Jayden Ali in RIBA J on diversity, urban planning, art and architecture

Pamela Buxton interviews Jayden Ali who breaks the conventional architecture mould and who wants to help others do that too.

‘It’s finding quite a nice rhythm at the moment,’ says Jayden Ali of his practice JA Projects, which has grown from 1 to 10 strong in less than two years.

He has done it all his own way. Describing himself as a ‘part-Trinidadian, part-Turkish, slightly cockney sounding, black appearing young man who grew up in Bethnal Green’, he had no role models in architecture. He did, however, have an interest in the life of cities and found his way to architecture school after a work experience stint at Allies & Morrison. At the time, the practice was working on the Olympic Park in his ‘backyard’ of Stratford. Seeing the start of the site preparations was clearly inspiring, helping him to ‘understand that the miracle of architecture is making things exist and dreaming new constructions that are made from nothing’.

At Central St Martins he has been involved in improving the diversity of the teaching pool as well as co-leading the MArch Architecture course.

‘There’s a big diversity issue in architecture and I think that starts with teaching,’ he says.

He gained his Part III and set up on his own without ever working at another practice – ‘ignorance is bliss’. Instead, he is growing his own interdisciplinary practice, described as working at the intersection of architecture, urban strategy, art and performance – or as Ali also puts it, ‘architecture plus’.  Its approach to architecture and city-making is that places should be diverse, supportive and enriching. Rather than consider architecture as just a material edifice, he is interested in understanding all its immaterial fragments – ‘the way it impacts people’s lives, the way it empowers people to progress, uplifts people’s souls’.

Staff at JA Projects have a ‘core architectural thread’ while bringing in other expertise including public realm intervention and fashion show production. Everyone works a four day week and has other creative things going on – Ali himself makes films and writes a column for art magazine Elephant, and it is not surprising to hear him cite polymath artist and filmmaker Steve McQueen as a role model.

‘You have to make space for that stuff. We’re at a good size where people can bring things into the practice,’ he says.

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Read the full article in the RIBA Journal