'I have one year to make a plan and two to execute it'

摘要

Last month AHMM co-founder and Stirling Prize-winner Simon Allford was elected as the RIBA's 79th president. However, his victory came against a backdrop of voter indifference. Although the election race had been opened up to student members for the f irsttime, only 13.2 per cent of the roughly 47,000 eligible to vote did so. The four-stage election process eventually saw the 59-year-old chosen by the institute's membership to replace current incumbent Alan Jones in 2021. The apathy will not have come as a surprise. Onlyafew monthsago Allford, one of the four directors at the nation's third-biggest practice, made headlines with a stinging attack on the institute, which he branded increasingly irrelevant to its members. It was a call to the membership to 'storm Portland Place', to rally and regain control of their ever-more-distant representative organisation. Ironically, it seems Allford has answered his own call. Having lambasted the institute so roundly, how does he plan to carry out his revolution? And is he bothered by criticism that the RIBA has just elected yet another middle-aged white man as its president?