Rachael Moon

Rachael is an architect with a background in delivering projects of significant public value. For her final-year master's project, which considered new design against old, she was awarded the SPAB Philip Webb Award.

With extensive experience from project conception to delivery, Rachael played a key role in the architectural team for the new Bond Street Station for the Elizabeth Line in Central London, ensuring the public realm met local standards and community needs through planning approval. 

Before joining the Autumn Cohort 2024, Rachel also worked on medium—to large-scale mixed-use schemes, including a ‘Sub-City’ master planning project in Rwanda. This project recently won a WAF Future Project Master Plan Award for its innovative, replicable and green design.

Somerset Council

During her placement as a Principal Planning Officer in Somerset Council’s Strategic Sites team, Rachel was responsible for managing large-scale planning applications, many of which involved significant housing delivery. She focused on setting clear expectations for high-quality design and placemaking from the earliest stages, including pre-application discussions, to ensure developments responded appropriately to local character, sustainability goals, and community needs while maximising the opportunities of each site.

She took multiple schemes to committee, guiding decision-making on complex proposals, and presented projects to the Somerset Quality Review Panel to raise design ambition and support constructive dialogue with applicants. Drawing on her background in architecture, she brought a design-led perspective to planning, providing practical and informed feedback and helping to bridge the gap between planning and design disciplines.