Paul Hackett receives CBE as architects and engineers also recognised
Optivo chief executive Paul Hackett is one of a raft of housing and wider built environment figures to have been recognised in the New Year’s honours list.
Housing Today columnist Hackett, who has spent 10 years leading first AmicusHorizon and then – through its merger with Viridian – Optivo, has been awarded a CBE for services to social housing.
He receives the award alongside Optivo resident Monica Barnes, awarded an OBE for her voluntary work improving the association’s engagement and involvement of tenants.
Other housing figures to receive awards include Ryan Kelley, the chief executive of Whitmore Vale Housing Association, and Nadeem Khan, a helpline adviser team leader working for housing charity Shelter, both of whom were awarded OBEs.
Paul Hackett (pictured, right), who was also chair of the G15 group of London housing associations between 2017 and 2019, said he was “truly humbled” to receive the CBE.
“This award is a recognition of the hard work of many staff and residents who’ve helped Optivo become the organisation it is today and our efforts to become a sector-leader in resident involvement,” he said.
Monica Barnes, originally from Jamaica, said the award was a “lovely honour” but that she was dedicating it to family and friends. “As an involved resident, you don’t give up hours of your time to be recognised – you do it because you want to make a difference. We’ve all worked hard to improve services over many years, so it’s a real joy to see our work recognised like this,” she said.
In the wider built environment, the honours also included a damehood for Arup engineer Jo da Silva, and an award of Companion of Honour for architect David Chipperfield.
David Chipperfield’s award, for services to architecture, is one of the highest honours possible to bestow, and can be held by a maximum of only 65 living people at one time.
Bestowed for those making a “major contribution to the arts, science, medicine, or government lasting over a long period of time”, it ranks him alongside broadcaster David Attenborough, former Beatle sir Paul McCartney and fellow architect Lord Rogers.
Chipperfield’s practice, which he founded in 1985, has been nominated for the Stirling Prize seven times, winning the gong in 2007 for the Museum of Modern Literature.
His projects include the Turner Contemporary Museum in Margate, the Hepworth Wakefiled Gallery and the Kunsthaus in Zurich (pictured). Chipperfield received both the RIBA Gold Medal and the EU Mies van der Rohe Award in 2011.
Structural engineer Jo da Silva was awarded Dame Commander of the British Empire after founding a not-for-profit subsidiary of Arup set up to improve the social outcomes of projects for people in developing countries. Conferring the honour, the government said “No other individual UK engineer is so personally associated with shifting the approach of a major engineering company to prioritise social outcomes for vulnerable communities in developing countries”, and that she was an effective proponent of the “Build Back Better” philosophy of humanitarian relief.
Other built environment figures to receive gongs include the founders of 6a Architects, Stephanie Macdonald and professor Thomas Emerson, who both received OBEs, and Kevin Byrne, managing director of Seymour Civil Engineering, who also received an OBE, for services to business and skills.
The government handed out awards to 1,239 people in the New Year Honours, with 65% recognised for community work, much of it undertaken during the covid-19 pandemic.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson said: “In a year when so many have made sacrifices to protect our NHS and save people’s lives, the outstanding efforts of those receiving honours today are a welcome reminder of the strength of human spirit, and of what can be achieved through courage and compassion.”
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