Welcome to Design Meets Insight, our podcast series where we share some of the fascinating and inspiring conversations we have with creators and innovators who work in and around the world of design.

As part of this year’s London Festival of Architecture, we have created a special mini-series around the festival’s theme of ‘Care’. This of course can mean many things, so we've chosen to focus on a holistic view of wellbeing. Our guests are passionate advocates in their specialist fields, and together we will seek to explore the answers to the following questions.

Episode 1

Well Future: How can we be agents for change and foster resilience to live well in the future?

Episode 2

Wellbeing & Communities: How can we care better for our communities and individuals, designing for equitable, healthy, happy places?

Episode 3

Well Connectivity: How can we explore the ways in which digital meets physical in the urban realm?

Episode 1: Well Future

Our guests for this episode, Ankita Dwivedi and Dr. Gemma Jerome, share their thoughts on how architects, designers and planners can empower communities to be part of the design process, and the kinds of tools that can help people understand the impact of their decisions. Ankita is the founder of Scala Colab, a social enterprise that collaborates with governments, businesses, universities, and communities to create inclusive, resilient, sustainable places. Gemma is the director of Building with Nature, where she oversees the UK’s first benchmark for green infrastructure and how to integrate holistic design thinking into planning and development.

Listen on Spotify, Acast or Download MP3

Design Meets Insight is hosted by Namrata Krishna, our Design Strategy Lead and part of our Design Advisory team. This episode is co-hosted by Jonathan Leah, Heta’s Director of Design Advisory.

We’d love to hear from you, so please get in touch at studio@hetaarchitects.com, or find us on LinkedIn at

Linkedin: Namrata Krishna

Linkedin: Jonathan Leah

Linkedin: Ankita Dwivedi

Linkedin: Dr. Gemma Jerome

“As architects, planners, designers, ecologists, we have to empower and delegate power to communities, and that's about continuously questioning if we're working as closely with people's ambitions as possible.”

- Dr. Gemma Jerome, Building with Nature

“As architects, designers and planners, we need to be able to delegate the job we have at hand to many people. We need to create mini champions all round so that we can do our jobs better.”

- Ankita Dwivedi, Scala Colab

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