Three years ago, ‘architecture worker’ Muyiwa Oki was voted in as the RIBA’s next president following a headline-grabbing election victory over well-established rivals, Sumita Singha and Jo Bacon. The senior architectural manager at Mace promised action on overtime, pay and equality and diversity.

The then-31-year-old was handed the responsibility for realising the hopes of a profession and delivering change for the industry at large.

There was excitement and optimism. Could this young architect overhaul the RIBA’s sometimes mysterious ways of working and help the nearly two century-old membership body better mirror today’s profession?

But during his 24 months office – a tenure which effectively ends today – how much of his agenda has he achieved?

Speaking to the AJ, he acknowledges that a newly established taskforce addressing wellbeing and workplace culture will take two more years to bear fruit. But, he says, by simply putting workplace malpractice on the table – alongside action on AI –  he has achieved something his predecessors had not.

Oki admits he ‘wasn’t super-into the politics of the RIBA’ before walking through the front door. Yet he quickly realised the institute was not ‘stop and start’’on policy direction – nor was it one person’s to run.

His predecessor, Simon Allford, helped drive forward the £85 million House of Architecture plans to refurbish the 1930s headquarters of the RIBA and its back-of-house IT systems. This, it turns out, also includes slightly delayed plans for a rebrand, which Oki personally takes credit for.

So, will he be remembered as the ‘social justice’ president? (He hopes so, he tells the AJ). The rebrand president? Or the last president before the RIBA shut the doors on its headquarters for refurbishment this summer before ‘sleepwalking into oblivion’, as his successor, Chris Williamson, has warned.

Your tenure as RIBA president is about to end. What was your biggest achievement?
Getting the industry to take seriously the plight of younger architects, workplace wellbeing, and how we can encourage the institute as well as the profession to be more inclusive.

As a RIBA member for a decade, there had been a lack of focus on the issues which my cohort and people like me had long been experiencing around overtime, pay, workplace culture. There was an endemic, silent, or tacit approval of those types of these behaviours, and it was just part and parcel of life as an architect.

I’m confident that in two years time my wellbeing and workplace taskforce will be able to give tangible recommendations on how we can make architecture as a profession more competitive in the future. So its great that it’s been put on the table – and the ARB’s table as well.

Do you think two years is enough time?
It’s what our constitution allows us. If [the presidential period were longer], it would make the role of RIBA president even more exclusive.

It’s important to have continuation, and transition of power from one president to another so that lessons are learned from someone else and moved forward.

I hope the past half a decade has been a creative blueprint for how the organisation transitions from one person to another.

[However the role] is not what I imagined, because I wasn’t super-into the politics of the RIBA.

Gone are the days where it’s one individual’s machine to run

Gone are the days where it’s one individual’s machine to run. The fact that there are the divisions of power, [and] divisions of labour as well, means that [the institute] doesn’t die on the hill of the star architect, or the role of RIBA president.

What surprised you most during your time at the RIBA?
The ramping-up of our engagement with policy-makers, both locally and nationally, has been a big surprise. It’s a testament to the RIBA’s policy and public affairs team, who have got us in positions where we can share our knowledge and expertise on issues that affect our members, such as the housing issue.

During your half-time interview you said a new RIBA brand was on its way. Is it still coming?
Yes, it is still coming but, unfortunately, it’s not going to be announced [while I’m] in office. With any project there’s always snags along the road, and the programme has extended slightly.

I’ve been promised that the brand will launch before the end of this year, with a new website. It’s part of the strategy for the House of Architecture. This is a three-pronged plan: to do a building; to create our ‘forever home’ for the collections; and [to bolster the] digital platform, including the rebrand, and website.

You also said on LinkedIn recently that the profession needed to be a ‘festival, not a fortress’. Meanwhile the RIBA’s critics might say that money on the House of Architecture could be better spent elsewhere. Do you agree?
It’s a little bit of an unfair criticism. I must admit, I had a healthy scepticism of the House of Architecture project from the outside, looking in. But in my role as president and seeing the details, it was a bit of a no-brainer.

I had a healthy scepticism of the House of Architecture project

We had to, and we have to, do something to our headquarters. [There have been] 90 years of inactivity of not taking care and maintaining the building. As an architecture body, it’s a bit damning not to have a building that can be inclusive to people with reduced mobility. Because, as you know, the lifts were too small, and built in the 1930s. So for that alone, it’s a no-brainer.

Again, [the ageing] services need to be brought up to standard. As an organisation we talk about net zero carbon and getting buildings to be operating efficiently. This is an example of how to do that on a listed building, on a historical asset. So we had to do it. We have to bite the bullet and get it done.

Part of the message, and [if] we’re talking about the House of Architecture being Simon Allford’s legacy project, is to ensure that going forward the RIBA is open to more and more people, to make it less of a fortress, which it kind of looks like, and for Portland Place to become more inclusive.

If Allford is going be remembered for the House of Architecture, what is the one thing you’ll be remembered for?
Hopefully I will be remembered for being the ‘social justice president’, and a little bit of the AI president and for bringing that into common consciousness.

Hopefully I will be remembered for being the ‘social justice president’

When the the outcomes of the workplace and wellbeing taskforce gets over the line, we’ll hopefully be able to see carers being architects, and more black and young black people being architects. That would be my legacy. It has less of a strapline than Simon’s, but I think it’s equally important.

Turnout at elections have been even lower under your watch. This year there were no candidates for 43 per cent of council seats? How do you feel about membership engagement?
It was discouraging to see the election turnout, and I had tried my best over the years to get out to the regions.

I started the president’s regional engagement visits. I travelled to different regions up and down the country, from the South West all the way to the North East to do just that: to make sure that a people feel that the office of the presidency is listening and connected to what is happening on the ground, but also to ensure that I could get direct feedback from the regions.

It was discouraging to see the election turnout

It’s incumbent on Chris Williamson and all our successors to continue in that vein and to encourage architects to take elections a little bit more seriously. But, again, elections are one of the many ways in which you can record engagement from membership.

Doesn’t low turnout speak of disengagement or lack of interest? Has the RIBA failed to communicate the importance of democratic engagement?
Perhaps, yes. It could also be the way in which we communicate the election timetable, and we need to think about all of this in the round. It’s also about how you measure engagement – how you make sure people are aware and know and participate.

The membership hub was a bit of a disaster. It felt like an archaic way of thinking about how you engage with members. It was a solution looking for a problem.

As a board and committee, we have really cautioned the tech team not to build another app. It should be about using existing things that already have traction to get engagement from a membership.

Many of the RIBA’s members will feel strongly about what’s happening in Gaza. Would you have liked the RIBA to have been more vocal about Israel and Palestine?
We are in a difficult position. I have a personal point of view. [But that] doesn’t matter, or matters less, because [any public position] has to come from an institutional point of view. As [a charity], it is wrong of us to weigh in on issues that do not affect our charter and, with that, we have to be apolitical.

When various institutions and groups have lobbied and sent messages and letters, or asking and demanding for various things [from me], the line from the RIBA has always been – and always will be – that it is something that I can’t [push] through the organisation or do on my own.

What advice would you give Chris Williamson?
Enjoy the time and process. I’ve enjoyed the awards very much, because as the chair of the honours committee, I believe I have expanded who and what we celebrate, with Leslie Lokko [who won the Royal Gold Medal in 2024], with SANAA [who won the Royal Gold Medal in 2025] and with the Elizabeth Line winning the Stirling Prize.

This wouldn’t have happened if I wasn’t at the table. But we need to sort out the afterparty.

RIBA president Muyiwa Oki at the 2024 AJ Student Prize awards event