Bio

Stephanie is an urban designer, architect and the cofounder of Urban Symbiotics, an insight and research-led multidisciplinary design practice based in London that focuses on the user experience to innovate architecture, masterplanning and the public realm. Stephanie focusses on delivering social value through a variety of project types and scales to facilitate the building of inclusive, equitable and progressive communities. With Urban Symbiotics she applies a user-centric approach to placemaking, exploring the use of insight to inform and innovate design. This is a design process which 'comes from the world of product design, where the user is placed front and centre of the design of human environments’ with the belief that ’we can innovate by understanding more and to help us provide more suitable environments for 21st century lifestyles’. The team engages with community members when formulating the brief and seeks their insight in identifying their needs, continuing to engage with them to help develop concepts and validate solutions. Stephanie with Urban Symbiotics has been recognised by the Design Museum and the London Festival of Architecture for creating ‘architecture for a new generation’, and has been longlisted by the RIBA MacEwen 2021 awards for community endeavours targeting improvements for local communities, specifically for her work in her reimagining of the Black Cultural Archives in Brixton. In 2019 she was nominated for a h100 architecture and design award. She is leading on a Regeneration Framework for Purley in Croydon for Croydon Council, working on the Gascoigne Estate in Barking and Dagenham, and in Nigeria as part of the UN Habitat's Global Future Cities Programme. Stephanie graduated from the Architectural Association in 2010, and worked at OMA before establishing Urban Symbiotics in 2018 with product designer James Stewart. She is currently a Board member for Architecture Lobby, an advisory group member for the UK Built Environment Advisory Group (UKBEAG) and was previously an elected Council member of the RIBA. Stephanie was celebrated as a 'force for change' alongside Baroness Lawrence in Vogue's seminal September 2019 issue, and for ‘building mindful cities’ by The Financial Times in a profile (Sept 2020).