Dr John Smith

Visiting Business Fellow, InnovationRCA

John Smith qualified as an architect at the Bartlett School of Architecture & Planning, University College London. He received a SRC Research Scholarship at the Royal College of Art, where he completed a PhD in Design Research. John has been on the academic staff of the Department of Architecture and Interiors at the RCA since 1993 and has supervised the architectural graduates on the Helen Hamlyn Research Associates Programme since its inception.

John has lectured at many other institutions, including Cambridge University, the Royal Geographical Society, the University of Art and Design in Helsinki and the Vienna Academy of Applied Arts. Most recently, he contributed to the Transport Research Group's public debate on congestion charging and was Stockton Lecturer at Durham University, where he spoke about the urban development opportunities associated with transport interchanges.

He founded his practice, John Smith & Associates (JSA Architecture Limited) in 1994 and has undertaken projects in a wide variety of sectors, including education, housing and health. Recent projects include a new tennis club and an innovative, pre-fabricated housing project for the Peabody Trust.

The practice is probably best known for its transport work and is a member of Design for Transport (DfT), the design consortium responsible for the modernisation of the Piccadilly Line. The practice has been a consultant to many leading transport clients including the Hong Kong Mass Transit Railway Corporation, the Kowloon Canton Railway Corporation and the Singapore Land Transport Authority.

Before starting his practice, John held senior positions at the Richard Rogers Partnership and at Alsop & Stormer, where he led the design teams on a number of major projects, including North Greenwich Station on the Jubilee Line Extension. While at Richard Rogers, he worked on the design of the European headquarters of Daiwa Bank and was Project Architect for the redevelopment of Marseille Airport.