In practice

Timothy Soar captures the diversity and preoccupations of architects across the UK.

Nimi Attanayake and Tim O’Callaghan

Nimi Attanayake and Tim O'Callaghan of nimtim architects see their home office/playroom as a space that reflects the challenge of juggling raising children and running a practice.

Aline Knowles

Aline Knowles has discovered that initiating her own projects and acting as her own client gives her a level of freedom, satisfaction and self-confidence that eluded her in practice.

Tara Gbolade

Ever-changing graffiti at the Leak Street arches at Waterloo reflects the culture of constant regeneration and renewal that underpins Tara Gbolade's approach to practice.

Shahed Saleem

For Shahed Saleem migration, identity, heritage, migration and narrative are the common threads that run through practice, curation, teaching and research.

JJ Lorraine

For JJ Lorraine, the waves at Camber Sands are a source of positive energy and life-affirming joy that match his optimism about his practice and the future.

Charles Holland

Relocating to Deal, a seaside town in east Kent, has exposed Charles Holland's practice to fresh influences, new ways of working and opportunities to engage with the community in profound ways.

Sandy Rendel

Sandy Rendel is inspired by the cobbled mews where he works, a Victorian example of live/work space that is now home to a thriving community of makers and designers.

Dav Bansal

Since joining Glenn Howells Architects over twenty years ago, partner Dav Bansal has evolved from a self-centred architect to a studio leader who is focused on helping others to succeed.

Julia Barfield

Julia Barfield explains how Marks Barfield Architects has built on its entrepreneurial activist roots to redirect its energies towards becoming a regenerative practice.

Mike Tonkin and Anna Liu

For Mike Tonkin and Anna Liu the Palm House at Kew Gardens is a reminder that solutions to contemporary problems depend on an understanding of the inter-connected systems of the natural world.

Christopher Christophi

Christopher Christophi celebrates a career milestone in completing Perkins&Will's new London studio.

Mike Jamieson

Mike Jamieson of TateHindle is inspired by Shoreditch's diversity and vibrancy as well as its capacity for continual transformation.

Timothy Soar on location (ph: Tom Rothery)

In practice

In 2004 the photographer Timothy Soar travelled the UK to a take a series of portraits of British architects at work in their studios. The photographs, which were exhibited at the RIBA, Portland Place, were reviewed by The Guardian’s Architecture Critic Jonathan Glancey as ‘gloriously revealing… touching, impressive, inspiring.’ Sixteen years later, Timothy Soar has revisited the project, touring the country to photograph architects as they grapple with the implications of COVID-19, Lockdown and the associated uncertainty and economic fallout.

Each of the photographs is accompanied by the subject’s thoughts on the current situation and the implications for the way they work. Some are working from home. Others are reorganising or remodelling their workplaces to comply with social distancing All are struggling to contend with new ways of working and an increased reliance on digital communication. Some are taking the opportunity to reinvent their practice or rethink their careers.

Each individual photograph tells a story about a personal response to a particular moment in time. Collectively, the portraits are both a celebration of the diversity of British architecture and a snapshot of a profession in transition.