Placemaking Insights: Harry Hoodless on Creativity and Collaboration

An appetite for placemaking and culture

“If you don’t do these things once in your career, you’ll never do them.”

– Harry Hoodless, Studio Hoodless

Harry Hoodless worked as an architect in China for eight years. It was very much a learning experience as well as the catalyst for starting his own practice. Working on projects for education, Harry found there was an enormous appetite for placemaking and culture: “In Asia, the school comes first. It’s effectively the anchor for a community.” Building a school was a means for the Chinese government to attract people to an area, and then develop a town around the school." Another cultural difference was a marked willingness to try and accomplish things. “The entrepreneurial spirit among all my friends and colleagues in Asia was far stronger.” Harry found his own response to this different culture sparked his feelings about the kind of work he wanted to pursue once he was back in the UK. This has resulted in him founding Studio Hoodless.

Re-imagining the learning landscape

“Life is an experiment.”

– Martin Stockley, HS2 Independent Design Panel Member

Setting up a forward-thinking practice takes confidence and open-mindedness from the outset. Harry illustrated this with the example of an independent school project he was working on: “How do we create an environment for a bunch of kids who will hopefully come out of it with a whole different set of skills, far more creative and entrepreneurial in themselves?” But occupying a different position in the marketplace while taking on ambitious projects requires another vital element: collaboration. “It’s all about partnerships, forming relationships with other people.” It’s also essential to establish firm frameworks within which you can work. There’s always going to be a balance between creativity and the process of working on projects. Successful collaboration requires an acceptance of risk if you’re going to reap the rewards.

Stretching the paradigm

“Collaboration can stand for a lot of things. You go into it with expertise in some areas but as a novice in others.”

– Sarie Mairs Slee, Head of Partnership, Salford Culture and Place Partnership

For Harry, the idea of partnership combines defined frameworks with a willingness to come together to solve problems: “What’s been brilliant about the new partnerships I’ve been forging is the different ways people tackle things and having the open-mindedness to embrace this.” The emphasis has been on finding resolutions rather than simply controlling the workflow. And Harry is well aware of the pitfalls of being too formulaic. Inspiration comes from discovery and discovery comes from what you’re willing to put in. This is how you stretch the paradigm and, ultimately, see beyond it. It’s how you resolve the tension between control and creativity. It’s fitting that Studio Hoodless has this title for its brand manifesto: Bright ideas for a sustainable future.