Jane Hall & Audrey Thomas-Hayes, Assemble (UK)

In a design world often dominated by globally recognisable branded celebrities, the London-based creative collective Assemble actively resists the historical cliche of the lone genius. Established in 2010, the group has built a reputation for championing collaborative working practices, and in particular working with the public as participants in a range of ongoing design projects. Working across the fields of art, architecture and design, Assemble were the unexpected winners of the 2015 Turner Prize, Europe’s most prestigious contemporary art prize, for their ongoing project Granby Four Streets, which was described by the jury as “a ground-up approach to regeneration, city planning and development in opposition to corporate gentrification”.

Famed for their use of reconstituted materials and overlooked locations, recent and current projects from Assemble include the transformation of a series of found historic, listed and infrastructural spaces into a new public art gallery for Goldsmiths University, due to be completed in September 2018; the refurbishment of the entrance to the Seven Sisters Underground Station, requiring the production of over a thousand handmade tiles; and the refurbishment of ten derelict terrace houses in Liverpool following a twenty-year battle by local residents to save the houses from demolition.