Leonora Aigbokhae

Leonora is an architect interested in heritage and placemaking, working on residential and community projects in the North West. Before joining the Spring Cohort 2023, she was a private sector project architect at shedkm. Her work involved the delivery of conservation schemes to transform heritage assets, a community church to provide a much-needed civic hub that revitalises the high street, and a competition bid to link placemaking with storytelling, heritage and community.

She is passionate about social value and equality, diversity and inclusion, which she brings to her additional roles as an ambassador for social enterprise PLACED and as a tutor at University of Sheffield School of Architecture.

Calderdale Council

During her placement, Leonora worked across service areas and teams in the Regeneration & Strategy Directorate on several key work strands. She focused on regional working, which involved developing partnerships with the West Yorkshire Combined Authority and knitting together work across thematic areas, aligning local and regional strategy and priorities. This also included coordinating regional funding programmes for the West Yorkshire Investment Strategy. Additionally, Leonora worked on capacity building by developing a learning & development programme for the directorate based on a placeshaping framework. This programme aimed to bring together the complexity of disciplines, skills, and stakeholders involved in any project grounded in place. It also aimed to strengthen collaborative working processes and increase knowledge of quality outcomes. She also worked on strategic placeshaping by collaborating cross-directorate with Regeneration & Strategy and Public Health on strategic placeshaping based on their Inclusive Economy Strategy, Health & Wellbeing Strategy, and Climate Action Plan.