Hello and welcome to my blog!
I am an architect and urban planner who believes that buildings and places should not only look good – but work well too.

This may sound obvious but it’s not what most architects are taught; which is largely why many buildings and public spaces look great in magazines but don’t work for the people who have to use them.

Follow @Tim_Stonor

I am the Managing Director of strategic consultancy, Space Syntax Limited and a Visiting Professor at the Bartlett, University College London. My work bridges between fundamental academic research and pragmatic ‘real world’ applications. The aim in doing so is to improve the quality of architectural and urban practice through the development and dissemination of science-based tools. These tools measure and forecast the influence of spatial layout on social, economic and environmental outcomes such as movement patterns, land use vitality and carbon emissions. We bring cutting edge research directly into practice. This brings a level of rigour to planning and design that is too often missing.

I have recently been based at the Harvard Graduate School of Design as a Loeb Fellow and at the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy as the Lincoln Loeb Fellow. I devoted my time there to the issue of dissemination: how can the Space Syntax approach be most effectively disseminated to the people – professionals and non-professionals – involved in planning, designing and deciding on the buildings and places that will shape our common future?

Career history
I qualified as an architect in 1995, the same year that I set up the Space Syntax Laboratory at University College London. In 1996, I established Space Syntax Limited as the commercial arm of Space Syntax. The Space Syntax Laboratory and Space Syntax Limited work alongside each other to continually develop and apply the Space Syntax approach. The “Lab” focuses on fundamental research, technology development and teaching while “Limited” applies Space Syntax techniques in live planning and design projects.

In 1996 I also co-founded Morrison Brink Stonor architects, with Robert Morrison and Barbara Brink.

The practice operates from studios in Paris and London.

External appointments
From 2004-2009, I served as a member of the National Design Review Panel at the UK Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment (CABE). In 2008-09 I was a member of the Steering Group on Physical Activity and the Design of the Built Environment at the UK National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE).

I am a member of the steering group of the UK National Health Service Design Review Panel, a member of the Expert Advisory Panel at Walk England and a Director of the UK Academy of Urbanism.

In 2004, I was elected a Fellow of the UK Royal Society of Arts (RSA). In 2006 I became a founding member of the UK Academy of Urbanism.

I speak regularly to industrial and academic audiences throughout the world and have contributed to television and radio programmes on architecture and design.

Education
I trained as an architect at the Bartlett, University College London and at the School of Architecture, Oxford Brookes University. I graduated from both with distinction.

I joined the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) in 1996 and the Royal Town Planning Institute (RTPI) in 2005.

Contact me
t.stonor@spacesyntax.com

Follow me on Twitter @Tim_Stonor

Here is my about.me profile.

Find me on LinkedIn.