How do we empower the disempowered? How can we foster civic pride through design? What are the ways in which we can use insight to innovate and harness the value of a ‘symbiotic approach where everyone benefits’? At a time when the wellbeing of our local neighbourhoods and communities is more important than ever, what better time to address these fundamental questions.Stephanie Edwards is an architect, urbanist and the cofounder of Urban Symbiotics, an insight and research-led multidisciplinary design practice based in London which focuses on the user experience to innovate architecture, masterplanning and the public realm. In this talk Stephanie will introduce Urban Symbiotics’ focus on the delivery of social value through a variety of project types and scales facilitating the building of inclusive, equitable and progressive communities.
The practice applies a user-centric, multi-disciplinary approach to urban design, architecture and placemaking, exploring the use of insight to inform and innovate design. This is a design process which she says 'comes from the world of product design, where the user is placed front and centre of the design of human environments’ with the belief that ’we can innovate by understanding more and to help us provide more suitable environments for 21st century lifestyles’. The Urban Symbiotics team engages with community members when formulating the brief and seeks their insight in identifying their needs, continuing to engage with them to help develop concepts and validate solutions.
Urban Symbiotics has been recognised by the Design Museum and the London Festival of Architecture as a practice that’s creating ‘architecture for a new generation’, and has been longlisted by the RIBA MacEwen 2021 awards for community endeavours targeting improvements for local communities, specifically for Edwards' work in her reimagining of the Black Cultural Archives in Brixton. In 2019 it was nominated for a h100 architecture and design award. Urban Symbiotics is leading on a Regeneration Framework for Purley in Croydon for Croydon Council, and working on the Gascoigne Estate in Barking and Dagenham, and in Nigeria as part of the UN Habitat's Global Future Cities Programme. The practice has also recently been commissioned by Enfield Council to apply its user-focussed approach to design the hardscape and commercial public realm spaces for Meridian Water, one of the UK's largest regeneration projects.
Stephanie graduated from the Architectural Association in 2010, and worked at OMA before establishing Urban Symbiotics in 2018 with product designer James Stewart. She is currently a Board member for Architecture Lobby, an advisory group member for the UK Built Environment Advisory Group (UKBEAG) and was previously an elected Council member of the RIBA. Stephanie was celebrated as a 'force for change' alongside Baroness Lawrence in Vogue's seminal September 2019 issue, and for ‘building mindful cities’ by The Financial Times in a profile (Sept 2020).
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