Peter Barber at the RSA's 2025 Metzstein Discourse

As Scotland faces a housing emergency, Peter Barber’s approach to architecture offers a powerful model for delivering homes that support people and places, without breaking the bank. Our Chief Executive Jim MacDonald reflects on Barber’s recent lecture at the 2025 RSA Izi Metzstein Discourse in Edinburgh.

The power of design to improve people’s lives is at the heart of what we do, so we were delighted to sponsor this year’s RSA Izi Metzstein Discourse, delivered by Peter Barber at the Edinburgh Futures Institute.

Barber is part architect, part social activist, and all heart. The key message from the lecture was that we could end homelessness if we wanted to. Through image and examples of his projects in London, Barber explained exactly how that can happen while also creating places filled with joy and energy.

Something of a contradiction, Barber is at once traditional and progressive. His designs embrace tried-and-tested typologies (the tenement, the townhouse, the back-to-back) while his values are humane, collective, caring and generous. He delights in the challenge of maximising the potential of every site, not for profit – although he was at pains to stress that profits are made and budgets are kept to – but for the community that he aspires to enable through his work. The street is central to this, and the more intensely used the better. 

As Scotland faces a housing emergency, we can draw inspiration from Barber’s approach, striving to create conditions that enable others to follow in his footsteps. Many practices in Scotland share this ambition and creativity, yet opportunities to realise their vision remain the exception rather than rule. Changing this requires increased delivery of better quality housing in places that support people’s lives and foster a sense of community, while remaining affordable.

Barber’s work and words embody this vision. At Architecture and Design Scotland, we are committed to creating opportunities for those who seek to follow his example, and we look forward to supporting more conversations that inspire the future of Scotland's build environment. I hope the rest of the audience left as inspired as we did.

The Metzstein Discourse,  inaugurated in 2014, is named after Professor Isi Metzstein OBE RSA, a hugely respected architect and teacher who worked at Mackintosh School of Architecture and the University of Edinburgh.

Peter Barber RA OBE is an award-winning London based architecture who, with an office of five people, has built nearly 50 projects, including social housing and projects which directly address issues of homelessness.