YourNews: Leonard Design mentors future architecture stars

LEADING Nottingham-headquartered architects Leonard Design has offered its support and guidance to three Nottingham Trent University students to give them a real taste of what it is like to work in the world of architecture.

Director at Leonard Design, John Morgan, is giving a year of mentoring sessions to Kehinde Pereira, 21, Amara Golfa, 23, and Rishi Mistry, 20, from Nottingham Trent Universty who have all been selected by the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) as part of its mentoring programme.

Kehinde, Amara and Rishi are all currently in the third year of their architecture degrees at NTU and said they are delighted to be meeting with John on a regular basis to draw upon his expertise and experience.

Kehinde said: “I’ve had a passionate interest in buildings from a very young age, so I always knew that I wanted to study architecture and one day become an architect. Architecture is the highest point of design and, although our course can be stressful and is a long degree at seven years in total, we learn something new every day and are challenged to think in different ways all the time.

“It is brilliant that John and the team at Leonard are offering us the chance to learn from the projects they are working on at the moment and to draw upon their worldwide expertise during the tutoring sessions – I really enjoyed the first session and I’m looking forward to meeting with him throughout the year.”

Amara added: “Leonard Design really appealed to me as a firm to be tutored by because they specialise in designing large commercial buildings as well as residential buildings, whereas a lot of other firms are just specialists in one area.

“John is so passionate about his profession and it is really inspiring to sit and talk to him about ideas and projects.”

Rishi said he was keen to learn as much as possible from Leonard Design as the fourth year of an architecture course at university is usually taken as a placement year and he, Kehinde and Amara would all be thrilled to do their placements at Leonard.

He said: “We’re all looking ahead to next year now and considering where we could do our placement year, so getting to know John and the team this year is a real benefit. I’d be delighted to be offered a placement at Leonard Design as it is such an ambitious and inventive firm – we’ve seen that from just one visit to the office so far.”

John added that he was pleased to be mentoring Kehinde, Amara and Rishi and looked forward to seeing what they achieved together through the partnership.

He said: “At Leonard we are firm believers in nurturing local talent. Nottingham is home to two fantastic universities with outstanding architecture courses and we like to give as much opportunity as possible to bright young designers in our city.

“Kehinde, Amara and Rishi show lots of promise and we are all excited about what the next year holds.”