Adoorable Ben

One of my colleagues ventured down the Mall last week to attend the launch of the Distinctively Local housing report taking place at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, co-authored by architects HTA Design, Pollard Thomas Edwards, PRP and Proctor & Matthews. On reaching the venue entrance, he found the front door firmly locked but luckily assistance was at hand in the form of a certain Ben Derbyshire, RIBA president, who was decked out in a luminous jacket and cycling clips with a folded-up bicycle at his side. “I’m being the doorman,” Derbyshire helpfully told our perplexed hack. “The entrance is round the corner.” Due to retire from RIBA later this year, he can always get a part-time gig at the nearby Waldorf Astoria, currently being built in the old Admiralty Arch.

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