GP 66: Built Environment Sector is Critical to UK Growth: with Nick McKeogh of NLA

In this episode of the Grow Places Podcast, Tom Larsson is joined by Nick McKeogh, co-founder and Chief Executive of NLA, to explore two decades of building a civic institution dedicated to bringing together everyone who shapes the built environment. Nick reflects on NLA's origins around London's 2005 Olympic bid, born from a simple observation: the professionals who plan, design, fund and build the city rarely had a shared space to think together, and Londoners themselves were often left out of the conversation entirely.

The discussion unpacks NLA's "three Ps" framework for successful placemaking, people, place and purpose, and why starting with people rather than form or finance leads to better outcomes. Nick shares striking research showing the built environment sector accounts for 25% of UK GVA and one in eight jobs, yet remains fragmented across professions that rarely see themselves as part of one industry. He discusses NLA's shift towards "systems leadership," the idea that no single visionary shapes a great city, but rather thousands of collaborating actors, and explores common misconceptions held by developers, architects, communities and politicians about one another.

Nick also traces his personal route into this work, beginning as a child in his father's architectural model-making business during the early 1990s recession, and reflects on the enduring power of physical models to inspire young people in an increasingly screen-based world. The conversation closes with his ambition for a global network of NLA-style institutions, and a call for the industry to slow down and invest time upfront in genuine conversation, arguing that patience and trust-building ultimately deliver better places, faster.

Transcript

Welcome To Grow Places

SPEAKER_00 0:02

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_01 0:15

Nick, thank you very much for joining me today on the Grow Places Podcast. It's really a privilege to have you on. And I'm really keen to understand a bit more about yourself today, New London architecture slash New London agenda, how that's all transpired. So, yeah, so why don't you give us a bit of an introduction to yourself?

SPEAKER_02 0:33

Good to speak to you. So my name's Nick McKeo. I'm co-founder and chief executive of LLA. So I set up LLA just over 20 years ago, nearly 21 years ago with Peter Murray. And the purpose was then and always has been about how we create an organization that brings together all of those that plan, design, fund, build, and operate the built environment and engage them with all the communities that are influenced or should influence that process.

SPEAKER_01 1:07

Great, great. And how how's that journey kind of over the 20 years? How's that evolved or changed? Have you always had that clarity around what you're doing?

SPEAKER_02 1:15

I think, yeah, the the core um mission, if you like, of the idea of bringing people into a space, um, we had the big London models that we'd uh developed to use at the London stand at MIPIM, and they didn't have a home in London. So there was a sort of driving factor which said, we know that we can bring people together, but it there isn't this space in London, and and we'd been taking people together um at MIPIM, and you know, whether they be, you know, city leaders or developers or architects, construction companies, engineers, and everyone else in in the system, and they'd come together and sell themselves at MIPIM, and then we'd come back to London and all scuttle off to our corners. And these silos, uh, it seemed to us, didn't really have a space to coexist and develop thinking together. They they'd come together and be transactional on a project or um uh you know on on uh you know uh thinking about how they might drive investment or a planning project, but they didn't actually kind of come together and sort of have the conversations before the project, if I put it like that. But also there was no space where the people that are affected, Londoners, um, could actually also see what was planned for the city. Um, we set out we just won the Olympic bid, it was 2005. Um, there was a lot of excitement around London. You think back to those times of sort of the energy that was kind of growing around uh the opportunity, um so there was all this kind of opportunity to bring people together, uh, but but it felt like often Londoners uh were not in that conversation. So to create a space which had the models, which was open to the public, as well as a place for professionals to meet. Um and then, you know, the third angle of that is that actually politicians and and and leaders in the public sector, policy makers, you know, also didn't really um have an understanding, and there wasn't a place that you could come and have a sort of holistic conversation. Um so so it was that idea which has been consistent, which is how do you put put together a place, have a have a sort of independent, um neutral place that everyone that's involved in city making can come together, understand the city better, understand what's planned, understand each other a bit better. Um, and our kind of thesis was that if you can do that and you can create that space for conversation, then understanding starts to come in. You might not always get agreement, um, uh, and people will have different views, but at least if they have an opportunity to understand each other and understand what's happening better, then the outcome is going to be improved ultimately for the people um uh that live in the city, but also the people that are spending all their time trying to invest money or design things. So that's the thesis. I don't I don't think that's changed.

Why NLA Brings Silos Together

SPEAKER_02 4:04

I think how we do it and our kind of uh sort of scope and range of people that we've um uh engaged has certainly um expanded. We started off in the building centre in Tottenham Court Road. Um, it was a great place to sort of be host because it had a sort of history of gathering construction professionals and they wanted public access and all that kind of stuff. Um, but I guess we wrote, I mean, I think I wrote a business plan uh to sort of get the initial 10 or so partners that that helped fund the LA get set up. Um and I sort of wrote a business plan that sort of said within one year we'll do this, within three years we'll be doing all of this. Uh I think after 20 years, we're probably about three months into that, if I'm honest. Um and uh, you know, so so so there's always more to do. Um so I think in some respects we haven't done some of the things that I imagine that we might do, and we imagine sort of incubator space and and place for start-up and the much more education facilities that sat around it. Obviously, the cost of doing those things are a lot. Um, and and actually we're back in that space. We can talk about it, the sort of skill space, quite a lot at the moment. But um, so yeah, so the sort of big ambition, but then I also look back at 20 years and I think, well, I never really believed that we'd um create what is now a membership organization with over 500 organisations across the public and private sector, that we'd be uh almost a civic institution that's uh got the ability to, you know, support the mayor to develop a London plan or support boroughs to deliver investment, or um, you know, take delegations of of architects and engineers and and consultants from London and take them around the world and and have conversations. So so in in some respects we're we've got a long way to go, and in other respects I think we've we've we've kind of managed to uh to uh become, like I say, more of an institution, more more uh uh sort of recognized than I could have possibly imagined, really.

SPEAKER_01 6:09

Yeah. Yeah, I I think you are totally, and I think you're a kind of institution, uh a pillar of of the the city and of and of the industry. Um obviously we're a kind of operator within the industry, a developer regeneration company, but but the NLA is more than only something for the the bit environment, isn't it? Or for the boot environment industry, I should say. And um you've kind of touched on on some of that there. And you know, we're sat here today, the models are just outside, and people can come here, can't they, and take a look at them? And you know, you may have students here, you may have visiting delegations, you might have um practitioners, you you've got your events. How how do you see that that community in its broader sense? You know, the people who bring forward the change, like how how's that kind of enriched what you do, I think, and maybe um some of those perspectives from those different groups?

SPEAKER_02 7:00

I think, you know, and that's it's a really good question because I think that's a question we're we're kind of asking ourselves again. We do it sort of periodically, um, and we're trying to define you know both our role, but but actually the role of the of what the built environment sector is.

The Built Environment As One Sector

SPEAKER_02 7:17

Um so yes, there's the sector, and we've done quite a lot of work recently around looking at the economic scale. So uh a piece of work we did with GLA Economics and LSE uh last year actually looked across the UK and said, well, actually, these silos of these professionals that we um kind of know in our membership are never defined as one sector. So financial services sort of clusters a set of institutions and organizations that are in one space. Whereas in our world, there's kind of developers over here and architects and planners and surveyors and engineers and construction companies, and they have their own trade associations and they go to government with different ask and they tell a different story uh to the public. And actually, so we sort of started by saying, well, let's think about the sector. So when you actually aggregate all of those professions, both public and private sector professions, it turns out that it's 25% of GVO of the economy. It's 2.7 times bigger than the financial services sector. It's one in eight jobs. Um, and we're also the largest uh exporter of goods and services as a single sector in the UK. So that's not understood.

SPEAKER_01 8:33

No, I didn't know any of those stats.

SPEAKER_02 8:34

That's that's amazing. At all. Um and in a sense, we need to do what the financial services industry did in the 1980s, or maybe the creative industries did in the 1990s, which is get government to understand that actually we provide not even the sort of the service to the key industries uh in the economy, but we are a key industry in the economy that that drives jobs and drives growth and opportunity for people. Um so there's this kind of peace about the sector, um, which we've been doing a lot of work on. Um, and in doing that, you then think about, as you said, that that industry, um, because it's kind of foundational to everyone's daily lives, the way they work, the way they live, whether they're protected from flooding or um uh you know climate risk, um, whether it's their school or their hospital or their home, that actually the built environment not only is it a huge sector, but it's interwoven into so many people's lives uh in ways they don't really think about, and they approach it often through moments in time when you know a developer imposes a scheme as they see it in their local neighbourhood, or a construction company makes a lot of noise, or um or they kind of uh think about architecture as being this kind of you know, people that are designing you know one-off funny-shaped buildings in in parts of the world, whereas actually, you know, they are part of that industry, they're part of living and and working in these spaces. So I know that's quite a kind of a big concept, but it's trying to say, well, okay, as us as a as an institution, how do we make sure that everyone that that the built environments industry affects feels like they have an opportunity to have a part of that conversation around how their city, how their place, how their school, how their hospital um you know changes. So I think that's um you know really a challenge that we're always trying to uh address and and realise that it's the conversations between different people at different times. Um and it's not always appropriate to sort of bring a community group into a kind of conference around the the complexities of planning, but there are moments where you can celebrate um a place and have people who wouldn't normally talk to each other um come and sort of talk about where they live or talk about where they work or talk about what they you know want to see in the future and and and create some common ground and and allow things to to sort of happen as a result of it.

SPEAKER_01 11:22

Yeah. Yeah, and then and we talk, you know, our kind of mission is to kind of improve quality of life, and we talk about doing that through this idea of place growth and cities changing, places growing, doing that you know, in a way that is positive about change, um, but is also respectful about where those places are today, tries to learn from them. And I know you talk about like together we shape better cities and kind of your sort of take on a similar set of ideas there. So, yeah, how how do you think that, how do you think we do actually go about that then? Like if you were to sort of bring your learnings down to a kind of a practical level, whether it's through policy or your work, I don't know how you take that question, but how how do you think we bring we shape better cities together?

SPEAKER_02 12:09

I think that kind of gets to the numb of it, and I know that's something that you're interested in working out, and I think we're all working out um how we do that

People Place Purpose For Better Cities

SPEAKER_02 12:18

better. And I think for us, you've got to start with people. So fundamentally, places don't exist, people uh without people, cities don't exist. So you've got to start with people. And if you're going to uh grow a place uh or or create a development or or think about what it is, you've got to start with the people and you've got to understand who's there, why they're there, um what what what they what they believe in, what they care about, and what their ambition is. Because actually what's interesting when you get people from any part of of London or any city in the world is they they're they're passionate about. Even if they live in a a really challenging environment, it's their home, it's uh uh it's kind of place they know, people like what they know. So you've got to get into people as being the the absolute starting point of of any of these conversations. Um so so I think you start with people and you've got to talk to people. Um I think then you've got to think about place. So you've got to take, well, okay, because of these people, this place exists, and there will always be history um in somewhere like London, um, uh and in most sort of advanced cities, you know, we're not talking about um, you know, a sort of a piece of a desert that we're trying to imagine a new place, even though you would still start with people and then say what's the place they want. But but I think the place is really important and and the history and heritage of that place is created by those people, but it's also created form uh and things that people enjoy and spaces people cherish and uh lots of parts of it. So I think you then have to think about the place and you have to start imagining um and having conversations about that place and and thinking about that, um, not in a a singular way, not in a well, what would I design this to be, or but you have to think about that place in terms of yes, it's form, but also the economics of that place and and and you know how you make that place grow and be successful within the context of the people and its context of the place. Then I think you get to the third P, which I we talk about a lot, which is purpose. So unless you can you know form with the people in that place uh a shared purpose of what you're trying to achieve, and you you can usually articulate that much more clearly when you have a conversation than you can a drawing in some respects. So you say, Well, what's the purpose of us coming and talking about how this place might change? The purpose has got to start with some key principles, like well, usually that fundamentally comes down to creating um, you know, a sustainable place in every sense, uh, an equitable place that people feel that it's not just for one set of people and a place that will be prosperous. You know, everyone wants opportunity for their future generations, for their children, for themselves. Uh, everyone wants prosperity, and and that doesn't necessarily mean economic prosperity. You know, I think that in our sense, that's just how is it successful? So if you can start to coalesce around um purpose, you can normally make sure that lots of people, whether that's a politician, whether that's a community group, whether that's um you know the the person that might invest in that place, um, to sort of agree uh some principles. Now that sounds very straightforward, that is extremely complex because you've got a lot of people whose view of what the output of what I've just described is very different. Um but I think you've got to start. Um and so I think you know, when we think about our role, um, we represent, you know, both public and private sector, we we try and represent lots of different communities and give them a voice, is we start with people. We think about the place that's London or the the specific area that we're talking about, and then we um we have sort of developed uh a sort of way of thinking about the purpose of a place. But you mentioned the New London agenda. It's it's kind of our way of articulating that sort of set of values that we believe underpin successful placemaking, for one of a better word, successful development, successful city making, which which sort of does this how, why, what kind of version of placemaking that generally most people would agree from their own perspective is what their outcome they want. Now you've got to get to well, what what's the common ground, going back to my point, um, that actually everyone can agree on, because you know it doesn't matter that people have different views about that. What what matters is they understand why different people come from different places and that somehow there are plays there's a sort of consistency of what people want the outcome to be.

SPEAKER_01 17:11

Yeah, great. And and how how have you how have you seen that um received internationally? Because you because you you are uh you know you're a landing spot, aren't you, for people, institutions, other cities coming to look at London to learn from that agenda, should we call

London As A Global Learning Hub

SPEAKER_01 17:29

it?

SPEAKER_02 17:29

Yeah, I well I I think the other you know component, if you like, uh is London for us. Um and London is this amazing, diverse, successful city um that survived um you know millennia and reinvented itself and and created new things, and and that's driven by London as being a a place which people have come and uh landed in, emigrated to, come come to and created and and created all sorts of diversity and complexity and interest, and that's its success. Now, because London is such a successful city, even though when we're in it sometimes we we don't think so, most parts of the world are interested in understanding, visiting, experiencing, and a lot of people will have connections to London because of that diversity of population and and its openness to that. So we're very fortunate with models of London and galleries of London and being in London that that all sorts of people want to come and learn uh about London and understand why we did it. Now, these are city mayors, these are um you know architectural enthusiasts, these are um, you know, planning departments from every corner of the earth. And over the last 20 years we've built really good relationships with people that come back repeatingly from from different parts of the world, and they want to learn from London, but what we've learned always along that process is every single one of those people that come from another part of the city adds to our understanding of what we could do and what we could be in London because they're all facing similar challenges, they're all living in different ways that we can learn from. And and just as London has become rich through the different communities and people that have travelled and sort of given to it food and language and culture, we can do that in the built environment, and and it's a really important um thing for us that it goes beyond here and this place, but it it's about London's connectivity. And and London is this extraordinarily connected city, both through people and and you know, commerce and finance and but also skills, as I said earlier. You know, the built environment exports more than any other. You can go to almost any city in the world and you can trace back either a British person or business that has designed or engineered or helped plan, or at least the uh regulations they've used uh you know, on on the sort of measuring or planning or um you know designing of of their places will will trace back uh to London somewhere. Um so that connectivity is really important, but that connection between uh conversations not just between the people in the places in London but but other cities, I think is uh something that we think's uh an important role we can play as well.

SPEAKER_01 20:38

Yeah, yeah, awesome.

Setting The Agenda Through Systems Leadership

SPEAKER_01 20:40

And um and so how do you kind of how do you kind of set the agenda then at any one time? Because I know you have your your different councils, don't you, your different groups, and and um yeah, how much of that is is you sort of listening and feeling what's going on and and and sort of actively doing that, how much of it is sort of a bit more bottom-up, like I have a sense of that? So so I yeah, it's a really good question.

SPEAKER_02 21:03

I think you know leadership's important, so so we do understand, we have a role because we represent and we convene people and we we think about this and we're gaining knowledge, and I think it's uh it's important to us to understand that that leadership is an important thing. But I think we started out, we we sort of thought, well, we need to kind of be the thinkers, we need to be the kind of the doers, the like this is the way, follow us. And I think what we've really realized um, you know, uh over the last maybe only five or so years, as we sort of maybe maybe we were sitting in our our bedrooms in COVID really thinking about what we're doing, but but but said actually, hang on a second. It's it's the it's the people and it's the organizations in our community that are l are lead, they're all leaders, and somehow our leadership is in convening and connecting them. So what we're kind of using is a Is sort of systems leadership is what what what's needed for us as an organization, in the sense that you know the ideas, the um the thinking comes from lots of sources, and when you can collate that together and work together, then you get a better outcome. You you know, you can see the the thesis uh around that, but but I think that's really important, not just as us as a representative institution for the built environment, but I think it's really important when we think about those that are leading a borough or a place or a development, is there is no one you know singular genius person, individual, maybe in the past often a white male that has a great idea that everyone should follow. It's not the way great places are made. You know, places need system leadership, they need a collaboration uh between the actors. It needs someone to convene them, it needs um, you know, I think developers have moved from being the sort of, oh, we're the money, we come in, we buy a plot, we have a vision, we build it. Developers have become much more the system leaders of saying we've got to, you know, engage a community, understand the needs of the leadership of the politicians, we've got to understand the political context and and you know what's driving. We need to understand the needs of the community, we need to gather the best design skills, the best technical skills to deal with climate, we need to, you know, be able to have uh, you know, the right people to build the quality of product at the end of the day. Like that systems leadership is development, and it's no different in a sense to what we're trying to do as an institution. So I think that understanding um has come that that it's no one person creates a city, certainly not a successful city, is created through thousands of people's endeavours and ideas and challenge. And and in in our world in the built environment, we've got to understand that better. Um, I think, and and and I think that increasingly is the way we're thinking about how everything that NLA does, whether it's a research report, whether it's a festival of you know, in a neighborhood, whether it's a supporting a design competition for an idea, whether it's um you know, bringing one of our expert panels together that's looking specifically around housing or health or offices, all those things are interconnected around place. And therefore the leadership has to come from by bringing those kind of thinking together to create an outcome that that's really successful.

SPEAKER_01 24:41

Yeah, yeah.

Why Rushing Creates Bad Places

SPEAKER_01 24:42

And um, within all of that, where would you say, where are your frustrations like within what you do or within the industry, or I don't know how you take that question, but where do you think you you feel like maybe all of that theory and practice aren't necessarily aligning?

SPEAKER_02 24:59

I think um the frustrations come from, you know, in a sense, always overs oversimplifying in my mind. I said, you know, I thought I could build an LA business in three years. It's like the frustration comes around time um and around just how hard you know these things are, and I think those things are not getting any easier for anyone. The world is becoming more complex, so you can complain about politicians, or you can complain about you know investors wanting too much return, or you can complain about a community that's kind of stuck in its ways, or whatever you want to complain about. But fundamentally, um that's where frustrations come from. It's when we don't spend enough time having a conversation, getting common ground, and that leads to delay. And and it feels sometimes like, well, all that's out of my control, and and and to a certain extent it probably is. Um and there's a role for us to play into trying to bring that thinking, like I say, before it gets to the crunchy bit of trying to do development, how do we how do we build relationships, better relationships all the time, so that the languages are understood better, the differences and the the way people think of uh things. But so my frustration is probably that everyone's always in a rush, including us, because we don't have much time, we don't have much money, we don't have much resource. But that's that's true of every single part of the equation. So, you know, it's that kind of piece where you say, Well, actually, I if I stop and plan and think about anything in life, I probably can get to the there's the solution quicker. I know it's the tortoise and the hare or whatever it is, but but but you know, that that's something in such complexity in the built environment to genuinely spend the time to get the outcome quicker. And my frustration is that we're we're all in a rush, and and and you know, technology and communication and you know immediacy uh is and you know, you think of AI is just creating almost more noise and more uh more sort of feeling that we've gotta go faster and we can do it faster. And that doesn't create good places that people want to be, that doesn't create good cities that people want to belong in and people want to go back to, and and ultimately that's what creates value. So if you want value, then you've got to get it right, and it's got to be something that endures, and that does take time, but sometimes I feel like we end up taking way more time than we need to because we don't spend enough time up front, and you know that's manifested in political cycles, it's manifested in investment strategies that that need uh you know an internal rate of return that's just coming too quick. Uh, and yet how do we get that patience, that long-term thinking? Probably just needs a little bit more time up front. And if we can be an agent that's kind of pre pre-conditioning that relationship and preconditioning people's um uh understanding of one another, then hopefully we can be an agent of things happening quicker in the future. But but I think we've got a long way to go, and I've only been doing it 20 years.

unknown 28:22

Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 28:24

Yeah, I did I did wonder in that, because in your role as a convener, as an as a networker, bringing people, different groups, different um perspectives together, I I I wondered whether you might sort of suggest that there wasn't necessarily maybe not necessarily a uh an appetite, but necessarily an ability for those different groups to kind of you know to talk to each other in a way that maybe you as a as a sort of convener maybe thought you could see maybe you could see some of the problems that the different actors can't. Is

Building Trust And Busting Myths

SPEAKER_01 28:54

there is there anything in that? Or do you think do you think actually the communication between different groups, the the common ground as you to use your term is kind of there?

SPEAKER_02 29:02

Yeah, so I think we've become a a better translator of the languages if I want to put it that way. Um I think we're we're improving that, and I think we've been that's part of what we've been thinking a little a bit more about. And and to go back to my point about rushing, I think we used to think like, let's just stick them all in a room and then they'll all like work it out. It's like that's not very sensible either. Um, what you need to think about is is how you create connections and build trust, um, how you go about doing that.

SPEAKER_01 29:34

How do you think you go about doing that then?

SPEAKER_02 29:36

So so well in our New London agenda, we have the sort of how bit of it, and the how bit of it is all about actually taking responsibility for your own actions. So whichever part of that is, is is talking about, you know, take responsibility. If you're if you're you know a politician or you're a developer or you're a community, you know, just understand which bit you're responsible for and really think about your responsibility to create a good place. So I think we talk about taking responsibility and and encouraging people, and that can be you know get engaged, but get engaged positively in the future of your place as a local community, or um or you know, but but actually don't don't keep looking and blame looking for someone else to blame. Yeah. Like take responsibility is a thing we talk about. I I think the the second thing we talk about is provide clarity. So, you know, again, honesty, um, clarity, you know, being very transparent about what you care about, what you want to do, that goes back to that conversation around place. It's it's you know really important that no one feels that anyone is, you know, hiding things, and sometimes there's a temptation to think, well, look, you know, we just don't need to raise this issue because that's just gonna set something off, it'll always come back and bite you. So, like clarity, we talk about providing clarity as a way to act, um, and then we talk about building trust. So, you know, those are the those kind of go round in a circle. So if you take responsibility, if you provide clarity, then you will build trust, but that doesn't necessarily come straight away. So I think how how we do things is kind of informed by that, but I think that's what we've seen the people that do this stuff best and have had most success, you know, they they those kind of values come through really, really clearly.

SPEAKER_01 31:28

Yeah, interesting, yeah. And what what what do you think are the maybe the misconceptions or the of of different groups within within that?

SPEAKER_02 31:37

I think um that's quite a layered uh thing. I I think that there are some sort of obvious misconceptions that every single developer um just wants to suck as much money um out of whatever they're doing and that they're making vast sums of money and uh you know don't care. Now, unfortunately, that is true uh in some cases. Um it's it's difficult to be true in many places because we've put protections in place in a sense to protect for the worst actors. Um but but the reality in in my view um is that the vast majority of what we might call sort of um established, you know, sophisticated developers, investors in London and the world actually, you know, they have to, you know, that they're running a business, they're deploying capital. Often that capital is pensions for people people's lives, right? So they have to look after the money they that they're investing and and and therefore they have to make a return. Now, making a return, a reasonable return on a reasonable risk is important. Now, there's a misconception, I think, a lot that that's you know not the case. I think there's a misconception that you know all architects just want form over function, or you know, that they they they don't really care about the people, they care about the object. Now, I don't think that's true either. And I think that's even in the industry, you get a different form. There's a you know uh a perception that the construction industry is a sort of dirty, dangerous, uh male-dominated industry that you'd never want to work in. Now, there's a lot of truth in the history of that, but actually when you go in and see how some of this stuff's done on the range of jobs and and some people and diversity of roles and people that are coming into it and the way that it could change, that's a misconception, you know. A lot of them are founded on truths, there's a misconception that you know local communities just don't want change. I mean, I I that's the one I just feel like yes, people don't like change for change's sake. People want opportunity, people want you know, improvement to their quality of life. Um you've just got to find the common ground which says that you know you can work together to to create that or or bring new people into that community that will add to their lives, not take away from them and make sure you provide something. There's misconceptions that politicians are only interested in themselves and um and and you know can't think long term. Actually, there's an awful lot of you know political leaders that care quite passionately about protecting uh things and and they are voted in and they have to listen to communities. So so there's all sorts of misconceptions uh I I'd say. I think the biggest misconception is that no one understands that the built environment is one thing, one ecosystem, one set of uh, you know systems and people that are actually all trying to do the same thing and working together. So so that's my big one, obviously, that we're talking about at the moment. But um but yeah, lots of misconceptions caused by silos and you know, where technology should provide you would imagine, sort of an ability to communicate more easily, and it it ironically, through social media, it tends to create more silos where people are able to feed a a single uh view to a large number of people and do that quite effectively. Um so actually what it's doing is it's creating more silos uh technology, I would say, at the moment, than than solving them, and that's that's kind of a slightly bigger existential issue, I think, on lots of levels in life. But um, but yeah, so it's so it's it's not it's not easy. I don't think it's going to get any easier in some respects. Um I I think when you're under challenge, and I think you know it is challenging to to to bring forward development in so many ways at the moment. Actually, that's when common ground gets found because people need uh you know, they need growth, they need their places to be reinvested in, they need uh a city to be thriving and all those things. So, so you know, sometimes it takes a bit of challenge to break down some misconceptions. That's my optimistic view of it.

SPEAKER_01 36:13

Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, totally.

A Personal Story And Future Vision

SPEAKER_01 36:15

And um, and then if you're thinking uh optimistically then about the next, you know, 10, 15, 20 years of of NLA, of London, of cities, you know, and you think about your business plan that you had on your piece of paper all those years ago, um, that purpose I think comes across really clearly in what you do and the way you talk about this. Um for you personally, then you know, you you think about maybe that last 20 years and and the next, like with NLA at the heart of that for you. How how has that all come about for you personally and and where do you see that going in the future?

SPEAKER_02 36:47

Um So I you know I got into this because my father owned an ar an architectural model making business and uh was going through a very tough time in the early 90s in a very deep recession with lots of people uh losing their homes. And you know, I'd just got up as a kid to quite an exciting workshop with people building things. Um but but at that time he, you know, things were bad, he didn't have any work, he decided to keep his model makers you know employed because they're quite difficult to retrain and refined, and and he built a model of the City of London uh to sort of keep them busy because he had this idea that if he built this model he could hire it out for planning committees, and if he got the planning model, he could do the sales model. But having built this model, you know, the city of London, Michael Cassidy, who was the planning chair, I think at the time, the leader leader of the council, said, you know, forget planning, like we need to use this to have a conversation about how we're going to transform the city and modernise the city, build what we need. And I was, you know, literally on my sort of school holidays, sort of moving the model into a room and seeing Norman Foster and Richard Rogers and Stuart Lipton and and and Michael Cassidy and people standing around this model talking about the city, and I just thought, wow, you know, this is like this is it, this is really cool. This is like even cooler than what so I was inspired to come in to do what I do now, and um I think you know, I I as a result I've done nothing since but try and you know, sort of do that better. I think I've got a long way to go. You know, we're we've always because it was a sort of family business, it's it's bit been something that we've never really thought about, oh, it's a six-year plan to sell, or it's just this idea that we're just trying to achieve. So uh, you know, I I don't think there's a sort of obvious like, well, what's where's my exit or what am I doing in a sort of business sense? Um uh but I turned 50 a few years ago and you do think, well gosh, I'm you know, my sadly my my father passed away, and you you know, you stop and you think about a few things and you think, well, actually, what do I really want to do? I want to I want to make sure we've established something that's sustainable beyond me having a passion about what we do. I've fortunately got an amazing group of people that have, you know, sort of formed around me that have a sort of common common view as well. And and I I so I sort of think when I look maybe the next 20 years, if I've probably got most people will have to keep working, I certainly probably will. Um, that actually, you know, if we can really refine and and and and do everything that I uh set out in my sort of first three years and create a London centre that genuinely does have, you know, everything from young people being inspired about their ability to get involved in the future of the city, to find jobs for people from all over the world to come and be part of the conversation, for businesses to be grown and form around it, for skills to be retrained as a as a space, then um then I and and to know that it's sustainable and and can be around as an institution, you know, that that will never go away, that then I'll be pretty happy. Um I think the global conversation's fascinating, I think. The ability to replicate that in other cities around the world, every single city that comes here says, well, why why don't we have an LA? Like some will have a city gallery, some will have different versions of things we do, but none of them have this amazing sort of public-private partnership of people that are thinking about the city. So, yeah, I'd like to see one in every city in the world. I don't think you can own and manage those from one entity. I think they have to be off the place and and all those things, but yeah, so so yeah, maybe um maybe if uh in another 20 years there's a you know a solid LLA that we've got all of those people working in the built environment feeling they want to be part of that community and they want to, you know, engage and and and benefit, that that Londoners know they can go and find out about their city or have a conversation that you know young people know that that the built environment is the largest employer and probably continue to be the largest employer into the future with amazing different opportunities of different skill sets that we need to shape the world around us, and that that's a network of centres around the world. It's a small ambition, I can you can see laughing at me, but um, but you could see that being quite a powerful thing, and I I think um if we can do that and we can get that knowledge sharing and people connection, then I think um we we'll probably play quite a big part in making successful cities um into the future.

SPEAKER_01 41:31

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And and it's amazing that your that business plan, as you say, doesn't go back 20 years, it goes back 40 or 40 or or younger. And maybe just to finish then, like um if you were to think back maybe to to you when you were looking around those models as a young boy, or do you you think about some of the kids who come in here and they get off their phones and they experience that that model, that moment. Like, how do you think that kind of that that sort of inspiration, that sense of doing something, how how do you think about that for maybe how you've kind of talked about it for yourself, but maybe hopefully for some of those young kids who come in.

SPEAKER_02 42:12

Well, I I look to be honest, that's the thing that I enjoy more than anything that we do is the groups of very, very young children, you know, literally almost nursery school children that will come in and they look at the models and they see the buildings and and they, you know, they they also do it when they come into a city, you know, get on a train and come up to London, you know, from from outside London, they see these amazing towers and you know, there's all this talk about, you know, we're ruining the city, and yet the inspiration that gives young people, the excitement I see in, you know, I don't I don't think there's a kid that doesn't come in here that doesn't kind of and they look at different things and they're different, they're interested, and sometimes they just want to like run their fingers over the models, like, yeah, okay, careful. But um, luckily they're quite robust. Um but but you know, I think there's there's such you know excitement and opportunity, and I think um you know, for for me, you know, that was always like, oh, it was you know it's exciting, but I and I didn't really think, well, that is that something I can do. But I think if we can inspire um young people to to be part of, and that doesn't necessarily mean they've got to become uh you know one of the professions. There are so many things that sit around it, but even if they're just part of it because they care about their place and they get involved in their local you know community group or their their kind of get involved in politics or or whatever they do, all of that stuff is about the places that we live. So I think you know, that's the excitement. I know I love that piece. I think you know uh that there's such so much excitement and those those physical models, ironically, more and more, because people are so used to looking at screens, they get more and more excited about a physical model than you know, you can show them a flashy fly through. It's like, yeah, they play a computer game like that every day. I mean, so what? You know, it's like it's really strange actually, the last 30 years how that's shifted. Yeah because it used to be like, wow, you know, there's you've got this flight, we used to have big screens and all this stuff. And um, and like we put screens on there, and no one looks at them.

SPEAKER_01 44:14

Yeah, you need some you need a vinyl and some uh DBC. You need something to play with.

SPEAKER_02 44:18

Like, you know, we often have sort of tactile stuff that we can touch or some you know, Roman. We had we had a group in from Moh Molas who um uh you know brought some Roman ruins that people are allowed to touch, and everyone's like picking them up. Yeah, you know, it's kind of it's amazing physical stuff. So experience is is quite you know, it's going back to kind of physical experiences, isn't it? I mean uh technology mixes in and you can do cool stuff like we project with models and all those kind of things. But um, but yeah, so so yeah, I don't know what the question was now. I've now rambled on, but I think you know, inspiring young people uh has got to be kind of the root of it, and and you know, we we may think people are anti-development a lot when we're in this industry, but but when you see people's joy when they see uh you know the towers as they come into London or the bridge or the tower bridge or the you know St. Paul's Cathedral or all of these parts of our built environment that have been layered on over generations in London are what everyone's proudest about. So we just need to remind them that they can be part of creating the next layer. You know, every generation in inherits the city, but every generation's job is to to leave the city, you know, in a new new new space. So I think it's in making sure that you know every generation feels that they're they have the ability to help shape um that future that isn't just someone making a choice that they have no control over, really.

Closing And Where To Follow

SPEAKER_01 45:48

Nick, it's a great place to end. Thanks very much for your time today. It's been a really good conversation. Yeah, thanks, Tom. You've enjoyed it.

SPEAKER_00 45:54

Thank you for listening to the Grow Places podcast. For more information, visit growplaces.com and follow us at We Grow Places across all social channels. See you next time.