Mentoring with Andy Foster
Making more of your experience in practice
Working in architecture, engineering and the built environment involves continual learning. Each project brings unfamiliar situations, difficult decisions and things we discover we don’t understand as well as we thought.
But being busy doesn’t necessarily help us improve. Sometimes we need time to consider what is happening, someone to ask a useful question, or a conversation we find difficult to have at work.
I offer mentoring for people who want to think more carefully about their work and how they are developing.
What would you like help with?
You might be in your first years in practice, trying to connect what you learned at university with what your job now requires. You might be taking on more responsibility, leading a project or finding yourself expected to help others learn.
Perhaps you have a particular challenge you want to work through. Or you feel you should be progressing but aren’t sure of the next step.
Our conversations could explore how to:
Learn more deliberately from everyday work.
Approach unfamiliar tasks and recognise when you need help.
Develop your judgement and confidence in making decisions.
Work more effectively with colleagues, consultants and clients.
Make better use of feedback.
Take on responsibility for projects and other people.
Understand what you want from the next stage of your career.
You don’t need to arrive with a neatly defined problem. Working out what needs attention can be a useful place to start.
How I approach mentoring
We start with your situation: the work you are doing, what you find difficult and what you would like to change.
I’ll listen, ask questions and help you examine your assumptions. Where it’s useful, I’ll share relevant experience, suggest an approach or challenge how you are seeing something. The aim is to help you develop your own understanding and judgement, and decide what to do next.
We can work with real situations from your practice. Returning to what happened after you tried something gives us a way to connect reflection with action and see what you’re learning.
I enjoy these conversations. Throughout my career, I’ve been interested in helping people recognise their abilities, work through difficulties and become more capable of doing work they value.
About me
I’I trained in civil engineering and architecture and have spent more than forty years working across design and construction, including fifteen years at Arup, establishing my own architectural practice and now with WSP.
Alongside project work, I co-founded the Arup Design School and have continued to teach and mentor. Working across disciplines and in different kinds of practice has given me a broad perspective on how people develop and what helps them do good work together.
Practical Architecture brings these interests together around one question: How do people become good at creating good buildings?
Mentoring is one way I can help people explore that question through their own work.
What others have said
[Include two or three testimonials, with permission. Ideally, each should explain the person’s situation, what they found helpful and what changed as a result.]
[Name, role and organisation where appropriate.]
Andy Pye - Wentworth (previously at Arup)
Liam Marsden - Mott MacDonald (previously at Raise Architects)
Connor Hampshire - WSP
Louise Bezer - WSP
Arranging a conversation
I currently have availability for [mentoring arrangements and capacity].
Sessions take place online, usually lasting 1 hour.
If you think a conversation might help, please contact me at the email address below. Tell me a little about yourself, your current work and what you would like help with.
We can then discuss whether I’m the right person to help and what arrangement would be useful.
andy@practicalarchitecture.com