Rosalind Featherstone

Fifteen questions, off-duty.

Role on the line

Project management and client liaison. Briefs, milestones, borough-context briefings, deliverables, invoices, all the things that keep the artists free to draw.

Where I grew up

Milan, Brera side. The courtyards still smell of espresso and printer toner at the same hour.

Training

Architecture at the Politecnico di Milano, then the AA London for a year. Three years as a practising architect at a King's Cross studio before I moved across.

Years on the line

Seven on the production side.

The blade I bring

A schedule that survives reality. Italian construction taught me that a plan is a hypothesis, not a contract.

Architect I would ride out for

Aldo Rossi. He could draw a square in Milan and make the rest of the city behave.

Tools that read true on a Monday

A clean Gantt, a redline list shorter than yesterday's, a meeting that ends ten minutes early.

Software I cannot lose

Notion for the brain, Asana for the team, a paper diary for the day I do not trust either.

Earliest architectural memory

The Galleria Vittorio Emanuele at six, looking up at the glass dome and asking why it was a roof and a sky at the same time.

The brief I am proudest of

A multi-borough planning round where four schemes ran in parallel and all four hit the committee date.

On the headphones while working

Lucio Battisti in the morning, Paolo Conte after lunch, Mahler when the schedule is sliding.

London view I never tire of

The arcade at Burlington Arcade in Mayfair. A shameless quote of home, which I forgive.

Coffee or tea

Espresso, three a day, never after four.

Off the line

Sunday lunch at home with my husband, who is Welsh and patient. Walks on Hampstead Heath after.

The motto on my desk

"The brief is the map. The schedule is the road. The render is the destination."