In conversation with Natalya Palit MRTPI

Grab yourself a cuppa and dive into the fascinating career of Natalya Palit. Dabbling her toes into architecture, planning and community engagement, Natalya is a project team in one! Her education and career spans across borders, from India where her heritage is from, to the UK, in both the private sector and local authority.

Here Natalya shares her story, who and what has inspired her and what her next steps are, after a fabulous five years at HTA Design, where she established her specialism in the interface between design and planning.

What inspired you to enter into planning?

My journey into the planning profession has been somewhat convoluted, but all my previous experience and education hugely adds to my ability to advise and add value to projects as a planning consultant. I originally started training to become an architect, and undertook an undergraduate degree (Part 1) in Sheffield. I graduated in the 2009 recession and did two ‘years out’ in architecture, the first in New Delhi in India and the second in the UK. I had always wanted to do a year abroad, though had originally anticipated that I would do that in an EU country – slightly closer to home! But the recession made this really difficult, so I changed track, and took advantage of my Indian (BAME) heritage, and went to work in India, where my family are originally from.

India was pretty much unaffected by the recession. There I got the experience of working in a large award winning multi-disciplinary practice with a focus on sustainability. And as luck would have it the project I got placed on was ‘The British School’ for British expats, which taught people under the British curriculum. As a completely inexperienced architectural assistant I ended up taking on a lot of responsibility and working very closely with the directors there. This was by virtue of the fact that I had first hand experience of studying in a UK school, and could explain to them how things like a food technology lesson worked here – which was a totally alien concept to them! And I’m sure it must have helped them to seem more knowledgeable to the client too!

“After my experience in India, I came back to the UK and worked in a very small architecture practice, working primarily on high-end housing extensions and alterations for private individuals. Whilst I learnt a lot here, and it was a valuable experience, my struggle to get a job in the larger type of practice I aspired to work in made me question whether I was cut out to be an architect."

Nevertheless, with the impending increase of tuition fees on the horizon, I went back to university to complete the second part of my architectural studies at Sheffield. This was a unique university in that it also offered a dual course where you could combine planning and architecture that was both RIBA Part 2 architecture and RTPI accredited. Knowing I wanted to change, but not sure what else I wanted to do, I gave the combined course a shot! Planning seemed to satisfy my desire to consider the bigger picture, things like housing affordability and sustainability, in a way that purely designing buildings didn’t. In the summer between the two years, I used contacts at the Local Planning Authority that the small architecture practice I worked at had, to secure myself some unpaid planning work experience to get a taste for the job.

“I met a really enthusiastic and supportive senior female planner there who really pushed for the Authority to take me on, and I am really grateful to her for this. My experience there was invaluable in that it gave me an introduction into the world of planning.”

As I approached graduation from the second year, I decided I wanted to become a planner, and I wanted to work in the public sector. As luck would have it, I found that the same authority I did work experience at was hiring for an assistant policy planner, so I applied and got the job! I learnt a lot here, but in my policy role I felt a little too far removed from the actual building of new elements of towns or cities. I questioned whether moving into planning was the right move.

“I then tried out a short stint in a community engagement practice, thinking I could combine what I had learnt in both the architecture and planning professions, whilst retaining a bit of creativity in my day job. But I quickly realised that was not right for me either.”

After that I landed up at my most recent practice – HTA Design – as a planning consultant. It ended up being a perfect place for me. Being embedded within a design practice meant I could put my background in architecture to good use, and it helped me to communicate with the designers I had to work closely with day to day. When I first started I labelled myself as a ‘built environment professional’ in an attempt to cover all things architecture, community engagement and planning. But nowadays I firmly consider myself a Planner!

I'm now heading to a new role, back in local government - as Area Plans Manager at Enfield Council - where I will continue my specialism operating at the overlap of design and planning.

Was it a different career choice given your ethnicity or did everyone embrace it?

“My parents were very supportive of my decision to study architecture. Both my parents are doctors, but I had long said that I wanted to become an architect – so no one really questioned it when I was making subject and career choices. As doctors, my parents understood a vocational degree like architecture, with a clearly defined profession at the end.”

Part way though my studies, when I came to them and told them I had been questioning my choice to study architecture, and was thinking about doing the combined planning course, they were understandably worried for me. They didn’t really know what the implications of this would be as they were less familiar with what a town planner does. Studying the dual course was great, as it meant I could still always return to architecture if I wanted. I think this definitely helped put my parents’ minds at ease! I definitely could not have asked for more supportive parents in so many ways. Academic success is highly emphasised by Indian parents, and it’s taken as a given in Indian families that they will support you as much as they can through university. Having this support definitely set me up well.

“From my experience I have learnt to always look for the positives of my supposed ‘disadvantage’ of being from a BAME background, and turning this into an advantage where I could! I think it’s a lesson that’s served me well so far.”

What makes working at HTA great?

HTA Design has to be the best place I’ve worked at so far. I think this was evidenced by the fact it’s the longest I worked for the same organisation in my career to date! For me personally, I really valued working in an organisation with a great bunch of people who had shared values and a shared ambition. It’s a practice built on a foundation of community architecture, and they work for a lot of affordable housing providers (Local Authorities and Housing Associations). For me, equality, be it BAME, gender, or economic, is something I care deeply about, so this combination of working with people with shared values, and on many socially motivated projects made it somewhere great for me to work.

“Of course, the culture of an organisation also has a huge role to play in how much you enjoy going into work on a day-to-day basis, and HTA has a very positive atmosphere. Plus the daily free breakfast and lunch (outside of Covid-19 lockdown) can’t go without a mention!”

Tell us about your RTPI research project on gender

Last year I was awarded the 2018/19 Biannual George Pepler International Award by the RTPI. The George Pepler Award is a bursary granted to a person in their first 10 years post qualification experience wishing to undertake a short period of study on a particular aspect of planning. I won for my research proposal entitled: 'What can the UK learn from Vienna with regards to adopting a gender mainstreaming approach to shape built outcomes?'

‘Gender mainstreaming’ is adopting a gender perspective into the whole planning policy process with a view to promoting equality between women and men.

I chose the example of Vienna, as it is a global capital leading the way in this field, having begun integrating the approach into their planning processes since the early 1990s. The city even has a whole municipal department dedicated to “Women’s Affairs,” which has had the most impact within urban planning.

I visited the city in Autumn last year, and the RTPI have recently published my final report here. I also published a series of blog posts about my visit whilst I was there using #rtpigeorgepepler.

A fantastic interview, thank you Natalya for sharing your career to date and your research with us. If you'd like to share your story with BAME in Property, please email info@bameinproperty.com and someone will be in touch.