inspired by different periods in the venue’s history, using layered colour to create memorable rooms while keeping the overall feel comfortable. What’s interesting is that these considerations are no longer niche. As awareness of sensory sensitivity grows, inclusive colour strategies are becoming part of mainstream hospitality design – supporting longer dwell times, repeat visits and broader appeal.

Colour as a creative and technical discipline

What unites all of these environments is a shift in mindset. Colour is no longer just a creative flourish; it's a technical discipline grounded in research and empathy.

Designing with colour psychology in mind means asking different questions. Who is this space for? How will it be used throughout the day? Where do people need clarity, calm or stimulation? And how can colour support those needs without dictating a single experience?

Our Designing for Neurodiversity report reinforced something many designers already sense: inclusive design isn’t about getting it perfect; rather it’s about engaging, listening and responding. When colour is used thoughtfully, it has the power to make spaces more legible, more comfortable and more human.

Ultimately, colour allows us to design environments that don’t just look good but actively support the people who inhabit them – and that, increasingly, is what good commercial design is about.

For more information, download the Crown Paints Designing for Neurodiversity report here.

(*Survey of 250 architects and specifiers conducted in April 2025 by Censuswide for Crown Paints)

To mark International Women's Day (8 March), we asked 4 female leaders from Gensler's offices across Europe - London, Birmingham, Paris, and Munich - for their views on EDIB and how design is being used to support peoples' varying needs in the workplace.

Here, Laura Gelso, Studio Director and Associate at Gensler; Astrid Eberle, Studio Director and Senior Associate at Gensler; Lindsay Roth, Design Director and Principal at Gensler; and Madeleine Hilton, Managing Director and Principal at Gensler share their thoughts with us.

With equity in mind, what does the workplace look like in 2026?

Laura Gelso, Studio Director and Associate at Gensler

"In 2026, gender equity can no longer exist as ‘policy’. We must be conscious of its physical implications and intentionally build them into the workplace itself. A truly equitable workplace offers varied cognitive settings, giving people the freedom to choose the type of space that aligns with their focus needs or collaborative energy. It recognises ergonomic diversity, moving away from one size fits all standards and instead providing adjustable furniture, inclusive tools and productive equipment that supports different body proportions.

"Spatial design also has the power to flatten hierarchy. When meeting rooms avoid dominant layouts and circulation patterns encourage openness, people experience a more balanced distribution of voice and influence. Equity is also expressed through dignified facilities such as all-gender restrooms, private stalls and spaces that acknowledge caregiving responsibilities, including well-designed lactation rooms and wellness areas.

"When a workplace integrates these principles, it strengthens well-being and supports long-term retention. It is not about designing for a single group; it is truly about universal design that removes barriers and enables everyone to thrive."

Is the consideration of inclusivity always a given in workplace design, or have we still a way to go?

Astrid Eberle, Studio Director and Senior Associate at Gensler

"Inclusivity is a critical issue that we encounter every day in our work. When I began my professional career in Germany, design focused primarily on wheelchair accessibility in public buildings, often overlooking other physical limitations or the needs of neurodiverse individuals. Fortunately, this perspective has since broadened significantly. The ageing population in Germany now requires a barrier-free environment, and the diverse needs of our multicultural society have prompted planners to rethink their approach to design.

"A lot has happened in the last 20 years. The biggest change is that the healthy, average person is no longer the benchmark for planning; instead, we consider a wider range of needs that extend beyond this standard. Wheelchair-accessible design has become the norm, and external inclusivity consultants are now integral to many projects. It is also standard practice in the early phases of design to ask whether prayer rooms, nursing rooms, or other spaces that promote well-being and inclusivity should be included.

"For us at Gensler, we prioritise designing environments that are welcoming to everyone. However, our inclusive work environments can only inspire users to embrace inclusivity. This is something that must grow organically through cultures in the workplace."

Lindsay Roth, Design Director and Principal at Gensler

"No, inclusivity is not always considered, and yes, we do still have a way to go. However, this isn't a bad thing as long as we are moving forward. It's a constantly evolving issue, and we're continually learning and striving to improve. We have come so far, even in the last 5 years the conversation has jumped forward. We’re questioning how to better respond to the different needs of marginalised groups. This has made our projects more complex, sure, though it's also made them more interesting and better overall. They’re loaded and more varied, offering choices for everyone. Their beauty is a result of a brief to create a better human experience.

"I do believe policy and program holders must be intrinsic to the process to ensure we pursue the right solutions and design for the people who will spend a significant proportion of their waking hours in these spaces. This also means the difficult conversations are at the centre of the creative process rather than something addressed afterwards. If a company wants to get a solution correct for its evolving talent, both now and in the future, HR should be at the table helping to shape spaces.

"We’re privileged to be in a position where we can make people’s lives better through the spaces we design. We have a responsibility to create inspiring spaces that make people feel nurtured, confident and empowered. I am excited about being part of this evolving conversation that will only make the future brighter for all."

In recognition of International Women's Day, can you name the woman that inspires you most?

Madeleine Hilton, Managing Director and Principal at Gensler

"For me, Rosa Parks is a constant source of inspiration. She embodies unparalleled courage in standing up to a broken system, defining what is right and defending that right for herself and millions of others.

"Rosa Parks showed that true leadership doesn’t need to be loud or abrasive; it can manifest quietly, but powerfully, through clear actions.

"She saw the bigger picture and committed fully to the cause, using action to drive meaningful change. Rosa Parks’ legacy reminds us that change often begins with a single act, paving the way for a better future for all."