Nicholas Boys Smith is the chair of the Office for Place, the founding Director of Create Streets and an influential writer on the design, planning and history of our towns and cities.

Create Streets is an award-winning social enterprise which pioneers methods of research, master-planning, design coding and community co-design to help develop and steward beautiful and popular ‘gentle density’ places for the long term.

Nicholas was co-chair alongside the late Sir Roger Scruton of the influential Building Better Building Beautiful Commission (described as “seminal” by the then Secretary of State for Housing).  Between 2016 and 2022 he was a Commissioner of Historic England. Professor Carlos Moreno has called him “the UK’s leading figure in urban living and the beauty of cities.”

His books include No Free Parking, Heart in the Right Street, Beyond Location and Of Streets and Squares.