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Context | Profile

once, where teams of self-builders competed to win the Brady Mallalieu house they were working on. So she has learned the black art of the TV soundbite, and more to the point is comfortable in front of a camera or microphone. Some other presidents have been good at this – one thinks of Rod Hackney, Max Hutchinson, or more recently the cerebral Sunand Prasad, who took to the media with comparative ease. This matters, because it helps enormously to become the go-to person for media comment on built environment matters. Arguably one drawback of the RIBA’s presidential system is that when a good media- savvy president steps down, that’s the end of it: they don’t stay on as spokespeople. But Brady doesn’t intend to be a sole voice. Architects would have far more impact, she argues, if they spoke alongside others in the built environment – engineers, surveyors, landscape architects. ‘It’s much better to have the full team. That’s what I want to bring to the RIBA – not just architects talking to architects.’ Where this particularly matters, she says, is

on the vexed issue of procurement – who gets the jobs, and how? As a small practitioner she gets quite exercised by this. ‘It’s ridiculous, the way it’s going at the moment. It’s all going to the EU when it doesn’t need to. Ninety per cent of practices are small-to medium size – they’re not getting any of the work, and they are going out of business. So we’ll be talking to the Cabinet Office, local authorities, private- sector procurement agencies.’ She’s had experience being turned down

for larger housing association schemes on the grounds that a firm her size is only good for projects up to £1m – despite her track

‘ We’ve had such a bashing from the government, it’s unbelievable. The professions need to stick together and lobby government hard. We can’t be apologetic, we have to fight our corner. Correct their mistakes, every time’

make their case: ‘We’ve had such a bashing from the government, it’s unbelievable. The professions need to stick together and lobby government hard. We can’t be apologetic, we have to fight our corner. Correct their mistakes, every time.’ In a sense there’s less of a problem on the international stage – certain British architects are well-regarded overseas. She says the Olympics – subject of this issue of RIBAJ – present an opportunity to sell their skills around the world. ‘We have great kudos abroad that we don’t have here.’ No president can do everything in a two-

year term, though the quality of UK volume housing is also a priority, along with the need for architects to take a firmer hold of the sustainability agenda and the integrated- working system BIM. As she points out, being proficient in BIM is no guarantee of good architecture – quite the reverse, sometimes – but it does streamline professional working practices. ‘It’s here, upon us. We have to do it, or we’ll be left out.’ Ruth Reed, the outgoing president, had one

record. ‘I could sue them for preventing me working,’ she reflects. ‘It’s because the tick- box approach rules out quality architecture, and considers only PI insurance, turnover, and whatever other perceived ‘risk’ they decide to factor in. The whole system needs to be thoroughly overhauled.’ The economic position now, she says, is one

where London (riots aside) is in a protective bubble, with the rest of the country suffering. Various initiatives are now feeding through, such as the change in use classes, which will generate work. But architects have to

of the rockiest rides in recent years due to the collapsed economy, change of government, and the sometimes fractious internal reorganisation of the institute itself in order to suit a much-changed world – something she supports. True, given the exceptionally shaky state of global finances and horrifying levels of civil unrest in Britain at the time of writing, all bets may be off anyway. But assuming the world recovers and continues to build, then Angela Brady thinks she’s arrived at the right moment. ‘I’m ready for it,’ she concludes. ‘The timing is good.’ n

WWW.RIBAJOURNAL.COM : SEPTEMBER 2011

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