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Oliver Lowrie, director and co-founder at Ackroyd Lowrie shares how his fi rm is championing new talent, and why greater diversity and inclusivity is essential for safeguarding the future of the industry
A
t Ackroyd Lowrie, we are building a company to design the cities of the future. Architecture has the capacity
to impact everyone, so we believe it should be as open and inclusive as possible. To achieve this, we focus on people and creating a workforce with a diverse background, ideally comprising those who grew up in inner city environments, who we can nurture and educate into outstanding designers with their own confi dence and passion. However, in our experience, there are two signifi cant barriers into the profession. The fi rst is that the UK’s architectural education system is very long, expensive, and does not necessarily equip candidates with the skills required to be useful to a business from day one.
The second is a matter of visibility. Architecture is not taught in schools, and we fi nd when we go into schools in our local area of Tower Hamlets and Hackney, it’s not seen as an obvious career route for young people. To design the cities of the future, we need people from all walks of life. Diversity and representation is vital. Young people need to know what careers are viable; they can’t be what they can’t see.
Inspiration behind AL Academy Inspired by the academy Sir Alex Ferguson built at Manchester United, my co-director Jon Ackroyd and I decided to establish a similar model to fi nd and develop the Ryan Giggs, Gary Neville and David Beckham of the architectural world! The AL Academy fi rstly aimed to tackle the challenges of employing graduates straight out of university. Via an internal online portal, new (and existing) members of staff can access educational videos, lectures, design principles and other
WWW.ARCHITECTSDATAFILE.CO.UK
Students from Cardinal Pole Catholic School, Hackney at an AL Academy workshop
resources to help onboarding and encourage upskilling. This can be accessed remotely, at any time, which was particularly useful during the lockdowns when face-to-face interaction was restricted.
The skills matrix
The portal contains a skills matrix where employees rate their individual skills and identify any knowledge gaps. This has multiple benefi ts. Instead of becoming stressed and anxious about what is expected of them, employees use the matrix to gain a clear understanding of what skills they need for their current role, and the experience required for progression, which is mapped in individually-tailored career plans. From a business perspective,
it also ensures any shortages are correctly identifi ed and managed.
Our company manifesto is then informed by the skills matrix and gives young designers the confi dence and tools to design from their own perspective and passion, but with a shared company vision of what cities of the future should be like. We quickly realised the real bonus is that this system can be applied to anybody, meaning it’s enabled us to develop a second strand to the AL Academy.
Our outreach programme This allows us to work with local schools and charities outside of the traditional architectural education system to break down barriers and positively
ADF JULY/AUGUST 2023
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