Reinventing Practice: Timothy Soar photographs the people reshaping British architecture

A series of photographic portraits by leading architectural photographer Timothy Soar goes on display at The Building Centre in London this October, documenting the architects and organisations working to rethink how we design and build for the future.

Reinventing Practice brings together 40 portraits taken by Soar since the launch of the Regenerative Architecture Index in 2023. Created for Architecture Today, the ongoing series turns the camera away from buildings themselves and towards the people behind them, capturing a profession responding to some of the most urgent environmental and social questions facing the built world.

Each portrait tells the story of an individual or practice working to accelerate the transition towards regenerative design, an approach that asks architecture to move beyond simply reducing environmental harm and consider how buildings can positively contribute to the communities, landscapes and ecosystems of which they are part.

For Soar, who has spent much of his career photographing architecture and architects, the series is also an exploration of the human side of a profession undergoing profound change. Rather than presenting its subjects in conventional corporate settings, Soar’s portraits are personal and observational, photographed in places that help reveal something about the people and practices themselves.

“Each individual photograph tells a story about a personal response to a particular moment in time. Collectively, the portraits are both a celebration of the diversity of British architecture and a snapshot of a profession in transition,” says Soar.