Building Tour - Norton Folgate
On 18 June 2026, members and friends of AIA UK had the pleasure of visiting Norton Folgate, British Land's redevelopment in the East End of London, consisting of three urban blocks, six new office buildings, a new public realm, and a significant number of historic buildings. The masterplan design was led by Allford Hall Monaghan Morris (AHMM) and the design for the buildings were developed by a larger team of AHMM, Stanton Williams, Morris + Company, and DSDHA with public realm design by East. The AIA UK honoured the project with a 2025 Design in Excellence Award for Outstanding Adaptive Reuse.
Today, retrofit and adaptive reuse have become ever more central to architectural practice across the UK, as the industry has increasingly focused on reducing embodied carbon and meeting net-zero targets since the early 2020s. Norton Folgate, whose design began around 2012, embraced these principles long before they became common practice.
There was a commitment to preserving the site's distinguishing features wherever possible, even when doing so required significantly greater time, effort, and cost than constructing entirely new buildings. Original façades and distinctive brick chimneys were carefully held in place during construction; parapet heights were aligned with adjacent historic buildings to maintain the scale and rhythm of the neighborhood; and the materiality of the historic street paving extends seamlessly into the lobby. Rather than treating heritage as a constraint, the project draws inspiration from the site's existing conditions, giving these contemporary high-performance buildings extraordinarily rich character.
New buildings follow the scale and rhythm of historic streetscape
The site's history continued to influence the project even after construction had begun. During excavation for the foundations, historic structures and archaeological artifacts were uncovered beneath the site. The project team then adjusted the design and structure in response, allowing another layer of London's history to be preserved underground.
As we explored the development in use, it became clear that Norton Folgate caters not just to its tenants. The ground floor is highly permeable, with a series of pedestrian passages carved through the buildings' massing, connecting the surrounding streets and inviting people to move through the site on their journeys. Together with active retail frontages, these routes help create a lively destination that remains welcoming well beyond office hours.
Original chimneys and ground-level passage
Our guides also shared insights into the unique collaboration behind the project. With four architectural practices responsible across the development, Norton Folgate could easily have become a collection of competing design statements. Instead, the architects fondly recalled a highly collaborative team with a supportive atmosphere, which is reflected in the distinctive yet coordinated buildings.
The tour concluded in one of the landscaped courtyards throughout the development, another feature preserved from the original site. Stepping into this space feels like discovering a hidden garden tucked away from the bustling crowds of Liverpool Street Station. We also learned that the planters and outdoor furniture have been designed to be fully removable, allowing the courtyards to evolve over time.
Office private courtyard
AIA UK extends its sincere thanks to our amazing guides Paul Jones (AHMM), Stephen Hadley (Stanton Williams), Isabel Moreira (DSDHA), and Dann Jessen (East), whose candid reflections on their design process, coordination, and the many joys and challenges along the way made for an engaging evening. We are also grateful to Gregory Fonseca AIA for organizing the tour, and to Genie Khmelnitski for photos.
We look forward to bringing more opportunities like this to our members. Stay tuned for future building tours as we continue exploring some of the most innovative projects shaping the UK's architecture scene.
Written by Mi Yao, AIA
Beale & Co Sponsor News - Legal and Regulatory Updates for Architects in 2026: Managing Emerging Risks
The landscape for architects in 2026 is being reshaped by significant legal, regulatory and commercial pressures. Increasing regulatory scrutiny, rapid digital transformation and artificial intelligence (AI) adoption, onerous contractual and contract administration requirements, tightening insurance conditions, and evolving payment and building safety regimes are collectively raising expectations of practices.
In this environment, it is key for architects to remain alert to market developments and adopt proactive, forward-looking risk management strategies to meet emerging obligations, control liability exposure, safeguard insurability and maintain a competitive edge in an increasingly complex and uncertain market.
For more detail on each of the topics below and key takeaways, please the full article HERE…
Core contractual and commercial risk areas…
Governance and compliance risk…
Digital and AI Risk…
Insurance & professional liability trends…
Building safety
Written by Andrew Croft and Kayleigh Rhodes
Emerging Technologies in Architecture: A Recap
On 29 April 2026, AIA UK brought together four speakers working at the edge of architectural technology for a panel on emerging technologies in the profession. The room was full, the questions were sharp, and the conversation went well beyond the usual AI hype cycle. Here is what we covered.
Data Governance as a Design Problem
Joshua Foxley, Senior UX Designer at Bentley Systems, opened by mapping a familiar loop: a client hands over PDFs at stage one, the architect builds an intelligent model through design development, and by tender that model is stripped down, exported, and flattened into IFCs, DWGs, and PDFs. At every handover, data quality drops and lineage, meaning who did what, when, and why, disappears.
Joshua's argument was that the software industry solved a version of this problem decades ago with version control. Git Hub's model of branches, pull requests, and merges maps closely onto ISO 19650's work-in-progress, shared, and published states. The challenge is not inventing new tools but embedding this thinking directly into the desktop applications architects already use every day. He is currently researching this at Bentley and is looking for practices willing to share the friction points they experience first hand.
Designing From Inside the Model
Johan Hanegraaf, Co-founder & Head of product of Arkio, challenged the room with a simple observation: architects spend the vast majority of their time designing three-dimensional space on a two-dimensional screen. Arkio's mixed reality platform lets teams step inside a Revit or Rhino model at human scale, sketch and annotate directly on it, and collaborate with others in the same space, whether virtually or on real site.
He shared a live example from Canary Wharf, where he and a Anna Mytcul from KPF co-located on a site of One North Quay and edited the model together in real time. The larger point: models built for design do not need to be printed or rendered to be understood. They can be experienced directly; at the scale they were designed for.
Keeping Architects in Control of AI
Jean Santos, Head of Marketing of xFigura, addressed the tension architects feel most acutely around AI: does it expand creative freedom or quietly narrow it? Her answer centred on control and transparency. xFigura's platform lets architects train models on their own sketches and design language, building a personal style library rather than relying on generic outputs.
Jean was direct about the risk: black-boxed AI tools remove the architect's agency over the process. The solution is not to slow adoption but to design interfaces that keep reasoning visible and put control back in the architect's hands, whether that is annotating a render for changes or feeding a prompt with an image reference.
Simulating Experience, Not Just Form
Miroslav Naskov, founder of minD Design, closed with a methodology built on three pillars: craft, AI, and play. Every project begins with handmade models and sketches. AI is then used to generate and test variations quickly. Finally, immersive multiplayer environments let the team step inside the design to test atmosphere, light, and material before committing.
He shared two built projects, a heritage hotel conversion and a private residence, where stepping inside digital twins helped secure conservation approvals and catch costly mistakes before construction. His closing thought: a beautiful render shows you how a space looks. It does not show you how it feels.
The Panel Discussion
The Q&A that followed raised the questions the industry is genuinely wrestling with:
How do you move beyond visual and spatial feedback toward structural and sustainability data within these tools?
How do practices adopt new workflows without disrupting the ones their teams already trust?
Will AI replace early-career architects, or will it create new roles and career paths altogether?
No one offered easy answers. What came through clearly was a shared conviction: AI and immersive tools are teammates, not replacements, and the practices that engage early, test carefully, and stay in control of the process will be the ones shaping what architecture looks like in ten years.
Thank You
Thank you to Joshua Foxley, Johan Hanegraaf, Jean Santos, and Miroslav Naskov for four genuinely different perspectives on one shared question, and to everyone who attended and pushed the conversation further with your questions.
A special thank you to Bentley Systems and Greg Demchak for generously hosting us and providing the space for the evening.
Keep an eye on our channels for details of the next AIA UK event.
Written by Anna Mytcul, Associate AIA
Photos by Hrisi Arabadzhieva and Anna Mytcul
2026 AIA UK Excellence in Design Awards Gala Celebrates Design Across the UK and Beyond
The American Institute of Architects UK Chapter welcomed architects, designers, students, industry partners, and friends to the 2026 Excellence in Design Awards Gala at the Royal College of Physicians in London on 28 May 2026.
The evening celebrated projects that demonstrate outstanding design excellence, innovation, sustainability, and positive impact on the built environment. The 2026 programme marked an important evolution of the awards, expanding its international reach while placing the AIA Framework for Design Excellence at the centre of the jury's evaluation process. Projects from across the UK, Europe, the Middle East, and Africa showcased how design can respond to today's environmental, social, and economic challenges through thoughtful and enduring solutions.
This year's awards were generously supported by headline sponsor MillerKnoll, whose continued commitment to design excellence helped make the evening possible.
The jury was chaired by Mouzhan Majidi, FAIA, Chief Executive Officer of Zaha Hadid Architects, and included Elie Gamburg, AIA, Principal at Kohn Pedersen Fox, Natalia Uribe, Cities Director at BDP, Mina Hasman, Sustainability Director at Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, and Dr Paolo Zaide, Assistant Head of School at University of Westminster. Bringing expertise from architecture, urban design, sustainability, engineering, and academia, the jury carefully reviewed a diverse and highly competitive field of submissions.
The 2026 awards recognised excellence across five categories:
• Excellence in UK Design
• Excellence in Global Design
• Excellence in Interior Architecture and Design Innovation
• Excellence in Urban Design and Environmental Stewardship
• Noel Hill Student Research Award
In a refined awards structure introduced this year, projects were recognised through Citation, Merit, and Excellence awards. Rather than representing progressive levels of achievement, each distinction recognised projects that independently met the jury's high standards within their respective categories.
Following an evening of networking in the Royal College of Physicians' gardens, guests gathered for the awards presentation, where the jury celebrated projects that exemplified creativity, technical excellence, environmental responsibility, and meaningful contributions to their communities.
Congratulations to all of the 2026 award recipients, whose work demonstrates the breadth and quality of contemporary architectural and urban design practice. The complete list of winners, jury citations, and project information is available on the AIA UK Excellence in Design Awards website.
The AIA UK Excellence in Design Awards continue to provide a platform for recognising projects that advance the profession while addressing the complex challenges facing our built environment. This year's programme highlighted how design excellence extends beyond aesthetics, embracing resilience, sustainability, inclusivity, and long term value for communities.
The AIA UK Chapter extends its sincere thanks to our distinguished jury for their time and expertise, all participating practices and students for sharing their work, our sponsors and partners for their generous support, and the many volunteers whose dedication made the event a success. Most importantly, thank you to everyone who joined us to celebrate another outstanding year of architectural excellence.
Written by Paolo Mendoza, Assoc AIA
Alison Brooks, FAIA receives OBE in the 2026 King’s Birthday Honours
The AIA UK congratulates Alison Brooks on receiving the honour of Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) as part of the 2026 King’s Birthday Honours. The founder of Alison Brooks Architects was elevated to College of Honorary Fellows by the AIA in 2025 and has been a supporter of the UK chapter for over ten years.
Alison was a jury member for the AIA UK Excellence in Design Awards in 2015 (article here) and again more recently in 2025 when she chaired the jury (article here). At the 2022 International Conference hosted by the AIA UK chapter in London, Alison was a featured speaker, sharing insights about the city and how it inspired her work at Kings Cross (article here). We are pleased for her recognition with the awarding of the OBE and thank her for her longstanding engagement with the AIA UK and its members.
Building Tour - Elizabeth Line Transforming London Through Infrastructure and Design
Photo credit: Grimshaw/Hufton+Crow
On 16 April, members of the AIA UK had the opportunity to experience the Elizabeth Line firsthand through an exclusive tour led by representatives from Grimshaw.
The visit began at Grimshaw’s Clerkenwell studio, just moments from Farringdon Station, where Neil McClements and Graham Gibbon presented the design development behind one of Europe’s largest recent infrastructure projects. Since its full integration in 2023, the Elizabeth Line has fundamentally transformed travel across London, connecting Berkshire and Essex through approximately 117 kilometres of railway and 41 stations.
Developed through a collaboration between Grimshaw, AtkinsRéalis, design firm Maynard, and lighting consultants Equation, the project established a comprehensive “line-wide strategy” that unified architecture, interiors, wayfinding, and passenger experience across the network. The Elizabeth Line was recognised with the 2024 RIBA Stirling Prize for its outstanding contribution to British architecture.
Neil McClements explained that while the consortium developed the overarching design language and passenger environment, individual stations were designed by a range of architectural practices, each responding uniquely to its urban context at street level. As passengers descend into the stations, however, a consistent architectural identity emerges through the application of unified cladding systems, lighting, signage, and spatial design strategies that conceptually and functionally bind the network together.
Graham Gibbon further contextualised the project by describing the extensive attention given to the design of every component, from the curved glass-fibre reinforced concrete cladding to the integrated technology and illuminated wayfinding totems. The use of consistent line-wide elements enabled efficiencies in manufacturing and construction while ensuring durability, clarity, and visual continuity throughout the system. Importantly, Crossrail’s commitment to full-scale mock-ups and rigorous testing allowed the design team to refine and validate solutions that ultimately contributed to the project’s award-winning outcome.
The signature white cladding, with its softly flared geometries, enhances visibility, improves passenger safety, and creates a calm, cohesive spatial experience. Freestanding totems provide clear and intuitive wayfinding, seamlessly integrating graphics, lighting, and passenger information.
Following the presentation, the group toured Farringdon Station before travelling on the Elizabeth Line to Tottenham Court Road Station and back. The journey offered participants the opportunity to experience firsthand the line’s carefully considered architecture, detailing, materiality, and passenger environment. Along the route, Neil and Graham highlighted key design features ranging from integrated artwork and graphics to seating, lighting, and spatial organisation — all conceived as integral components of a unified architectural vision.
The tour provided a valuable insight into how thoughtful, coordinated design at both urban and infrastructural scales can elevate the experience of public transportation while contributing meaningfully to the identity of the city.
Written by Gregory Fonseca, AIA