What Happens When You Try to Change Architecture? | Former RIBA President, Muyiwa Oki

Muyiwa Oki goes by Mua. In 2023 he became the youngest person ever elected president of the Royal Institute of British Architects, and the first black one, at the end of a campaign that had started as a WhatsApp group of younger and underrepresented architects who wanted the profession to head in a different direction.

He served from 2023 to 2025, alongside a day job at Mace, the consultancy and construction firm, where he works at the front end, advising public and private clients on how to organise and invest in their property. His presidency pushed the RIBA to confront workplace wellbeing, access to the profession, regional imbalance and AI. It also taught him what a president can and cannot change in a one-year term.

This conversation covers why he thinks architecture should stop straddling three industries and commit to being professional services, where the value in a project actually sits, what happens to a practice that stops hiring part ones, and why he has always believed the prize was never to become an architect.

Muyiwa Oki. He was the RIBA’s youngest ever and first black president.

A Symbol of Change Before He’d Started

Bespoke Careers

You were voted in off the back of a movement, an effort to get younger and less represented voices into the industry. What was that like, being seen as the figurehead of it?

Muyiwa Oki

Being a symbol for change was something really hard to deal with. I didn’t expect it at all. It started as a WhatsApp group, just transition, and it grew legs and snowballed. Becoming a symbol of this change put quite a lot of pressure on my shoulders personally. I took it on because it gave me this sense of duty. That I’m here not just because I talk the loudest, or convince the most people, but because people believed in me.

Bespoke Careers

There was a one-year transition period before you took office. Was that useful?

Muyiwa Oki

At the time I thought it was useless. We could have done a quick turnaround. But in hindsight it was a good thing, so I could socialise my ideas with the organisation and understand who was in it. It was also extremely good timing. I was fresh blood, the CEO was new, three of the executive directors were new. All of us wanting to be an agent of change.

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It started as a WhatsApp group. It grew legs and snowballed.

Muyiwa Oki wearing the RIBA presidential chain. He was in office from 2023 to 2025.

Taking the Office Out of London

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There are long-running questions about the RIBA being London-centric. How did you see that?

Muyiwa Oki

The organisation is too London focused, and it’s not just the RIBA’s problem, it’s a UK-wide problem. Our cultural capital is London, the actual capital is London, the financial capital is London. Everything flows through London. One of the ways I wanted to redress that balance was to take the office of the presidency across the regions. I kept a diary that put me into different parts of the UK. I went to Newcastle, Birmingham, Wales, Scotland. In each place I wanted to see an architecture practice, big and small, visit a school of architecture, and join a regional event. The regions are held up by volunteers who want a community of architects to share ideas with. I used that to talk one to one with people, then take those conversations back to the council and the boardroom to back my arguments.

The Communications Gap

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A lot of guests talk about how architects struggle to communicate outside the profession. You had media training for the role.

Muyiwa Oki

You do media training at various points in the year, talking to national newspapers, and also from a crisis point of view. Consultants come in and grill you: who are you, how do you answer questions, how do you pivot. So whenever we have this conversation, questions I don’t want to answer, I have the skills.

Bespoke Careers

Did you leave a mark on how the RIBA communicates?

Muyiwa Oki

I fought for having a communications expert at board level. Everyone can say we need to communicate more, and we understand why, but then it’s how, and there was no one with a handle on the day-to-day of doing that effectively. We’re moving away from TV and newspapers to socials. The type of people in the organisation, their mind needs to change as to what communication actually means.

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Everyone can say we need to communicate more. There was no one with a handle on how.

An Economic Issue Masquerading as a Cultural Issue

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Workplace and wellbeing were front and centre during your term, and a lot of the survey results were not positive. Are these problems inherent to architecture, or a choice?

Muyiwa Oki

I set up the task force for this. We put together a report with recommendations for the RIBA, the ARB and others. Three of them: have an influence on how architecture work is procured, teach architects how to capture the value they create, and increase the ability to enter the profession. I can’t say directly that the economics of practice is why workplaces are bad, but there’s a correlation between a healthier revenue in practice and a better workplace. We need to address the cultural issue, but it’s also an economic issue masquerading as a cultural issue. So we need to increase the knowledge of how the architecture business can be run better, so firms can treat their staff and workplace better.

Bespoke Careers

Does the RIBA have a role in policing that, not just encouraging it?

Muyiwa Oki

It can. The standards piece is where the RIBA should take its role seriously, in maintaining what the kite mark of being an RIBA chartered practice means. The surveys were the starting point. They exposed where we are. The end point is keeping the standards of attainment so high that people want to join.

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It’s an economic issue masquerading as a cultural issue.

We Can’t All Be Artists

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Your experience at a large construction company is very different from a young person in a small practice. Tell me about your role at Mace.

Muyiwa Oki

I wrote an article in the RIBA Journal called We Can’t All Be Artists. My role at Mace has crystallised it in my mind. The closer you are to solving problems based on risk, or the mitigation of risk, or reducing the expenditure or time spent on a project, is where the value lies, as opposed to just design quality. Design quality is a good skill and we shouldn’t lose it. But the mitigation of risk, and of cost and time, should also be part of what you do as an architect.

Bespoke Careers

What did you gain from moving to that kind of work?

Muyiwa Oki

This understanding about where value lies. It’s either at the front end or the back end, and most architects are caught in the middle. Front end is the advisory work. Back end is construction delivery, and contractors have the monopoly on that because of their scale. I’ve been working at the front end for the past five years, and I think there’s merit to that.

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Where value lies is either at the front end or the back end. Most architects are caught in the middle.

Pick a Lane

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Where does that leave architecture as a profession?

Muyiwa Oki

My controversial take, and maybe I’m influenced by where I’m working right now, is that architecture is professional services, as opposed to a pure creative or even construction profession. We are trying to straddle three things: part of the construction industry, part of the creative industry, part of the professional services industry. I think that’s doing a disservice to the profession. It should be professional services, like accountancy, lawyers, actuaries, with creative aspects and construction aspects attached. That clarity of thought means we work better with RICS, the accountants and the lawyers, because there are shared goals we want to achieve as professional services people.

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We are trying to straddle three things. I think that’s doing a disservice to the profession.

The Prize Is Not to Become an Architect

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Tell me about your background. What was university like?

Muyiwa Oki

I was tracked, like everyone. Part one in Sheffield, part two in Sheffield, part three at RIBA North West in the Chester and Liverpool area. Every year or two I was back in university, about eight years in total. I tried to do it as quickly as possible. I wanted to go straight into part two without doing part one in practice, because I thought then, and I still think now, that the prize is not to become an architect. That is the means to an end. The end is to have a good professional life and have an impact as a professional, not to be an architect. I see some young people thinking the end is to be an architect.

Bespoke Careers

And your career after that?

Muyiwa Oki

I went from a small practice to Glenn Howells Architects in Birmingham, where I did the bulk of my corporate real estate and housing work. Then to Grimshaw in London, where I got into industrial and infrastructure projects, which I actually had the most fun with. The stakeholder engagement, understanding client briefs. Then to Mace. Right now I do less of the drawing, less of the software, which is part of the course as you grow your career. Sometimes your friends are Word, Excel and PowerPoint. Does that make me less of an architect? I don’t think so.

Muyiwa Oki as a child. He went through the full RIBA route, Sheffield for parts one and two, then part three in the North West, in about eight years.

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The prize is not to become an architect. That is the means to an end.

I See AI as the Internet

Bespoke Careers

How do you think things are changing with AI, especially around where architects bring value?

Muyiwa Oki

AI is here to stay. I see it as the internet. We’re millennials, we grew up with the internet. From 2000 to 2010 it was there, we used it, but we still went to the library and did the bibliography by hand. Then companies came along that did it for you. AI is the same. Right now it’s image generation. In future it will help you do more of the thinking, set out positions clearly that would ordinarily take you a lot of time. But we can’t substitute the judgment that a professional has. If AI produces reams of information, making the editorial cut, and having your own taste inserted into it, is still something you need to cultivate. It won’t replace the professional. It will give the professional a bit more time to make connections they wouldn’t have had the bandwidth to explore.

Bespoke Careers

Does the RIBA have a role in guiding how that’s regulated?

Muyiwa Oki

Yes. In my term I set up the advisory group on AI, and we now have yearly reports on how it’s impacting the industry. It’s not far in our imagination to see an AI-first architecture practice. The administrative things will be done by the chatbot, and the more judgment-based skills will be done front of house by a human being.

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We can’t substitute the judgment that a professional has.

If You Don’t Hire Part Ones, You Don’t Have Associates

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There’s pressure on the roles junior people used to do. How do people gain judgment when those roles are under pressure?

Muyiwa Oki

I don’t have a direct answer. But senior leaders and CEOs need to understand where the pipeline is. If you don’t hire part ones this year, or next year, and the next, for the next ten years, in ten years you don’t have any associates. In terms of the continuity of your business, do you want a cliff edge or not? You need to update the role of the part one to ensure you have the director in ten years.

Bespoke Careers

During your term both the UK and US governments moved against Level 7 apprenticeship funding, which limits access to the profession.

Muyiwa Oki

It’s very unfortunate. This is why we need a more concerted, collaborative effort. On its own, the architecture profession is minuscule in terms of numbers. The lawyers had the same issue with apprenticeships. We need to find other professionals impacted by the same change, so the burden is shared and we’re speaking on behalf of a larger group. There’s a bigger power behind it.

Bespoke Careers

Where does scale fit? Architecture is mostly very small businesses.

Muyiwa Oki

The reason Mace has its authority is that it has bigger bargaining power. It’s the same with the RIBA. At conferences and in parliament I would start with, I’m president of the RIBA, looking after 50,000 members. That number was a signal: listen to me, because I represent 50,000 people. For small practices, there’s an economics of scale to sharing the back of house. Is there a reason to lease a building on your own, or could you work alongside other architects and share the admin roles, to free you up to do the things you actually love?

Muyiwa Oki presenting to graduates at the RIBA in 2024.

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If you don’t hire part ones, in ten years you don’t have any associates.

Advice for the Next One

Bespoke Careers

What advice would you give the incoming president?

Muyiwa Oki

Know what you want to do. Keep it to two or three points. I started with five and it shortened to three. Be aggressive, in a good way, about your north star, and use it as the lens to make decisions.

Bespoke Careers

And a young person watching this, new to university, looking at your path and finding it a bit daunting?

Muyiwa Oki

Have a community of people, however small. A WhatsApp group is a good start, to bounce ideas off. Focus on opportunities, not in a silly opportunistic way, but follow where the opportunities lie. If it means living outside London for two or three years, I did that. And be aware that we can’t all be artists. Perhaps your deep skills are in human contact. If you want to focus on that, you should.

Quickfire

Q01

What’s one criticism of the RIBA that you think is completely fair?

Muyiwa Oki

It’s too London centric. We need to take what we do to the various regions within the UK and across the globe, and have a membership, and member groups across regions, that reflect the profession, so people feel represented.

Q02

If you had another term as RIBA president, what would you tackle first?

Muyiwa Oki

Value capture. Introducing different ways to run architecture organisations and businesses, so we can capture the value that we create effectively.

Q03

Your 60-second pitch. Why should someone dedicate their life to architecture?

Muyiwa Oki

It’s a good baseline training in how to have good judgment and think critically. You can take that skill across different professions in different ways. There’s a life outside of architecture, not siloed into the confines of the design.

Q04

What’s one thing architects should stop doing?

Muyiwa Oki

Straddling three horses: the creativity industry, the construction industry, and professional services. Pick a lane. I think the lane should be professional services, but I’m sure other people have an opinion on this.

Q05

Why should architects care about the RIBA?

Muyiwa Oki

It’s your membership organisation, and it’s the way you’re going to get issues resolved as a collective. It’s the collective that makes and changes the dial.

Q06

Who in the architecture world do you most admire?

Muyiwa Oki

Two. Lesley Lokko, for what she has accomplished in architecture outside the pure confines of the design aspect, and in a careful, deliberate way. And SANAA. I love their architecture. The design integrity is such that, when I grow up, I want to be like them. The honorary committees I led gave gold medals to both.

Q07

What’s the biggest misconception about architects?

Muyiwa Oki

That we do the drawings and the colouring in. On one project I worked on, an engineer said, in a kind of disparaging way, we give the architects the colour to choose.

Q08

Are architects underpaid?

Muyiwa Oki

A majority of architects are underpaid, especially folks who are coming into the profession. It does a disservice to the profession, because we need to embolden the pipeline of architects, and give them authority and the space in which they can have better lives outside of the profession.

Q09

What’s your favourite building in the world and why?

Muyiwa Oki

I fluctuate, but currently the Barbican. It’s stood the test of time, it’s a big community space, and it hasn’t really lost its edge.

Q10

What’s the most overrated trend in architecture right now?

Muyiwa Oki

That the drawing or the render is the end state. The building, or the community output, is the end goal. A good drawing’s end goal is to be in a museum or an exhibition. The drawing is the means to an end.

Q11

Is an architecture degree still worth it in 2026?

Muyiwa Oki

Yes, I believe so. If you want a training on how to think critically, have sound and good judgment, and think through issues deeply, there’s still merit in doing an architecture degree.

Q12

What’s one thing architecture school gets completely wrong about the real world?

Muyiwa Oki

The commercial angle, as to why your architecture can and should be delivered. Management practice and law, which was one of the modules I really enjoyed, needs a finance element, to understand the real estate economics of why a building gets commissioned and delivered.