Meet the visionary young architect who's reshaping London, one project at a time

You may be familiar with London-based architect Jayden Ali through his blockbuster exhibition designs, like ‘Fashioning Masculinities' at the V&A four years ago, or even from our 2021 profile heralding Ali as one of the most exciting young architects working in the UK.

But if you still think of Ali as ‘emerging,’ think again: his firm JA Projects has just wrapped up the V&A East Museum's permanent ‘Why We Make' galleries, which open this month in a striking new building designed by O'Donnell + Tuomey.

Ali collaborated with creative studio A Practice for Everyday Life and artist Larry Achiampong to craft two floors of exhibition spaces, which are dedicated to both creativity and young people. Through his work, Ali seeks to open up a conversation surrounding topics like representation and identity, while appealing to local communities. ‘We want 16 to 24-year-olds to feel comfortable walking in and spending time here,' he says.

It’s a desire that stems from Ali’s own youth in East London and his long-time interest in cities and how urban space is created. ‘Who makes cities?' he remembers asking while in college.

After trying his luck with work experience at a council planning office, his maths teacher found him a two-week stint at architecture studio Allies and Morrison. It was an exciting time for the firm: preparations for the London 2012 Summer Olympics were in full swing and, for Ali, experiencing that creative energy on his home turf proved to be a formative experience. He never looked back.

Ali went on to study architecture at the University of Leeds and later the University of East London. One of his early projects was the redesign of The Cherry Trees, a school for boys with complex behaviour difficulties in the east London suburb of Bow, where he worked as a youth play worker until 2015. When the head teacher suggested they were looking to remodel, Ali threw his hat in the ring. He won the commission, called The Barn. His moves seemed simple – fewer corridors, more connections with the outdoor, but the results were dramatic: the school reported a significant decrease in student incidents.

Ali established JA Projects in 2017, but it was slow-going at first. He was working at Central Saint Martins, and his desire to build a team led him to work out how many staff he could afford to pay from his salary. He didn't pay himself for two years to allow JA Projects to grow.

The sacrifice proved to be a smart gamble. JA Projects won the ‘Fashioning Masculinities' commission in 2020. Soon after, Ali was asked (alongside Joseph Henry, Meneesha Kellay and Sumitra Upham) to curate the British Pavilion at the 2023 Venice Architecture Biennale. The exhibition presentation for ‘Nike: Form Follows Motion' at Germany's Vitra Design Museum followed in 2024.

‘The post-Covid era has correlated with an injection of energy into the studio,' says Ali from his home in north London, set in converted old stables that he recently bought. ‘I was taking a step back from teaching [at Central Saint Martins] at that time. But there was a slow progression, a slow move towards what I do now.’

Ali’s star has only continued to rise. More recent projects include the reimagining of Camberwell Station Road in south London, realised in close consultation with local schoolchildren and the area's community in 2025; Queen's Market and Square, the redesign of an important public space in Newham later the same year; and the architectural concept for 2026 Matter and Shape in Paris' Jardin des Tuileries.

Ali’s also been serving as one of the London mayor's design advocates since 2022, and is part of a team, led by Allies and Morrison, reimagining Regent Street and the surrounding areas. JA Projects is specifically responsible for leading the Piccadilly Circus redesign, which is currently ongoing. It's hard to imagine a more high-profile open-space project in London.

Despite its broad output, Ali's Southwark studio remains on the smaller side, with a staff of 10, but it is agile, ambitious and international. He recently expanded his teaching activities to the US, taking on the post of visiting professor at Columbia University in New York, an experience that he feels constantly enriches his practice – also, ‘about 50 per cent of our revenue in the past four years has been international,' he says. It may not have been the plan from the get-go to be where he is, but it's not an accident either. ‘I'm really a follow-the-energy type of person,' he says. ‘I like to be in dialogue with others.'

His projects may not bear an obvious, common aesthetic language, but his designs always have strong roots in their context – not merely physically, but from the conditions and people that form the universe around them. Ultimately, Ali’s work is about creating the architecture that holds the life you want.

‘I feel proud of the stuff we do and the way we do it. It's incredible to have the range of projects that we do,’ Ali reflects. ‘They have this special quality; they are deeply creative, deeply inventive and, in some moments, relatively prestigious, but they always have social justice underpinning them, which is really grounding. And it's not lost on me that I'm an East London school kid in my soul. That's kind of amazing.'