“A full-circle moment” is how architect Hannah Bird describes finding herself teaching first-year undergraduates in the Vijay Patel building at De Montfort University Leicester (DMU).
Thirty-year-old Hannah studied at DMU for her BA (Hons) in architecture between 2014 and 2017, and returned in 2019 for her Master of Architecture (MArch).
Now though, as well as working for CPMG, the architectural practice responsible for designing DMU’s award-winning Vijay Patel building (and the Hugh Aston before it), Hannah also lectures at the university, teaching the fundamentals of architectural design to first-year students on the fully accredited BA (hons) course she took herself.
“It’s been a real full-circle moment for me to be teaching first-years in the Vijay Patel building, which was such a big part of my own education from my third year onwards,” says Hannah.
The first drop of concrete was yet to be poured on the £42 million Vijay Patel building when Hannah came down from Yorkshire for a DMU Open Day with her father, an engineer.
“We both just really loved, the course, the campus,” says Hannah, “so we just sort of fell in love with the atmosphere really. I liked the city. I liked the people and the lecturers we met were really nice as well.”
The rest, as they say, is history. By the time Hannah arrived to begin her studies, work on the Vijay Patel was well underway. The building was fully open for her to enjoy its facilities in her third year, and afterwards throughout her postgraduate training.
But that strong relationship with DMU does not end there because Hannah, who works from CPMG’s London studio, was chosen by the firm to be the project architect responsible for the delivery stages of DMU’s new London campus at The Amp building on Commercial Road in the Whitechapel area of the city.
Hannah was a key part of the team that transformed DMU’s London site from a stripped-down shell of concrete floors and columns, to the modern, flexible multi-use educational space that opened its doors to students in October this year.
“We really had to make sure that the space works for the needs for DMU London because as an outpost of the main university campus, it's trying to support lots of different learning types and different ways of communicating. So we have got agile learning spaces, we call them - they‘re more about informal learning rather than a standard lecture theatre. But we've got classroom space as well. It's a very flexible, very adaptable space.”
For Hannah, DMU London has been, so far at least, the standout project from her time with CPMG, not least because it’s been part of maintaining a connection with the university that is about more than just its bricks and mortar.
“The thing that I love the most about DMU, and about teaching there, and the thing that keeps bringing me back, is the opportunities it provides, opening up career paths in the architecture field to students from all backgrounds. I really like that about DMU. It is also very open, very collaborative and always gives room for students to bring their own experience to the table.
“The first-year students I teach are so inspiring, and the level of growth that they achieve from when they join us to the end of the first year is fantastic. The leap in their skills and their confidence, and the different ideas they're exploring is honestly incredible. That's why I love teaching first-years as well, because they're so fresh to architectural education and they've got new ideas and priorities, they keep us thinking ahead of the curve.”
Hannah can see something of her younger, undergraduate self in the students that she now teaches at DMU, but she says: “I can't even imagine having been that good in my first year and they just get stronger and stronger every year.
"I look at their work now and I think I was nowhere near this level when I was a first year, so it's fascinating. It's really exciting to be involved in teaching the next generation of architects.”
Posted on Monday 15 December 2025