Event schedule

Welcome to the W Programme

Our community of W Partners have told us over the years how much they value simple networking events as an opportunity to connect with old contacts, and to make new ones. So we kicked off the 2025 programme with a few hours of informal conversation over a few refreshments.

Venue: Gensler, Thomas More Square, Thomas More St, London E1W 1YW 

Spring Lecture

In the first of our series of lectures in 2025, we welcomed Natalie Kane, Curator of Digital Design at the Victoria and Albert Museum.

Lecture: Ways of Being / Ways of Building: Disability-First Perspectives

How do we live together and how do disabled people, in the words of the Crip Technoscience manifesto, thrive? How do we go beyond compliance and look to how disabled communities have invented and reinvented the contemporary built environment. The history of architecture, urbanism and disabled communities are threaded through with systemic injustice that has been fought against, from curb cuts to traffic-stopping protests, but what other conversations have arisen since these earlier days of revolt that look to the many ways we approach space? By presenting some of the thinking of the upcoming V&A exhibition Design and Disability, curator Natalie Kane will look at disability-first responses to architecture and urban design.

Venue: Shoreditch Arts Club, 6 Redchurch St, London E2 7DD. Our thanks to Buckley Gray Yeoman for hosting.

More about Natalie:

Natalie is Curator of Digital Design at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. At the V&A, Natalie is responsible for the care, research, display and collection of digital design in the Museum. With the V&A, they curated the official U.K. pavilion at the 2018 London Design Biennale, and the official U.K. Pavilion at the 2019 XXII Milan Triennale, showing the work of Forensic Architecture.

As well as a writer, Natalie is half of curatorial research project Haunted Machines which looks at the use of magical narrative in technology. Previously, Natalie was Curator at digital culture festival and lab FutureEverything in Manchester, co-curator of Impakt Festival 2017 in the Netherlands, and worked at digital arts and culture organisation Lighthouse in Brighton.

Spring Speed Mentoring

W Partners are invited to put forward mentors and mentees who get together for an evening of learning and career development. Our speed mentoring sessions are open to 2 mentees and 1 mentor from each practice. Students will also be invited to take part when appropriate. On average, each mentor will have 4 x 15-minute mentoring sessions. Each mentee will have 2 x 15-minute mentoring sessions. This gives everyone the opportunity to talk to multiple people. Where possible, and in the interests of the W Programme’s core aim of supporting under-represented people in architecture, we encourage all mentees and mentors to be female or non-binary.

Summer Networking Event

Our annual Summer Networking Event is an opportunity for W Partners, Sponsors and Supporters to come together informally and connect with peers and other industry voices over some refreshments.

W Partner registration.

Online Speed Mentoring

An online edition of our renowned speed mentoring series, making it more accessible to those who are not able to attend in-person events.

Autumn Lecture

In the second of our series of lectures in 2025, we’ll be inviting a prolific and passionate speaker from the built environment to inspire the room with their thoughts on and experiences in fostering respect, inclusivity and creating better and healthier working environments in architecture.

W Partner registration.

Winter Speed Mentoring

W Partners are invited to put forward mentors and mentees who get together for an evening of learning and career development. Our speed mentoring sessions are open to 2 mentees and 1 mentor from each practice. Students will also be invited to take part when appropriate. On average, each mentor will have 4 x 15-minute mentoring sessions. Each mentee will have 2 x 15-minute mentoring sessions. This gives everyone the opportunity to talk to multiple people. Where possible, and in the interests of the W Programme’s core aim of supporting under-represented people in architecture, we encourage all mentees and mentors to be female or non-binary.

Winter Lecture

Closing the 2025 programme with the final lecture of the year.

W Partner registration.