Two years ago, I attended a seminar where more tales of woe for banks were being predicted at the hands of ‘fintech upstarts’. The sector was ripe for disruption, especially those ‘fat cat’ bankers who were too complacent to see it all coming. I wondered if I should be feeling happy, because Silicon Valley Bank was working with so many of these upstarts, or sad that all banks were about to be bypassed, undercut, destroyed or simply rendered irrelevant.

photo c/o Jason Lindberg

Ten years ago we started Hollwich Kushner – to explore the future of Architecture and to build buildings! We were young, curious minded and relentless in our desire to explore the world around us. Over these last ten years each project we have touched has granted us the opportunity to learn something new about ourselves and the effect our buildings have. Sometimes this has led to big revelations and other times more subtle lessons learned through trial and error.

Science and technology-driven entrepreneurs are at the heart of the UK’s plans for future economic growth. Two of the projects that Fletcher Priest is involved with will be high density places where creative collisions between investors, researchers and engineers happen – the conditions that help science and technology businesses thrive. The modern workplace, with its emphasis on flexibility and interaction, is a very different place to the one-size-fits-all office of a decade ago. Change has been driven by leaders in the most competitive sectors of the economy in their efforts to attract talent. In recent years Fletcher Priest has enjoyed the opportunity to work for many of them (for example in media, technology, communications, software and pharma) drawing on skills within our studio across the disciplines of urban design, architecture, interior design and research. We have also produced speculative projects for developers that have been sought out by companies including Google, Facebook and We Work.

Founding partner Simon Hay talks transparency in learning, parental engagement, funding and international expansion!

Today, Firefly supports over 500 schools in 33 countries – that’s some 500,000 students, as well as teachers and parents using our online tool every day.

We’ve grown quickly – our product has evolved to support the changing needs of schools and make use of new technologies, and also as a company we have more or less doubled in size every year.

The truth is, what will affect travel the most in future is what will affect virtually every other industry: the rapid development of the digital world and the vast increase in mobility. Simply put, travellers are now more connected than ever and that’s changing the game.

It is absolutely possible to regenerate a city while paying homage to its past. Adaptive reuse is a significant part of our strategy here at Bedrock. The majority of our 95+ building portfolio consists of historic structures and we strive to honor and preserve the city’s existing infrastructure through all of our developments while creating unique experiences through our real estate.

I’ve always had a fascination with technology and thanks to growing up in an entrepreneurial media family, was privy to the latest innovation & technology from an early age. Take that and my curiosity to understand how everything works, it’s no surprise that when I started in what was a family print business and was asked if I wanted to take on more responsibility or try something new, I would always say yes.

It’s official; the under 30s are the influencers, tastemakers, official critics and reviewers in society today. This consumer audience makes up a quarter of the UK population and according to a Viacom study the under 30s are set to make up 75 per cent of the UK’s workforce by 2020. Their purchasing power is huge. They also happen to be incredibly brand loyal as a collective whole. So, what happens when a long-established brand – those that are over 50 years old – looks to reposition itself to a millennial audience? This is where it gets complicated.

When Ian Siegel & his co-founders started building ZipRecruiter in 2010, they were solving a problem they faced daily in their own professional lives – hiring great employees fast, so they could get back to work. “We started out with humble ambitions, to bootstrap a lifestyle business,” says Ian Siegel, “that first year and a half, it was just us four guys, working at each other’s kitchen tables part-time while still working our full-time day jobs.” For its first four years, ZipRecruiter was only funded through the profitability of its product, “amazingly, we were able to grow our business to over 3,000 customers before hiring any other employees…but it really took off on us.”