The role of the RIBA Honours Committee is to consider the nominations for the Royal Gold Medal and RIBA Honorary Fellowships, received from RIBA’s Chartered Members and Fellows. The committee is chaired every year by the RIBA President.
The Honours Committee consists of up to three architects (when possible, one is a previous recipient of the Royal Gold Medal), an academic, and a lay assessor.
The Honours Committee is selected and appointed by the RIBA President from the list of past Royal Gold Medallists, RIBA Jury Applicants, and also able to contribute their own suggestions in consultation with the RIBA Head of Awards. The RIBA President’s Honours Committee selection is then presented to the RIBA Nominations Committee who review and recommend the Honours Committee to RIBA Board for approval.
The Honours Committee meet for two days in the autumn, spending one day reviewing Honorary Fellows Nominations and one day reviewing Royal Gold Medal Nominations, allocating an equal amount of time to review and discuss each nomination.
Muyiwa Oki (Chair)
As an architect at Mace Group focused on technology and innovation, Muyiwa Oki delivers off-site manufactured solutions for major estate public programmes as a technical assessment lead.
During their time at Grimshaw Architects, they founded and chaired the Multi-Ethnic Group and Allies network and drove global cultural change for colleagues. Muyiwa was an external speaker and mentor for aspiring architects for the POCinArchitecture, Scale Rule, and Grimshaw Foundation programme; which all exist to encourage greater social mobility within the industry.
Throughout their career, Muyiwa has worked on large scale infrastructure projects – such as HS2 Euston and the North London heat and power project – in collaboration with public estate department clients who have a strategic mission to revitalise neighbourhoods using design. Muyiwa also presents at EDI Practice Clinics and speaks on RIBA panels, events, and radio programmes.
Muyiwa contributes to the next generation of architects as an Ambassador for the Mayor of London: Design Future London challenge. Nationally they were profiled in Portrait of Black Britain, a major public exhibition by Cephas Williams (Black British Network), which aims to be “the largest showcase ever of the contributions Black Brits make to society”.
Professor Lesley Lokko, OBE
For over two decades, Professor Lokko has devoted their career to amplifying under-represented voices and examining the complex relationship between architecture, identity, and race; profoundly impacting architectural education, dialogue, and discourse.
In 2021, Lesley founded the African Futures Institute (AFI) in Accra, Ghana, aiming to be a new model of education, research, and public dialogue that unites the arts, humanities, and sciences.
Prior to establishing the AFI, Lokko taught around the world and reframed architecture courses to democratise, decolonise, and progress architectural education. Notable roles include Founder and Director of the Graduate School of Architecture at the University of Johannesburg and Dean of The Bernard and Anne Spitzer School of Architecture at The City College of New York.
In 2023, Lesley was awarded an OBE for services to architecture and education and was appointed curator of the 18th International Architecture Biennale in Venice.
Lesley Lokko was awarded the Royal Gold Medal in 2024 and was named one of 100 most influential people in the world by Time Magazine.
Bjarke Ingels
Bjarke Ingels founded BIG - Bjarke Ingels Group in 2005 after co-founding PLOT Architects in 2001 and working at OMA in Rotterdam. Bjarke defines architecture as the art and science of making sure our cities and buildings fit with the way we want to live our lives.
Through careful analysis of local culture and climate, the ever-changing patterns of contemporary life, and the ebbs and flows of the global economy, Bjarke believes in the idea of information-driven design as the driving force for their creative process.
Named one of the 100 most influential people in the world by Time Magazine in 2016, Bjarke has designed and completed award-winning buildings globally and was appointed Knight of the French Order des Arts et des Lettres and the Knight’s Cross of the Order of Dannebrog in 2019 and 2018, respectively.
In 2021, they were selected as an ambassador of the EU’s New European Bauhaus and named an Honorary Fellow by the AIA in 2020, the RAIC in 2014, and an International Fellow by RIBA in 2015.
Sadie Morgan OBE
Sadie Morgan OBE is a co-founding director of dRMM, a RIBA Stirling Prize-winning architecture studio.
Working as a design advocate, educator, and advisor for over two decades, their personal practice within the architectural industry occupies several roles. These include chairing the Cross Cutting Committee for Homes England, for which they are a board member; and acting as commissioner for the National Infrastructure Commission (NIC).
Sadie has been instrumental in setting up the NIC’s Design Group, which places design at the heart of major infrastructure projects and is also a member of the Net Zero Building’s council. They joined the NLA as a Senior Advisor with a particular focus on enhancing the organisation’s voice and influence at a political level, and is Chair of their New London Sounding Board.
In 2018, Sadie established the Quality of Life Foundation – an independent body prioritising wellbeing in the built environment - and lectures internationally; having held professorships at the University of Westminster and Cambridge University.
Sadie was made a RIBA Honorary Fellow in 2020.
Dr. Harriet Harriss
Dr. Harriet Harriss is a tenured Professor in the Ms Historic Preservation Program within the Graduate Center for Planning and the Environment at Pratt Institute, following their tenure as the Dean of the School of Architecture.
An award-winning educator, writer, and UK-qualified architect, Dr. Harriss has established an international reputation for social justice and climate crisis pedagogy and curriculum design and for pioneering interdisciplinary pedagogies informed by avant-garde thinking, that draw upon queer, feminist, and decolonisation theories to advance diversity, equity, and inclusion pedagogies, policies, and professional practices.
We look forward to announcing the recipient of the 2025 Royal Gold Medal and the recipients of RIBA Honorary Fellowships in due course.
