Chris Hildrey
Christopher Hildrey is a British architect and designer based in London.[1] He founded Hildrey Studio and created ProxyAddress, a service that provides people experiencing homelessness with stable address details to help them access essential support and services such as healthcare, banking, libraries, and welfare.[2][3]
Hildrey received the Royal Institute of British Architects President's Medal for Research in 2018 for ProxyAddress.[4] The project was included in the Design Museum's Beazley Designs of the Year 2019 exhibition, Time magazine's Best Inventions of 2021, and The Guardian’s best designs of 2022.[5]
Education and early career
[edit]Hildrey is from Crosby, near Liverpool. He studied at the University of Edinburgh and later at the Bartlett School of Architecture at University College London, graduating from the Bartlett's Architecture MArch programme in 2009 and its Postgraduate Advanced Architectural Research programme in 2012. He subsequently qualified as an architect through the University of Westminster.[6][7]
His postgraduate research examined the causes of unpaid overtime and the economics of architectural practice.[8] In articles for the Architects' Journal in 2013 and the RIBA Journal in 2019, he argued that reliance on unpaid overtime reflected systemic challenges in the profession's business model and highlighted opportunities for architects to diversify the ways in which their skills are applied.[8][9]
Before establishing his own practice, he worked at Foster + Partners, the Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA), Zaha Hadid Architects and Níall McLaughlin Architects.[7][10] At the latter, he was project architect for the redesign of the grounds of the Natural History Museum in London.[11]
Architectural practice
[edit]Hildrey founded Hildrey Studio in 2018.[7] That year, the practice co-produced Space Gap, a pavilion outside Kensington Olympia that hosted discussions about housing, vacant property and rough sleeping.[12][7]
ProxyAddress
[edit]Hildrey began developing ProxyAddress in 2017 while a Designer in Residence at the Design Museum[13], London. His research into barriers faced by people experiencing homelessness led him from an initial proposal for physical postboxes towards a system based on address data.[10]
The service uses addresses supplied with property owners’ consent to provide users with consistent administrative details while they experience housing instability.[14] It participated in the Financial Conduct Authority’s regulatory sandbox to test access to bank accounts for people without a fixed address.[15]
In 2023, Inside Housing reported that 47 of the 49 participants in a Lewisham Council pilot had moved into stable accommodation within six months. The council’s rough sleeping co-ordinator, Louis Colley, told the publication that the service had accelerated processes including opening bank accounts and obtaining benefits and identification.[14]
The Design Council’s 2022 Design Value Framework included ProxyAddress as a case study, citing partnerships with Barclays and Monzo as helping improve financial inclusion, and with Ordnance Survey and HM Land Registry as helping to harness address data to create social impact. It also reported on ProxyAddress's impact on financial-inclusion practices internationally and the development of related interventions in France and Ireland.[16]
In a 2023 interview with Wallpaper*, Hildrey described ProxyAddress as a broadening of architectural practice through the design of systems rather than physical objects.[17]
Writing, teaching and advisory work
[edit]Hildrey contributed the chapter "Design for Homelessness" to Architects After Architecture: Alternative Pathways for Practice, published by Routledge in 2020.[18]
He is a professional examiner at the Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London,[19] an associate lecturer in the Department of Design at Goldsmiths, University of London, and a trustee of the Museum of Architecture.[3][20] He has also been a visiting critic at the Architectural Association School of Architecture.[21]
In 2024, he was named a Design Council Expert and an industry champion at the Creative Industries Policy and Evidence Centre (Creative PEC).[22][5] The networks provide specialist advice and professional insight to inform design and creative-industries policy.[22][23]
He is also a member of the Glorious 42 (G42), an expert board established in 2025 by the Bureau of European Design Associations as part of its MADres programme to support design-led innovation and sustainable transformation across Europe.[24][25]
Awards and exhibitions
[edit]Hildrey was named among the RIBA Journal’s Rising Stars in 2018 and shortlisted for the Arts Foundation's 2019 Experimental Architecture award.[7][11] ProxyAddress received a Wood Pencil in the Humanitarian Aid category at the 2018 D&AD Impact Awards.[26][27]
In November 2018, ProxyAddress was exhibited at the Architectural Association as part of a presentation of the four practices shortlisted for the Arts Foundation's 2019 Experimental Architecture award.[28]
ProxyAddress was exhibited in the architecture category of Beazley Designs of the Year 2019, the Design Museum's annual exhibition and awards programme showcasing design from the preceding year.[2][29] It was subsequently included in Time’s Best Inventions of 2021.[30] Camille Walala selected it for The Guardian’s best designs of 2022.[31]
In February 2022, Hildrey was a speaker at The World Around Summit at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York.[32] His work is held in the permanent collections of the Victoria and Albert Museum and the Design Museum.[3]
In 2023 he received the Freedom of the City of London.[33]
References
[edit]- ↑ "Christopher Hildrey". MADres. Retrieved 23 September 2026.
- 1 2 "ProxyAddress". Design Museum. Retrieved 23 September 2026.
- 1 2 3 "Chris Hildrey". Design Council. Retrieved 23 September 2026.
- ↑ "Project to Reconnect Homeless with Support Services Wins 2018 RIBA Research Medal". ArchDaily. Retrieved 23 September 2026.
- 1 2 "Chris Hildrey". Creative Industries Policy and Evidence Centre. Retrieved 23 September 2026.
- ↑ "Alumni Interviews". The Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London. Retrieved 23 September 2026.
- 1 2 3 4 5 Priest, Isabelle (31 October 2018). "Chris Hildrey". RIBA Journal. Retrieved 23 September 2026.
- 1 2 Hildrey, Chris (25 October 2013). "Best practice: Unpaid overtime shows up architectural practice as a deficient business model". Architects' Journal. p. 48. Retrieved 23 September 2026.
- ↑ Hildrey, Chris (29 May 2019). "Start-up mindset can revitalise architecture says Rising Star". RIBA Journal. Retrieved 23 September 2026.
- 1 2 Manthorpe, Rowland (14 March 2018). "The radical plan to give every homeless person an address". Wired. Retrieved 23 September 2026.
- 1 2 "Chris Hildrey". Arts Foundation. Retrieved 23 September 2026.
- ↑ "Space Gap pavilion at LDF 2018 explores the housing crisis in London". Designboom. 12 October 2018. Retrieved 23 September 2026.
- ↑ "Designers in Residence 2017". Design Museum. Retrieved 23 September 2026.
- 1 2 Fearn, Hannah (15 August 2023). "The unexpected power of a postal address". Inside Housing. Retrieved 23 September 2026.
- ↑ "Regulatory Sandbox accepted firms". Financial Conduct Authority. Retrieved 23 September 2026.
- ↑ Design Council (2022). The Design Value Framework (PDF) (Report). p. 31. Retrieved 23 September 2026.
- ↑ Stathaki, Ellie (14 January 2023). "Is ProxyAddress architecture's answer to solving homelessness?". Wallpaper*. Retrieved 23 September 2026.
- ↑ "Architects After Architecture: Alternative Pathways for Practice". Architects After Architecture. Retrieved 23 September 2026.
- ↑ "About the Studio". Hildrey Studio. Retrieved 23 September 2026.
- ↑ "About". Museum of Architecture. Retrieved 23 September 2026.
- ↑ "With critics including Amanda Sharp, Edwin Heathcote, Chris Hildrey, Alan Jones, Ana Botella, Jim Eyre, Andrea Lissoni and Eva Jiricna". Architectural Association School of Architecture.
- 1 2 "Design Council reveals new Expert Network, in support of accelerating green design across the UK" (PDF) (Press release). Design Council. 4 June 2024. Retrieved 23 September 2026.
- ↑ "Industry Champions". Creative Industries Policy and Evidence Centre. Retrieved 23 September 2026.
- ↑ "Meet our Glorious 42". MADres. Retrieved 23 September 2026.
- ↑ Glorious 42 Expert Group (PDF) (Report). Bureau of European Design Associations. 30 November 2025. pp. 1, 22. Deliverable D2.1. Retrieved 23 September 2026.
- ↑ "Third Annual D&AD Impact Awards Winners Announced". Little Black Book. 3 October 2018. Retrieved 23 September 2026.
- ↑ "Siete campañas latinas destacaron en los Impact Awards". Adlatina (in Spanish). Retrieved 23 September 2026.
- ↑ "Ways of Seeing: Experimental Architecture and the Arts Foundation Award Shortlist". Architectural Association School of Architecture. 1 November 2018. Retrieved 23 September 2026.
- ↑ Zak Group. "Beazley Designs of the Year". Core77. Retrieved 23 September 2026.
- ↑ "ProxyAddress: The 100 Best Inventions of 2021". Time. 10 November 2021. Retrieved 23 September 2026.
- ↑ "Best designs of 2022: 'This work is a beacon of hope'". The Guardian. 15 December 2022. Retrieved 23 September 2026.
- ↑ "Summit 2022". The World Around. Retrieved 23 September 2026.
- ↑ "Minutes of the Court of Aldermen, 18 October 2022: Applications for Freedom". Court of Aldermen: public reports pack, 2 November 2022 (PDF) (Report). City of London Corporation. 2 November 2022. pp. 5, 8. Retrieved 23 September 2026.