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 OBE 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 an OBE for services to architecture in 2002.

Alex Lifschutz

Alex Lifschutz is founding Principal of Lifschutz Davidson Sandilands Architects. Following a degree in psychology and research in cognitive psychology, he studied at the Architectural Association in London, where he later served as President. He joined Foster Associates in 1977, worked on the Hong Kong & Shanghai Bank from 1981 to 1985 and in 1986 formed Lifschutz Davidson with the late Ian Davidson. Lifschutz has had a longstanding relationship with communities and businesses on London’s South Bank, working with the Coin Street Community Builders to regenerate a down-at-heel area through development of co-operative housing and new urban realm initiatives. His Broadwall social housing scheme at Coin Street won the Royal Fine Art Commission Building of the Year Award in 1995. More recent projects include the Golden Jubilee footbridges connecting Charing Cross with the South Bank, a new Indoor Sports Centre for the University of Birmingham, the remodelling of the St Martin School of Art building in Charing Cross Road for Foyles bookshop and the Fitzroy Place housing development of the site of the old Middlesex Hospital. His lighting project for Thames bridges in central London, completed in 2021, won the Public Space category in the inaugural Building Beauty Awards.

Alison Jackson

Alison Jackson is a BAFTA and multi award-winning artist, photographer and filmmaker who explores the cult of celebrity, creating highly convincing portrayals of the imagined private lives of public figures. Her work has been acquired by the Parliamentary Art Collection, The National Portrait Gallery, MOMA in San Francisco, the Musée de la Photographie in Brussels and numerous other public collections. In 2019 she founded and launched the Photography Initiative to cultivate and nurture creative talent in young people who would otherwise lack opportunities. Jackson herself mentors young people and is a Member of the Alumni Council for The Royal College of Art and a Trustee of Chelsea Art Theatre.

Hanif Kara

Professor Hanif Kara OBE contributes over forty years of international design experience. He’s a co-founder and design director of the ‘interdisciplinary’ engineering practice AKT II, which today unites 300+ people, with projects across 50+ countries. He’s also a professor in practice of architectural technology with the Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design (the Harvard GSD). Hanif is currently an appointed Design Advocate for the Mayor of London, having previously been the first structural engineer to be appointed to the Design Council’s Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment as well as to the Royal Institute of British Architects Stirling Prize Jury, President’s Medal Jury, and Honours Committee (which awards the Royal Gold Medal). Hanif’s insight into design – and particularly into interdisciplinarity – has been published throughout numerous books, media outlets and technical journals worldwide. In 2022, he was awarded the Council for Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat ‘Fazlur R Khan’ Lifetime Achievement Medal for his contributions to the global built environment.

Piers Gough

Piers Gough CBE RA is an acclaimed postmodern architect and leader in the profession. Co-founder of CZWG Architects in 1975, his principal buildings include Islington Square, the Canada Water Library and Maggie’s Centre in Nottingham, as well as four buildings listed in 2018: China Wharf and The Circle in Bermondsey, the CDT Building at Bryanston School and Janet Street-Porter House in Clerkenwell – although probably his most famous building is the smallest: the Westbourne Grove Public Lavatory and Flower Kiosk (Royal Fine Art Commission Trust Jeu d’Esprit Award 1994). Gough has been an English Heritage Commissioner and a Review Panel Chair and Commissioner of CABE. For the past ten years he has been Professor of Architecture at the Royal Academy Schools.