Speakers corner: we’re all ears ahead of the blockbuster line-up at Vision 2017

Now in its third year, built environment symposium Vision takes place at Olympia Central in west London and is aimed at architects, designers, specifiers and their clients working in the commercial, health, education and retail sectors.

Big names featuring in the seminar programme include Foster + Partners, RIBA, Arup and the Netherlands’ UNStudio. Roger Ridsdill Smith will talk about the clever use of innovative materials in Foster’s recent projects, while RIBA president-elect Ben Derbyshire will present ’Supurbia’, a vision to transform London’s suburbs.

Programme highlights include presentations from leading thinkers at the forefront of architecture and innovation. When he isn’t working on international architecture projects as lead architect at ZHA, Stefano Paiocchi has been busy working on his project ’Code-Structed Skins: Design as Research’, which sheds light on how the fields of architecture and fashion might co-operate. In his talk at Vision 2017, Paiocchi will liken the human body to a complex built structure which needs to be covered, and will suggest that the world of fashion design can borrow from architecture’s computational principles and methods.

Canopia, Costa Rica, by Studio Saxe

Andrew Lawrence of Arup will pick through the engineering challenges that he faced to build The Smile, Alison Brooks Architects’ centrepiece for the 2016 London Design Festival, and Andy Young, head of BIG’s London office, will outline his practice’s ‘yes is more’ approach to architecture and the formula for future contemporary office design.

Meanwhile, Caroline Bos from UNStudio is to unveil new research exploring the impact of the circular economy on the built environment. She will explore how traditional retail and architecture typologies struggle to meet the needs of today. There is an increasing focus on the digital marketplace and the sharing economy, she believes, and a shift from the commercial consumption of goods to experiences.

According to UNStudio, the future of retail will be mixed-use entertainment, co-working spaces and fitness centres, which still hang on to an element of retail. Up-and-coming talent will include ex-Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners architect Benjamin Garcia Saxe. Via a live link from Costa Rica, he will speak about tropical architecture and will question what is nowadays meant by sustainability.