Ideals Then Ideas

Alison Brooks, principal and creative director of Alison Brooks Architects since 1996, is one of the leading architects of her generation. Born in Ontario, Canada in 1962, she moved to London in 1988 after graduating from the University of Waterloo. Brooks is the only British architect to have won all three of the UK's most prestigious awards for architecture: the RIBA Stirling Prize, Manser Medal, and the Stephen Lawrence Prize.

Ideals Then Ideas presents an overview of Alison Brooks Architects' (ABA) built and unbuilt work and surveys the firm's unique conceptual, formal, and material values over the past two decades. Four principal ideals-authenticity, generosity, civicness, and beauty-inform the urban, tectonic, and experiential qualities of ABA's architecture. These ideals are the source of ABA's specific architectural vision aimed at meeting the needs of both clients and their communities.