Steve McAdam
AA Dipl, ARB, FRSA
Steve is an architect whose career and professional stance has been founded on the belief that better places are built through broadly shared design approaches and the active participation of local people.
He was founding director of Soundings and Fluid, both widely acknowledged to have redefined participatory design and its outcomes. Between 1997 and 2023 he and cofounder Christina Norton demonstrated that co-design not only builds highly supported, sustainable and equitable schemes but also unique and high-quality propositions, with their own identities and characteristics.
Steve has led a wide variety of award-winning projects from the GLA, CABE, RTPI, LEEDS and ODPM including Kings Cross, the London Olympic and post-Olympic masterplans, Chelsea Barracks, Canada Water and Bishopsgate Goodsyard alongside life sciences and bio tech projects, major film studio projects, “meanwhile” schemes and restoration projects at Chiswick House, Pitzhanger Manor and Highgate Cemetery. All of these have benefitted from local input and highly structured co-design approaches.
Prior to setting up in practice, Steve taught architecture and urbanism at the Architectural Association and London Metropolitan University (LMU). At LMU he was responsible for setting up the Cities Institute, a centre of excellence for multi-disciplinary urban research with a reputation for working with local citizens often in association with post-graduate diploma and MA course on ‘live’ projects that he led. He has been a consultant to the Council of Europe on youth involvement in urban regeneration, is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and an academician at the Academy of Urbanism.
If there is a project Steve can help you with, please contact here.