This week, I had the pleasure of spending an inspiring day at the RIBA in London, taking part in this year’s Guerrilla Tactics event,  their annual conference dedicated to supporting small and medium-sized architectural practices. The theme for this year, “The DNA of Practice: Shaping Identity Beyond the Portfolio,” explored what defines a practice’s true identity beyond its built work.

I was delighted to be invited to present my talk, “Making Meaning: Communicating Practice Values with Clarity and Confidence.” In this talk, I reflected on my own experiences of founding Studio BAD nearly seven years ago, and the importance of establishing and staying true to a set of guiding principles that underpin every aspect of our work.

When Studio BAD was first founded, I identified a handful of key principles that continue to shape our approach today, including:

Social and community engagement, Reimagining buildings, Creating change-makers, 21st-century practice, and Being ‘light’ responsive and fleet of foot. 

Last year, as we celebrated six years in practice, we took the opportunity to pause and reflect on how we’ve evolved. This period of introspection helped us analyse our ethos and distil it into six essential strands that remain true to our original DNA: To Listen; To Reflect; To Understand; To Imagine; To Act; To Realise. (You can read more about our design commitment here.)

My talk centred on the power of establishing an authentic identity, that is built on belief, the importance of  narrative, encouraging diversity, and above all, not following the crowd.