Hi, Nicky. I just wanted your reaction, first of all! How do you feel about getting this award? What does it mean to you? And what is your main message to people, if you could precis that?

 

OK. I just said about 10 minutes’ worth! But first of all, I just found this such a joyful and celebratory occasion. It's absolutely wonderful to listen, and to see so many projects, which are pointing the way that we must go. My message? Well, first of all, I want to say that I'm incredibly proud to receive this award. 

 

So you should be!

 

Well, I meant it when I said that I was in a room full of people, many of whom I've learned from, and many of whom could really share this award with me. Anyway, my main message really, is that we need to - I mean, it's happening, but - we need to do more sharing, collaboration and coordinating within projects and between projects.

 

Do you mean between the private sector and public sector?

 

Yes, and across disciplines, as well. More of that, across disciplines. Because that's the only way I think that you really get both the ownership and some really good implementation. But what I learned today from the awards, is that, as I said, London has to reinvent itself, now. We've reached one of those stages. We need to reinvent ourselves, because the biggest challenge is climate change. And that's going to need a lot of the things that were actually there in the awards. But at scale.

 

Yeah. Do you think, then, if you say that more collaboration is needed, does that by its definition, mean that, up until now, collaboration hasn't been happening properly? And if so, where?

 

I think a lot of the time, you don't get the collaboration between the... I mean, if you think about the built environment, you need landscape designers, you need architects, you need engineers, you need the citizen in there, too. You know, you need so many different professions. And very often we're not getting that. Why I cited Tim Ronalds is because he does that, you know? Am I making sense?

 

Absolutely, yes. And are you optimistic about the future, just as a final question?

 

Well, I'm optimistic about the fact that, as I said, London's now going through a big reinvention. It's got to. If it's going to continue to address and tackle climate change, an awful lot has to change incredibly quickly. And we saw today, you know, retrofit projects! And we saw that it was top of the agenda; that it is trumping demolition, which I think it needs to. And we also saw projects, which are really practicing the circular economy; they're using bio-based materials. And they're not using a lot of finite resources. And they're also thinking about weighting carbon within the lifecycle analysis. This sounds all very technical, but it's crucially important, if we actually want to reach net zero. And, in fact, if you like, to build enough buildings. Because we've got to change what we're doing. And also, I think we need to understand the role of nature. It's a very old, it's a very new technology. We now know, you know, what nature can do for a city, mentally, health wise physically. Also, it's a carbon sink; it's soaking up the carbon. We need it, we need biodiversity. 

 

More trees! More greenery!

 

We need trees, we need more greenery, and we need development to respect that. And then I was very struck by the child-friendly award, which I thought was great. Because, to be absolutely frank, London's public realm really is still – even now – looking after cars better than after our children and our young people. We almost don't need child-friendly awards. We need child-friendly, playful, public realm to be ubiquitous; to be everywhere.

 

Yes indeed! Well, congratulations again. And thank you very much.

 

You know, I just picked up what I said today! I could have said a lot of other things. I wanted to talk about cross-laminated timber and constrained sites and sweating our assets and all sorts, and I didn't do that. But if you do a longer interview one day, I will!

 

Let’s do that! Thanks again Nicky!