John Brian Douglas Collins read Architecture at Cambridge University and appears to have worked on council housing projects in Camberwell, London, before enrolling, in September 1964, on the six-month postgraduate ‘General Course’ run by the Architectural Association’s Department of Tropical Studies. Immediately after completing his studies and receiving the AA Diploma in Tropical Studies, Collins relocated to Zambia, taking up a role as an architect with the Lusaka City Council, where he remained for three years. He then moved to the US where he took a Master in Urban Planning at Columbia University, his thesis being entitled ‘Evolution of Housing Policy in Zambia, with particular reference to Lusaka’. After graduation he returned to the UK and in the early 1970s was part of a research team, based at the Development Planning Unit, University College London. Collins subsequently went into a career in planning and economic development in the London boroughs of Haringey and Hackney. He passed away in 2011.
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