Hoare Lea Exploration Podcast

Hosted by Hoare Lea

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Mar 2024

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About the show

Welcome to the Exploration podcast from Hoare Lea: a place for curiosity, creative thinking and conversation. Each episode, we are joined by a variety of guests as they discuss the big topics shaping society, planet, and the built environment.

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29 recent

March 8, 2024Episode 2929 min

Advocating for unsung scientists: Physicist and Wikipedian Dr Jessica Wade

In this episode, our guest host Frances Brown (Associate Director, Hoare Lea) chats to physicist and Faculty of Engineering material scientist Dr Jessica Wade of Imperial College London. Having also become known as a 'Wikipedian' and advocate for unsung scientists including women in STEM, Jess has written thousands of online bios for those deserving of recognition and was awarded a British Empire Medal in 2019 for services to gender diversity in science.

January 2, 2024Episode 2823 min

A world of pure imagination - Innovation for a sustainable built environment

In this episode, Ellie Griffiths chats to Yewande Akinola – an engineer, consultant and Innovate UK ambassador recently awarded an MBE for services to innovation and industry diversification – whose human-centric built environment journey began with modelling her dream house from her mum's living room.

November 7, 2023Episode 2729 min

AI in the built environment

In this episode, our host Ellie Griffiths chats to Alan Mosca, co-founder and chief technology officer at nPlan – a machine learning-based platform that forecasts and predicts outcomes of construction, engineering and infrastructure projects. As well as the capability for innovation through optioneering, improving efficiency, and the flywheel that AI can give to designers, we discuss sustainability and energy consumption cost-benefit analysis, efficient AI chips of the future, and cautionary tales. Alan offers his perspective on concerns about bias in data sets, plus a new bias that he believes is soon to come, arising from models trained on the output of other models, and the risk of this 'hallucinatory' knowledge being perpetuated. It's thought-provoking stuff.

July 20, 2023Episode 2625 min

Data-led solutions for positive social change

Imagine Eastenders without its community hotspots: the Queen Vic, the cafe, the market, the square. It'd be a lot harder for the main characters to mix, right? In this episode, Ellie Griffiths chats to Amir Hussain, the Bradford-born founder/CEO of Yeme Tech, about building inclusive communities. Amir uses his geospatial mapping platform to intelligently and compassionately bring people together in the real world – seeking out innovative built-environment solutions that inform place regeneration and facilitate connection, especially in challenged areas. Hear about his journey from traditional to tech; the localisation of place performance; the acceleration of Carlos Moreno's 15-minute neighbourhood and surrounding criticism; 'stranded' buildings; ESG benchmarking, and more.

January 30, 2023Episode 2530 min

Human first, designer second.

In this episode, our host Ellie Griffiths hears from The Royal College of Art's Rama Gheerawo – an inclusive design innovator who has used his skillset to address societal issues around ageing, healthcare, ability and diversity. Together they discuss human-centric healthcare design today and juggling its multiple demands, as well as the importance of healthcare placement, localisation and access, getting comfortable with uncertainty, non-binary thinking and leadership models based around empathy, clarity and creativity.

November 22, 2022Episode 2436 min

Full STEAM ahead - Nurturing the talent pipeline

In this episode, our host Ellie Griffiths chats to Dr Anne-Marie Imafidon – mathematician, computer scientist and co-founder of social enterprise Stemettes – about our sector today and Anne-Marie's own prodigal trajectory through it, including her road-to-Damascus moment, as well as the labour involved with changing cultures, and enriching the quality of the solution.

September 1, 2022Episode 2325 min

Newton to Net Zero

In this episode Alex chats to Charlie Blair, of Gravitricity, about the development of a storage technology based on a simple principle: raising and lowering a heavy weight. Offering some of the best characteristics of lithium batteries and pumped hydro storage, Charlie shares the journey so far for this novel innovation that will enable existing grid infrastructure to go further in a renewable energy world.

May 13, 2022Episode 2225 min

Spinouts and the city.

We hear from Professor Michele Barbour, the University of Bristol's Associate Pro Vice-Chancellor for Enterprise and Innovation – a new role created just six months ago. Following a recent study which has found that the university's spinout companies generate higher average returns on investment than those of any other UK university, Michele shares her own experience in founding a spinout.

March 8, 2022Episode 2129 min

Vanessa Murray Founder of Mentoring Circle

We hear from Vanessa Murray, who founded Mentoring Circle to address the gender diversity gap at the property industry's senior leadership level – by partnering newly qualified female professionals with top female leaders. The organisation welcomes its second intake on International Women's Day, 8 March 2022. Vanessa discusses with Hoare Lea Directors Jo Edwards and Sara Quaglieni their experience of mentoring for the scheme, as well as getting comfortable with not knowing all the answers, and articulating ambitions out loud. Together they talk confidence, reverse mentoring and the importance of symbiotic learning through the next generation, and how we reconcile positive discrimination with a robust meritocracy.

February 1, 2022Episode 2033 min

Hoare Lea Exploration Podcast Episode 20

A digital detox is a common new year's resolution, and the planet needs one on an industrial scale – our everyday internet actions contributing considerably to the climate emergency. While the huge shift to the virtual plane feels like a good thing – a Zoom meeting is less environmentally harmful than travelling 200 miles to a colleague's office – it's all relative. Data centres, which house computer systems and process our digital doings, are responsible for major emissions. At the same time, the pandemic highlighted our need for digital connection, so what can we do to reduce the repercussions? Design differently. With our sector lead Anders Eklund, the University of Lancaster's Professor Adrian Friday and Dr Kelly Widdicks discuss their paper assessing carbon accounting in ICT. Together they talk healthier practices, minimising consumer impact, corporate responsibility and the good news story around energy-harnessing ideas in data centre design.