Andrew M Laing, PhD
Visiting Lecturer
Urbanism B.Sc. Arch (Hons), University College London
M. Phil., Town and Country Planning, University College London
Ph.D., Urban Studies and Planning, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Andrew Laing, PhD. is a consultant and researcher in workplace strategy, design and urbanism. He was the global practice leader for the Strategy Plus practice at AECOM (formerly DEGW). Laing set up the DEGW practice in New York in 1998, having worked with DEGW in London since 1989. He was educated at the Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London, where he was influenced by Reyner Banham, Robert Maxwell, and Adrian Forty. He received a doctorate in urban studies and planning from the MIT. He has written many articles on workplace design and authored New Environments for Working (1997) with DEGW founder and Princeton graduate Francis Duffy and was the co-author of The Responsible Workplace (1993). He has taught at Princeton since 2007. During 2013-2015 he taught a class on New Directions for Development: Rethinking Workplaces, Buildings, and the City at Columbia University’s graduate program for real estate development.
Between 2016-2019, Laing was head of workplace strategy and later an adviser to Bridgewater Associates LP. Laing's clients included many organizations interested in workplace innovation and information technology, such as Accenture, Google, Microsoft, Nike, and the United Nations. His interests span the changing worlds of work, technology and the design of places at multiple scales from the workplace to the urban. Much of his work has focused on the implications of new ways of working for the design of buildings, the nature of place, sustainability, and the city. He is interested in exploring the impact of information technology on the design of places and the city.
Recent publications:
Andrew Laing, ‘Directions for Change in Technology and Wellbeing in the City’ in Designing Future Cities for Wellbeing, edited by Christopher Boyko, Rachel Cooper, Nick Dunn. Routledge, forthcoming, 2020.
Andrew Laing, ‘The Implications of a Networked Urban Landscape for Architectural Programming,’ Volume, 42, December, 2014, pp.68-75.
Andrew Laing, ‘The Emerging Workplace is Urban,’ Work&Place, Occupiers Journal, IFMA Foundation, July 2014.
Andrew Laing, ‘Work and Workplaces in the Digital City,’ CURE, The Center for Urban Real Estate at Columbia University, November, 2013.