10 women in architecture to watch in 2014

Zaha Hadid is indisputably the most famous female architect working in Britain today. In 2004, she was the first woman to receive the Pritzker Architecture Prize for a pavilion she built in Zaragoza, Spain. She also won the Stirling Prize in 2010 and 2011. She has designed the Riverside Museum in Glasgow (above), the Guangzhou opera house, the aquatics centre for the London Olympics, and Maggie’s Cancer Centre in Kircaldy – amongst many, many other great buildings across the globe. She is currently working on a building that will be the centrepiece of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
Photograph: Murdo MacLeod/Murdo MacLeod

Amanda Levete won the Stirling Architecture Prize in 1999 for the media centre at Lords cricket ground. She is currently working on the expansion of the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, a 1.5m square foot luxury shopping mall and hotel in Bangkok, a culture centre in Lisbon, a media campus for Sky and a Maggie’s Cancer Centre in Southampton.
Photograph: Amanda Levete architects

Angela Brady is a director of the sustainable design specialists Brady Mallalieu Architects. Her practice has designed houses, schools, and medical centres across the UK. She has won the Irish Post/AIB Bank Award for personal achievement in architecture, the lifetime achievement award from Women In Construction in 2012 and the WISE women of outstanding achievement for leadership and inspiration in 2013. She is the immediate past president of RIBA and campaigns for better urban design.
Photograph: /Brady Mallalieu Architects

Nathalie Rozencwajg is a director of Rare, a young architecture practice based in London and Paris. Rozencwajg has been highly commended in the architecture world for her conservation, refurbishment and retrofit projects in London and Paris. Rare has made a name for itself with its luxury hotel designs. Their work in turning Bethnal Green Town Hall in London’s east end into a five star hotel won numerous awards.
Photograph: Sue Barr/Rare architects

Sarah Wigglesworth is renowned for her high quality, life-enhancing public buildings. Her practice has a strong reputation for building low cost schools, community centres and affordable housing. She eschews the vast expanses of concrete and glass that comprise much of contemporary architecture and aims instead to leave a lighter environmental footprint. She often uses wood, straw bales and recycled materials within her designs. Her best-known building is the Siobhan Davies Dance Studios in Southwark, South London (above).
Photograph: Richard Bryant/ARCAID

Cindy Walters and Michal Cohen founded Walters & Cohen in 1994. The practice has completed projects for Kew Gardens, the Bank of England and the Horniman Museum. They have designed 50 schools across the UK including the Regent High School (above) which will soon be completed. Her next aim is to break into designing for higher education establishments. Photograph: Digital Studio 24/Walters & Cohen

Alison Brooks set up her practice in 1996. Alison Brooks Architects is the only UK practice to have won the RIBA’s three most prestigious awards for architecture – the Stirling Prize for a residential block in Cambridge made from brass, the Manser Medal for another residential project, the Salt House in Essex, and the Stephen Lawrence Prize for the Wrap House in Chiswick. In 2012, Alison Brooks won both Housing Architect of the Year and the Architect of the Year Gold Award.
Photograph: Alison Brooks architects Photograph: /Alison Brooks architects

The Architects' Journal named Hannah Lawson the emerging architect of the year in 2012. Lawson joined John McAslan + Partners in 2001 and was made a director in 2005. Her most prominent building in the UK to date is the Oasis Academy Hadley in Enfield, north London.
Photograph: John McAslan + Partners/Hufton + Crow Photograph: /John McAslan + Partners/Hufton + Crow

Eva Jiricna architects designed the Zlin Cultural Centre, in the Czech Republic, the orangery in Prague castle, countless hotels and residential properties across London and even the Canada Water bus station. Photograph: Richard Davies/Eva Jiricna Architects Photograph: /Eva Jiricna Architects

Deborah Saunt founded the award-winning architectural studio DSDHA in 1998. She has designed the Moller Centre at Churchill College in Cambridge, Waterloo City Square, the delightfully titled Tickle Cock Bridge, as well as countless other schools, private residences, and commercial buildings, most recently a flagship store on South Moulton Street. Photograph: Hélène Binet/DSDHA