Neil Pinder wins AJ100 Contribution to the Profession award

Pinder won the lifetime honour after topping a poll of AJ100 practices’ employees. Previous winners include Peter Barber, Grafton Architects founders Yvonne Farrell and Shelley McNamara, Sadie Morgan, David Adjaye and Zaha Hadid.

‘Neil Pinder has demonstrated outstanding energy and commitment in his mission to diversify the architecture profession so that it better represents the society it’s supposed to serve,’ said AJ editor Emily Booth.

‘An expert in galvanising people and organisations, Neil is the founder of Home Grown Plus, a not-for-profit organisation dedicated to accelerating access to architecture for those from non-traditional backgrounds, as well as a trustee of Blueprint for All formerly the Stephen Lawrence Charitable Trust. He is a well-deserved winner for this hugely important work.’

Pinder studied 3D Design at Camberwell School of Art and has been involved in secondary education for 30 years. As head of product design and architecture at Graveney School in south London, he introduced architecture to the curriculum and invited architects into schools in an effort to encourage pupils to take a greater interest in the built environment. He was a prime mover in a programme of architectural workshops delivered through Celebrating Architecture and Urban Learners.

Last summer, he set up GLAM, an acronym for ‘Gucci, Louis Vuitton Architecture and Me’ to attract young creatives into architecture and engineering through the appeal of fashion and popular culture.

He is currently expanding Home Grown Plus through NY-LON 2022, a joint initiative with the Pratt Institute School of Architecture in Brooklyn. This offers a group of architecture students from non-traditional backgrounds an expenses-paid nine-day trip to New York to learn more about architecture while helping to consolidate their social and professional networks.

‘We have to put people before profit,’ he says. I want to see more practices putting people at the core of practice through consistently funding initiatives and taking action,’ says Pinder.

Pinder will be the keynote speaker at the AJ100 gala dinner tomorrow night (22 June) held at City Central, HAC near London’s Old Street.