As part of a special exhibition celebrating the life and work of our founder Max Fordham, we are holding an Architect Pitch event in partnership with Archiboo. After an open call process, seven UK practices have been invited to pitch their best new ideas for a net zero neighbourhood to a panel of expert judges and a live audience.

The seven who will pitch are:

• Bryan Tsang of Ben Adams Architects
• James Hampton of New Makers Bureau
• Jas Bhalla of Jas Bhalla Architects
• Jessica Barker of Stolon
• Lewis Williams of Hudson Architects
• Mellis Haward of Archio
• Wongani Mwanza of Transition by Design

The event will take place on the 8th of March at The Building Centre in London and will mark the public opening of the exhibition.

The selected architects will have just three minutes to present their ideas to an expert judging panel, who will award the winner with a prize of £2,500. The panel will include Ali Shaw of Max Fordham, Sunand Prasad of Penoyre & Prasad, David Stronge of Peabody, Amrita Mahindroo of DROO Architects and Fran Williams of the Architects’ Journal, each of whom will rigorously examine the concepts presented to them based on inventiveness, flair and the use of clear sustainable design principles.

With over 50 years of experience working across building services and environmental consultancy, Max and the practice won significant and varied recognition for their work in ensuring human comfort and minimising the energy use of buildings. The competition brief called for architects to build on the lessons learnt at Max’s final project, his own award-winning Passivhaus home. Max’s home embodied the ideas and approaches he had championed throughout his career and became the first home in the UK to achieve net zero carbon in line with UKGBC’s Framework.

"We were bowled over by the number and quality of submissions, so thank you so much to everyone who entered. Selecting only seven entries was really hard and we eventually focussed on the people and practices that had expressed some really interesting, new ideas about the creation of net zero neighbourhoods. We're looking forward to a fascinating and enlightening evening on the 8th." - Phil Armitage, Director, Max Fordham

To celebrate the life and work of the practice founder, Max Fordham will be holding a special exhibition at The Building Centre in London. Titled “Max Fordham: Engineering Ideas, Engineering Change”, the exhibition will present a curated collection of drawings, models, original letters and videos from Max’s life and career. Through seminal projects from the last 50 years, it explores many of his key ideas and their impact on the design of the built environment.

Tickets to attend the Architect Pitch event as an audience member may be booked on the Archiboo website.

The exhibition will run from 8-24 March 2023, and will be open to the public, free of charge.