Denise Bennetts

Denise co-founded Bennetts Associates in 1987, with her partner Rab Bennetts, and played a strategic role in the overall design direction of the practice. She has been involved across the practice’s wide range of award-winning and highly sustainable projects including major headquarters and City office developments, theatres and hotels. She is a respected architectural critic, is an assessor for several awards schemes and until 2023 was chair of the RIBA National and International Awards Group. She also serves as an external examiner at all stages of education at architecture schools across the UK and chairs the RIAS Nominations Committee. Until recently Denise was a member of the British School at Rome’s Faculty of the Fine Arts, was the chair of Usable Buildings Trust and became the Chair of Trustees for Article 25 in 2020.

Denise took lead responsibility for the practice’s financial and legal affairs and undertook the key role in transferring ownership of the practice to an Employee Ownership Trust in 2016. Like Rab, she stepped back from Bennetts Associates’ management board in 2019 but continues her involvement in design reviews and mentoring.