Creative Architecture

The talk will cover the challenges facing architects and engineers in addressing the climate crisis. Mike Taylor will show work by Hopkins Architects which demonstrates how you can still make stimulating buildings at the same time as responding to the latest challenges facing the profession, and at a wider scale, all of humanity.

Hopkins Architects have a 40 year portfolio of award winning projects to draw on and the talk will showcase a number of the more recent ones including a walking building in Antartica, a geology museum in the desert, and a refurbishment in the City of London. Mike will explain the story behind the projects, illustrating how the they came about, the behind the scenes design thinking, the technical innovation and the sustainability features incorporated into the finished buildings.

Mike Taylor studied at Bristol University and the Mackintosh School of Architecture, where he won the Royal Scottish Academy John Kinross Scholarship and the RIAS Sir Robert Lorimer Prize. He subsequently collaborated with Giancarlo De Carlo in Milan as lead Architect on several projects including for the University of Siena and on the island of Mazzorbo in the Venetian Lagoon, before he joined Hopkins Architects in 1992.

He has since taken the creative lead on many challenging and innovative projects such as the 2012 Olympic Velodrome. He has completed a number of projects that have pioneered new standards of sustainability including The Living Planet Centre for WWF-UK, The School of Environmental Science at Yale, and the renovation of 100 Liverpool Street in the City of London. The Practice are busy with a wide range of projects mostly in the UK and USA where Mike has just completed the School of Data Science at The University of Virginia.

Hopkins Architects was founded by Michael and Patty Hopkins in 1976. The practice is now led by five Principals with a team of approximately 150 architects and staff in London and a second Design Studio in Dubai. The Practice are renowned for technical innovation, the clarity of their architectural approach and their ability to make their designs respond to context often through the use of local materials. The practice has a distinguished portfolio of award winning buildings across a wide range of sectors and geographic locations

“Crucially, Hopkins’ approach does not produce repetitive, off-the-shelf design: each building is a specific expression of architectural composition, innovation, function, refined detail, materiality and presence. In every case, and in challenging settings, the quest for architectural sophistication dovetails seamlessly with superior environmental performance – and this ambitious fusion of design and performance has set Hopkins Architects apart.”
Jay Merrick, Architecture Correspondent, The Independent