We saw a brilliant range of buildings on office days out, individual pilgrimages, holidays, lunchtime walks, and arranged tours, as we think that nothing beats learning from good architecture like visiting and using it. 

Our archi-quest took us through London, Porto, Zurich, Surrey, Lisbon, Newcastle, Cornwall, and Whitstable, seeing everything from galleries, museums and pavilions, to landscapes, roofscapes, and offices. But what we really went to town on this year were visits to see excellent and pioneering housing.

We compared the front doors of Neave Brown's 1965 Winscombe Street terrace and Alvaro Siza's 1977 Bouca Housing, each providing individual and raised entrance routes, with bold forms welcoming in visitors.

New-build housing projects such as Adelaide Wharf by AHMM and Haddo Yard by Denizen Works gave us lessons on how to achieve high quality homes through excellent detailing and commitment to simple materials used intelligently.

Visiting The Malings in Newcastle by Ash Sakula showed us how good architecture and wider site design can foster a real sense of community, whilst our trip to St Clement's in Bow, containing the first community land trust homes of our client, London CLT, showcased an alternative model for housing ownership.

Seeing these different types, models and designs for housing inspires us and reminds us of the importance of architecture that can affect people's live positively, and that creates homes not just buildings.

We would like to thank all of those who enabled us to visit these great buildings in 2017, and look forward to seeing many more in 2018.

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