Hello! So, Hanif. Firstly, many congratulations for being the engineer on the Stirling prize winner this year, Town House. I think it's your fourth overall. What is the secret, first of all? And as a subsidiary question to that, do you think engineers get enough recognition in awards? And in this particular award? 

 

The first thing to say is that it's overwhelming in 20 years to have arrived at the position where you have been part of four winners. It's not something you plan. It just happens. But my view would be the secret is work, work, work, in that the people that do these kind of projects, the authors, which is really the architects, spend years mastering their own discipline. And the best of them need a lot more support and effort, because they also understand that it's about a common approach to it and how do you bring the best out of the other people around you? So, I feel the secret is that. If you're really up for design and the impact it has, that good quality buildings have, then you become part of this network that I think constantly leaves you bare. Or you're fearful of not winning something all the time. 

I think that's what's happened to us, for instance, in that we've always been associated with high quality work produced for architects, with architects, and for developers and for the city. So, I think that that would be my secret: it is really just effort, and being in the moment, all the time, being relevant, keeping up with what's going on in architecture. And it does move, you know? They shift around, these things. 

So when you look at those four [Peckham Library, Simon Sainsbury Centre, Bloomberg, Town House], they are very different types of projects. And I think the Stirling and awards in general, in my view, are great recognition. Because other than anything else, and there's many ways of talking about them, they change the mindset of people. They change the mindset of those who consume these buildings, those that are studying architecture and engineering, those that use them. So, there's a certain kind of intangible benefit that they give that I feel is a necessity, because you can't always measure goodness, in just doing great project after great project. Nobody even notices. So, I think that these are the kinds of conditions you need to be operating on and have a particular mindset, so you can actually help approach these things in a way where you take the opportunities. And you're lucky, to be frank with you; you know, the final prize is not easy to win. I've been on the jury and have been very fortunate to be invited by the RIBA to be on one of the Stirling juries, and the conversations are difficult and the jury is not always aligned. And I think the decision in my case at least was almost in the last minute, because everyone deserves it once they've got through to the shortlist. So I think it's fantastic, in a sense.

 

Were you surprised?

 

I was. I think it's commonly known that I had thought another project was more of a favourite…

 

Which one?

 

The Amin Taha one in Clerkenwell, because I think in many ways, despite some aspects of it lacks in rigour, but I think that it's the proper project and for what it faced and got over in terms of what architecture and construction can do deserved to be something that we celebrate, so I thought that would be the winner.

 

And your chat just now about both mindsets needing to be changed and also fortune - being lucky - both figured in your Instagram post of yesterday. I'll read it out because I'd like you to unpack it a little bit. You said: ‘`RIBA Stirling Prize times four; we are lucky to have engineered these four projects that lay bare a participation in critical intellectual agenda, whilst unmasking cynics who don't see how mindsets can be changed by awards. This soft diplomacy is getting us heard, as we unashamedly celebrate and connect deeper to design’. Firstly, can I ask you well, to unpack it a little bit? But who are the cynics? Is that us lot? Is that the journalists? Or...

 

…No, it's not! It's not. I think there is a whole group of people who self-perpetuate. And to some extent there is the media, who have to generate award after award after award in order to stay alive and create income. And that creates a certain cynicism in the profession. And in the intellectual professions, at least. And even among students, there's some cynicism about people just buying awards, or getting into a position where they're bound to win because they go for something that's quite easy to win. So, I think there's a lot of cynical conversations. I'm certainly victim of that, having been fortunate enough to have won many, and also been on many juries. So that's the cynics. 

The intellectual comment was really about time. When an award like this, if you look at all the winners over at least the 20 years that we've been associated with them, and you look at all the shortlists, it's a body of knowledge, an incredible body of intellectual knowledge that we can always refer back to. When we’re doing new projects when we're rethinking policy, when we're rethinking how you construct, when you're rethinking how you teach. So, it creates an archive of thought that actually reinforces that there has been a past and there is a recent past. We don't need to start from ground zero every time; and that there will be a future. So, the cynics often bring on the doomsday scenarios with all the difficulties we have about not building new or not building at all and all sorts of stuff. And I feel that the intellectual rigour is that, and the other part of it is different types. If you look at from housing to lab facilities, to what is now considered to be the Town House, which has mixed use; it's got public space, and private spaces, and the library. So, I see these moving the needle quite a long way in raising the floor of what we construct in everything you do from your own house to everything else we do in terms of built environment. Hence, I say that it kind of unmasks those kinds of criticisms, when remarkable projects like this can win. 

We had some criticism when we won with the Bloomberg project. That it was quite expensive and so on. What wasn't appreciated by people is that it was a remarkably advanced technological building; it stands as that. And it's difficult not to admire it in every aspect of craft to the tools that we used to make it. So, when people start criticizing, say, the budget of a building, or they criticize the type of building that wins, we need to unmask those things and remind people that, ultimately, this is about knowledge; building knowledge, spreading knowledge, sending people to appreciate it. 

So that's what I was trying to say in my post yesterday, because you can't say it with a singular project. But when you had the fortune of four different types and four different architects whose starting position is different, then you can legitimately claim the claim I make. That, of course, this is not entirely an accident. It is also about being involved in high quality design. Which the RIBA fortunately recognized with the Stirling award in particular. It was fantastic to work with Grafton Architects, by the way, and we look forward to the next prizes...! 

Do you think that awards like this adequately convey what architecture is all about to the public? Or do you think it's one component of that? And does that actually bias, in a sense, the winner to a certain typology, do you think? 

 

Yeah. No, I personally feel... I've seen the reactions of people when they see these buildings, and often it's the first time they've noticed it, because it's been announced as a winner of the best building of the year. And suddenly, they will ask - I had it on Kingston, I have a young relative who goes there who had never realized what the building is about. They liked it, because it raised the whole feeling of going to university and going to that building. But what they hadn't realized is what's behind it; what its purpose was, why it's relevant. Or even the simple thing of how it was made. And suddenly, they are taking an interest in our industry, which I think is important. It may be a student in this case, but the public, generally speaking, tend to enjoy these things, like them. Of course, there are again critics, but lastly, speaking, they do move the needle, in terms of appreciation for design and good quality, even in your neighbourhood. How important is to be tidy, and detail well, and all those sorts of things that benefit quality of life. So I think it does, definitely. And then in typology, if you look at laboratory facilities, right now, there is a massive shift in London, in particular towards life sciences, around Cambridge and Oxford. When you look back at the Sainsbury Stanton Williams building, it shows that even what is potentially a utilitarian building where people don't actually need to go in private or can't go the creativity that comes out of creating a building like that pushes science. So, the use of the building basically drives you to better what you are and pushes you as an individual and for also those working in there. So, in terms of types of buildings that are awarded we had, I think last year, or the year a housing scheme in Norwich. You saw the impact that had on - that wasn't one of my projects - but you saw the impact that has on how we build our housing, what is the value, the social change that we need to go to terms of inequity and so on. So, they also raise large policy and political questions, I think, that we need to try and address one way or the other. It might just be an award but there is a much deeper intellectual rigour. So, final question, which of your projects that you're working on now is going to win selling next year? (Laughs) Well, the wisdom isn't consecutive. But I would hope within the next five years, we have we have fantastic array, from new builds to, Regent’s Crescent, Flaxmills, which are grade one listed, or Saarinen's building that we're redoing as The Rosewood on Grosvenor Square. These are old buildings where we're extracting what the building was and redoing it with fantastic architects. One of those could have a chance because they will be finished, a couple of them. Regent's Crescent's finished, actually. Or it could be one of the new ones, you never know. We've got the Google headquarters; we've got 120 Fleet Street with BIG. A number of projects, (One) Nine Elms, the tower at Bankside (Yards), with AHMM, we have Belgrove House due to start - the life sciences scheme. So, it's a range. And you never bet on these things. You just hope that one of these will pop up and will be acknowledged at least to win an award. And then if it gets on the shortlist, that's good enough to be honest. To win? That's a bonus.

 

You're going to need a bigger trophy cabinet!

 

Oh, well, it's not about that. It's about the reaction it creates in the office. And, and the demand it creates also. So, in terms of people coming to us and hoping to win a prize, it raises our own level of work. We know there's a lot expected of us to do better. And I think that's the bit that I enjoy the most - it changes the way the office dynamics work as well. 

 

Brilliant. Thanks for sparing me some time, Hanif, and good luck for future Stirlings and, well, all schemes really? 

 

Pleasure. Fantastic! Thanks, David for this. It's amazing how you've mastered this, but there you go. Master of many things! 

 

Oh well, I'm blushing now! (laughs). Thanks a lot!

 

Cheers!