Alison Brooks is one of Britain’s mostly highly acclaimed architects. Born and educated in Canada, she moved to London in 1988 and founded her practice in 1996. She is now internationally recognized for her award-winning works ranging from urban design and housing to performing arts venues, higher education buildings, private residences and exhibitions. With a unique design process that fuses history, community and locality Brooks has since become the only recipient of the UK’s three most prestigious awards for architecture: the RIBA Stirling Prize, the Manser Medal and Stephen Lawrence Prize.
Her conceptual rigour and ingenious detailing is exemplified by the spectacular new Cohen Quadrangle for Exeter College, Oxford and “The Smile,” a London Design Festival Landmark Project. She has recently won major cultural commissions including a masterplan for York Castle Museum and a Museum/Study Centre Cambridge. Brooks taught at the Architectural Association from 2008 to 2010 and in 2018 was appointed as the John T. Dunlop Design Critic in Architecture at Harvard GSD. She lectures internationally and is currently a visiting professor teaching a Master’s Studio at ETSAM, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid. She serves as a Trustee of Open City and recently published an overview of the practice’s work entitled “Ideals, then Ideas.” In 2016 Alison Brooks was awarded an Honorary Doctorate from her alma mater, the University of Waterloo, Canada.
