Ike Ijeh
Head of Housing, Architecture & Urban Space
Ike Ijeh is a practising architect, writer and author of two books on architecture, Designing London: Understanding the Character of the city (Lund Humphries, 2020) and The 50 Greatest Architects: The People Whose Buildings Have Shaped Our World (Arcturus, 2021). He was also a co-author of Architecture Beyond Criticism: Expert Judgement and Performance Evaluation (Routledge, 2014). As well as establishing his own architecture practice and founding original London architecture walks provider London Architecture Walks, Ike has been an architecture critic for two of the UK’s leading architectural trade titles and has lectured on the subject extensively in the UK and abroad. He was the winner of the 2018 International Building Press (IBP) Architecture Writer of the Year and received an IBP commendation in 2020. He was also nominated for the Professional Publishers Association (PPA) Writer of the Year Award in 2016 and has been on the judging panels of some of the UK’s foremost architecture awards. He has sat on the design review panels of two London boroughs and is a former trustee of the Hackney Historic Buildings Trust.
Related Publications
The Pre-missive Society
Download Publication Online Reader This new Policy Exchange contains a radical new proposal to reform the planning system and empower local communities. Responding to the Government’s recent Local Development Orders consultation, the Pre-missive Society concept would see local stakeholders agreeing to what type and level of benefits they would require for specified development types in exchange for the presumption of planning permission. Benefits could range from reduced energy bills […]
Provably Popular Homes
Download Publication Online Reader Following the announcement that the words ‘beauty’ and ‘beautiful’ were to be effectively stripped from the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) — no longer to be strategic planning requirements for new housing — this Policy Exchange report calls for a new polling mechanism to establish public popularity of new buildings. This is a vital tool in getting Britain building and to provide a blueprint […]
Beauty and Socialism
Download Publication Download ‘Provably Popular Homes’ ‘Following the announcement that the words ‘beauty’ and ‘beautiful’ were to be effectively stripped from the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) — no longer to be strategic planning requirements for new housing — this new paper from Policy Exchange makes the urgent case for ‘beauty’ to be at the heart of Labour’s planning reforms. Backed by senior former Labour MP Jon Cruddas, […]
Tall Buildings
Download Publication Online Reader A new report for Policy Exchangem ‘Tall Buildings: A Policy Framework for Responsible High-Rise and Better Density’, argues that the unplanned proliferation of tall buildings has not delivered the housing Britain needs – and calls for a more responsible approach to urban density. It conclusively shows that building more tall buildings is not the solution to the housing crisis it is commonly presented as. […]
Better Places
Download Publication Online Reader Policy Exchange has developed a ground-breaking new tool capable of scoring the placemaking quality of proposed and existing developments. The Placemaking Matrix will seek to identify and collate the placemaking characteristics of any given development and give each one a score, culminating in a final PAX rating that ranges from “Poor” to “Outstanding” and which can be used when determining planning permission. The intention […]
A School of Place
Download Publication Online Reader This paper proposes that the UK government encourages, promotes or establishes a new school of architecture and urban design dedicated to placemaking. The School of Place would seek to ensure that architects, planners and built environment professionals have access to the best theories, principles and most importantly practices that will enable them to consistently deliver liveable, successful and sustainable places that embody the very highest standards […]
A Call for a Tall Buildings Policy
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Ut elit tellus, luctus nec ullamcorper mattis, pulvinar dapibus leo. Download Publication As part of Policy Exchange’s Building Beautiful programme, new polling, in one of the most extensive surveys in years, has revealed the widespread public concern about the impact tall buildings have had on the heritage, character and appearance of London. The survey showed that an overwhelming majority (71%) believe tall […]Related Blogs
Getting housing supply through the zone?
From a housing perspective, there was not much to savour in Kwasi Kwarteng’s inaugural mini-budget this morning. But there were two key announcements that give a flavour of housing policy direction for the remainder of the life of this Parliament. The first was the cut to stamp duty: its threshold will be raised from £125,000 to £250,000 and it will no longer be levied on first time buyers purchasing properties […]
We’re seeing a shift under Gove in housing policy from quantity to quality
There are very few national crises where there is a political incentive for them to be both solved and sustained – but housing, unfortunately is one. The reasons for wishing to solve the housing crisis are obvious: lack of housing supply and chronic unaffordability in London and the south east, oversupply and depressed construction activity in the North, a generation of young people locked out of the housing market, spiralling […]
The Queen’s Speech and Housing: Will Street Votes solve the Housing Crisis?
Housing has rarely enjoyed as high a political profile as it does today. A combination of the housing crisis, the abandoned planning bill, the government’s flagship levelling-up programme and it being led by one of the highest profile Cabinet Ministers Michael Gove as well as a slew of recent Tory electoral punishments in which housing was thought to have played a central role have all ensured that housing is now […]
Will we celebrate our Elizabethan architecture?
This year is the 70th anniversary of the Queen’s accession. What defined the architecture of Elizabeth II’s reign and what chance does it have of becoming a revered historic style of the future? Since the Norman Conquest and with the singular exception of the Middle Ages, the stylistic classification of British architecture has always been inexorably linked to our monarchs or their dynasties: Norman, Tudor, Elizabethan, Jacobean, Stuart, Georgian, Regency, Victorian […]