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Ep20 Changemaking at home in London and around the world_Michele Young_100524
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Michelle Young, an architect turned humanitarian worker, shares her journey in a podcast. She talks about how her interest in architecture started and how she struggled to find jobs in the field after graduating due to a recession. She eventually found work in London and worked as an architect for many years, but felt unfulfilled and wanted to make a social impact. She decided to pursue a Master's degree in humanitarian work and made contacts in the field. She then worked with organizations like the Red Cross and Save the Children, gaining experience in various humanitarian crises. She currently has a new twist in her career and is no longer working in the humanitarian sector. Hello, and welcome to my Mars Mantra podcast. Today I'm going to talk to one of my favorite changemaker friend, Michelle Young. Hi, Michelle. How are you? Hi, Ramana. I'm good. Thank you. Michelle has similar stories like mine. She had worn so many hats as an architect, as an aid worker, and now she's working for London local authority. So we have amazing adventurous stories to hear from Michelle today. I would like you to tell us where it all started for you. How did you get motivated to do what you're doing now or in the past? I started off studying architecture, and I wasn't one of those people who had architecture in my head from day one. I was very reliant on, you know, sort of having some experiences at school with architects that my father knew through his work. He was a public servant. He was head of a local authority in Devon, and he had architects working in the planning department there who I spent a week with and sort of explored a little bit about, you know, how and what architects do, and I was lucky. I was about 16 or 17, and I was having to choose, you know, what I would be doing after A-levels, and I was finding that a tough ask, not really sure what I should be doing. But I loved sort of geography, and I really enjoyed a bit of math and artwork as well. I liked sketching and drawing. So Dad thought, you know, why not architecture? Why not think about that? So that's what ended up happening, and I went to Brighton University and studied architecture, and you know what studying architecture is like. It's not easy. So Daddy's girl ended up being really stuck in this architecture for how many years did you study? Seven years, although it got interrupted by a huge recession when I came out in 1991. There were no jobs, and yeah, I was lucky in that I had a little bit of money to spend on a round-the-world ticket and decided to head off and travel and try and find work elsewhere in the world, and wasn't really sure where that was going to end up or take me. But I had distinct problems finding any architectural work anywhere. So Australia, so Sydney and Melbourne, you know, really weren't hiring. I also tried in Hong Kong, and again, that was absolutely nothing happening there, which is quite an unusual occurrence, I'm sure. And yeah, ended up coming back to the UK in 94 when the sort of economy was just starting to pick up, and I was one of the sort of first intake of young blood, let's say, into a large architectural firm. And that was my first job in London, and it was a bit of a shock to the system after all of this roaming around and seeing different things, really kind of immersing yourself in different things and really enjoying the rootlessness of it. I just, you know, really found my stride, I think, while I was really just moving around the world and, you know, engaging in employment, but it wouldn't be my choice to do on a daily basis. I ended up having to fruit pick my way around Australia because of the lack of any professional work that I could get. But that was a good grounding in, you know, very physical work, and meeting very different people to what I would have met had I got an office job in an architectural practice in Sydney, or Melbourne. So, yeah, meeting a real variety of people out there in the outback and in various different places, which, you know, I really did enjoy on a certain level. But you didn't carry on fruit picking, you did find a job in London, and what happened after that? I understand you worked as an architect for many years. I did, yes. I got sort of stuck into a routine, I guess. You get sort of sucked in, there was, it was also kind of a time where, you know, the economy was recovering, and there weren't that many jobs that were going beyond planning. I was working on lots of planning applications and competitions, so lots of late night working and pressure to meet deadlines. Typical architectural life. Absolutely. But eventually, you know, a few projects did come through, and I did get that experience that I wanted, you know, to take something through from design to delivery on site. But then again, you kind of meet a whole new set of challenges. You know, you're dealing with different sets of people, there's lots of coordination, project management, all bits of the job that you don't get taught about when you're at university. And it's a very different sort of set of experiences that you come out with at the end of that. And actually, what I found was, it wasn't so much the design that I was enjoying, but it was the interaction with people and the teamwork that I really felt was my sort of home space, if you like, where I felt comfortable. And you know, that really is something that, you know, I took from those years, because those years were challenging, they were difficult. You know, I felt like I was a loner in environment, particularly at management level in architecture, only men, really, at, you know, in places of authority, or, you know, directors. What time are we talking about which years? Years, sort of mid 2000, not really feeling like I fit in. And I felt more and more frustrated that this wasn't actually a life choice that was for me. I wasn't going to climb a kind of titled ladder, let's say, through an architectural practice. I did not want to necessarily be a director, I didn't see myself as needing to climb that kind of path. And also, you know, looking at what was happening around me, my friends starting to marry, have children. And I realised I also didn't want that. So I felt like a little bit outside of things, to a certain extent, and I needed to find where was my focus going to be, you know, I can't do this for the rest of my life. This isn't what I want. I want to have more involvement with things that matter, social impact, I was starting to really sort of... How old were you at that time? In my 40s. Oh, wow. So late 30s, early 40s, yeah, no, so I'm an established architect, really. And I'm slow, perhaps, to realise that this isn't for me. At least you realised and took action. Yeah. And, you know, taking action was, it was a relief, actually, once I admitted to myself that this wasn't what I want to do anymore, that I'm working for the wrong reasons, I'm working for the top 2%. And their goals aren't my goals. I want to be much more involved in issues that we're seeing on our news, you know, news feeds, the 10 o'clock news, I want to be tackling some of the big difficulties that are out there that we've got coming to us now, climate change, obviously, being one of the biggest. There are some big issues out there for the world to grapple with. And I felt like I wanted to have much more of a strategic overview and an ability to influence in some way, whether that was small or large, but I wanted to feel my way into that. So I started to curse around for opportunities and direction. What kind of direction did you find? Well, through a kind of series of coincidences, I kind of fell back in touch with a couple of people I'd studied with back in Brighton, who had been already doing work in the humanitarian field. And through their contacts, I met David Sanderson, who was leading send up at the time here at Oxford Brookes. And so I had a chat with him and I just it just felt like what I needed to do was to break out from my job and come and study, you know, full time for a year on an MA and just change my outlook. It didn't have to go anywhere. I just wanted to have the conversations. I wanted to meet the people that were doing these different things, who were looking at the challenges that we're facing and having some solutions to some of them or ways in which to work with communities more thoroughly. And I felt that that aspect of my work was really missing to date. So I did it. I did the MA and I absolutely loved it. It was great to be back at university in your early 40s. And I made such fantastic contacts from my tutors who were all, you know, still practicing in the field and not pure academics. And through them, I was fortunate enough to meet Graham Saunders. He was with the Red Cross in Geneva at IFRC. And I was talking to him about his career path because it looked a little bit like mine, having had quite a commercial architectural background and then a transition into humanitarian and development work. And we hit it off, had similar sense of humor. And he invited me to join his team out in Geneva. And I spent probably three or four months with them over the summer of 2011. And then I went for a few months out to Kuala Lumpur. And a lot of what my thesis was focused on was the sort of issue that Graham had wanted a bit more research done into, which was the sort of regulatory barriers to emergency shelter after disaster. And so this gave me an opportunity to do a bit of research for the IFRC, but also for my own thesis, and to sort of finish off that MA, which was fantastic. I couldn't have had a better start, really. It's brilliant, Michelle. So from architect, you know, you worked as an architect for over a decade, and then you launched your humanitarian career. And you've been very brave. And you've worked in that sector for a long time. But now you have another twist in your life and career. You're not working in the humanitarian sector. No. You're very brave to keep on twisting and turning. I keep turning. So I, yeah, I had 10 years post MA, working for a variety of different entities, actors rather. Starting, obviously, with IFRC, but then I did some consultancy work with MO Hamsa, and Arup International Development. And then I got another break where I really needed to get some fieldwork, and Save the Children provided that opportunity, and rapidly gained experience in several humanitarian crises out in Iraq and South Sudan, going to Ethiopia, looking at school building for DFID. And then I got promoted into a job for, as their Asia Regional Shelter and Construction Advisor. And through that role, had an opportunity to really work strategically across 14 countries in that region. And the reason I'm telling you that to sort of, you know, make the link to what I'm doing now is that I really feel like that job set me up to be able to come home and practice in the public sector here. I really wasn't sure at the time. The decision to leave Asia was really sped up by the pandemic. It started out in Asia, obviously, earlier than anywhere else. Thailand had some of the first cases of COVID. And that's where you were based. And I was based in Bangkok at the time. And I was very worried about my parents. I already had been accepted onto the public practice cohort for the spring. More about this public practice. So public practice is a social enterprise that basically facilitates placemaking professionals into public sector roles. So they really are, you know, really innovative in that they are trying to help local authorities find the resources that they need and people with the experience of designing in all sorts of different capacities. Now, I didn't necessarily fit, you know, a planning role accurately. However, my experience is out in Asia in terms of being able to work cross-culturally, being able to work remotely with virtually no supervision, basically self-starting on a pilot project. I was employed via public practice because they find you a role as part of their one year with them. They will match you to a local authority that has a job they want fulfilling. And Tower Hamlets in the East End of London were looking for someone who could take on a pilot project that was designed to look at what role does the council have in strategically managing and coordinating development post-planning. There are huge amounts of growth and development and therefore construction happening across Tower Hamlets. They have Canary Wharf. They have the city fringe area. There's also a huge amount happening up the east side of the borough, up the Lee Valley. And we also have a parcel of, you know, high development happening where the London Legacy Development Corporation still have jurisdiction over at the moment, but will come back to us. So, that's in the sort of northeast corner of the borough. So, there's a lot of construction and planning for development going on. And our residents and businesses are severely impacted by this. Tower Hamlet is the place where a lot of Bangladeshis lived, isn't it? It is. It's one of the most diverse boroughs in the whole country. It has some of the youngest population in the country. And I think the highest population of under 30. But it's also one of the poorest. And it's, yes, huge inequality, obviously huge wealth around Canary Wharf and the city. Yeah, but huge, you know, terrible poverty in the pockets of the borough. So, there's this inequality across the borough that is a real challenge to kind of address. And of course, when you're kind of dealing with some of the difficulties that construction presents for people, you're really looking at public health impacts, you know, issues of air quality, dust management, logistics, freight management, how many trucks and lorries are coming into our borough and churning out pollution and emissions. How do we corral all of that? How do we make sure that we are managing that as best we can within the remit of what the council is able to do? So, that was really what my task was in joining this London borough. And I'm happy to say that, you know, three years down the line, I'm still there. I'm really enjoying it because it has impact on the ground. And that's important to me. And something that really mattered to me when I was working out in Asia as well in, you know, whether it was in response to disasters, or whether it was more strategic in terms of policy framing. A lot of what I'm doing now is also looking at local plan policy, how's the local plan. So, a local plan is really the plan of how the borough wants to develop. And it's the planning team and the place making team in the planning and building control department that pull that together with community consultation and decide about how different areas of borough will redevelop and regenerate. And it's kind of enshrined in law so that all planning applications are then judged against that plan. So, it's a big bit of policy work and it's interesting to have some input into that in terms of what can we do within the local plan that supports better practice on the operational side of delivering that development. So, that's really what my focus has been. So, you mentioned you do a lot of consultation with communities. How do you do that in London? Because you know, people are busy and it's an urban area, everyone's got their day job. How does it work in Asia or other parts, other countries when you do community consultation? You know, people are affected by disasters, but you still manage to get them together because they need to rebuild. But here it's harder, everyone's busy with their lives. Yeah. But then the similarities are that everybody's got something that they need to be getting on with, whether you're living in a rural village in Nepal or whether you're, you know, living in Tower Hamlets in amongst the Bangladeshi community. You know, everybody has jobs or works and needs to sustain themselves. And so, yeah, you do need to tailor how and when you do these consultations and make sure that it's at times that people are... Give us an example of your consultation meeting. Well, we didn't get a huge amount of engagement from what we were trying to do. And we had set up various different meeting points where we could pull people together in community halls around the borough. We also did online meetings as well because it was still during the pandemic. So this was during 2020, well, 2021, 22. And so, yeah, we had to use a variety of methods and wait until we were able to be more mobile and physically present to be able to meet people face to face. But we did not get a huge amount of engagement from the public on what we were trying to talk about. Much more successful online with some of the webinars that we held and question and answer sessions. So people were much more up for doing that. And I think that possibly... It saves time. Yeah, it saves time. People can do it from home. And so that's where our interaction and engagement happened. We also had, as a council, a platform where the public can engage, where all sorts of things are posted on that platform. And different teams are asking different questions of different members of the community. And you're able to put your feedback in on there and we can track the sort of interaction that happens on that platform. But it feels a bit sort of arm's length, whereas what was happening out with teams post-disaster and a development level was much more hands-on and face to face. And really trying to do things at a village level as well, particularly in Nepal, where you couldn't support everyone, but you were trying to make sure that whatever engineering or architectural resource you were putting in to follow their build back process, you were making that available for the whole village so that everybody could build back in the same way and that there was some oversight over those families that weren't directly being supported monetarily. It's good that you mentioned that comparison between working in cities and working in rural areas. It's harder because in cities you have too many other interests and too many restrictions and business interests. So tell us more about your challenges of working in London. Well, A, it's getting to work there and back alive on a bicycle. That's always quite a challenge. But then I guess it's also kind of having been away for 10 years, getting to know the planning system again. We really have a very sort of strict regulatory environment. And once you've been out for a while, it takes you a while to kind of get to know all of the kind of legalities, what you can and can't do anymore. And actually that was a lot of the focus of the work I was doing with the NGO that I was working for because you end up working in environments where the regulatory frameworks are not working for the sort of space that you're operating within. And so what we were trying to do was actually make sure that we were creating a sort of construction policy, let's say, for this NGO, for all of our offices globally to work to, to make sure that we were accountable when we were delivering any kind of construction or construction support. And eventually we did take that up to the global shelter cluster and they've now adopted that approach as the good construction guidelines. So during our scoping phase, it's the pilot project I worked on, we were, we were looking at what are all of the challenges on the ground, how do the community see this, how do internal teams cope with what's happening on the ground being delivered by developers, by their contractors in London. What are some of the difficulties in being able to follow those processes in a dynamic way because once you've got your planning approval, you are then pretty much, unless you hire the local government building inspector, which you don't have to do because that's all been privatised, then apart from the noise team and maybe the highways licensing team, there are few people that are going to watch what's happening on a day-to-day basis. And so we were just trying to find where all the gaps are and where were the possibilities for us to have a little bit more oversight and be able to start to influence a little bit more in terms of what should be happening on the ground. We wanted to influence the developers and their contractors, so their agents in a sense, some of the behaviours that we were seeing were that they were allowing trucks to idle in the street, park up in residential road areas, those have huge amounts of material piled on the back of them, they present a very real and present threat to local communities and particularly vulnerable pedestrians and cyclists, so we were very concerned about some of these impacts and also health impacts, how is this where we've got one road south of Canary Wharf where there are seven or eight major construction projects all happening at the same time, these projects are all high-rise blocks, so they're over 30 floors each of them and you can imagine that they're all at different stages of development and those residents who are in amongst those building sites are being disturbed from different construction practices all through the day and possibly at weekends, at weekends it happened a lot during the pandemic because central government allowed building sites to catch up with work when they were forced to lock down and that was when we got our highest level of complaints I think we've ever received about that disruption to their lives, so really we were looking for all the gaps, all the opportunities, not just internally but also what can we do on the ground with those external stakeholders, also working with TfL, so sort of external agencies, Transport for London, so really looking to partner with other people who have the same aim in mind. And what do they do, the Transport for London? Well, they're essentially what you travel around on, the tube system, the train system, but they also have all of the major road networks, so the A roads tend to be TfL roads, red routes, the main routes that logistical freight will be coming into and out of London, so yes, it was really what we ended up doing was much like I did for the NGO, was looking at pulling together and updating a code of construction practice, let's say for the borough, where we lay out what we see as best practice, any updated legislation that contractors need to be aware of and also, you know, what we would like to see happening, thinking about things like climate change, things like the loss of biodiversity in our streets in the temporary work stage of development, where a lot of greenery will be ripped out and not replaced until after the occupation stage. So, yeah, we've introduced a requirement to have hoardings to be covered with live maintained greening for, you know, 30% or over of their perimeter meterage. So, what you mean is that they should plant 30% of greenery, trees, in the project, construction project? Yes, and that's possible to put that onto hoardings. There are several products out there these days that allow that to happen. Hoardings are the site perimeter fencing, and it tends to be, you know, chipboard or plywood. So, yeah, we're looking for interventions. So, they are taken off after the construction is complete? Yes. So, at the moment, just to stop the dust and everything, you have some kind of protection? Yeah, it's meant to contribute to the aesthetics of the public realm. So, the street network around people's houses, around where they walk every day. So, trying to make that look better. We understand that it can cut down on noise. It can also improve air quality with all of the plants and flowers that are coming out of the mouth. That's awesome. Yeah. So, just, you know, really casting around for solutions to problems and issues that we find. The other issue we started up was bringing stakeholders together to talk about updates. So, making sure that sites that were working in close proximity to each other all know what they are doing at any one moment. So, every six weeks we convene meetings. We discuss what some of the logistics challenges are. Everybody gets to know what stage of the project they're at. And some of them even, you know, have offline meetings with each other. So, are just meetings back online or back in face-to-face or still online? They're online because they work better. That's more efficient. It's more efficient. And we've had good attendance. So, and we also do walkabouts. So, we'll schedule walkabouts around pockets of high growth and we'll pick out equalities issues such as accessibility, how easy is it for somebody who's partially or visually challenged to get around that site? Anyone with a neurodiverse who may not be able to read the signage that is being put out, which can be confusing, even if you don't have difficulties with reading and seeing color. And accessibility issues, you know, and plus cyclists, more and more, you know, we're trying to encourage active travel and we need to try and maintain that in a temporary condition around building sites as well. So, it's focusing on all of that, trying to improve the, you know, the feel of the public realm, the usability of it whilst construction goes on. Speaking of cycle, you cycle to work every day, isn't it? Yes, I do. So, how did that happen and how do you manage to go through the crazy traffic of London to go to work and how long it takes to go there? It takes me 40 minutes from where I work to cycle to work, but I've just got a new bike and it took about five to, no, between five and nine minutes less. I actually quite enjoy cycling around London, I love it. Even before, you know, it improved with the cycle infrastructure we've got now, I always found I quite like the physicality of it. I don't mind, I can be quite bullish on my bicycle, but I actually really like getting from A to B and having exercise as part of my schedule. So, 40 minutes and 40 minutes coming home, so you cycle for nearly two hours every day? Well, yeah, an hour and a half, roughly. Yeah, that's brilliant. Yeah, that's good. That's why Michelle always stays young. Long may it continue. So, Michelle, tell me how you feel, what does it feel like to work in your own home and you've done international development? It's been good, actually. I was worried when I came back because I really enjoy being in different environments a lot. It's an adventurous experience. It is and I just love the excitement of being somewhere new, meeting new colleagues, working with different teams and, you know, the cultural diversity I was exposed to was just amazing. I really learnt a lot from those days and I was worried that when I got back, particularly with the political environment back here right now, and I won't open the can of worms that is UK politics, but it had a bearing on, you know, my worries about coming home. However, I think that the change has been great. I think public practice really helped because they made that transition to public sector work much easier. I don't think I would have got an interview had I just cold called, you know, or sent my CV in directly to a council. I don't think they would have seen, you know, the transferability of what I'd been doing out in the work in the field, you know, for humanitarian work to how I could apply it to what I'm doing now. But to me it seems really obvious and I'm bringing a lot of that learning to my job now. I also like the fact that, you know, the agenda now here is very much focused on net zero. We've had, you know, our council, Tower Hamlets Council, announced, you know, a net zero climate emergency, let's say, in 2019. They have set very ambitious targets to meet various things by 2025, which, you know, I think is going to be difficult. Yeah, that's probably not necessarily going to happen by then. But it's a real and present issue and, you know, flooding in London and also the urban heat island effect that London has and the 40 degree summers that are now, you know, two years in a row now, which is crazy. And we are, we're a borough that has a long boundary along the River Thames and all the way up the Lee River as well. So we have, you know, quite some exposures of, you know, the potential of quite harmful flooding. And it's something that's being written into policy now as well. So, yeah, the opportunity to work on how does London cope with disasters because, yes, this is going to be something that is going to be happening much more frequently. In fact, just as they'd finished the Elizabeth Line in Whitechapel, there was that really heavy storm that flooded the tunnel system. So Elizabeth Line is the new line. Yeah, it's a brilliant line. But yes, it got flooded very early on. So, and there's also the big sewer system that is being run through at the moment, which comes through Tower Hamlets as well on the riverside. So there are these kind of really challenging issues. Urban risks. And I saw, you know, firsthand how Asia is coping with a lot more of this on a daily basis and already kind of having solutions and much more community-led solutions to some of this. And we really aren't at that stage here yet. And I really do think it's the way that we do need to go. So that's partly why I've come back is there's plenty to do here. And I want to be part of that kind of enabling, let's say, and part of the story of how we turn around our economy to be more circular. So since August last year... Tell us more what is a circular economy? Yeah. In this case, in terms of London. In terms of London, well, in terms of what I'm doing, it's focused on the built environment, but it's really trying to stop, you know, the use of virgin material in every new development and really making sure that when we are looking at development across London, it is considering whether the buildings that are already present, because, you know, London does not have a lot of green space. A lot of the development coming forward in the next 10 to 15 years is on what we call brownfield sites. So that means, you know, there are already buildings and assets on those bits of land and they either need to be taken down or they're reused. And the conversation really has to be about retrofitting first. And then also, how do you then transition to that kind of circular system? And the reason it's encouraged to retrofit is that then it will reduce the carbon footprint. It's exactly right. Really seeing buildings as material banks. So really... They're capturing carbon already. Buildings already have a huge amount of carbon embedded within them. And so the idea behind the circularity issue is really trying to make sure that that embodied carbon is kept circulating within the building system for as long as possible. So it starts with design. Designing buildings that can be deconstructed easily or that can be adapted easily to new uses in the future. But then, you know, when you're dealing with more existing structures, then they should be able to be taken down carefully, surveyed beforehand. Those materials mapped may be given passports. They're talking about material passporting. So being able to track those materials and recertify them so that you can use them again confidently without risk. And being able to store them potentially somewhere if there isn't already a recipient site lined up to receive them. So there is a little bit of a transition that timing-wise you need to kind of think about. So I did a little bit of a research project last year with a systems analysis. And we had sort of set the task of what can the council do about this? Where is our role in supporting a change in the built environment in our borough but across London generally? And so we came up with sort of five areas that we think that we could influence. And we really started by understanding what can and can't the council do? What do we have in our direct control? And really as a sort of planning and building control directorate, it's really changing the conversations at the beginning of developers coming up with the ideas for new development. It's at that point that we need to see and the Mayor of London has introduced circular economy statements which are supposed to analyse whether a retrofit is possible and how much of the existing material can be reused and where that material will go, how will it be reused or will it be taken to recycling or storage points. And then also pre-demolition audits are a really key part of it to understand what is coming forward to be able to advertise that material. And also planning teams have a huge amount of work on their plates right now. They also need to sort of change these conversations and up skills. So there is a learning path as well for everybody to understand what the circular economy means and how we can influence it going forward. So I think all of the influence the council has in terms of changing the direction is at early planning stage. Once it's gone to site, that's kind of too late. You need to be having those conversations early. Other areas were we convene lots of different stakeholders as a council. We are able to facilitate meetings across all sorts of stakeholder groups. We have access to different communities in different parts of the borough. So we have the ability to connect people up. So there is a sort of germ of an idea around creating a knowledge hub for circularity. Mapping also what's happening already in the council which projects are already addressing it. We do have some around textile, small electronics and composting. Pilots with high-rise residential buildings. And then looking at what that would mean for more heavy materials as well. So building materials, what's coming off site, how to reuse waste or use it as a material for more building. Also just understanding a little bit more around modern methods of construction. When you look around the city, everyone is building with a lot of off-site manufacture. So what you're not getting as much these days are bricklayers on site. The employment... The thing is made in the factory. Exactly. It's all made off site. Yes, exactly. It's all made off site. And so the employment is happening elsewhere in the country or maybe on the continent. So boroughs or councils are losing employment opportunities for their residents. So we've got to think about that. And how do we make sure that access to construction employment is retained but also facilitate faster, more efficient and less wasteful building methodologies. So there's quite a few areas where we could start to have active intervention and then just help connect people up. The other major one obviously being what I touched on just now which was material storage and material advertising. So we could already look at what we as a council deliver in terms of regeneration projects and whether there are opportunities for us to already advertise the material that we know will come forward and how that could be reused in other retrofit or refurbishment projects that we're doing around the borough. So yes, there's lots of opportunities there and it's fascinating and it's such a big change that's happening across London in thinking of this. And I'm really lucky I'm part of some cross-borough working groups and I meet other boroughs. And we share how we're doing it. We're all trying to understand where the little pockets of what we can grasp onto that's working, what's not worth going down the road of. It's been really interesting in that sense. This is amazing. I think we can have a special series about net zero construction and especially when you work in disasters the typical post-disaster it's all about reconstruction but here, climate change and everything we are thinking about all the reuse recycle and we have seen the first-hand example from your experience so it's really amazing. So you did cover a lot about your sustainability of your work so how do you sustain yourself apart from cycling? How do you manage your own frustrations or maybe you don't get frustrated you sound very excited what's your own inner resilience or Mars mantra? Yes, I am guilty of pushing myself very hard and we were talking at lunch weren't we about how architecture does that to you you are sort of a perfectionist you kind of don't stop till you think you've got it sorted and I have to say it was very hard during the 10 years of working in humanitarian and development work not to go over the top and I didn't look after myself very well I would say I think I've had much more opportunity since coming back to the UK with having to travel I have managed to I'm a very outdoors person so as you say I love cycling I hike as much as I can and it's the balance I've got more life balance and I think that's made a major change to my life is now not having to work late nights not being on call 24-7 for what could potentially be happening out in the Pacific another earthquake that stress level was really quite difficult to handle and I'm not sure I ever got a proper handle on it but I just managed to keep going so I think that probably coming home was a necessity for me at the stage I'm at in my life I felt like I needed more space to pursue other things that I wanted to do and I think those are definitely outdoors definitely about fresh air and definitely about wherever possible seeing friends and family so yes that's kind of been what has really made me excited to be back really so in one sentence what is your Mars mantra? goodness one sentence ok you can do two well I think staying relevant is really important whatever stage of your career you're at if social impact matters to you find those things that you're really interested in and get involved in finding solutions to the global challenges that we're facing there are huge opportunities to come up with innovative solutions to climate change and I think also the big one for me is never be afraid to change your career direction because even though I had committed myself to for the 16 years of architecture I've made a change into the humanitarian and development sector and it was the best thing I could have done and I've gained a huge amount from that but also coming back and working in the public sector I think was probably returning home in a sense that I've realised I've put it together that on my father's side my whole family have been public servants and so it feels like I've found where I needed to be and I think don't be afraid to keep changing it's never too late yes because Michelle Young is forever young thank you Michelle for coming today and I hope you stay forever young and inspire all of us thank you so much for having me it's been a pleasure
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