Architecture for a changing planet

Book tickets

Event details

York School of Architecture Launch event

Join us for a design-filled evening showcasing a range of innovative solutions, behind the scenes tours and a panel discussion by inspiring leaders. Don’t miss out on this unique opportunity to celebrate and explore the future of Architecture!

The University’s new School of Architecture has an inter-disciplinary approach, and has developed a research-informed curriculum related to public good and to key  themes including heritage and regeneration, sustainability and social justice and community and participatory planning. 

The launch event will include an opportunity to meet some of the School’s first students in the studio and explore some of their new and innovative work, and will be followed by a panel discussion bringing together experts in architecture who have initiated innovative practice in relationship to heritage regeneration, sustainability and community engagement.  Speakers will include founder of Invisible Studio and TV presenter, Piers Taylor; Architect in Residence for the city of Bath, Bob Allies; Director of York’s School of Architecture, Lorraine Farrelly, and Stirling-Prize winner and founding Director of Mikhail Riches, Annalie Riches. 

This extraordinarily powerful line-up of speakers will be reflecting on their own practices and offering insights on the needs of the sector and how the School can respond to those opportunities.

• 5pm - 6pm - Studio tours
• 6.30pm - 7:30pm - Panel discussion

About the speakers

Bob Allies founded his practice, Allies and Morrison, with Graham Morrison in 1984. In the years since, he has established a design approach that finds enjoyment in simplicity, technical rigour and longevity. An architect, urbanist and teacher, he is a widely published author and editor, and frequently lectures on architecture and the city.   

Bob has shaped many significant masterplans, from King’s Cross to London’s Olympic Legacy, from Greenwich Peninsula to Brent Cross Cricklewood. With Di Haigh, he co-edited The Fabric of Place which explores how settlements of any scale can evolve and change by building on their historic form and identity. The book forms the foundation of the practice’s approach to urbanism.

Allies and Morrison are the master planners for the York Central project, a key regeneration project situated in the centre of York. 

Annalie Riches co-founded Mikhail Riches in 2015 to focus on providing housing and neighbourhoods that are inherently sustainable and joyful places to live. Prior to establishing Mikhail Riches, Annalie was founding director of Riches Hawley Mikhail, a practice that set the bar for low-carbon social housing with Clay Field and Goldsmith Street. Annalie has worked for a number of practices including the celebrated engineer Peter Rice, in Paris. Annalie went ‘on the tools’ in 2002, building her own house, Whatcotts Yard.

Annalie contributes across all the scales of architectural practice; she is recognised for her masterplanning and strategic abilities, as well as her ‘hands on’ expertise in architectural design and detailing. Her projects include VeloCity; the winning entry to the 2018 NIC Competition for providing 400,000 new homes between Oxford and Cambridge. She is also leading on Park Hill Phase 4, and the Bridgewater masterplan in the Olympic Park.

Mikhail Riches architects are working with the City of York Council on the UK's first Zero-Carbon housing delivery programme.

Dr Piers Taylor, the founder of Invisible Studio, is a Chartered Architect and a thought leader in experimental architecture and design education. He was the inaugural Studio Master of the Design + Make programme at the Architectural Association, is a former Design Fellow at the University of Cambridge, an external examiner at the Arts University Bournemouth, and holds a PhD exploring empowerment through making in architecture. He is Professor of Knowledge Exchange in Architecture at the University of the West of England and Convenor of the acclaimed Studio in the Woods, an influential annual forum for hands-on architectural inquiry. In his book, Learning from the Local: Designing responsively for people, climate and culture, Piers seeks to understand the origins of the local in a global culture.