Stephen Bates

This conversation was first published for OPEN Architecture Festival, Issue Five (2025): In the Eyes of the Ordinary.

In conversation with Ida Bjerga & Alexander Skovgaard Bagger Hadi
Written by Alexander Skovgaard Bagger Hadi

Estimated reading time: 14 minutes.

”When you put yourself in the eyes of someone else, empathy naturally follows. Empathy, in my opinion, is essential to the role of an architect. Our work is an exploration, a constant investigation, and deeply personal. It addresses themes we care about, but it also requires seeing the world from other people’s positions, slipping into their shoes as we create. We have an amazing job as architects. It is incredible what we can do and what we are allowed to do. It is a privilege to serve others, while also serving ourselves through an artistic investigation that hopes to increase well-being and consciousness. What a gift, not to dictate, but to raise awareness of anyone and their place in the world.
To me, it is all connected to an interest in the ordinary.”

The ordinary is what we see, what we experience every day but often overlook, dismissing it as secular or insigniﬁcant, like a drop in the ocean. In our fast-paced lives ﬁlled with work, friends, and school, we forget to see the beauty in the everyday, striving instead for the extraordinary.

When I’m asked what ”the ordinary” is, I think back to the ﬁrst time I watched Perfect Days by Wim Wenders. I remember thinking this must be what it means to embrace the ordinary. The protagonist, Hirayama, works as a toilet cleaner in Tokyo. At ﬁrst glance, it seems trivial. His colleague Takashi even asks why he cares so much about his job. But Hirayama ﬁnds beauty in the everyday: glancing up at tree branches, noticing shadows reﬂected on buildings. These small, quiet moments, the ones we usually overlook are what make his days “perfect.” I sometimes think back to a conversation I had earlier this year with Jonathan Foote, a professor at Aarhus School of Architecture. It wasn’t about the ordinary directly, but during a discussion on architectural history, he said something that stuck with me. When we’re on the move — biking to school, taking the train or the bus — we tend to put on blinders: headphones in, book open, eyes on a screen. We stop noticing the small things, the sounds, the smells, even how a bus manages to turn without braking.

At ﬁrst glance, Stephen Bates’ work might not seem astonishing but that’s the point. His practice, Sergison Bates architects, which he co-founded with Jonathan Sergison, is rooted in a sensitivity to the overlooked: how a material feels and speaks to us, the value of locality and heritage, and how we inhabit space. Bates doesn’t chase spectacle. Instead, he pays attention to the kinds of architecture that quietly shape our lives. This awareness of the overlooked deﬁnes much of Sergison Bates’ work. Since the beginning, their focus has been on the seemingly unremarkable, the everyday spaces that frame how we live. Rather than pursuing novelty, they raise our awareness of what’s already there: the atmosphere of a room, the way a handle sits on a door, the weight of housing as social infrastructure. Bates sees architecture as both a personal investigation and a public responsibility, a discipline rooted in empathy and in seeing the world from someone else’s point of view. That’s what made me curious to speak with him and find out what does the ordinary mean to him?

THE ORDINARY IN EVERYDAY LIFE

“We were interested in the ordinary elements of the city, lots of things to work on and work with.” Bates begins by highlighting how broad the term ordinary really is. For him, it evokes nostalgia, a memory of a time when there was a bigger conversation around the everyday, a shared interest in what was right in front of us: “Seeing opportunities in making spaces and connecting to the atmosphere of what was already there.” This heightened awareness of the simple actions and interactions that shape our environment, our city, or just a room is the foundation of Sergison Bates’ practice. Early in their career, they began adjusting small things people took for granted, like raising a door handle. Bates ﬁrst did this at home: with small children around, he raised the handle by exactly 1,127 mm, just high enough so they couldn’t reach it. As a result, everyone else had to lift their hand slightly higher, a subtle but impactful shift. Historically, door handle heights have varied, and Bates reﬂects on how Modernism established a wave of standardisations – some quite arbitrary: ”It was taken as a given that a door handle should be set at a certain height, when historically that was never the case. So, this interest in the ordinary is a bit nostalgic, but it’s a sort of bedrock.”

He circles back to the name of the festival, In The Eyes Of The Ordinary, which he ﬁnds compelling. To him, it implies constant empathy, something deeply personal. His work is shaped by the need to see the world through others’ eyes – a privilege and responsibility: “As architects, we have an amazing job, don’t we? It’s incredible what we can do. That we’re allowed to do this. It’s a privilege to serve others and develop our work through artistic investigation.” It’s not just about designing spaces; it’s about fostering well-being. For Bates, this is inseparable from his interest in the ordinary.

(SOCIAL) HOUSING AS THE ORDINARY

This deep interest in the ordinary explains why Sergison Bates have worked so extensively in social housing. Bates recalls the early days of their career in post-Thatcherite London, when the social housing sector had been decimated. At the time they were working in parts of East London that were considered banal, while some of their peers were designing museums and jetting off to more glamorous commissions. The 1950s and ’60s were marked by progressive efforts in public housing, not just in the UK. Bates recalls how, in the 1940s, Peter Smithson joined the architecture department of the London County Council. That was what it meant to be a good architect, not chasing fame: “We were interested in social housing, which we saw as the glue that holds a city together.” He speaks about the typology itself, its repetition, its sameness as something valuable. It provides a backdrop to the more expressive buildings that punctuate the urban fabric. In recent years, he feels we’ve lost sight of this. Cities now aim to be ﬁlled with self-conscious buildings, many of which simply don’t hold interest after a few visits. Bates and his team wanted to challenge that: “We were interested in the ordinary components of the city, lots of things to work on and with.”

This led to our next question: do we need to rethink domestic space and housing design to respond to the changing demographics and new ways of life in an increasingly diverse society? For Bates, this is a vital question. He has always challenged conventional housing models. His newest book, Tent Poles in the Ground, reﬂects on cultural and societal shifts particularly changing household structures: “Housing doesn’t seem to be responding to the shift in diversity and opportunity and options for living.” He argues this is largely due to the commodification of housing as a tradable asset. Developers market the same standardised models because they know it will sell. And while he understands their logic, he’s critical of the system: “I think it’s frightful that planning authorities think it’s okay, and unacceptable that architects just sit back and do what developers want. You’re not always in the driver’s seat but you should be looking for shifts.”

Citing that more people in Europe now live alone than in family homes, Bates argues against cramming identical studio ﬂats into buildings. Instead, he sees potential in cross-generational and collective living solutions that are widespread in some cultures, but generally disregarded or neglected in most Western countries: “I’m not saying we should all live that way but, as architects, we should be working on providing a broader range of living options.” He applauds housing competitions in northern Europe that require a percentage of collective dwellings alongside standard apartments. He recalls a 2001 project designed in response to a competition, Innovation in Housing, that aimed to accommodate culturally diverse residents in East London. Looking back, he sees young architects today asking the same questions he did two decades ago.

UNDERSTAND ORIGINS

When asked what makes a good architect today, Bates begins by stressing the importance of understanding origins and questioning assumed truths. He believes today’s students receive a broader education than his generation did, but warns against accepting conventions acritically: “I say to young architects: understand origins. Don’t take things as truths. With Modernist education, you’re probably getting a broader view than we did — but still, question where things came from. In 16 years as Professor of Urbanism and Housing at TU Munich, Bates has used teaching as a platform to explore all aspects of housing in depth. He believes buildings should be conceived as an infrastructure of flexible rooms that are not designed for specific uses.

The goal? Resilience: “I’ve been fostering that skill set, to make speciﬁc projects that are tied to place, but resilient enough to live well beyond their ﬁrst and second use.” Going back to Modernism, which, to succeed, had to create its own set of “truths” and codify them into laws, into culture, the question becomes: Where did it all start? He gestures to the table on our video call: “A stupid one, because it’s sitting in front of me. Why is a table ﬁxed in space? Because originally, it wasn’t. The ﬁrst tables were supported on trestles, stored against the wall and brought out when needed. Rooms changed by day, night, and season. And now? We live in static domestic interiors. Why is that?”

These questions matter. Bates sees the present shaped by the climate crisis and rapid change, as a time for architects to think radically differently. In the past, there were certainties: you designed a joint, deﬁned proportions, chose a material. Now every decision is layered with environmental, legal and ethical considerations. “So, as a new architect, you must think differently. And it’s not easy. How do you make architecture? And what is architecture?” In a world where reuse and sustainability have become buzzwords, Bates cautions against the temptation to romanticise. Reuse isn’t inherently good, it’s not ethical by default: “If you reuse something, it can still be… well, not very good. It might not help the city or the world at all.” Critical thinking is essential. So is empathy. “I don’t see much empathy in current architecture, but I see it increasingly in the younger generation. That’s hopeful.”

He acknowledges that older architects still have inﬂuence, particularly in the climate debate. But he’s not prescriptive. He doesn’t tell people what they should ﬁnd important: “I’m not evangelical. Everyone has to ﬁgure out what they think matters.” And that’s part of the beauty of architecture for him, that you deﬁne what kind of architect you want to be. It’s not a given. It requires thought, experimentation, and, as he puts it, bloody hard work: “That’s why I feel so privileged to be an architect. I’m learning about my place in the world and my contribution to it while earning a living and serving people. It’s a beautiful, holistic act. But it’s bloody hard.” Looking ahead, Bates is realistic. He doesn’t believe practices like Sergison Bates that design, build, and hand over keys will exist in the same way in the future: “We’ll just be seen as a design ofﬁce. Because at some point, AI will be generating perfect, coordinated construction drawings within a BIM model. That will be the reality. So… how do we make meaningful work in that reality?”

MATERIALS AND CONTRACTORS

This brings us to the subject of materiality, something deeply important to Bates. He’s frustrated by how slow the construction industry is to change: “Builders love to build what they know — and hate to build what they don’t. It’s partly laziness, but mostly it’s a risk. It makes prices go up, so they avoid it.” He shares a story from KANAL, the contemporary arts complex they are working on in Brussels, reusing a 1930s building. Despite the fact the project was won on the premise of reuse, the contractor kept trying to convince the client to replace , rather than preserve elements of the building: “They said: ‘We could just throw out the old glazing sections and build new ones that look exactly the same. It would be so much faster and cheaper.” The contractor was in denial about the project’s intent: to touch lightly, to preserve as much as possible. In another Brussels project at Tour & Taxis, the team faced similar pressures. Yet for Bates, materials have always been central. Their studio’s heart is the material library, the space where they gather and pin up ideas: “We’ve always been interested in how materials contribute to form, to presence, to meaning.” Lately, they’ve been expanding this thinking, considering not just what materials, but where they come from. Can we use local materials? Can we avoid materials that require energy-intensive manufacturing? Can we ﬁnd more ecological options? But it’s not just about choosing better materials, it’s about dealing with a system that is not ready: “There’s no regulation in place. New materials need certiﬁcation. That takes time and money. You need a client who’s willing to invest, and they don’t grow on trees.”

So, while sustainability is more critical than ever, Bates also sees how diluted the conversation has become: “The environmental debate is such a worn-out theme, touched too lightly by social media and politics. But as architects, we need to unpack it and examine it critically. Each project has to deﬁne its own role in sustainability.” On the project Mönckebergstraße mixed-use building in Hamburg with a dedicated sustainability budget, Sergison Bates had initially proposed a timber structure with a low-carbon concrete platform. However, obtaining building permission proved impossible: “There were no assessment criteria in the city of Hamburg for a full timber frame building. So we couldn’t build it because it could not be judged to be compliant. ”They adapted the project with a hybrid of steel timber, and prefabricated cassettes. As the ground keeps shifting, Bates says you have to be agile. In another project in Hasselt, in Belgium, they’re building in a completely circular way. Two existing buildings will be retained, and a third added. Before deciding what material to use for the facade cladding, they are waiting to see what becomes available, what can be sourced for reuse: “In our early projects, we picked a material and designed the building around it. Now, it’s the opposite. You don’t know the material, so what’s the conceptual ﬁx? It’s not straightforward.”

HOW TO TRANSFORM A BUILDING

Transformation is a central theme in Bates’ work. How do we ensure buildings remain relevant? What does it mean to design something that won’t become obsolete? He is clear: we can’t predict the future, but we can design with it in mind. He gives the example of their project for the Hult International Business School in London — a complex, layered site. What Sergison Bates worked with wasn’t a grand old building, but a former brewery from the 19th century, connected to a speculative 1990s ofﬁce building. Instead of maximising rentable space by squeezing in more ﬂoors, they made a counterintuitive choice and aligned the new structure with the tall ceilings of the old brewery. In terms of development, it made no sense. But Bates saw value in structures both old and new. “Trying to explain to heritage ofﬁcers that they were equally important made for a very interesting conversation. The instinct is always to think that old things are valuable and new things are not.” They had to educate planners and heritage authorities to see meaning in the entire building’s history.

For Bates, transformation isn’t about preservation for its own sake, but rather about understanding a building’s life: “It’s really important for us to see our work as contingent. We talk about the ‘unﬁnished’ a lot. At KANAL in Brussels, our work isn’t about ﬁxing the former historical garage. It’s about opening the building up to new uses, and allowing for appropriation, adjustment, and change.” That might mean preserving certain materials and elements, while radically transforming others. It’s not about making everything precious — it’s about making choices. “When you say, ‘This is valuable, that’s less valuable,’ you’re still taking a subjective stance. And that’s okay.” At KANAL, Bates says he could walk through the site and point out many different responses to reuse. Some elements are restored, some are reinterpreted, others are repaired. There’s no single conceptual approach: “It’s not one single concept, it’s a whole bunch of concepts that come together. What guides them is a feeling of relevance and appropriateness, and respect for the life of the building.”

DESIGNING BEYOND FIRST USE

So, how do we design buildings that endure? Bates emphasizes that you can’t guarantee continuity, but you can build in the potential for it. At their Hampstead mansion block project, Sergison Bates worked with the idea that older people tend to spend more time at home. The structure is based on a “forest” model: pretensioned concrete ﬂat slabs and columns with no grid, spaced like trees. This allowed for flats with a set of flexible, adaptable set of interior spaces, which can be redefined to meet changing needs.The structure doesn’t dictate layout; it enables it. That’s what excites him: designing architecture as a lasting, intelligent infrastructure that serves the city, while remaining open to change. “This approach is integral to everything we do, because we believe in the city, and in the role architecture can play in making good cities.” He is critical of conversations on sustainability that overlook this civic responsibility. We talk about carbon emissions, but not about longevity.

Bates, controversially, defends concrete — not the cheap, polluting kind, but long-lasting structural concrete: “Low-carbon aggregate (GGBS) concrete used to make a structure that lasts 200 years, is a lot more sustainable. So yes, I’m a fan of concrete. I think architects should reclaim structure.” He believes architects have lost control over structural decisions, leaving too much to engineers: “They’ll ask the engineer, ‘Where does the column go? How big should it be?’ But structure is part of the art of form-making, it’s composition.” He recalls walking through Synthes Headquarters with Peter Märkli, who told him something that struck him: “Clients often say not to spend money on marble or ﬁnishes. But if you say: ‘This beam needs to be this long,’ or ‘We need this many columns,’ they’ll just accept it.” Bates sees buildings as layered entities: some elements will last ﬁve years, others ten, others ﬁfty. The architect must decide which is which. For Sergison Bates, the structure is always the lasting element. “We design beyond ﬁrst use. We design buildings that can change, adapt, and outlive us.”

Before ending our video call, we asked Bates a closing question: “What are your hopes for the OPEN Festival? What do you hope to contribute?”

He didn’t hesitate to reply that he was looking forward to seeing his dear friend Thomas Bo (Prorector, Aarhus School of Architecture): “First of all, I hope to see my friend Thomas. I met him a long time ago, and I think we’re about the same age. We both have the same number of children. I really appreciate his research in brick—I think we came together because of bricks.” It was a response neither of us expected, as we thought Bates would say he was most looking forward to sharing his knowledge with us (he did say this later, of course). It is interesting that, having moved ﬂuidly between the poetic and the practical, the personal and the civic, he went back, once again, to what quietly captivates him: the ordinary. It’s the small, overlooked things that make people like Bates excited and happy. When you have a tight schedule as an architect, father, and husband, sometimes it’s the ordinary moments, like seeing a friend you found through a shared love of bricks, that matter most. That’s it. Maybe the ordinary reveals itself in ways you never anticipated, but by slowing down and noticing, you start to pick up these small hints of the extraordinary everyday.

This conversation was first published for OPEN Architecture Festival, Issue Five (2025): In the Eyes of the Ordinary.

The issue was produced by students from the Aarhus School of Architecture:
Ida Bjerga, Osmo Hadad-Lange, Alexander Skovgaard Bagger Hadi, and Birke Langkjær Jakobsen.

The non-profit project was supported by The Dreyer Foundation.

Image credits: 1) Sergison Bates Architects, 2) David Grandorge, 3) Sergison Bates Architects, 4) Johan Dehlin, 5) Johan Dehlin, 6) Secci Smith, 7) Kim Zwarts