2022 Judges

Ricardo Baptista is a design director at AKT II, where he oversees design and technical matters of projects within different teams, allowing him to infuse each with his design-led approach, with an emphasis on creativity.

From the high-tech architecture of the Highpoint tower in Elephant & Castle and Canary Wharf's new landmark, One Park Drive, to the high-rise communities of Whitechapel Estate and 100 West Cromwell Road in Kensington, Ricardo continues to work at the forefront of London's tall-buildings evolution. The recent crises of Brexit, Grenfell, Covid, together with the overarching climate emergency have stacked many layers of development challenges onto the city: Ricardo is driving AKT II's response, proposing tall-buildings designs that offer more adaptable, resilient typologies that embody an enhanced integration between the structure, envelope and services.

Ricardo's experience ranges from 'standalone' single tower projects up to entire masterplanned high-rise programmes, from residential to commercial and mixed-use - other recent examples include the New City Court office tower in London Bridge, as well as the new Central Bank of Iraq headquarters office tower in Baghdad, which is currently under construction. Throughout all of AKT II's work, Ricardo is driving teams to envision future tall buildings around long life, low energy, loose-fit requirements that align with London's increasingly variable future.

Susan has been lucky during the course of her career to work on a wide variety of diverse and interesting projects with some of the country's leading architects. These range from private houses to large residential schemes, commercial buildings, museums, schools and theatres, and take in both new build and historic refurbishment structures, on green field and complex urban sites, both in the UK and elsewhere in the world. She enjoys collaborating closely with architects and the design team to achieve the best solution for the building structure, and relishes the creative nature of the design process.

Susan graduated from Oxford University in 2002 and began her career at AKT, working with them for 8 years. She became chartered in 2008 and in 2010 joined Heyne Tillett Steel. In 2013 Susan was made Technical Director, taking on the role of director for technical excellence in the practice and leading our aspiration to be at the forefront of design and analysis alongside running and delivering projects day to day.

Steve McKechnie is a structural engineer and a director at Arup. He has spent the last 34 years designing buildings of all shapes and sizes in the UK and around the world, ranging in scale from Heathrow’s Terminal 5 and The Scalpel, a 35 storey office building in the City, to the penguin enclosure at Bristol Zoo.

Steve is now Structural Engineering Discipline Leader at Arup’s London office.  He leads a team that concentrates on some of the most interesting and challenging projects such as 8 Bishopsgate, a 50-storey office building in the City of London and La Sagrada Familia in Barcelona, where they have built six new towers using prestressed stone masonry panels, and a 60m high continuous stone cantilever stair.

Steve is co-author of the Concrete Centre guide to the design of tall buildings and is an industrial teaching fellow at UCL.

He has spoken recently within the industry on tall building design methods; Nurturing Digital Talent; BIM and scripted optimisation; approaches to high risk structures; viscous damping; core prestressing; design for manufacture and the design of the towers at La Sagrada Familia. 

Peter Murray is Curator-in-Chief of New London Architecture (NLA).

?He trained as an architect but has spent most of his career writing about and commenting on architecture rather than practising it. He studied at Bristol University and at the Architectural Association School of Architecture in Bedford Square.

He edited the weekly newspaper for architects, Building Design, before moving on to the Royal Institute of British Architects Journal. Peter curated a number of major exhibitions at the Royal Academy including the 1986 New Architecture: the work of Foster, Rogers, Stirling, and Living Bridges in 1996. .He founded the design and architecture magazine Blueprint and the global communications company Wordsearch which specialises in design and branding for architecture and real estate  with offices in Beijing, Singapore, Sydney, New York as well as London.

He started the London Festival of Architecture which began life as the Clerkenwell Architecture Biennale in 2004. The Festival is now a significant annual event in the cultural life of the capital. The New London Architecture centre of  was founded in 2005 as a centre for debate and discussion about the changing face of the capital. The centre has a large scale model of London and permanent exhibitions about the future of London. It is also involved in research into the built environment.

Peter has written numerous books including The Saga of Sydney Opera House, London's Growing Up  and Great Estates. He has recently completed a book on The Leadenhall Building by Rogers Stirk Harbour.

He is a keen cyclist and in 2006 cycled to Cannes for the MIPIM real estate show held there every March. This has grown into an annual ride comprising architects, developers and consultants who raise over a quarter of a million pounds each year for charity. In 2013 he rode 4300 miles across America and the UK with a group of architects and planners studying what cities en route were doing to improve infrastructure for cycling as well as raising money for charity. He was a finalist for the London Cycling Campaign's Cycling Champion of the Year 2015 and is a member of the Construction Industry Cycling Commission.

He is a Mayor's Design Advocate and Chairman of the London Society. Until recently he was a Visiting Professor at the IE Business School in Madrid. He is also a weekend wood turner.

Simon leads the ARCADIS UK Strategic Research and Insight Team, providing sector-focused research and market and commercial intelligence for clients and the business.

Simon's background is as an expert construction research professional with an 18 year track record of developing high-performing research teams and delivering very high quality projects. He possesses a high public profile as an industry commentator and conference presenter.

Simon is a member of the UK BIM task Group responsible for commercial considerations and was responsible for commissioning the CIC suite of BIM documentation.

Recent commissions have included work for Thames Tideway, Electricity North West, Crown Estates, BIS, London Underground, Highways Agency and Transport for London.

Simon was appointed a member of the Construction Leadership Council in September 2015.

Darren Richards, MD of Cogent Consulting, is an offsite manufacturing expert with nearly 25 years' experience developing offsite businesses, processes and products. Formerly Manufacturing Director at Elliot Group producing modular buildings, he worked in Japan with leading modular housing manufacturers and had an advisory role on the Egan Taskforce. In 2000 he founded Mtech Group, spearheading the Advantage Offsite initiative and founding Buildoffsite before selling the business in 2008. Darren founded Cogent Consulting in 2009.

Simon joined Make in 2010 and has worked on a number of the practice's key projects. These projects range from major masterplans in Saudi Arabia, Earls Court and the London Olympic Park to the design and planning approval of significant residential towers in Croydon and London's Docklands. He also has significant commercial and mixed-use experience on London projects across Mayfair, Fitzrovia and the City fringe as well as a student housing scheme on the site of the former Hammersmith Palais, that was pioneering in its use of modular construction.

Simon has been a qualified architect for nearly 18 years and most recently, led the project team for the recently completed Amory Tower, a 54-storey residential tower on the Isle of Dogs.