Building Resilience: Demonstrators for a Changing Climate

Amin is the Co-Founding Partner and Chairman of Groupwork.As well as running the design and detailing of projects Amin has taught, written and lectured on architecture, sat on RIBA National and International Awards Jury and aids property related research groups and funds. Groupwork’s work encompasses many sectors including finely crafted homes, residential and office buildings, arts centres, masterplans, infrastructure projects, bridges and metro stations.

Immy is a Co-founder and Director of Civic Square, a Birmingham-based social enterprise focused on regenerative neighbourhood development, civic infrastructure, and bold experiments in the everyday. Her work centres on building the conditions for collective imagination, participation, and action at the neighbourhood scale – from housing and finance to food, play, and public space.

Adib is the founder of theOtherDada [tOD] Integrated Consultancy & Architecture. Fighting the death-by-concrete of Beirut River, Adib initiated Beirut RiverLESS to enhance the living conditions of the communities alongside it. As a first step, he is planting urban native forests alongside the river and reclaiming the urban environment by scaling this approach to the city at large.

Justin is the Director of Future Observatory and the former chief curator of the Design Museum. A writer and curator, he has produced numerous high-profile exhibitions and publishing projects. His writing has appeared in the New Yorker, the Guardian and e-flux. He is the author or editor of ten books, including More than Human: Making with the Living World (2025).

Janice is Head of Curatorial Programme of Future Observatory at the Design Museum. She recently curated The Cult of Beauty and Thirst at the Wellcome Collection. Previously at the V&A, she contributed to V&A East and Fashioned from Nature. Her practice explores the intersections of art, design, science through the lens of ecology and intersectionality, realised internationally from MoMu Antwerp to London Design Biennale. She lectures on interdisciplinary research at institutions such as Royal College of Art and Columbia University.

Future Observatory is the Design Museum’s national research programme for the green transition, based at the museum and coordinated in partnership with UKRI’s Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC). Future Observatory curates exhibitions, programmes events and funds and publishes new research, all with the aim of championing new design thinking on environmental issues.

UKRI’s Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) funds internationally outstanding independent researchers across the whole range of the arts and humanities: history, archaeology, digital content, philosophy, languages and literature, design, heritage, area studies, the creative and performing arts, and much more. The quality and range of research supported by AHRC works for the good of UK society and culture and contributes both to UK economic success and to the culture and welfare of societies across the globe.