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People

We are architects, artists, musicians, thinkers, educators, researchers, authors, campaigners and political lobbyists. We came together in April 2020 in response to the huge COVID-related shift in working patterns and the fact we had complementary skills to investigate what this meant for the city. We have met weekly since to debate and promote innovation and excellence in the field of design for home-based work.

The multi-disciplinarity of our team encourages and facilitates disruptive thinking, each member bringing a particular expertise to the table. At our team’s core is a unique body of twenty years’ research into the architecture of home-based work (www.theworkhome.com). Working together, we have challenged each other to draw workhomes with all their human complexity; to lobby around issues of inequality; to promote discussion on platforms of hugely diverse nature; and to develop a discursive and snappy style of podcast.

We welcome new members and collaborations – get in touch with us.

How to Contribute

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Frances Holliss

Frances Holliss is an architect and Emeritus Reader in Architecture at London Metropolitan University. An expert on the architecture of home-based work, her publications include ‘Beyond Live/Work: The Architecture of Home-based Work’ (Routledge 2015) and DASH #15: ‘Home Work City’ (Nai010 2019), a Dutch journal edition on design for home-based work at the scale of the urban block, with Eireen Schreurs and Paul Kuitenbrouwer. She speaks internationally on the subject. Holliss received AHRC funding in 2009 (Designing the Workhome: from theory to practice) to transfer her doctoral research (The Workhome: a new building type?) to the public realm, in collaboration with architects Prof Colin Davies and Angela Lee, and partners in industry Cazenove Architects, Baufritz UK and the Fresh Life Co. The project developed a workhome precedent database, design guide and pattern book, available open-access on www.theworkhome.com. Further AHRC funding supported an exploration of home-based work in social housing in collaboration with London-based Newlon Housing Trust (Towards the affordable workhome: A community-based initiative with home-based workers in social housing). In the context of Covid-19, Holliss has collaborated with a small team to launch the Workhome Project as a global call to people interested in how home-based work impacts on buildings and cities - and laws and regulations - to collaborate in terms of developing a world that facilitates it.

Howard Davis is Professor of Architecture at the University of Oregon, USA. His interests are at the intersection of architecture with the social and economic life of cities. A native of New York City, he has degrees in physics from Cooper Union and Northwestern University, and in architecture from the University of California, Berkeley. Howard is the author of three books: The Culture of Building, Living Over the Store: Architecture and Local Urban Life, which concerns buildings that combine dwelling and workplaces, and most recently Working Cities: Architecture, Place and Production. His design studios deal with complex urban buildings involving dwelling, industry and commerce. Over the last 10 years he has worked with colleagues at the Bartlett on the architecture and urbanism of the historic furniture industry in Shoreditch and Bethnal Green. and is now very happy to be a part of The Workhome Project.

Cany Ash is a co-founder of Ash Sakula Architects, one of the UK’s leading housing and regeneration architects. The practice was Supreme Winner in the 2016 Housing Design Award for the Malings, a new riverside neighbourhood in Newcastle-upon-Tyne. In 2017 its 475 home Wickside project was Overall Winner in the New London Architecture Awards. Alongside its architectural work, Ash Sakula has pursued ‘constructive propaganda’ through a series of projects captured in short films and websites. Collective Custom Build, Adaptable Neighbourhoods and the Meanwhile London Caravanserai project all champion people and their livelihoods against a backdrop of thoughtless land assembly for development, and demolition of worthwhile structures.

Richard Brown is an architectural designer and urbanist who is interested in the way  in which places are made, and how change is affected by affordability, local identity and heritage. Richard has authored a range of reports and publications, most notably: Creative Factories – Hackney Wick and Fish Island (2014, LLDC) and MADE IN HWFI:The Live Work Collectives (2012, SEE STUDIO) – both focussed on the informal live-work warehouse communities in East London. In these publications and in further subsequent work, he sheds light on how the semi public spaces of the factory complex have allowed communities to thrive in creating new vibrant neighbourhoods from the inside out. In his current practice at BrownUrbanism, Richard works with local communities, private clients and local creative businesses in East London to help design for and sustain creative production. Richard is pleased to be working with the workhome project as a co-host of the work home project podcasts. www.brownurbanism.com

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Joseph Kohlmaier

Joseph Kohlmaier is a Principal Lecturer and Head of Critical and Contextual Studies at the School of Art, Architecture and Design, London Metropolitan University. He has worked on several incarnations of the Workhome Project with Frances Hollis for almost ten years. Joseph is also a founding director of graphic design practice Polimekanos, and founding director of Musarc, one of the UK's most progressive choral collectives. Joseph designed and developed the Workhome Project website and works with the team on the project’s strategic outlook and mission.

Led by founder and Chief Executive, Jeremy Porteus FRSA, the Housing LIN (Learning and Improvement Network) is a sophisticated community of practice that brings together over 25,000 housing, health and social care practitioners and thought-leaders in England, Wales, and Scotland, to exemplify innovative housing solutions for an ageing population. Jeremy is closely associated with the development of the ‘care ready’ HAPPI design principles. He is co-author of RIBA’s guide on age-friendly housing and, since COVID-19 took hold, has also written about designing for accessible and adaptable our homes for ‘work readiness’. He is proud to be a founding member of the Workhome Project and to champion change in the way we co-design our future homes through the lived experience of older and disabled adults.

Manas Murthy is an architect, urban designer and educator currently pursuing his PhD in Architecture at the University of Oregon. He has experience in action research and consultancy in neighbourhood planning, sustainable mobility and community engagement. Prior to his doctoral studies, at the Princes Foundation in London, he worked on community regeneration and urban design projects based in participatory planning techniques, masterplanning and density modelling for residential extensions. In India he was project coordinator for Aapki Sadak; a community based alternative mobility and last mile connectivity. Additionally, he has consulting experience in national programmes for urban development such as HRIDAY (Ajmer) and SMART (Bhubaneswar) cities. As an academic, Manas teaches undergraduate and postgraduate students of architecture and urban design, with a focus on mixed use design studios, urban morphology and research methodology.

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Tomi Akinyemi

Tomi Akinyemi is a junior architect at De Smet Vermeulen and a recent graduate from the Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment at TU Delft. She began her master’s program at TU Delft in 2019 having completed a two-year period of practice experience in London (UK) at PDP | LDN Architects. Tomi has also gained work experience in the construction industry in Michigan (USA), working with civil engineering corporations such as HNTB and URS. Tomi’s interest in architecture is rooted in the effect the built environment has on people’s daily lives and the challenge of creating designs that respond to the human scale whilst fulfilling the urban needs within a city.

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