Benjamin Champion - Slaying Dragons, Running for the RIBA Council and discussing a little bit of Architecture.

Published: July 27, 2021, 10:06 p.m.

I am thrilled to kickstart our second season (woohoo!) of the Architecture Social's podcast with a resident host of the Architecture Social's community forum, Benjamin Champion.

While Ben is a fantastic Architect at Sheehan Nagle Hartray Associates, he also happens to be a technology enthusiast and the gamemaster of our Dungeon and Dragons group on the Architecture Social.

Join Ben and me in a no-holds-barred conversation about everything and anything as well as his motives to run for the RIBA Council.

This was fun, let me know your thoughts and also do check out Ben's election statement over on RIBA:

"I am a newly qualified architect. Over the past eight years I have worked in small villages, in London, and abroad. I have seen the ways architects are viewed by a range of clients and by varying cross sections of the public - which is not always positive. The recent uproar on behalf of architectural assistants demonstrates that this perception is not restricted to those outside the profession.

A common topic I have noticed in conversations with other young architects over the past sixth months is a frustration with the apparent impotence of the profession to influence the outcome of a building. It is my intention during my time on the council to work towards linking architects with the general public by providing a more public-facing aspect of the profession to de-mystify the process of engaging an architect.

The frustration with the structure of our education and the position of architectural assistants resonated with my own experience and has prompted me to try and provide a young professional voice to the council. There is a clear wish for change, which the current council is admirably and successfully addressing, and I have a strong desire to contribute."

You can vote for the RIBA Council here: https://secure.cesvotes.com/V3-1-0/riba2021/en/home?bbp=19879&x=-1