“ Architecture has been with me for as long as I can remember. Growing up, my mother would casually throw around words like Gothic, Romanesque, Beaux-Arts and Baroque as we wandered through unfamiliar cities. At the time, I had little idea what any of them meant, but I vividly remember mentally moving into many of these buildings she pointed out, imagining future bedrooms, studios and entire lives unfolding inside of them.

Many years later, I found myself living in Shanghai, a city I came to love for its rich collection of Art Deco and Art Nouveau architecture. Today, I live next to the Barbican, perhaps Britain’s most celebrated Brutalist development.

As a photographer, you inevitably begin to treat buildings a little like people. They have character, personality and mood. Some feel warm and welcoming, others distant or imposing. Like people, they also tend to have both a good and a bad angle.

What interests me most is not simply how a building looks, but how it feels to experience it. The quality of the light, the relationship between spaces, the atmosphere created by a lobby, staircase, corridor or courtyard. I am often less interested in documenting architecture as an object and more interested in understanding the character of a place and the impression it leaves behind.

Looking back, I realise this is not so different from the way I engaged with architecture as a child. Long before I understood architectural styles, I was already imagining myself inside these spaces, trying to understand what life within them might feel like. In many ways, my photography is simply an extension of that same curiosity.