Hana Loftus: Town planning, architecture and an education in place making.

In this, the twelfth episode of A is for Architecture, I speak with Hana Loftus, co-director of HAT Projects, architect and town planner and Engagement and Communications Lead at the Greater Cambridge Shared Planning Service and Chair of Creative Colchester. HAT Projects are an Essex-based architecture, design and strategy practice. Hana’s role as planner-architect is rare and valuable, offering specific insights into a process often seen as opaque and arbitrary for design professionals. We speak about this, the whys and wherefores of planning as it intersects with the practice of architecture, and ways the discipline might (or should) open up to enable fairer and more just outcomes. I met Hana many years ago, when we were both students (at rather different schools…) and have been ever impressed by the varied career in architecture, making, building, teaching, speaking, writing, theatre, and now planning she has carved out. Hana’s writing can be read at virtualhana.blogspot and her Twitter is here. Follow this, to hear Hana speak at the Glasgow School of Art in 2014, as part of the Mackintosh School of Architecture’s Friday Lecture series. Happy listening! +++++++++++++++++ Music by Bruno Gillick. www.aisforarchitecture.org/ Instagram/ twitter/ facebook