In practice

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

Gus Zogolovitch

Developer Gus Zogolovitch reflects on the benefits of, and the many challenges involved in, delivering projects that give people agency in the design and build of their own home.

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.

Kristofer Adelaide

Kristofer Adelaide is fascinated with the way people inhabit their homes and believes that the architect's role is to create the conditions for communities to thrive.

Narinder Sagoo

Narinder Sagoo attributes his creativity to his childhood, where nothing came in abundance and everyone made ends meet by making everything themselves.

Laura Mark

As both resident and curator at Walmer's Yard, Laura Mark is acutely aware of the boundaries between dwelling and gallery, public and private, home and work.

Shahed Saleem

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

Maria Westerståhl

The green and blue spaces on Maria Westerståhl's urban doorstep are helping her to rebuild her confidence and sense of adventure after Lockdown and a battle with long Covid.

Angela Dapper

Returning to the office after working from home has made Grimshaw's Angela Dapper acutely aware of the value of the memories and friendships entwined with practice life.

David Mikhail

David Mikhail and his partner are combining their passion for woodland and architecture by using chestnut and ash from overgrown woodland for their own new-build Passive House in Whitstable.

Hannah Wooller

Hannah Wooller sees herself as a doctor for buildings, using her expertise in conservation and regeneration to breathe new life into East Anglia's seaside towns.

Luke Lowings

The house Luke Lowings and his partner built sixteen years ago is a workspace for both of their practices and an urban family home that is joyful, equal and full.

Rachel Hoolahan

Rachel Hoolahan's work at Orms is focused on translating research into meaningful change on projects and reusing buildings and materials – even the ones that weren't designed with reuse in mind.

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.