The John Thompson Memorial Lecture (SOLD OUT)

Sadie Morgan 

Sadie Morgan OBE is a co-founding director of dRMM, a RIBA Stirling Prize-winning architecture studio.

Working as a design advocate, educator, and advisor for over two decades, Sadie’s personal practice within the architectural industry occupies several roles. These include chairing the Design Panel for High Speed Two (HS2) and the Ebbsfleet Design Forum; chairing the Cross Cutting Committee for Homes England, for which she is a board member; and acting as commissioner for the National Infrastructure Commission (NIC). Sadie has been instrumental in setting up the NIC’s Design Group, which places design at the heart of major infrastructure projects.

Aside from her ongoing advisory roles, Sadie joined the core group of the West Midlands Future Taskforce in 2022. Earlier in 2021, she became a member of the Net Zero Building’s council, and in 2020 took up a commissioner role on the RSA Food, Farming and Countryside Commission.

Sadie lectures internationally about her practice and the role of design in infrastructure and large-scale development. In 2013, she became the youngest president of the Architectural Association, followed by an honorary doctorate from London South Bank University and professorship at the University of Westminster in 2016. She received an Honorary Doctorate from University College of Estate Management in 2021, and that same year was awarded the visiting Sir Arthur Marshall Professorship in Sustainable Urban Design at Jesus College, Cambridge University. Sadie was made Honorary Member of the Royal institute of British Architects in 2019 and of The Royal Institutes of the Architects of Ireland in 2022.

In 2017, Sadie became a Mayor’s Design Advocate for the Greater London Authority (GLA) and was named ‘New Londoner of the Year’ by New London Architecture (NLA). Most recently, she joined the NLA as a Senior Advisor with a particular focus on enhancing the organisation’s voice and influence at a political level; she is also the Chair of the New London Sounding Board. Sadie has won the ‘Female Architectural Leader of the Year’ BD award and an ‘AJ100 Contribution to the Profession’ award, and in 2020, she was awarded an OBE for services to design advocacy. In 2018, Sadie established the Quality of Life Foundation – an independent body prioritising wellbeing in the built environment.