Public Spaces for All

Simply because space is deemed ‘public’ does not mean it is automatically or inherently inclusive. In this episode, our guests Pippa Catterall and Adam Bray share their views on how we can create public spaces that are truly safe and welcoming, and how we can all feel empowered to use them.

We get to the fundamental conversation around who has power in public spaces – from the people who design them to the organisations who often claim them, and how design can signal and encourage everything from authority to equality. We also discuss the tension between the desire – and need - to blend into society while simultaneously championing diversity and inclusion.

Pippa Catterall is Professor of History and Policy at the University of Westminster, editor of National Identities and Chair of AIDS Memory UK. She has published widely on subjects including heritage, the development of the media, constitutional history, and international relations. Reflecting her role as a member of Westminster’s Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Committee, her recent research focuses upon the relationship between inclusivity and public space. This resulted in the report and film on Queering Public Space that, with Ammar Azzouz, she published in 2021.

LinkedIn: Pippa Catterall

Adam Bray is a Director at Savills and heads up the place-shaping team within London, helping deliver programmes of cultural activity at sites across the capital including King’s Cross, London Bridge City and The Leadenhall Building. He is particularly active in areas of diversity & inclusion and community engagement, with an interest in how this translates into business environments. He enjoys helping shape places which foster collaboration between people and communities and exploring ways in which people interact with the built environment in new, unexpected and creative ways.

LinkedIn: Adam Bray

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Design Meets Insight is hosted by Namrata Krishna, Design Strategy Lead at Heta. This episode is guest curated by Nicky Wightman, Director of Emerging Trends at global real estate business Savills. The podcast is edited by Jon Mardlin. Lorraine Chan makes original illustrations for each episode. You can see them at www.hetaarchitects.com.

We’d love to hear from you, so please get in touch at studio@hetaarchitects.com, or find us on LinkedIn at

Linkedin: Namrata Krishna

Linkedin: Nicky Wightman

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Since the 1970’s, skateboarding has evolved to become increasingly inclusive and accessible, which in turn has shaped public realm in our cities to be more diverse, dynamic, and vibrant.

For this episode we spoke to Iain Borden, Vice-Dean Education and Professor of Architecture & Urban Culture at The Bartlett, UCL about how and why skateboarding has changed, and how accommodating its culture and community in the public spaces we design can be incredibly valuable.   

Iain Borden’s research explores how architecture and cities are experienced and re-used by the public. In particular, he has completed an in-depth study of the urban practice of skateboarding, looking at how skateboarders adopt modern cities as their own pleasure-ground, creating a culture with its own architecture, clothes, attitudes and social benefits. His most recent book is called Skateboarding & the City: a Complete History (2019).

Instagram and Twitter: @iainborden

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Design Meets Insight is hosted by Namrata Krishna, Design Strategy Lead at Heta. This episode is guest curated by Nicky Wightman, Director of Emerging Trends at global real estate business Savills. The podcast is edited by Jon Mardlin.

We’d love to hear from you, so please get in touch at studio@hetaarchitects.com, or find us on LinkedIn at

Linkedin: Namrata Krishna

Linkedin: Nicky Wightman

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For this episode on public art, we’ve brought together Leyla Fakhr and Lee Bofkin, who come from very different art backgrounds but who are both equally passionate about the power of art to bring people together and enrich our lives. They discuss creating art for the built environment, what we mean by ‘community engagement’, and the role of art in shaping our individual and collective identities.

Leyla Fakhr works as a curator, producer and advisor. She is the founder and director of Art Square Projects, an agency that develops contemporary art projects and commissions with special focus on diversity within Public Art.

Dr. Lee Bofkin is the co-founder of Global Street Art, a leading multi-channel platform dedicated to supporting street art and artists. Global Street Art’s Agency is the UK’s leading supplier of Hand-Painted Advertising (HPA), winning several Cannes Lions and Drum OOH awards.

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Listen to the podcast

Design Meets Insight is hosted by Namrata Krishna, Design Strategy Lead at Heta. This episode is guest curated by Nicky Wightman, Director of Emerging Trends at global real estate business Savills. The podcast is edited by Jon Mardlin.

We’d love to hear from you, so please get in touch at studio@hetaarchitects.com, or find us on LinkedIn at

Linkedin: Namrata Krishna

Linkedin: Nicky Wightman

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We wrapped up this special series with Juan Cortes and Martha Thorne, who dialled in from Spain to chat about the opportunities and challenges for technology in urban design. They shared their hopes for the future of ‘intelligent cities’ that use technology to make daily life easier, enable people to participate in everything from how their data is used to political activism, and bring communities together in new, more meaningful ways. But this also came with a caution to ensure that we don’t abuse the information we have, and that there is transparency and accessibility across the digital world we’re building.

Juan is the Urbanism & Sustainability Lead in Spain for Jones Lang Lasalle, where he has been successfully incubating, launching and directing strategic development and urban planning projects through an approach that blends social, environmental and economic sustainability to catalyse healthy and successful places.

Martha is the Dean of the IE School of Architecture & Design, part of the IE University in Madrid/Segovia, Spain. She recently stepped down from the position of Executive Director of the Pritzker Architecture Prize, a role she held since 2005. Martha's main interests centre on how architecture, design, and urbanism can contribute to sustainability and resilience in the contemporary city as well as the evolution of architecture and design education.

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Design Meets Insight is hosted by Namrata Krishna, our Design Strategy Lead and part of our Design Advisory team. This episode is co-hosted by Dan Birdsall, one of Heta’s founding directors.

We’d love to hear from you, so please get in touch at studio@hetaarchitects.com, or find us on LinkedIn at

Linkedin: Namrata Krishna

Linkedin: Daniel Birdsall

Linkedin: Juan Cortes

Linkedin: Martha Thorne

"I always felt the Internet of Things, IOT, is quite artificial, quite cold, but [some] ecological engineers are now speaking of the Internet of Nature, ION, which is much more beautiful. This is about using data and sensors to improve the green infrastructure of our cities and help them thrive."

Juan Cortes, JLL Spain

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Mei-Yee Man Oram and Rowena Gonzales joined us to discuss how societal shifts, including the global pandemic and activist movements, have altered approaches to wellbeing and accessibility. They also shared their personal experience of where these areas of design can have a positive impact, and some of the challenges they’re facing.

Mei is the Access and Inclusive Environments Lead at Arup, where she evaluates the accessibility & inclusivity of the built environment, as well as considering the changing trends and demographics of our societies to address future requirements of a diverse population. Rowena is the founder and Principal Interior Designer of Liquid Interiors, a Hong Kong-based interior design firm focusing on residential design that enhances healthy and sustainable lifestyles.

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Design Meets Insight is hosted by Namrata Krishna, our Design Strategy Lead and part of our Design Advisory team. This episode is co-hosted by Catherine Borse, Heta’s Wellness Design Lead.

We’d love to hear from you, so please get in touch at studio@hetaarchitects.com, or find us on LinkedIn at

Linkedin: Namrata Krishna

Linkedin: Catherine Borse

Linkedin: Mei-Yee Man Oram

Linkedin: Rowena Gonzales

“One of the biggest challenges as a residential interior designer is that you’re working with one client at a time and it would be great to make this much more accessible to larger populations at a more affordable cost…it’s about working with government and like-minded developers who can really make a difference in a positive way to many people at once.”

-Rowena Gonzales, Liquid Interiors

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As part of this year’s London Festival of Architecture, we have created a special mini-series around the festival’s theme of ‘Care’. This of course can mean many things, so we've chosen to focus on a holistic view of wellbeing. Our guests are passionate advocates in their specialist fields, and together we will seek to explore the answers to the following questions.

Episode 1

Well Future: How can we be agents for change and foster resilience to live well in the future?

Episode 2

Wellbeing & Communities: How can we care better for our communities and individuals, designing for equitable, healthy, happy places?

Episode 3

Well Connectivity: How can we explore the ways in which digital meets physical in the urban realm?

Episode 1: Well Future

Our guests for this episode, Ankita Dwivedi and Dr. Gemma Jerome, share their thoughts on how architects, designers and planners can empower communities to be part of the design process, and the kinds of tools that can help people understand the impact of their decisions. Ankita is the founder of Scala Colab, a social enterprise that collaborates with governments, businesses, universities, and communities to create inclusive, resilient, sustainable places. Gemma is the director of Building with Nature, where she oversees the UK’s first benchmark for green infrastructure and how to integrate holistic design thinking into planning and development.

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Design Meets Insight is hosted by Namrata Krishna, our Design Strategy Lead and part of our Design Advisory team. This episode is co-hosted by Jonathan Leah, Heta’s Director of Design Advisory.

We’d love to hear from you, so please get in touch at studio@hetaarchitects.com, or find us on LinkedIn at

Linkedin: Namrata Krishna

Linkedin: Jonathan Leah

Linkedin: Ankita Dwivedi

Linkedin: Dr. Gemma Jerome

“As architects, planners, designers, ecologists, we have to empower and delegate power to communities, and that's about continuously questioning if we're working as closely with people's ambitions as possible.”

- Dr. Gemma Jerome, Building with Nature

“As architects, designers and planners, we need to be able to delegate the job we have at hand to many people. We need to create mini champions all round so that we can do our jobs better.”

- Ankita Dwivedi, Scala Colab

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Our second Design Meets Insight episode features two inspirational women, Maria Stufkoph and Chelsea Slater. Maria is the director of the maker spaces at Salford University and a member of the advisory board of the British Esports Association and the Women in Esports Committee. Chelsea is the founder of 'Innovate Her', a values-led social enterprise that "gets girls ready for the tech industry and the industry ready for girls".

Along with our guest curator, Nicky Wightman, Maria and Chelsea spoke to us about challenges women and girls continue to face within the tech sector, but also how things are changing. Gaming and Esports, with their inclusive and welcoming cultures, are key players in driving this shift. Community access across all ages and backgrounds is essential to building loyalty and a sense of belonging. These activities - the playing of video games and the competitive world built around it - are leading the way in connecting virtual interactions with physical spaces for truly immersive experiences that are rooted in a need for diversity, not just amongst audiences, but also those designing these spaces.

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Design Meets Insight is hosted by Ben Stuart, an Associate Architect at Heta who is passionate about the world that surrounds architecture, but also loves talking to interesting people. Over the last 5 years, he has recorded over 50 podcasts, with guests ranging from politicians, CEOs, artists, architects, film directors, VR specialists & even comedians. Across two different series, ‘Create More’ & ‘Architecture Den’, his podcasts have gained almost 30,000 downloads.

We’re really excited to be kicking off the podcast as a mini-series co-hosted by Nicky Wightman. As Director of Emerging Trends at global real estate business Savills, Nicky's focus is on the future of how we will live, work, learn and play. A former barrister and broadcaster, Nicky is regularly asked to comment on the future of the built environment and in particular the relationship between the physical and the digital world.

Episode 1: Thinking About the Circular Economy

Our first guest in the series is Saasha Celestial-One, the co-founder and COO of OLIO, a free app which provides a game-changing, community-driven solution to the problem of food and household waste. OLIO, which now has almost 3 million users in over 50 countries, connects neighbours with each other and with local businesses so surplus food can be shared.

At Heta we’re working with developers on how to embed the circular economy into the construction industry, as well as how we create connected communities beyond the built environment. OLIO harnesses the collective power of the sharing and circular economy at an individual, hyper local level, and is also leading the way for companies to become not just sustainable, but regenerative.

Design Meets Insight is created and produced by Heta Architects. We’d love to hear from you, so get in touch at studio@hetaarchitects.com, or find Ben and Nicky on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicky-wightman.

@Nicky Wightman

@Saasha

@savvils

@heta_architects

@Ben Stuart

@olio

#circulareconomy #netzero #foodsharing #technology #community #construction #conversation #designmeetsinsight #podcast

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