Stephen Bayley

Stephen Bayley Hon FRIBA, Chairman of The Royal Fine Art Commission Trust, is the person for whom the term “design guru” was coined. This he accepted with self-deprecating irony. He was plucked by Terence Conran from the tedium of provincial academe to create The Boilerhouse Project in the V&A, an exhibition space devoted to design which became London’s most successful gallery of the eighties. Then, the two of them created London’s influential Design Museum. He was – briefly and hilariously – Creative Director of The Millennium Dome before a spectacular falling-out with the Government which he wrote about in his book Labour Camp (1998).

Over the past forty years his writing has changed the popular perception of “design”. His many books include Sex, Drink and Fast Cars (1986), Taste (1991), Design: intelligence made visible (2007), Cars (2008), Ugly: the aesthetics of everything (2012) and Value – what money can’t buy (2021). He has been art critic of The Listener, architecture critic of The Observer and design critic of The Spectator, as well as a columnist on The Independent and The Times. He is a Honorary Visiting Professor at Liverpool University School of Architecture.

Paul Finch

Paul Finch CBE HonFRIBA is programme director of the World Architecture Festival, deputy chairman of the Royal Fine Art Commission Trust and the Design Council and former editor of the Architectural Review and Architects’ Journal. He chaired the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment 2009-2011, having been a commissioner and deputy chairman 1999-2005, and also chaired Cabe’s Olympic Design Review panel from 2006-2012. He was deputy chairman of the Design Council from 2011 to 2014. He was awarded a CBE for services to architecture in 2026.

Mike Stiff

Mike Stiff founded Stiff + Trevillion Architects in the early 1980s, later running the studio’s Berlin office. He has overview of design across the studio and works primarily on central London commercial projects, including Pavilion Road off Sloane Square for the Cadogan Estate and the comprehensive retrofit of the Arding & Hobbs building in Clapham Junction. Over the years he has taught at Westminster, Brighton and Sheffield Universities. He is a member of the Hounslow and Westminster Design Review panels and chairman of Octavia Housing’s New Homes Quality panel.

Nargess Bank

Nargess Banks is a writer, editor and cultural strategist whose work spans contemporary art, design and visual culture. Trained in curatorial practice at the Royal College of Art, she is a senior contributor to Wallpaper*, writing on artists, designers, exhibitions and the ideas moving through contemporary art and design.

Albert Williamson-Taylor

Albert Williamson-Taylor is a structural design engineer at AKT II, formerly Adams Kara Taylor. He has overseen projects in over fifty countries and has led the practice to win over 400 design awards, including the Stirling Prize-winning Bloomberg European Headquarters in London and the demountable Seed Cathedral for Expo 2010 Shanghai.