2025 National Judging Panel Members
Adina Bisek (Civic Trust Awards Panel)
Adina is a Grimshaw Principal and is skilled in Masterplanning, Urbanism, Sustainable Design, City design and planning, and Residential layout and design. She has a particular current focus on Airport urbanism, Infrastructure and cities and Community focussed design.
Adina has a Masters in Architecture focused on Urban Design from The University of Texas at Austin. along with a Bachelor in Architecture from Delhi, India.
Claire Barton (Civic Trust Awards Panel)
Claire has been a Partner at Haverstock since 2006, leading numerous successful projects in a range of sectors, particularly Community, Spiritual and Education. With her strong approach to consultation, Claire aims to ensure that every project generates positive engagement and supports inclusive design solutions. Claire has extensive experience of working with local authorities and client teams with a variety of stakeholders.
Claire led the design of Linden Farm, a supported living development for young people with autism and high support needs, receiving the RIBA South East Project Architect of the Year award and the Civic Trust Selwyn Goldsmith Award for Universal Design.
Alongside her role at Haverstock, Claire is a technical advisor to the Department for Education., gaining an in depth understanding of the latest design specifications. Under her leadership Haverstock has pioneered sustainability initiatives in educational design, leading two of the first schools under the DfE’s Sustainability Pilot Scheme.
Dearbhail Keating (AABC Conservation Awards Panel)
Dearbhail is a director at John Coward Architects in Cartmel, Cumbria and an AABC registered architect. She also sits on the AABC Board. In 2014 Dearbhail was awarded the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings (SPAB) Lethaby Scholarship. This intensive nine month travelling scholarship allowed Dearbhail to develop her technical understanding of building conservation both practically and philosophically. Her work is focused throughout Cumbria and Yorkshire on both ecclesiastical and secular buildings working with a variety of public and private clients. Dearbhail sat on the SPAB Technical Panel between 2016 and 2018. She also runs the SPAB North of England Regional Group.
Eleanor Young (Civic Trust Awards Panel)
Eleanor is interested in the good-everyday and the extraordinary in architecture. As editor of the RIBA Journal, she visits the best UK buildings and interviews the most interesting people in the world of construction and design. She leads on editorial development prioritising climate action and the RIBA Journal's focus on design in the making.
Her background is in journalism having worked on tech magazines and later The Architects’ Journal, while studying for her MSc in architectural history at The Bartlett (UCL). Eleanor was a founding director of the Milton Keynes architecture centre, has been a board member of housing provider Circle 33 and regularly chairs events and roundtables.
Hari Phillips (Civic Trust Awards Panel)
Hari is a Founding Director of Bell Phillips, an architecture practice founded in 2004 with a strong reputation particularly in the delivery of local authority housing. Their work has been recognised with multiple awards including Civic Trust and RIBA National Awards and has been featured in multiple books and publications. Notable projects include Gasholder Park in King’s Cross, Marklake Court in Southwark, Greenwich Housing and pavilions in Southwark Park and Elephant Park.
Hari is co-chair of LLDC’s Quality Review Panel and Chair of the Camden Design Review Panel.
Jane Simpson (Selwyn Goldsmith Awards Panel)
Jane is a chartered Architect and registered Access Consultant on the National Register of Access Consultants (NRAC), and director of her own company. She has over 30 years’ experience in inclusion providing advice on a broad range of issues, often clarifying complex aspects of equality legislation. Throughout her career Jane has developed a broad range of expertise, working within a local authority background, private practice and planning department.
Jane has been involved in access related organisations for many years including Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA), DPTAC, DfE, Design Council, Sport England, BSI, NRAC and EHRC. She is the RIBA’s Specialist Practice Advisor on inclusion, Inclusion Champion for HOAP, representing the RIBA on the B559 committee responsible amongst other things for BS8300, instrumental in the RIBA Plan of Work Inclusion Overlay, a member of the UIA Architecture for All group Western Europe region 1 and is a former member of the CPD, Regulations & Standards and Architects for Change Groups.
Contributing to the development of Inclusive Design Practices and standards, nationally and internationally. Including RIBAPlan of Work Inclusion Overlay, PAS 1899: 2022 Electric vehicles – Accessible charging, BS5879:2020 Guide to the design of balconies and terraces, IStructE Inclusive Design for Structural engineers, Building Bulletin 102 Designing for disabled children and children with special educational needsand BB104 Are guidelines for SEND and alternative provisionfor the Department for Education and Sport England documents Accessible and Inclusive Sports Facilities and Active Design – Planning for Health and Wellbeing through Sport and Physical Activity.
She has acted as an Inclusion Design Assessor for the Civic Trust Awards for several years. She provides advice on a broad range of issues, often clarifying complex aspects of the Equality Act 2010, the Special Education Needs and Disability Act 2001 and other statutory and legislative information.
John Davies (Civic Trust Awards Panel)
John Davies is the Head of Sustainability at Derwent London plc, and is responsible for creating and leading the company wide sustainability agenda. John is a highly experienced sustainability management professional, and is recognised as an expert in several sectors, in particular commercial property, and has developed and led the creation of many industry leading sustainability programmes and strategies. He writes extensively in the sustainability press and sits on many industry panels and committees. Prior to joining Derwent London John was Head of Sustainability at Davis Langdon LLP where was responsible for developing and delivering its range of sustainability services and forming strong relationships across its key client base. Before joining Davis Langdon John worked in the client domain as a sustainability advisor on range of major projects and organisations, most notably at BAA plc, where he lead the sustainability agenda within the T5 design phase and the £10bn Capital Projects function.
Josh Fenton (Civic Trust Awards Panel)
Josh Fenton trained as an architectural designer before transitioning into roles in communications and public relations. Josh currently works as Senior Group Communications Manager for Berkeley Group, with a remit to support the businesses efforts around regeneration, placekeeping and community engagement. Josh writes on architecture and urbanism for publications including Wallpaper* and Architect’s Newspaper.
Josh Fenton is also a trustee of Lyng Community Association.
Laura Stephenson (Civic Trust Awards Panel)
Laura is a Director at Allford Hall Monaghan Morris with over twenty years’ experience practising as an architect across a range of sectors.
Laura has played a key role and delivered a number of award-winning projects at AHMM including the Stirling Prize Shortlisted Westminster Academy and the William Street Quarter Masterplan in Barking, the first privately funded social housing scheme in the UK which was built using offsite construction.
Over the past ten years, Laura has focused on leading projects of a significant scale and complexity. This includes public sector projects which involve the transformation of listed buildings including the refurbishment of BBC Studios 1 to 3 at the world-renowned Television Centre where she oversaw the transformation of the Grade II listed building into new state-of-the-art broadcasting studios. Most recently Laura led the team working on proposals for a temporary House of Commons at Richmond House for UK Parliament.
Louise Priestman (AABC Conservation Awards Panel)
Louise is an IHBC and AABC conservation accredited architect specialising in ecclesiastical buildings and the sensitive conversion and restoration of historic buildings. She is Cathedral Architect to Blackburn Cathedral and is inspecting architect for a selection churches within the north. Louise has previously worked on the conservation of The Elizabeth Tower (Big Ben), Drapers Livery Hall and Huddersfield Train Station. She is now working on several church repair and re-ordering projects, as well as the conversion of a castle into a hotel. Louise is on the Fabric Advisory Committee of Ripon Cathedral and the AABC Management Team.
Malcolm Hankey (Civic Trust Awards)
Malcolm is a Director of BlueLight Management Ltd and is a civil engineer and specialist project manager. He is highly experienced in the management and delivery of flood defence programmes, major complex construction and engineering projects, with particular emphasis on project strategy/turnaround solutions for distressed projects, defects remediation, compliance solutions and legal/contractual disputes.
His expertise is in project delivery, commercial management, contract management, design management, defects management and legal management, providing a combination of services that deliver solutions to clients that are typically experiencing programme and commercial slippage or technical and/or contractual disputes. Malcolm gained a LLB (Hons) in Law in 2003, and was made an Honorary Fellow of the RIBA in 2012 in recognition of him rescuing the Civic Trust Awards scheme.
Malcolm is also the Executive Director of the Civic Trust Awards, having been involved with the scheme for over 20 years.
Michelle Horn (Selwyn Goldsmith Awards Panel)
Michelle is a senior access consultant at Arup and a consultant member of the National Register of Access Consultants (NRAC). She is passionate about high quality design and has specialised in accessibility and inclusive design for over 18 years, working in an architects practice, Local Authority and at the Centre of Accessible Environments. Michelle has significant experience working on listed buildings and regeneration schemes as well as providing design appraisals, writing inclusive design standards and providing technical guidance. She has been an active member of the London Region of the Access Association for a number of years and was a co-author of the wheelchair housing design guide 3rd edition.
Neal Charlton (Civic Trust Awards & AABC Conservation Awards Panel)
Neal is a Director at Buttress Architects and an AABC registered conservation architect. After receiving a Civic Trust AABC Conservation Award in 2015, Neal was asked to join the AABC Board and judge the Conservation Awards in 2016. Neal also represents conservation at the Civic Trust Awards Judging Panel. He has undertaken many projects in sensitive historic environments, including modern interventions on scheduled monuments. The Buttress studio’s work includes the public and private sectors, the urban and the rural, the residential and commercial, the traditional and the contemporary, and is internationally renowned for exceptional skills in heritage and conservation.
Neil Smith (Civic Trust Awards & Selwyn Goldsmith Awards Panel)
Neil is the current Chair of the London Legacy Development Corporation’s (LLDC) Built Environment Access Panel (BEAP) and one of the Mayor of London’s Design Advocate promoting Good Growth by Design. He is the Inclusive Design Lead for HS2 Ltd and prior to that he was with Buro Happold Engineers for over 10 years, where he led the Inclusive Design team. Thanks to the team at Buro Happold his son was the first wheelchair user over the O2 Dome in Greenwich. He has worked for the Mayor of London, sitting in the strategic planning team as the Principal Access Officer and was the Head of Consultancy and Training at the Centre for Accessible Environments. He is the principal author of the Mayor’s Supplementary Planning Guidance ‘Accessible London: achieving an inclusive environment’, and the London 2012 Games and 2019 LLDC’s ‘Inclusive Design Standards’. He sits on the British Standards Institute Committee B/559 - Design of an Accessible and Inclusive Environment responsible for BS 8300.
Ngozi N Ugoji (Selwyn Goldsmith Awards Panel)
Ngozi is a highly proficient and certified project / programme leadership and management professional with a positively diverse career path and work experience across functions, sectors and industries. With a Master degree in Architecture and over 25 years of experience in management and leadership, Ngozi has taken on technical advisory roles for sustainable business growth and transformation, organizational strengthening and reform as well as project management roles on high profile construction projects.
Ngozi has continued to volunteer her time as a Universal Design Assessor for the SGA CTA since 2011 and was also a volunteer assessor in the recently concluded assessments this year 2023. She is a member of the International Association of Accessibility Professionals (IAAP) and a Certified Professional in Accessibility Core Competencies (CPACC).
Ngozi is passionate about promoting the ethos of accessible built environments including in emerging economies and, has delivered training and webinars on the subject for IAAP and other public and private sector organisations.
She is an empathetic and visionary leader with a strong affinity to the ethos of empowering individuals and groups, particularly the underrepresented and marginalized groups. A seasoned Accessibility Consultant, effective advocate, creator and implementer of diversity, equity and inclusion DEI initiatives.
Pascal Wensink (Civic Trust Awards Panel)
Pascal is EPR architects design director and oversees a diverse portfolio of building typologies including residential, workplace and complex mixed-use developments. He worked for several architectural practices in the UK and abroad and ran his own design studio in London prior to joining EPR in 1995. Pascal is responsible for one of London’s most significant regeneration projects, Ram Quarter in Wandsworth. The masterplan has preserved the strong brewing heritage of the historic site and created a new urban quarter in the heart of Wandsworth. He has worked closely with Open City to increase the prominence of architecture on the national curriculum and is also a judge for the ‘What House’ and ‘Homes Overseas’ Awards, a judge for the WAN Awards and has been a Civic Trust Awards Regional Assessor for many years.
Simon Malam (AABC Conservation Awards Panel)
Simon is a Director at Donald Insall Associates, an AABC registered architect and Chair of the AABC. Since he joined Insall in 2000 he has worked as a conservation architect on the repair, alteration and adaptation of some of the country’s most important historic buildings. He has also delivered projects involving conservation of historic structures in the Middle East. His specialisms include timber-framed structures, country houses, civic buildings, and places of worship. Simon is incumbent architect at Bangor Cathedral.
Simon Turton (Selwyn Goldsmith Awards Panel Chair)
Simon is a Director at Aperis Building Consultancy, a Chartered Building Surveyor and has been involved in Access Consultancy for the last 20 years. His experience comes from a wide variety of differing Client Sectors covering new and existing buildings. He was the immediate past Chair of The Advisory Group of The National Register of Access Consultants and he regularly sits on their interview panel for new members. Simon has provided CPD seminars to a variety of organisations and has spoken at national exhibition events, promoting Universal Design and Disability Awareness. Through his role at the NRAC, he has also been involved in the lobbying of Government to promote the role and value of Access Consultancy. He provides consultancy advice on many areas, including Disability Policies and legislation, with advice on the reasonableness of implementing works related to access improvements. Simon is also a visiting Lecturer at Nottingham Trent University where he is part of the Property Management and Development faculty delivering lectures to the Building Surveying Undergraduates
Teresa Rumble (Selwyn Goldsmith Awards Panel)
Teresa has a BA in 3-Dimensional Design, MA in Gender and Society and a City and Guilds qualification in Garden Design. She has worked in access since 2015, first with the National Register of Access Consultants and, since 2016, within the Centre for Accessible Environments. Now a Senior Access Advisor, Teresa has extensive experience of access assessments, inclusive design standards, design appraisals and access audits of listed and heritage buildings; museums and galleries; offices; education campuses; railway stations; external environments; parks and gardens, and believes that inclusion is about creativity. Teresa’s career background includes 14 years of temporary exhibition and permanent gallery design work at the British Museum in London, and has particularly applied this to the creation of inclusive visitor experiences.