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A plummeting economy may not seem like the best time to branch out on your own. Paul Zara hadn’t planned to leave Conran & Partners where he’d worked for 35 years and was a board director.

The reality of starting a practice with a relatively limited portfolio was always going to be a challenge. But we saw this limitation as an opportunity to convey our approach through pitches to potential clients....

Nearly 10% of practices do not believe they will survive the fallout of the pandemic, according to the latest RIBA Future Trends survey.

Before the Covid-19 pandemic, only 5% of the UK labour force worked mainly from home.Post-lockdown, 60% of people say they would like to work from home more often than they did previously.

The British cabinet now meets on Zoom, court hearings have moved online and banks are shifting millions of pounds every day via home secure systems. Remote working has been a massive experiment that has more or less proved successful – even for architects.So what comes next?

Many practices had to scrabble to adapt to remote working. First, it was ensuring that everyone had the technology. Then it was learning how to use it effectively. But now practices are realising they also need to maintain a workplace culture if they’re to expect the same loyalty from employees post-lockdown.

Telling architecture’s story through video is a great way to communicate how architects work but as a resource it is massively underexploited by practices. There are some practical reasons for this. 

No one was using technology to stay in work but in the time of Covid-19 the internet has become our umbilical cord to the outside world.

For non-consumer audiences, email is the third most influential source of information for audiences, behind only peer-to-peer recommendations and industry-specific thought leaders.

Like thousands of others, I’ve thought about setting up a podcast and earlier this year I went on a day’s course to pick up some technical know-how. The course was excellent but it soon became apparent I was going to need to work out the process part myself. 

As video game designers look to create better realised and more immersive experiences, many are looking to architecture to help. Such as Jonathan Blow, the creator of puzzle video game The Witness, who specifically hired architects to help detail the world they were creating. 

Why we need to rethink the ways we connect with our audience