AJ Climate Champions podcast – Maria Smith: ‘It’s depressing how much architects are the problem’

In this six-episode series, Hattie and her co-host George Morgan interview changemakers and innovators who are transforming architecture as we know it by designing in ways that respect planetary boundaries. Our six champions will offer inspiration as well as sharing essential knowledge about design in an era of climate emergency.

In episode one of the AJ’s Climate Champions podcast, Maria Smith of Buro Happold explains why she felt she had to leave architecture and retrain as an engineer, and why the way architects think is at the root of the profession’s failure to tackle climate emergency.

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About Maria Smith

After completing her Part 1 in Bath in 2003, Maria spent an Erasmus year in Delft before going on to do her Part 2 and Part 3 at London Met. In 2006, she cofounded architectural practice Studio Weave while still a student. After almost a decade, she moved on to cofound Interrobang, a transdisciplinary practice of Architecture and Engineering within Webb Yates Engineers where her key project was the refurbishment of the iconic Art Deco Hoover Building on the A40 Westway.

As well as working as an architect and engineer Maria is also a Mayor’s Design Advocate, a member of RIBA Council, a Trustee of the Architecture Foundation, co-founder of the provocative Turncoats architecture debates and a member of the steering group of Architects Declare. She was also a co-curator of the 2019 Oslo Architecture Triennale on Degrowth.

Maria completed a qualification in engineering at the Open University in 2019 and during lockdown in May joined Buro Happold as director of sustainability and physics.

Maria is a vegan and a keen cyclist.

Show notes

Projects and resources mentioned in this episode

Hoover Building (2018) by Interrobang/Webb Yates Engineers

The Grade II*-listed Hoover Building was refurbished into 66 dwellings by inserting a timber structure within the concrete beam and slab building to increase structural capacity while minimising new loads and embodied carbon.

Ecology of Colour (2012) by Studio Weave