Part 4 is our earliest event series, emerging from the Architecture Foundation’s ambition to plug the knowledge gap facing young practitioners. It offers a peer-support forum where emerging architects can ask the questions Part III never answers—cash-flow, staffing, difficult clients, planning politics, sustainable growth and hear advice from those who have already been through it.
The format is deliberately conversational. Borrowing from Gardeners’ Question Time, audiences submit problems in advance and a panel of seasoned architects, planners, developers or clients answer them live. When the series launched in 2017, Russell Curtis (RCKa), Catherine Burd (Burd Haward) and Chris Dyvik (Dyvik Kahlen) fielded the very first round in Fora’s Clerkenwell workspace.
In 2020 the Young Trustees took the reins and folded Part 4 into the Architecture Foundation’s 100 Day Studio, widening its brief from “running a practice” to re-imagining practice itself. Chaired by Young Trustees Neba Sere and Benni Allan, the latest editions tackled themes such as ‘Small Practices’, ‘Working in the Public Sector’ and ‘How to Run the Business’. They were packed with candid insights from professionals like Diana Rama, Farshid Moussavi, Jamie Fobert, Arrant Land, Smith Mordak, Elsie Owusu and Phillippa Banister (Street Space), among many others.
The 10th and last session delivered by the Young Trustees, titled ‘Dealing with Crisis’, probed how studios survive shockwaves. From the pandemic to spiralling construction costs while still challenging the profession’s status quo. Here, Nimi Attanayake (nimtim), William Mann (Witherford Watson Mann) and Kristofer Adelaide (KAA) took the hot seat.
Whether you were plotting your first practice, eyeing a career move, or just trying to keep the lights on, Part 4 provided a candid forum for every thorny query with answers you never find in textbooks.The series has now come to a close: after the Young Trustees’ cycle, the Architecture Foundation continued to offer some ticketed sessions, which have also wrapped up. However, recordings and resources remain online, preserving Part 4 as a reference for future practitioners.