Angela Brady

Winner of the 2012 Women of Outstanding Achievement Award for Leadership and Inspiration

30 November 2012

Celebrating achievements of women who are leading STEM businesses, research teams, academic organisations or professional bodies.

Angela presents the Home Show on Channel 4 and Building the Dream on ITV. Director of Brady Mallalieu architects, which is a private practice specialising in contemporary sustainable design in housing, healthcare and education, she is very passionate about how good design can transform our lives.

My proudest moment - Being elected as President of RIBA to represent 44,000 architects. As the second woman it is good to be a role model for women and also being a non British architect to represent the diversity of the UK. I have been a campaigner all of my life and stand up for what I believe in, on women’s issues of under-representation in our profession and for pushing the importance of good sustainable design and better access to projects for the SME sector.

My advice to girls - If you care about our built environment and about how we should all be living and working in buildings that suit our planet and climate, have a flair for design and like talking to people to shape their environment, then architecture can be a brilliant career - particularly for women.

My advice to the UK - Make one science subject compulsory in school to A level, and give it extra points in exams. It needs to be an inspirational subject which welcomes women. The best way to achieve critical mass in construction is to have a ‘mindset change’ in the way men look at sharing childcare. In low paid professions childcare still costs too much and women do the bulk of childcare, so Government could assist better and have it tax credited.

Women bring added value - My mantra has always been that “women and men together make better architecture.” This is true because it brings in both viewpoints when designing homes, schools hospitals or shopping centres - where both brains are needed to give balance and come up with well thought out solutions. I think the reason we have so few decent shopping centres or so many similar ‘covered ones’, is that not enough women are on the design teams. Let’s face it, how many men enjoy the shopping experience? Women do bring added value, particularly in community liaison or at client meetings where “listening” is so important. Women have such great communications skills and less ego than men, as we generally prefer to work in teams and share ideas.

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