Professor Flora Samuel RIBA is Professor of Architecture (1970) at the University of Cambridge and was formerly Head of School at the University of Sheffield School of Architecture. She is known internationally for her work on supporting the development of research in architectural practice and evidencing the value of good design. She was the first Vice President for Research at the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA). 

Flora believes in the importance of mapping as a tool for revealing and addressing social  and environmental injustice. Her expertise is in the mapping of social value building on the Newton Funded project Mapping Eco Social Assets (winner of the Cities and Community category of the RIBA President’s Awards for Research 2020), and her authorship of the RIBA Social Value Toolkit for Architecture. 

Flora operates at the interstices of academia and practice with the aim to assist in fruitful knowledge exchange between them.  Through her research projects, Home Improvements and Evidencing and Communicating the Value of Architects, Flora has supported practitioners in developing research with some notable success. She was also instrumental in setting up the Research Practice Leads network, including 22 research leads from some of the most innovative practices. 

In recent years Flora’s funded research has focused on the measuring and mapping of social value in collaboration with communities, work that is gaining traction in planning. Her most recent book Housing for Hope and Wellbeing sets out a vision for a housing system built on an evidence base of digital maps.