Fast Forward 2025 Semester 2 | Sarah Allan, UK Government’s Chief Architect

Fast Forward 2025: Systems Change - Finance, Planning, and Community in the Climate Era

August-September 2025 | Te Pare School of Architecture and Planning, University of Auckland

How do we fundamentally transform the systems that shape our built environment? Fast Forward 2025 brings together perspectives on disrupting finance, master planning, and community development to address New Zealand's most pressing challenges: housing affordability, climate adaptation, and sustainable urban growth.

As communities seek new approaches for the future, these speakers demonstrate how rethinking fundamental systems—from investment models to planning frameworks to community governance—can create pathways to genuinely sustainable and equitable futures.

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Sarah Allen, UK Government’s Chief Architect, The 2025 University of Auckland Hood Fellow

Sarah is an architect, urban designer and project manager with over 25 years’ experience helping public and private sector clients deliver residential projects from masterplans to individual homes. She has worked on projects from site finding stage to construction and post-occupation, working closely with design and construction teams as well as having involvement in large-scale housing programmes and research and development into construction methods.

Prior to her current position, Sarah worked for nine years as development manager and then managing director at SolidSpace, an independent architect-led developer bringing its unique split-level arrangement to spaces and volumes within each home.

Before this, Sarah worked in local government as housing lead for an Ecotown in Hampshire – delivering the programme’s early win projects. For over seven years at CABE, Sarah was head of urban design and homes, where she helped to embed design quality tools and processes in large-scale government programmes such as the Thames Gateway and housing growth areas. Sarah started her career as an architect working for eight years in private practices.

As a former member of the radical FAT (Fashion Architecture Taste) and now the Head of Architecture and Urban Design within the Chief Planner’s Directorate of the Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government, Sarah Allan is, effectively, the United Kingdom’s Chief Government Architect. She brings creative thinking and a collaborative approach across the policy, planning and delivery spectrum by deploying a broad skillset that includes engaging communities meaningfully in the design process. By advising on design policy at both local and national levels, she seeks to deliver residential and cultural projects ranging from housing to art projects to master planning.

Lecture

Sarah will tease out the relations between architecture and government so we can speculate what the value of a government architect, or Bouwmeester, might hold for Aotearoa New Zealand.

Please note that tickets purchased from unauthorized third-party websites are not valid; please use only the approved website (eventbrite.co.nz) for ticket purchases/registrations.

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Getting to the venue:

The main Faculty of Engineering and Design buildings are conveniently located at the heart of the University's City Campus, and are easily accessible via many forms public transport. For further information on public transport schedules, visit the Auckland Transport website.

For those driving in, further information on parking options can be found here.