Structural engineer Hanif Kara receives the 2024 Soane Medal

The 2024 Soane Medal has been awarded to Hanif Kara, the British structural engineer and founder of the London-based firm AKT II.

Kara’s role in the development of several RIBA Stirling Prize winners – including Peckham Library, London (2000), the Sainsbury Laboratory, Cambridge (2012), Bloomberg’s European headquarters, London (2018), and, most recently, Kingston University London – Town House, London (2021) – was noted as the reason for his selection.

For more than thirty years, Kara has worked with many leading UK architects on projects such as BIG's and Thomas Heatherwick's Google London headquarters and the Foster + Partners-designed Apple Campus 2 in Cupertino, California. He also currently teaches architectural technology at the Harvard GSD, where he is now one of the longest-serving faculty members. Kara has recently appointed as an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 2022 and is currently working with Stanton Williams on the construction of the new home for the London Museum at historic Smithfield market.

At his win, Kara said: "[Sir John] Soane used his work and collection to inspire future generations of builders and designers, something I hope to continue through my own work  In the complex world that we live in today, it is impossible to solve the problems we face without interdisciplinary collaboration and thinking. Only through curiosity and continual inquiry, questioning practices and norms, will we find the solutions that are so urgently required."

Will Gompertz, the Deborah Loeb Brice Director of Sir John Soane’s Museum, adds finally: "Hanif Kara is the engineer to whom Sir John Soane would have turned to realize his most ambitious, exciting designs. They might be divided by two centuries, but they are united in the belief that innovative, sympathetic, beautiful architecture can make a lasting and positive impact on the world."

Kara, who follows the three most recent Soane Medalists Anne Lacaton and Jean-Phlippe Vassal (2023), Peter Barber (2022), Marina Tabassum (2021), will deliver the 2024 Soane Medal Lecture from the Royal Academy in London on November 26th.