20
INSIGHTS
“For the fi rst time in our history, we are truly a global team”
and delicate ecosystem which needs to be approached holistically. The subtitle of my book, “architectural design through an urban lens” underscores this reciprocity. I conclude the book with specifi c examples of projects conceived as “little cities,” where an urban mindset has underpinned the design process, facilitating user engagement, improving contextual integration and humanising the scale of large complexes.
CAN YOU PICK A PROJECT IN YOUR PORTFOLIO THAT BEST REPRESENTS YOUR DESIGN PHILOSOPHY? The benefi ts of this methodology are illustrated very effectively by our National Children’s Hospital in Dublin, a large high-profi le building due to open next year. The image of the hospital as a little city, with internal daylit streets and individual buildings for different departmental clusters, made the design easy to understand for users. It broke down the scale of what might otherwise have been an intimidating institutional monolith. And allowed each user group to focus on the refi nement of their ‘building’ without cramping the freedom of movement of other users to do the same with their areas, just like buildings along a street can develop independently of each other and of the street itself. In other words, there can be both diversity and unity, fl exibility to cater for specifi c needs within a common sense of place.
WITH CHALLENGES ON SUSTAINABILITY, HOUSING DELIVERY AND SOCIAL VALUE PREVALENT IN THE INDUSTRY, WHAT DO YOU SEE AS THE BIGGEST CHALLENGE FOR ARCHITECTS? Paradoxically, perhaps, the increase in complexity that comes with today’s many societal challenges (whether related to environmental imperatives, heritage regulations or social value goals) only serves to highlight the importance of informed, collaborative action. The great pioneer of user participation, Italian architect Giancarlo De Carlo, once said provocatively that “architecture is too important by now to be left to architects”. His aim was not to demean architects but to highlight that the environment should be a collective concern, in which
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New Children’s Hospital Dublin
everybody has a vital stake and a part to play. Architects are uniquely well-placed to develop solutions but these will only work if they are the product of a collective effort and hard-won consensus.
HOW DO YOU SEE THE PROFESSION CHANGING OVER THE NEXT DECADE, PARTICULARLY AROUND SUSTAINABILITY, COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT AND INTERDISCIPLINARY COLLABORATION, AND WHAT SKILLS WILL DEFINE SUCCESSFUL FUTURE ARCHITECTS?
All these skills will become more and more important and will continue to require strong interpersonal abilities to develop briefs, articulate design visions, engage with multiple stakeholders and navigate increasingly complex regulations. These are aspects of the creative process that cannot and should not be relegated to machine- thinking. For the time being, at least, they will remain safe from AI!
AS PART OF RECRUITING THE ‘NEXT GENERATION OF LEADERS’ IN ARCHITECTURE, WHAT ADVICE WOULD YOU GIVE TO YOUNG ENTRANTS TO THE PROFESSION? Hold onto your optimism! Understand and cultivate the drive that fi rst inspired you to become an architect, urban designer or engineer. It’s this that will give you the stamina to persevere. Doing the kinds of projects we do best at BDP is never a
sprint; it’s always a marathon that requires long term commitment and the patience to follow ideas through, staying true to the original vision but with suffi cient resilience to respond to change. In this sense, the design and implementation process is like a dry run for the future life of the buildings.
BDP RECENTLY PUBLISHED GUIDING PRINCIPLES OF GOOD DESIGN. WHICH RESONATES MOST STRONGLY WITH YOU PERSONALLY?
Our Guiding Principles are People, Place, Planet, Purpose and Process. All are important and intertwined. Tackling any of them separately reinforces the kind of siloed thinking that we need to avoid. A well- known ‘starchitect’ said to me recently that “there is no such thing as local culture”; in other words that the specifi c characteristics embodied by the fi ve P’s are irrelevant. I disagree wholeheartedly!
WHERE DO YOU SEE THE PRACTICE HEADING OVER THE NEXT FIVE YEARS? For the fi rst time in our history, we are truly a global team. This comes with huge advantages in terms of insight, talent, breadth of collective experience and capacity for collaboration. But it also comes with understandable challenges, above all the imperative to stay agile, ensuring that we remain responsive and inventive as new challenges arise.
ADF SEPTEMBER 2026
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