Beam Associates is a pool of experts drawing on some of the brightest and most experienced place-making, cultural and other practitioners in the field. It reflects the rich range of Beam’s professional relationships, and adds significantly to our offer to current and potential clients and partners.

Ian Banks
Franco Bianchini
Lewis Biggs
Prue Chiles
Julian Dobson
Helen Farrar
Stephen Feber
Sarah Gaventa
Fergus Justice-Mills
Tom Lonsdale
Peter O’Brien
Martin Stockley

Ian Banks – Practicing architect and leading public art and public realm consultant, working with a range of organisations, artists and other professionals

Ian Banks qualified as a Chartered Architect in 1990. Between 2000-2004 he was Public Art & Architecture Officer for Arts Council England, North West. In 2005 he founded Atoll, his ‘deliberately small’ art and architecture ‘collaborative’. With Beam he has been involved in numerous projects including developing the £4.5 million public art funding strategy for ‘Icons of the North’, the pan-regional marketing programme for the Northern Way. Recent consultancies include those for Lancashire County Council to develop the creative feasibility for a potential £1.5m aerospace public art commission(s); public art strategies for Preston, Carlisle, Lancaster and Burnley; as well as wider creative/cultural scoping for Blackburn with Darwen Local Education partnership, Cheshire County Council, Weaver Valley Regional Park, Sunniside Partnership and the Wearmouth-Jarrow Partnership World Heritage bid.
www.atoll-uk.com

Franco Bianchini – international researcher, writer, lecturer and advisor in cultural policy and planning; Professor in the School of Cultural Studies at Leeds Metropolitan University

Franco is one of the UK’s leading cultural experts, and has lectured on urban cultural policy and planning issues in various countries including Ireland, Sweden, Finland, Latvia, Russia, Poland, Spain, Portugal, Greece, Italy, Australia, Colombia, China and Japan. His books include Urban Mindscapes of Europe (co-edited), Planning for the Intercultural City, Culture and Neighbourhoods: A Comparative Report, and The Creative City with Charles Landry. He has acted as advisor and researcher on cultural planning strategies and projects in various European countries, on behalf of organisations including Leicester City Council, Arts Council England, the Council of Europe and the European Commission. He is a professor in the School of Cultural Studies at Leeds Metropolitan University.
www.leedsmet.ac.uk

Lewis Biggs – One of the UK’s leading figures in the visual arts; Former CEO and Artistic Director of Liverpool Biennial

Lewis is now an independent consultant working in the UK and abroad. Since November 2000, Lewis was CEO and Artistic Director of Liverpool Biennial commissioning new art, much of it for the public realm, researched and realised collaboratively by locally based curators. Outside the festival, the company operates as one of the UK’s leading commissioning agencies for the public realm. Lewis was Director of Tate Liverpool from 1990 to 2000; as joint Artistic Director of Art Transpennine 1998 his focus moved decisively beyond the museum / gallery context.
www.biennial.com

Prue Chiles BA(Hons) DipArch(distinction) RIBA. Architect and academic (Sheffield University) with a reputation for innovation in school design, community visioning and regeneration.

Prue Chiles combines research and practice with teaching. Prue initiated the acclaimed Live Projects programme and has continually forged links between the University and the City. Prue also directs the Bureau-Design+Research (BDR) set up in 2002 within the School of Architecture to pursue ‘research by design’, to raise the profile of design within the building process. BDR has carried out over 60 commissioned research and consultancy projects with local, national and international bodies and has built up a reputation for innovation and expertise in the area of school design, community visioning and regeneration and sustainable futures.

This work is supported by a small award-winning private practice - Prue Chiles Architects. Formed in 1999, the practice has undertaken a number of innovative buildings including one of the “Classrooms of the Future”. Prue has won RIBA White Rose Awards for her own house and for the Hillsborough Pavilion, a Sport England funded re-interpretation of the classic ‘English sport pavilion’. Prue is also an external examiner at various schools of Architecture and has lectured widely. Before starting her academic career in 1992 she practiced in London for Richard Reid and Rivington Street Studio and in the US for Kevin Roche. In 1984-6 she was recipient of the Rome Scholarship.

Julian Dobson – Social regeneration expert, commentator and facilitator, editorial director ‘New Start’ magazine 1999-2010

Julian has wide experience in facilitating discussions, conferences, and learning events. As editorial director of ‘New Start’ magazine from 1999-2010 he chaired and contributed to national regeneration debates, ran national conferences, and worked with community organisations. He has devised learning programmes on placemaking and run practical workshops and masterclasses on regeneration, the public realm and town centres, economic development, community assets, neighbourhood renewal, localism and the ‘big society’. Julian has a national reputation as a writer and commentator, has recently given evidence to two parliamentary inquiries and is a co-founder of Our Society, a social action network.
www.urbanpollinators.co.uk

Helen Farrar – Landscape architect and strategic advisor to the public, voluntary and academic sectors in design and regeneration policy, practice and skills

Helen is a chartered landscape architect and regeneration professional, working since 2004 as a strategic advisor and enabler to the public, voluntary and academic sectors in areas relating to renaissance, design and communities. She has worked in the Yorkshire and Humber region for almost 25 years, with a wide network of contacts, at national, regional and local levels; having often contributed to both policy and organisational development at a senior level. Helen played a key role in establishing Yorkshire Forward’s Renaissance Towns pilot in the early 2000’s and was a Regional Representative for CABE from 2002-2010. She has worked extensively with Beam in shaping, chairing and delivering a wide range of regeneration and design training, particularly working with local authorities. She is an expert in the establishment and operation of design review panels; has undertaken a number of key enabling commissions for CABE Space; offers organisational and funding advice to the voluntary and community sector; and is a Director of a Leeds based social enterprise.
‘Engaging communities, enabling organisations and through all, empowering the individual are all at the heart of my expertise and experience’ 
http://uk.linkedin.com/in/helenfarrarenabler

Stephen Feber, specialist in sustainable social enterprise, Curator of the Future at London Transport Museum and owner of Stephen Feber Ltd
Stephen develops social enterprises from an idea to the finished project. He also designs and develops museums and exhibitions. Current projects include a low carbon mixed use social enterprise development, Heartlands, in Cornwall. The 15 acre development includes a park, new village centre, energy generation systems, children’s centre, visitor centre, artists’ studios, live work units, new market squares and housing.

Current cultural projects also include acting as Curator of the Future for the London Transport Museum for the Sense & the City exhibition, Connected Communities with the RSA, work with the BBC and RCA on the Connected Home project and a number of other design initiatives, including a recent collaboration with BDP, Manchester to re-imagine (light and animate) Oxford Road.



Past projects have included the first children’s museum in the UK, Eureka! and the Stirling Prize winning Magna Science Adventure Centre in South Yorkshire, where he was the founding Director.
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Sarah Gaventa - Director of CABE Space 2006 - 2011 and Director of Seachange - cultural regeneration of the seaside funding programme

From 2006 until 2011 Sarah Gaventa was Director of CABE Space, the specialist unit promoting the value of well designed and managed public spaces, and directed research, design and enabling support for parks and public urban spaces.  From 2010 she was Director responsible for CABE’s Sustainability and Inclusive Design agenda. From 2008 until 2011 Sarah was also Director in charge of the Seachange funding programme, a £40million grants programme to encourage the cultural regeneration of England’s seaside resorts. Sarah has written books on the subject of design and architecture including New Public Spaces for Mitchell Beasley. She is a member of the HLF’s Expert Panel and TFL’s Design Review Panel. A founding committee member of the London Architecture Festival, Sarah is an Honorary Fellow of the Landscape Institute for services to landscape. Before CABE Sarah ran Scarlet Projects an agency which curated architecture and design exhibitions and events and she is a former Director of Glasgow 1999: UK City of Architecture and Design.

Fergus Justice-Mills, Chief Executive of The Civic, Barnsley, with a wealth of experience in delivering major cultural venue capital projects and in business development.

Fergus has been working in the creative industries sector since 1992 when he became the Managing Director of the Roadmender, an Arts and Music venue in Northampton. His experience there included funding a major Capital rebuild project which transformed the old school building into a dramatic new performance and event space with the first contemporary art gallery in Northampton Town Centre. After 10 years he moved to London where his career took in festival and event business development and work for a youth helpline charity before reengaging with venue management as joint Chief Executive of Interchange Studios in Belsize Park, London.

This previous role has many similarities to Fergus’ current role as Chief Executive of The Civic, in Barnsley. It was an old listed Victorian building (the Hampstead Town Hall), had undergone a major capital build project, was a social enterprise organisation, was available for community use (through hiring the various spaces and facilities) and had a programme of events and activities.

His role at The Civic combines a range of different independent uses under one roof as well as the public realm aspect in the shape of Mandela Gardens. With the building now open, Fergus has been directing his focus on addressing some of the challenges faced strategically, financially and operationally by the project in these changing economic times.

Tom Lonsdale – Leading landscape architect and place-maker, national and regional design review and enabling expert

Tom Lonsdale specialises in analysis of ‘place’ and developing strategic and logistic aspects of its enhancement and conservation.  He draws on over 35 years’ experience at management level, including 14 years as Chief Landscape Architect with Manchester City Council and, subsequently, as founding Director of renowned landscape and urban design practice Camlin Lonsdale. In 2008 he established Placecraft to promote understanding of the need for quality in shaping the built environment. He served for five years on the national CABE Design Review Panel, chaired the Places Matter panel in the Northwest, and is Vice-chair of the Yorkshire Panel and Chair of the Humber Panel.  He has worked in the UK and abroad, as well as acting as Design Champion within multi-disciplinary teams tackling major regeneration schemes.
www.placecraft.co.uk

Peter O’Brien, expert in housing, planning and sustainable development policy, former Planning & Design Advisor with Transform South Yorkshire

Until recently Peter was Planning and Design Advisor with Transform South Yorkshire, one of the Government’s Housing Market Renewal Pathfinders and a Growth Point Partnership. From 1991-2003 he was Urban Design and Environmental Planning Manager at Sheffield City Council. He has also worked as Directeur de l’Urbanisme with the Municipality of Chalon sur Saone, France; Deputy Director of Planning at Alnwick District Council, Northumberland; and in various planning officer positions at North Riding County (National Parks), Bolton Metropolitan Borough and Carmarthen District Councils.

Peter is a Governor (and past Chair) of Sharrow Primary School, Sheffield, and a Member of the Sustainable Development Fund Grants Panel for the Peak District National Park Authority. Peter has extensive knowledge and understanding of Government housing, planning and sustainable development policy and experience of successfully leading and managing the delivery of large and complex programmes and projects. He has been a CABE Enabler and is a ‘Building for Life’ Independent Accredited Assessor.

Martin Stockley – Civil engineering and construction industry expert, regional and national design review panelist, and masterplanning advisor.

Martin Stockley trained as a draughtsman at the Greater London Council before studying Civil Engineering at Kings’ College, London.  He is managing director of Stockley consulting Civil, Structural, Transport and Infrastructure Engineers based in Manchester and London.  He has worked on a wide range of projects in the UK and abroad. In 1997 he founded Martin Stockley Associates (now known as Stockley) in Manchester, opening the London office a year later.  In Manchester his work covers some of the city’s most iconic buildings including Urbis, No 1 Deansgate, Timber Wharf and recently Will Alsop’s award winning Chips building. Martin Chairs Places Matter! North West Design Review Panel, and is a member of numerous other design advisory panels.
www.stockley.co.uk