To mark our first year as an employee-owned business, LDA Design gathered in Bristol, home to one of our fast growing new(ish) studios. Our setting for the afternoon was the wonderful Bristol Old Vic, the oldest continuously working theatre in the English-speaking world.

The first time we have all been together since before the start of the pandemic, the afternoon was a special moment and long overdue. A time to share what employee ownership means to each and every one of us and our vision for the future; to celebrate those who have been valued members of our team for 10 or 20 years; and to properly welcome the seventy or so that have joined us since 2019.

Frazer Osment, LDA Design Chair, highlighted that we are living and working through a period of profound change as the world pivots in response to the big challenges of the day: net zero, nature recovery and social equity, and as we move from a global system of exploitation of nature to one of nurture. “People are beginning to understand the world in new ways,” he said. “And as their knowledge and values change, so too do their actions.”

“Our projects such as the transformation of Newcastle City Centre public realm, and Alfred Place Gardens and Strand Aldwych in London represent a fundamental shift in how we use our cities and the function of our streets, as they stop being just about cars and become about people and nature.”

Frazer signed off with a call to action. “We won’t get the world we want, unless we fight for it.”