Grow Places

GP 36: Finding a Voice to Grow Places: with Angela Crowther of Arup

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Discover the transformational power of purposeful design with Angela Crowther, a director at Arup, as she shares her journey from engineering to master planning and how her work in post-tsunami Indonesia reshaped her perspective on community resilience. Angela reveals the vital role that thoughtful design plays in rebuilding communities, emphasizing the significance of ecological restoration projects like mangrove reforestation. Listen as she combines rigorous analysis with creativity to address complex challenges and advocates for a systemic approach to urban design with a focus on sustainability and well-being.

Gain insights into the evolution of urban design collaboration, where breaking away from traditional roles and hierarchies fosters innovative solutions. Angela discusses how creating an inclusive environment encourages questioning and reshaping project briefs, leading to meaningful progress. Learn about the shift towards sustainability and the need for diverse perspectives, as Angela provides examples of adaptive buildings and the importance of pushing ideas to achieve tangible outcomes that benefit both people and places.

Explore the complexities of integrating community insights with top-down approaches in urban development. Angela highlights the critical need for continuous dialogue with communities and the inadequacies of limited consultations. 

Delve into material innovation in structural engineering, focusing on sustainable practices like incorporating graphene in concrete and circular economy solutions. Angela's experiences of stepping outside her comfort zone underscore the importance of advocating for creative solutions and collaborating effectively with trusted advisors to tackle complex client challenges. Join us for an engaging conversation on fostering collective innovation in the field of urban design.

Speaker 1:

Hello and welcome to the Grow Places podcast, where we explore the virtuous circle of people, growth and place Brought to you by Grow Places and hosted by our founder, tom Larson.

Speaker 2:

Angela.

Speaker 3:

Hi Tom.

Speaker 2:

How are you doing?

Speaker 3:

Really well, thank you, how are you?

Speaker 2:

Good, it's great to have an on-mic conversation with you. You were just saying you've never actually done that and it creates a certain atmosphere, doesn't it? In the room when we try to do this.

Speaker 2:

But hopefully we can relax and uh have a good conversation, like we normally do, um, so I'm gonna start with a question that we should just hold in your mind till the end of the episode. We'll come back to it, okay. Okay, what makes you feel most out of your comfort zone? Okay, so, just, it's quite a big one. So we'll sort of hold that in your mind and we'll come back to it towards the end. Um, but just to start us off, why don't you tell everyone a little bit about yourself and the work you're doing here at Arup?

Speaker 3:

sure?

Speaker 3:

Um, that's a big question in itself, isn't it?

Speaker 3:

Um, I'm a director at Arup and I am doing a lot of work across London, um, a lot of master planning projects these days.

Speaker 3:

I've got a background in engineering and architecture and I've always really tried to bring those two together and straddle them both, because really, what I'm focused on and passionate about is a sense of purpose and a real understanding of developing a real why for what we do.

Speaker 3:

And I think what my time at Arup over the last 10 years has really afforded me in working on projects with yourself and particularly over the years with your ex-employer, it's really afforded me the chance to sort of grow that ability to develop a sense of purpose and really feel like I can influence what the built environment should be for the long term and really start to understand the impact that we have on place and the environment, but likewise the reciprocal impact that good place has on people and the benefit or disbenefit we can um create. So how to design knowingly, I suppose, has become really my, my big sense of what I want to focus on, whether that's a small piece of r&d or trying to influence a bigger city scale and piece of strategy, or trying to influence a bigger city scale piece of strategy.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, well, that's amazing and you know I align with a lot of what you're saying there, as you know.

Speaker 3:

So why are you doing it then? I think, if I look back, one of the most formative experiences of my career or earlier years after uni, I got a job in Indonesia working for a French NGO and that was all about tsunami rebuilding after the Boxing Day tsunami and that was an incredible experience, I mean it's. It's kind of scary looking back and realizing that as that young sort of fresh grad amongst a series of other fresh grads, we were given the responsibility to go out there and work with local architects and engineers, but ultimately as designing and then overseeing the construction of a school program. But it was amazing because we were living in the community. You really saw firsthand, very viscerally the impact that, what our role can be and have on people's lives and the opportunity that is there to do good. But also there were aspects of it that sort of both really strayed beyond what I guess we define as architecture and engineering and built environment design and really strayed into some interesting areas.

Speaker 3:

So one of the most interesting projects I was involved in when we were out there was not just doing the school design and seeing that construction, but we also started looking at, well, what was some of the underlying reasons for the tsunami having such a big impact on that area, and a lot of it was about the mangroves that had been ripped out to create more fishing ponds and that had therefore got rid of quite an enormous barrier to the sea.

Speaker 3:

But it also had created a really terrible ecological effect because it had taken away part of the ecosystem that actually created healthy fishing ponds and healthy fishing for the locals. So we strayed into a piece of R&D about that. That then turned into well, how do we reforest and put the mangroves back and then sort of educate to encourage that to happen, both for the sort of long-term resilience of the place on on many levels from the community, the fishing, but also the future resilience against future tsunamis. And I think that really sort of grabbed my attention of the sort of again that bigger why and what's the best impact we can have and sometimes it's.

Speaker 2:

It's not necessarily what you think you've been sent to do or what your job is defined to be yeah, yeah, absolutely that kind of systemic nature of of building projects in a community, in a place, and so so why do you think you know engineering's been the thing that you've kind of the trade that you've picked up in that bigger picture.

Speaker 3:

I think that's a really good question and one I've grappled with a lot.

Speaker 3:

I struggle to define myself as an engineer in some ways, and I'm sure we'll sort of explore that more.

Speaker 3:

But I think what I really take from my engineering education and the reason that I chose it is almost a bit of a perverse quality in my nature, in a way that I've always really wanted to be well-rounded, and I think the sort of the the rigorous and analytical side of me needed more development than than maybe sort of some of the creative design side.

Speaker 3:

And so putting myself through that education and learning that rigor and getting that to a point where it becomes intuitive and you can sort of grapple with lots of questions and spin lots of plates and and see how they interface and and find the way to route, map through a problem, to solve a problem from an evidence base and a scientifically informed position, I think I started to realize was quite a unique way to approach design. And so I really really yeah, I think I sort of struggle in some ways with the definition, in the same way that I look across our industry and struggle with lots of the pigeonholing of different disciplines, because I think that we have to collaborate better all together and that big thinkers need to be in a room at the table with diverse voices, to to really solve some of our big problems. Rather than this is your role, you are in charge of doing, doing this and other people will serve you. Um that we we maybe sort of see as a more traditional approach and framework for projects.

Speaker 2:

Um, but I really, really value the, the uniqueness I guess, of um, the way I've been taught to think through that, engineering education yeah, yeah, I completely agree and you know that from the projects we've worked on together, that that, uh, giving everyone an equal opportunity and equal voice is is really valuable. But then, as you said, there's also real value in having experts who kind of have their, their, their trade let's use that term um, so they kind of come at it through that lens, but then can can also abroad enough to to understand the bigger picture and that kind of almost that kind of wisdom and that experience comes with time, doesn't it? And an experience on projects. And back to the example you mentioned in Indonesia. You've got the scientific side of things, but then you've also got the kind of the messiness of people and the messiness of place, and that is where the kind of richness comes, doesn't it?

Speaker 3:

on projects, how do you see those project dynamics kind of changing in a really positive way, maybe to to kind of pick up on some of this I think, something that I have actually over the last few years to to get to the point where it now feels really positive and I feel really optimistic about the future and the conversations that I'm having and seeing across all sectors and aspects of our industry. It feels like there's beginning to be a real zeitgeist of sort of united desire for certain outcomes and a real richness of, wherever you sit at the table, people pulling in the same direction and wanting to sit down together a bit more and have new conversations. But I think to get to this point where I feel sort of optimistic that there are more places at the table for that diversity has been quite lonely at times, I think quite often it's almost felt like you're accidentally rubbing people up the wrong way because you're entering a room and you're not answering. Oh yeah, okay, you want to do this, I'll tell you how to do it. You're questioning well, why? Why do you want to do this? Because I find it really hard to get on board and sort of solve a problem until I really believe in the problem we're collectively trying to solve and I really like helping to sort of shape that brief, that brief, um, and that's.

Speaker 3:

That's what I've really loved about the work that we've done together over time is that, you know, we we have, with others, sort of come together and shape that brief and then shared an aspiration that we go on to say, well, and then what's the best way to to fulfill that um?

Speaker 3:

So, yeah, it's, it's felt quite a lonely place at times to sort of put your neck out and and be the challenging voice in the room, but I think, luckily, I've been through that cycle enough and had enough support, um, from great people along the way. That it's. It's got to the point that that that feels a bit more normal, and I suppose what I am doing now as a, as a team leader in our app, is is really trying to help my team feel that it's okay to feel uncomfortable, that it's okay to put yourself out there and and it's just work and actually the process of design and building takes so many years, doesn't it? So we need to believe in what we're doing and we need to um have fun doing it and feel like we're all equal and part of the conversation.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, totally. It was very well said as well, because you know there's there's that kind of conceptual side to it, but then you and I know that there's there's a kind of reality to some of this process that needs to happen to actually make the step changes that we need in terms of outputs like whole life carbon or improved well-being. Um, so it's not, it's not just about the process, is it? It's also that there's there's probably a really great environment at the moment with some of these other things coming bubbling to the surface whereby, regardless of if it's arap or someone else, you know, the sustainability engineer if I want to, if I make it as binary as that is invited to a pre-app now. That wouldn't have happened a couple of years ago. So it feels like the environment is starting to enable some of these things. But yeah, but bluntly, we do kind of need that culture, don't we? To actually move the needle on whole life carbon, embodied carbon, social value, health and well-being, some of these big themes.

Speaker 3:

I completely agree. I think one of my biggest reflections of our collective success over the last few years has been bringing a slightly different approach. You can't necessarily change the framework of a project and design stages and the amount of money that's available, when and the risk profile, but you can change how you choose to operate within it. And so, if we take an example such as our thought piece around adaptive buildings, I think loads of people across industry have some great conceptual ideas for adaptive buildings. I think where it gets interesting is starting to take those to the next level and sifting well, what are the ideas that are really going to hold so beyond the glossy, you know image that gets published in a design magazine, how do you take it to the next level? How do you make that innovation actually stick and happen? That's where the real work begins, I think, and I think the way that we've had success over the last few years in doing that is to do a combination of testing something on a project with a client that's got enough trust to know that we can fall back on sort of best in class but business as usual design very rapidly and easily. So let's focus 90% of our efforts in a design stage on really trying to push the dial and see if there's a good enough idea in there to to hold on to, and then, as those projects which will take time, sort of go into planning rather than letting that sort of waste away on a piece of paper, picking it up and saying, well, what's our next project together, can we develop it a little bit further? And then, beyond that, well, do we now need to invest our own sort of research and and efforts are amazing at investing. We um reinvest quite a proportion of our profit every year into foresight and research and development and thought leadership and so sort of using all of those mechanisms to push something forward has been the way that.

Speaker 3:

I think, yeah, we've, we've had real success in starting to change the dial.

Speaker 3:

I think another great example is the work we've done around mass timber at scale on buildings and getting a point to a point where we'd come up with something that we really believed in and saw was a real, genuine lowest total carbon opportunity that also could be resilient in terms of things like fire performance, and getting that to a point where we convinced clients it's a good idea, convince the planners and various other stakeholders that it's a good idea as a design.

Speaker 3:

But then to get that over the line, we had to pick it up and say, well, we can't wait for one of those designs to get through planning and come forward. We need to get the insurance industry and the fire brigade and building control together now and listen to them and say what do they need to see in that design to really take it forward. And I think it's been that that ability to sort of use projects and also invest some of our own effort because we believe in it and that's really helped us get to a point where now we're we're literally building the pieces to sort of do the proof of we'll set it on fire and everyone can see it's, it's going to be okay.

Speaker 2:

Um, yeah, absolutely, and uh, and that's something really that companies like, like our bigger clients, bigger entities, um, are in a really sort of fortunate, privileged position to be able to do some of that.

Speaker 2:

It's great that that is kind of leading the way because, um, because it is a bit chicken and egg with some of these things, isn't it? Even for the sort of more enlightened clients, design teams you know there are there are still certain barriers, and that's let alone for kind of the majority of clients and projects out there, who will always want to see 10 examples of something happening before they'll, before they'll, do anything, and it's something that in in other industries you get kind of this kind of more iterative method of product development, and that's fine for an app or a piece of technology, because you, if it doesn't work, you can change it and you can take it down for a day or you can do it over overnight while it's quiet. You can't necessarily do the same with a building, um, so so how do you, how do you think about things, maybe in that kind of iterative way with what you're doing?

Speaker 3:

I think that's well. To go back to a word you used, I really agree and believe that when you sort of use the word privileged and the fact that some of the projects we're doing are very privileged in that way, and that that for me becomes a bit of a responsibility, that actually these are the projects that can change the world. So if I go back to that example about mass timber at scale, we grappled for a while of well, what's the IP? Should we be trying to profit from this Versus? No, actually what we should be doing is setting an example and encouraging all of industry to adopt it if they believe it's the right answer to and then just pushing yourself forward.

Speaker 3:

And I think, if I look around the industry, something that I find super frustrating is almost um, we all shout about and talk about having the same end goals in mind and lots of people are very aligned on, you know, we need to save the planet or we need to have better social equity, but we almost collectively the industry almost defaults to sort of the tabloids in terms of picking up a news article and saying, oh well, this is rubbish, rubbish, I'm better than this. And and instead, why can't we just say well, this is tricky and I'm sure that team were doing the best they could and we're all trying to reach the same goals, so let's work together to get there. I don't know why we sort of feel the need to to lower ourselves to, to pitting each other against each other. I think more collaboration is really the answer to to more iterative um progression.

Speaker 2:

I suppose yeah, yeah, absolutely. And, as you say, um, if you can aggregate together projects, knowledge, um, whether it's within an organization or, as you say, within a local market, or even internationally uh, there, even internationally there's much, there's much more kind of iteration that will happen just by virtue of the number of inputs into that process. A five brain, yeah, yeah yeah exactly.

Speaker 2:

So you know what grow places does very well. You know we've worked really well together over the years everything we've just talked about around process and if you were sat in our chair setting up the next project that we hopefully do together, what does that look like?

Speaker 3:

a blank sheet of paper. I think, um, there's I can't remember whose quotas, but you know there's. There's some really nice thinking. It's it's not new about how we should all spend sort of 90 of our time thinking and spinning all the plates and keeping options open and working out where the conflicts are. For me, it's always where there's perceived conflicts between some of our experts and disciplines that it gets really interesting, because how do you turn that into a joint aspiration and a route through? That's, for me, where innovation happens. So I think it's allowing the time to unearth truly what does a place need and how do we marry that with what the aspirations of the development are, and spend more time thinking before we commit to the sort of default of we need to get this much area and it's sort of vaguely going to look like this and status quo dictates that it's going to turn into a certain product. I think, yeah, more thinking from first principles rather than jumping sort of experience shortcuts.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and that collective brain, let's call it that of the project team. Who is in that?

Speaker 3:

I think what always feels a real privilege is to feel part of a sort of, to feel part of a sort of, you know that, that sort of squad, um, but the sort of principles level where there's, um, maybe only four or five voices because you can't have too many people in a room, um, but that they're as diverse as possible. And I think we are, are. Are we feeling like the people that already are in a place have enough of a voice and that we, in the established processes and ways that we approach projects, do they come in at the right time? Do we understand that voice? Is there any way really at the moment to actually truly harness the benefit of their voice? Do we hear that voice, no matter how hard we try? Who represents it? How do we really tap into it?

Speaker 3:

I think that probably is one of the like solving that feels to me like one of the biggest questions, because they are representative for people of a place, and feels like probably the biggest thing that's not necessarily at that table at the moment. And then I think, beyond that, I probably feel quite relaxed. You know, I know who I enjoy and admire spending like my thinking time with, and that in different scenarios isn't necessarily sort of oh you've got that traditional role. In this role it's just people that can think big and be open-minded and listen more than talking. Actually, I think often isn't it.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, two ears, one mouth. Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 3:

So what does sort of first principles thinking mean to you?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, I've really enjoyed when we've been exploring the how do we take things back to first principles and I suppose in some ways it's again it's avoiding the shortcuts, it's going all the way back to trying to understand the nub of a problem and then how do we need to approach actually solving that problem rather than reverse engineering solutions to sort of shoehorn things into fit.

Speaker 3:

So if I think about our work around, how do you? Everyone's talking about making buildings adaptable, what truly is an adaptable building and the thought piece we did around that, I think starting from a point of what's all the way back to sort of the Maslow hierarchy of needs and like what are the fundamental things that make buildings have longevity, that make buildings low carbon, that make buildings operate in a low energy way, that's also positive health and well-being. It's it's going back to understanding the roots of all of those things and then working out how to bring them together and then developing the answer um, in a way that sort of aligns all of those strands. I suppose not sure how, um, but sort of off the hoof, you sort of think about the process that we took yeah, exactly because.

Speaker 2:

Because one side to that that answer is is very scientific, isn't it?

Speaker 3:

it's kind of like what?

Speaker 2:

what are the first principles? But then to your point about okay, well, how do we engage the people who are going to be living there? Yeah now that's a very different approach to kind of first principles. It's about saying, okay, well, our first principle here is not that the architect and the design team have the largest voice. It's that maybe the people who are going to operate here maybe don't have a larger voice, but at least have an equitable say within what's going on.

Speaker 2:

And I keep going back to this example you mentioned from Indonesia. Did you feel like there, you know, that kind of getting out of the ivory tower, so to speak, of of a design business, and going and actually being in the place, looking at the way that they're building, trying to sort of do things in a much more direct way?

Speaker 3:

do you see any learnings that we could take from, from that in terms of, obviously you're not, and not every project is going to be in an indonesian village, but, um, you know, for us sat here, you know, and your lovely office on charlotte street I think it's a really interesting question because actually one of the reasons that by the end of the time I spent there I was ready to come back and get qualified and build some different experiences is because I think and quite naively I had quite an optimistic view of the world and I thought, okay, charity sector and it's all about helping people, and there'll be some kind of overall governance that helps shape that and make sure that, even if you've got 100 charities all trying to do good stuff, they work together and collaborate and are united in an approach and are united in an approach. And I sort of realised more and more that that isn't how it works and that actually when you sort of bring in the messiness of things like funding cycles and spending donations, that really silly things start to happen and that charities start again almost pitting themselves against each other. So I got quite disillusioned by that almost and wanted to come back and get experience and get qualified so that I could maybe go back and influence and sort of sort some of that stuff out. So that's probably quite a convoluted way of saying I don't know. I think again on a level as all remembering to be human and to engage and to look each other in the eye and talk to each other is a really good starting point.

Speaker 3:

But it's, how do you do that and do the top down piece together? And the top down piece is tricky, isn't it? It feels like you know whether it's London or elsewhere in the world. How do you see place and the fact that communities have such a long-standing and better than any of us understanding of, um, what that place has been and is and what it could and maybe should be in the future? Um, that needs to be a long-term conversation rather than, um the sort of disillusionment that comes from lots of people diving in and then communities not feeling like they're actually listened to yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 2:

And uh, we were discussing before this that you listened to the podcast I did with nick walkley from avison young and he was saying that one of the big mistakes we all collectively make in the environment is we consult with people two or three times and then feel like, because we've done that, we can almost walk in their shoes. We feel like we understand a lot more about them from their life and their circumstances, from just consulting a couple of times, and the reality is it's way more complicated than that and actually part of it is just recognizing that and accepting that and not trying to control um or to um dictate everything that happens in a project or a process, and so I think there's quite a lot to be said for that. Okay, angela, so I'm going to ask you one, because your background is kind of structural engineering, when you talk about material innovation, so around structures, you've mentioned already the amazing innovation you've sort of worked on around timber and natural materials there.

Speaker 2:

But the question that I've asked you offline but I'll ask you you here is we have another project tomorrow and, um, what are the things that you think we could do proactively on that project now that are really kind of implementable ways that we can kind of move the needle around, whether it's structural efficiency, whether it's use of materials, because it's all very well saying that, for example, there's been an amazing house built 100% out of cork. We've got a brief for a 15-story building, you know. So you're not suddenly going to be able to say we're going to do that out of cork. But there must be things on the horizon whether it's knowledge within Arup or knowledge within the industry that you feel, with a the right culture and environment, that maybe could be implementable with a bit of research and innovation on projects yeah.

Speaker 3:

I mean I don't think there's ever one one answer that's going to solve everything. So it's a whole suite of things that I think are really exciting, from um, investment and research that we're doing to support various startups, such as a company called concretine, where they're looking at including graphene in concrete and getting to a point where that's zero carbon Through. I think the circular economy piece and seeing our cities as material banks is really fundamentally important and actually again, the hard graph needs to go in to take that beyond great. Now people are starting to realise we should do pre-demo audits, but how do you genuinely translate the challenges that come out of disassembling buildings into an ability to reuse? I think that for me, is something I'm really determined becomes a proper focus area for us on our next project.

Speaker 3:

And then actually for me, quite often it's starting with the brief and challenging the brief.

Speaker 3:

So if we think about the life science sector, commercial life science wasn't a thing in the UK sort of eight years ago and we inherited a lot of ways of doing things that came from other parts of the world where it was more established.

Speaker 3:

But I think we've done that, or the accepted way of doing that, has been to just accept those briefs and built those briefs, and actually what you need to do, in my opinion, is start with well, what really are we asking? We're asking for a certain type of performance, so you don't need to dictate the floor to floor. You need to dictate what the place needs to do, and then let us, the creative designers, come up with the cleverest, newest, novel ways of achieving that, and that's how we'll we'll push things forward, because I think, um, that sector in particular is when I've got experience of, is a really good example of where there could be so many easy wins by just saying that might be the brief, but what you mean is this, in terms of performance, and we can immediately, therefore, chop out x percent of material and still meet that performance, and that I'm not seeing that happening very good.

Speaker 2:

No, thank you. Um, I'm going to finish with one question, okay, that I will come back to from the start. So yeah, so, so what makes you feel out of your comfort zone?

Speaker 3:

I think we've touched on some of it already. I think, um, you know, I'm not a naturally confident person and so to have got to a point where I'm passionate enough about something that I've not minded being that sort of lone voice in the room, that has felt very out of my comfort zone over the years. I think that actually has got to a place now where it's really enjoyable. That actually has got to a place now where it's really enjoyable. And if I don't feel out of my comfort zone, that's when we should be worrying, because that's probably when we're defaulting to business as usual.

Speaker 3:

I think what has helped me develop my confidence and my voice is working really closely in relationships of the likes of you, sort of that trusted advisor, because the likes of you as sort of that trusted advisor, because that's that's enabled us to. There is no such thing as a silly question and our opinion is wanted and that's that's how we solve problems for our clients. Um, and I, I think that, being taken positively, has really helped develop my voice and that has afforded us the space and opportunity to say well, who knows whether it's going to work, but let's, let's look at this thing over here, because there's something that's not working, so we need to explore it. Um. So, yeah, actually I think I'm moving from a place of having felt very out of my comfort zone um, finding a voice amongst a room full of people with massive eloquence and very strong voices to a place where actually, yeah, we should all feel a bit out of our comfort zone because we've got some big problems to solve together yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 2:

But that that's growth, isn't it in that sense, that kind of personal growth? But also, I think, growth as a as an industry around kind of the conversations that we have on projects leading to better outcomes, I think is a really valuable thing and and you know this, but yeah, I really value that aspect that you you bring and also the team dynamics bring, because diversity in all its senses, whether that's specialisms or otherwise, is is critical really, isn't it going forward to to better outcomes? So I look forward to carrying on this um continued dialogue with you on on more projects as we go forward. But thank you very much for your time, angela you're really welcome.

Speaker 3:

I'm yeah excited for what's next too good thanks, angela, see you later bye.

Speaker 1:

Thank you for listening to the grow places podcast. For more information, visit growplacescom and follow us at. We grow places across all social channels. See you next time.