‘CAF 2.0’ forges ahead
2025 was the first year of ‘CAF 2.0’ – an evolution of the Forum responding to the new era opening up in the City of London, and to look ahead to 2026, our 35th anniversary since we were founded in 1991. So, what has changed? Our new Operations Director Jenny Adler-Potts joined us in late 2024, who you will all have met by now. Jenny has quietly and efficiently been able to action the Forum Committee’s ambitions to up our game and build our profile through the year. We have also, with Jenny’s help launched this new website – one that is fully functional and easy to navigate. It is packed with information on forthcoming events and reports on previous site visits and building tours and you can easily book events online and renew subscriptions. Usefully for members wanting to reach out, you can also create and update your own professional profiles – so, if you haven’t already, please take advantage of this new facility. We’ve been able to significantly expand our events programme because of this improvement in operational efficiency. By the year end we delivered an unmatched 19 events, with a mix of talks, building tours and site visits. The year’s programme concluded with the final part of the very successful Gracechurch Series, brilliantly conceived and hosted by JJ Sarralde of The Townscape Consultancy and, another first, a joint drinks party with The London Society at the Reform Club. Highlight of the year was another sold-out highly enjoyable annual dinner in November at The Mercer restaurant with two fantastic speakers demonstrating the Forum’s continuing relevance and reach – Tom Sleigh, chairman of the Planning & Transportation Committee, and, on his first public outing, Robin Dobson, the new chief executive of Platform4, Network Rail’s new property company. A lively Q&A ensued. Your committee will build on this change in momentum in 2026. We plan a mixed programme of site and building visits across the City including further talks at Temple Bar and a number of events already secured for the first part of the year – including on 15th January a tour of the Grade-1 listed Custom House overlooking the Thames. And of course we will be marking our 35th anniversary with a party – further details in due course. Thank you for your support throughout the year and I look forward to seeing you in the New Year. My best wishes for the festive season. Andrew
Mid Year Review 2025: Reading the heartbeat of the Square Mile
As I pondered possible themes and topics for this half year report, I cast an eye over the events we have held in the first six months of 2025 and began to think about what linked them, and how they characterise what the Forum aims to do. The roster – which has included events almost every month – covered a fascinating spectrum that provided us with an architectural ‘electrocardiogram’ of the City, and its ever-changing nature. Together, they describe the ‘heartbeat’ of the Square Mile*. What does that tell us about the health and future of the City? That there is much to be optimistic about in terms of its continued growth and relevance. Indeed, this is the tone of the draft City Plan 2040 – essentially the City of London Corporation’s development manifesto for the next 15 years – which speaks of how the City intends to respond to the evolving workplace, and the need to address issues of diversity, sustainability and opportunity. City Plan 2040 recognises that cities need to have a mixed and vibrant offering – with residential, arts and culture and community spaces alongside places of work – for them to not only to be desirable for those who work here but also a ‘destination’ for visitors and tourists alike. We are witnessing this change and shift taking place ‘live’ and, through our events, we give you access to and visibility of these developments. This, for me, is the great attraction of the City Architecture Forum – it stays close to ‘place’, it reads its ‘heartbeat’, and provides us with a continuous and compelling commentary on the constant evolution of the City and those that shape it. We are afforded privileged glimpses of the future and cherished views of the past. We are connected to this intriguing organism and our mission is to share this with you through our own particular melange of fireside chats, panel discussions, talks, and building tours and visits. We recognise the need to keep our organisation evolving, so the second half of the year will see us trialling a new programme of member-only dinners, featuring interviews and conversations with prominent industry figures, and a website refresh in Q3 – which we hope will provide better access to the Forum’s events and membership information. Much to look forward to over the next six months! David Magyar – Hon Sec Read our LinkedIn article for a full account of the events of the last 6 months. https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7333031724773249024
2024 Mid-Year Review
The City of London and its architecture is never static. The City is a location steeped in history and architectural heritage but this has rarely held it back from being forward-looking, ever changing and willing to address new challenges. It captivates and fascinates with its ability to reinvent itself and push new boundaries, and its ability to work equally well with the old and the new. This dynamic inspired the foundation of the City Architecture Forum and it continues to drive us forward. Our programme of events for this year has focused on capturing some of the latest thinking and current examples of this activity, as well as engaging our members and guests in debate and prognostication on the future. Thanks to the membership and our network, we are lucky enough to be able to gain access to buildings where others can’t, and our talks and debates are chosen for their relevance to our industry, with the speakers and participants we invite usually ensuring these are very quickly sold out! In 2024, we have covered a very broad range of topics and projects already. The year began with an early viewing of progress – a ‘sneak peek’ – at the Museum of London, a major arts and culture project which cleverly and thoughtfully repurposes part of the old Smithfield Market, and followed this with a complete contrast in architectural terms – a tour of the bold, new and hugely impressive 20 Ropemaker Street, the latest in the line of tall office buildings emerging around the City core developed by OPLM and CO-RE. As we moved into the spring months, it was time to promote some lively discussion with debates on Retrofit and Reuse First and the City’s journey towards net zero, and the City Plan 2040. The City of London Corporations’ active participation in these events, involving key individuals such as Kerstin Kane, Rob Nichol, and Shravan Joshri, demonstrates the level of commitment we have enjoyed from the membership and the high regard in which the Forum is held. In May, we were treated to examples of intricate urban design and the expert architectural ‘stitching’ together of old and new on our tour of British Land’s Norton Folgate site, in the Elder Street Conservation Area between the City of London and Shoreditch. After this – in June – came a presentation from 3XN, GXN and British Land describing how research-based design thinking has informed the architecture of 2 Finsbury Avenue, a striking new office scheme and one of the latest buildings in a new wave of large development projects at Broadgate. The excellent attendances and positive responses we have had to these events has established a momentum we hope to be able to sustain in the latter half of the year, so please watch this space for how the rest of the programme will unfold! In case you have missed what has gone before, our website carries reports of all our 2024 events to date, so you can readily catch up on the details. Our Forum Chair, Andrew Reynolds, and the Committee, are also hard at work preparing for this year’s Annual Dinner in November and confirming the guest speakers. Last year we invited Sharon Ament and Tom Nancollas, who were of the highest calibre, and we are keen to ensure we maintain these high standards for this year.We very much look forward to seeing members old and new, and their guests, at future events and welcome all suggestions for next year’s programme and how we can make the Forum more relevant for you. Best wishes, David David Magyar Hon. Secretary
2023 End of Year Reflections
So as we come to the end of another year for the Forum and for the post-Covid City of London I sense a feeling of optimism and purpose in the City marred only by the inertia of our Whitehall politicians who I suspect are mindful of the Mayoral elections in May 2024 and the likelihood of another Labour London administration – to be matched by a new Government? But what of the last year for the Forum? Eight events ranging from building visits to talks on Transport Planning Policy and Designing Inclusive Public Spaces, and all culminating in a very successful Annual Dinner with fascinating speeches from our guest speakers Sharon Ament and Tom Nancollas; both beautifully illustrating the depth of our building and cultural heritage. The future of the City and its emerging skyline featured centrally in the Q&A session at the dinner, and the channels of major schemes coming through the planning system augurs well for the built environment industry as well as the City’s recovering and reshaping ecosystem which I believe will be key to the future as we need to re-establish a seven-day City post-Covid. The clever repurposing of secondary office stock for a mixture of uses on the edges of the City Core presents at once a huge challenge and a huge opportunity for all of us involved in the area. Your committee are hard at work planning a diverse programme of events for you for 2024 within which we will look to address these trends and we will let you have details early in the New Year. Something new for next year will be a Summer Drinks Party so do watch this space for further details. We are always keen to have ideas from you for new events and indeed new members and I’d be delighted to hear from you with your suggestions. Thank you once again for your continued support of the Forum in 2023. Andrew Reynolds Forum Chair
2021 End of Year Review
Sadly it looks as if the concluding headlines for 2021 will, like those for 2020, be dominated by COVID and its variants. Despite this depressing turn of events, 2021 has been a year of significant progress for the City of London and in turn for its built environment, and the Forum has followed this trend as your Committee has against the odds pleasingly been able to ‘host’ a combination of physical and virtual events. Our virtual events have shaped some great online debates which exemplify, in my mind, the diversity of the Forum and its membership whilst the essential oxygen of face-to-face encounters and building inspections which we have all craved proved hugely popular. For me the highlight of the year was to be able to hold our Annual Dinner again and for us to be blessed with two wonderful speakers in Professor Sadie Morgan OBE and Juliemma McLoughlin from the City of London Corporation.We were indeed treated to two quite contrasting speeches but significantly both of which were quite specific in setting out the challenges which the built environment faces in the coming years.The ever changing dynamics of COVID throughout the year has meant that as we focussed on keeping the Forum alive and relevant we did not get to properly celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Forum but I would hope that with luck we will during 2022 in addition to hosting a challenging programme of events also be able find time for a suitable opportunity for an anniversary party. Watch this space… Before I sign off my heartfelt thanks to you all for your continued support of the Forum in these trying times and of course my thanks to the Committee ;we truly do have a great group of people who keep coming up with great ideas – long may this last.I’m also pleased to have been able to welcome two new Committee Members this year in Dima Zogheib from Arup and JJ Sarralde from The Townscape Consultancy. With best wishes for the Festive Season and I look forward to seeing you all in the New Year.Andrew Andrew ReynoldsForum Chair
2021 Mid Year Review
The first 6 months of this year have seen a gradual re-awakening from the long winter of the pandemic – there is cautious optimism in the air and a discernible feeling that we are on the brink of a new beginning, brimming with opportunity. The pandemic has forced many of us to reflect, re-evaluate and re-calibrate, and to revisit aspects of our work and personal lives that we have perhaps taken for granted. This is a time to innovate, to do things better, be that in terms of our health and well-being, the work that we do and the way we do it, or improving our carbon footprint. A summer of sporting events which have seen the return of spectators, and a fine showing by the England football team in the Euros, have heightened the sense that the clouds are dissipating and there are better times ahead. We, like many, had to adapt our modus operandi to the times, which prompted the launch of our online lecture series and our choice of current and thought-provoking subjects. I am pleased to report that the lectures were extremely well attended and favourably received. For those that may have missed out, you can catch up with the recordings at any time, which are available via the Blog Page. There were 6 lectures scheduled between February and April this year , offering members and guests a broad ‘menu’ of topics covering the ground breaking public realm scheme at Exchange Square presented by DSDHA and FFLO; discussions on the future ways of working and the new workplace with Fletcher Priest, Despina Katsikakis and Peter Murray; as well as presentations on 77 Coleman with Buckley Grey Yeoman and Heyne Tillet Steel; Eight Bishopsgate with Wilkinson Eyre and Arup; and One Bishopsgate Plaza with PLP – all exemplar projects which will surely contribute to attracting us back into the City. Looking to the future, we would like to continue to challenge ourselves and keep improving as an organization, to maintain our relevance and importance to you, our members. We will continue to diversify and hope to see a broader representation in the membership and at Committee level, and to engage with the best of design and thought leadership.We encourage you to nominate potential new members and help us to grow the Forum. We hope to see a return to ‘in person’ events over the next 6 months, which will be blended with the now widely accepted online events, in this our 30th Anniversary year. The anniversary is, of course, a significant milestone, which we intend to celebrate with a high-quality roster of events including tours of One Crown Place (with KPF and CBRE); 22 Bishopsgate (with Lipton Rogers and PLP); 135 Bishopsgate (with Fletcher Priest); as well as hearing from Gwyn Richards, Interim Chief Planning Officer and Development Director in the Department of the Built Environment at the City of London, and Ender Ozkan Vice President of RWDI on the ground breaking ’Thermal Comfort Guidelines’ for the next generation of post COVID developments in the City where the very crafting of a more nuanced mix of new office space and outdoor amenity will be fundamental to the next generation of our great City of London. We are also delighted to announce that the year will be rounded off with Prof. Sadie Morgan OBE as the keynote speaker at our Annual Dinner on 22 November 2021. Put the date in your diaries! As the reawakening continues, we very much hope to see the City fully active again and meeting many of you at future events and functions, not least to foster that very important sense of community that nurtures organizations like ours. David MagyarForum Hon. Secretary
2020 End of Year Review
As in previous years as we come to the end of the year I wanted to write to you, our members, with a few reflections and a look ahead. So for 2020 – the year of the acronym… First, we had COVID and all the attendant horror of the pandemic, then we had WFH and the London lockdown, the likely death of the office along with the impending demise of London as everyone planned to sell up and move to country. In short WAYTW (What A Year That Was!) But throughout all this and in fact two lockdowns, social distancing, family bubbles and sadly very, very few people on the streets of the City for many months, I’m pleased to say that we did manage to keep the Forum operating and indeed growing. As we like so many organisations faced the advent of a ‘new but unknown normal’ the Forum evolved and we managed to hold 12 events; starting with a very privileged tour of the new Museum of London site with Sharon Ament and Paul Williams all the way back in February and culminating, on 24 November with a splendid session about the transformation of 100 Liverpool Street with Charlie Horne of British Land and Mike Taylor from Hopkins Architects. I have been delighted that despite all the challenges that we’ve been presented with this year your Committee has remained ever committed and enthusiastic to the cause and has therefore been able to lay on such a wide-ranging programme. The webinars or, as we have called them, lectures, have been well attended on the night and well ‘visited’ when subsequently posted on YouTube. Whilst not allowing the face to face contact and spontaneity of our traditional Forum events, your Committee rightly identified a gap in the many offerings out there in the real estate sphere alongside a perceived need for some form of personal connectedness; the lecture programme has been a testimony to the appeal of the breadth of events arranged and all the while maintaining our essential City of London connection. I offer my thanks to each and every person who has been involved in both the organising and in the individual lectures themselves. We have seen some changes to the Committee this year with Hon. Secretary Christine Wong stepping down after a period of sterling service, and former Chairman Roger Kallman has also stepped down from the Committee after many, many years of involvement. Christine and Roger, we thank you both for your commitment and enthusiasm over the years and hope to see you both at events in the New Year. David Magyar (John Robertson Architects) has stepped up to the role as Hon. Sec, and as of the beginning of November we welcomed Hala El Akl (PLP Architecture) as the newest member to the Committee.I look forward to working with both Hala and David over the coming months. As many of you may be aware, 2021 will be the 30th Anniversary of the founding of the Forum by Michael Cassidy and Tom Wilmott in the wake of the Prince of Wales’ remarks that the Luftwaffe had done less damage to the City than the developers. I am pleased to report that we have every intention once the COVID situation becomes clearer of arranging a suitable event to recognise this significant milestone for the Forum. We will also be looking to arrange a programme of new events for 2021 and the nature of these will of course depend on the emerging picture of the impact of further tiers of anti-COVID measures in London and the availability of the vaccine programme. I like many other remain very firmly of the view that there is a genuine desire for people to come back to Central London and that the City of London which has a truly rich heritage of survival – think the Great Fire, the Blitz, the IRA bombs – will recover and re-emerge as a 21st century destination. The built environment will play a huge part in this renaissance and we can be there to our part. My best wishes to you and yours; stay safe and I hope to see you all in real life in the New Year. Andrew Andrew ReynoldsForum Chair