Ivor Samuels was born in 1939 and attended Carmel College, near Wallingford, Oxfordshire. He joined the Architectural Association in 1957 as a First Year student on the AA Diploma course. As part of this final year’s studies, in 1961-62, Samuels elected to join the AA Department of Tropical Studies course. In oral history recording within the AA Archives, Samuels describes how his decision to join the Department was influenced by a frustration with fellow students ‘producing the latest brutalist buildings and replicating them’ and feeling that he wanted to learn something new and tangible. In addition, Samuels describes how he had worked in Israel during his Fourth Year vacation and was thinking about going back and so was keen to ‘learn about… working in different context and climates.’ Subsequently he was to complete his final thesis on the subject of high density housing for Kiryat Gat, Israel. After graduating, Samuels was employed by the London County Council Architects Department, within the Town Development Division, where he was immediately tasked with designing a housing estate of 200 units.  Samuels then continued his studies, taking an MSc in Town Planning at the University of Edinburgh before spending time working in Yugoslavia. After a period teaching in Edinburgh, Samuels moved to South America where he worked in Colombia. By the early 1980s, however, Samuels had returned to the UK and joined the Joint Centre for Urban Design (JCUD), now part of Oxford Brookes University, where he developed a career as a highly respected specialist in urban planning. Samuels was Chair of the JCUD until 1990 and his career has also seen him as visiting professor at Universities in Denmark, France, Italy, Spain and Switzerland, Latin America, the US and Australia, and on design review panels for the East and West Midlands. He was a specialist consultant to the Civic Trust Regeneration Unit on Town Centre Masterplans. He has contributed numerous conference papers, articles and studies within the field of urban planning, some of his major publications include ‘New use for old stones:  the practice of using old environments for new cultural activities’ (1982), Urban Morphology in Design (1985), Urban Forms: Death and Life of the Urban Block (2004).

 Sources

• Architectural Association Student Register, 1961-62. AA Archives
• Yufei Li, Oral History recording with Ivor Samuels, 28th November, 2013. Architectural Association Archives
• Oliveira, V. (ed.) ISUF, Urban Morphology and Human Settlements: Advances and Prospects. Springer, 2024.