Alison Brooks

Brooks was born in Welland, Ontario, Canada in 1962, but later moved to and attended high school in Guelph, Ontario. She finished her studies in architecture with a BES and BArch at the University of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, in 1988.[4] Brooks moved to the UK and worked with designer Ron Arad, becoming a partner in Ron Arad Associates in 1991. With Arad, Brooks co-designed the Foyer of the Tel Aviv Opera.[10] She said: "We were doing something in Tel Aviv which was a completely free form piece of architecture inside a really big, corporate piece of architecture. We were doing it as a kind of protest piece, and we thought that the whole world was going to stop and take notice, and hundreds of hundreds of operas were going to call us up and ask us to do their next opera building, which of course didn't happen."[11] There were no further commissions for opera houses, but they did receive commissions for other projects in London including the restaurants Belgo Noord and Belgo Centraal.[11]

In 1996 she founded her own practice, Alison Brooks Architects (ABA), based in London,[1] where she initially worked on small projects. "These are the kinds of things that you do when you've got a new practice and you're waiting for the big one to walk in the door," she said. Eventually she started to received larger commissions, and her company began to become more successful.[11]

With growing success, her goal in London was to address big problems such as housing and public spaces. She said: "I wanted to address some of the big, big problems that needed to be addressed, particularly in London. The quality of housing and the quality of public space really suffered in the 1980s under Thatcher, and there has been, in the last ten years in London, a movement to start investing in the public realm and looking at things that haven't been looked at in a long time: new forms of housing, sustainable housing, urban design and infrastructure – all of the stuff that Britain's been pretty far behind on. So that was my big ambition."[12]

Alison Brooks Architects designed "Brass" building, Accordia, Cambridge, England

Brooks's architecture has been described by Jonathan Glancey as "a late flowering of the most elegant and sensuous modernism".[13] Brooks became known for designing intelligent, beautiful houses but then moved into the cultural sector, designing the Performing Arts Centre at Folkestone.[13] She says: "The main point I try to make is that the idiosyncrasies or each project drive different solutions. I really like that people don't know what they are getting with me."[12] Brooks emphasis on uniqueness and purpose is at the core of all her projects. She told the Financial Times, "It's not about the next tall building. It should be about the elements that people connect with directly."[10]

Brooks has been praised for her work's "conceptual rigor, sculptural quality, and ingenious detailing"[14] as well as being a major advocate for civic housing. ABA's architectural design is developed from thorough research into the social, cultural, and environmental contexts of each project's location. Brooks describes the company's approach as "enabl[ing] us to develop authentic, responsive solutions for our buildings and urban schemes, each with a distinct identity. Combining formal invention with rigorous attention to detail, ABA's buildings have proved to satisfy our client's expectations and positively impact the urban realm."[15] Through ABA, Brooks can also be accredited with the resurgence and repopularization of the use of timber in architecture and craft design.[14]

Debrett's named Alison Brooks one of "Britain's 500 Most Influential"[4] due to the fact that she is widely regarded as one of the "leading architects of her generation."[14] She was also recognized by ArchDaily as one of the "30 Most Influential Architects in London."[8]

Alison Brooks is the only architect of the UK to have won all three of the RIBA awards:[18] the RIBA Stephen Lawrence Prize (for The Wrap House, in 2006),[19] the RIBA Manser Medal (in 2014 for the Lens House),[20] and the RIBA Stirling Prize for their part in the design of Accordia, a high-density development of 378 residential rooms.[21]

In March 2013, Brooks received the Architects' Journal's Woman Architect of the Year Award. One of the judges, Paul Monaghan, said: "Her mixture of sculpture, architecture and detail is what has made her such a powerful force in British architecture."[22]

In 2016, she designed Smile, a temporary cantilevered wooden structure on the grounds of the Chelsea School of Art, demonstrating the structural feasibility of cross-laminated timber.[23] This architecture-art hybrid "pushed the boundaries of hardwood engineering" by using only 12 panels of cross-laminated American tulipwood.[17]

In 2021, House on the Hill, a strikingly contemporary extension to a Georgian farmhouse in Gloucestershire, designed by Alison Brooks Architects, was named RIBA House of the Year 2021, awarded annually to the best architect-designed house in the UK.[9] RIBA President, Simon Allford said: “This geometric design skilfully fuses together the old with the new – connecting two architectures separated by over 300 years. Intriguing and distinguished, House on the Hill is the impressive result of a ten-year collaboration between the homeowners and their architect. This is an extraordinary labour of love in architectural form."[9]

"Alison Brooks is a CABE / Design Council National Design Review Panel Chair and Trustee of Open-City. She was a member of The Farrell Review of Architecture and the Built Environment and the RIBA Awards group from 2010–15, where she was juror for the 2011 Stirling Prize and 2010 Lubetkin Prize. Brooks is currently External Examiner at the Architectural Association where she taught a Diploma Unit from 2008–2010. Alison lectures internationally on architecture and urban design. In 2016 she received an Honorary Doctorate of Engineering from University of Waterloo, Canada."[14]

Alison Brooks revealed some of her processes, techniques, and themes in her published work Synthesis: Culture and Context in 2014.[25]

21 years after the founding of Alison Brooks Architects, Brooks published Ideals then Ideas which she calls "an overview of the practice's work within conceptual, formal and material themes that have emerged over the past two decades."[14]

In 2018, the Harvard Business Review published an article co-authored by Brooks, "The Surprising Power of Questions: It Goes Far Beyond Exchanging Information."[26]

Brooks grew up in Canada, and now lives with her husband in Queen's Park, London, which she thinks of as a "perfect Victorian neighbourhood".[27]

• List of University of Waterloo people

• Alison Brooks Architects