Anya Sokolskaya

Anya is an interior architect and designer with over 15 years of experience, holding senior roles at leading London studios, including Conran & Partners, before co-founding TEN in 2019. TEN is an international Interior Architecture and Design firm headquartered in London, with studios in Riyadh, Dubai and South Africa, working across residential and hospitality interiors. As Creative Director of TEN, Anya holds a WELL AP accreditation and has led the design of over 25 large-scale Build-to-Rent schemes across the UK, many of which have received industry recognition. She is a regular voice in the design industry and returns to her alma mater, University of the Arts London and Kingston University, as a guest speaker to engage with the next generation of designers.

What are you most looking forward to about judging this year's British Homes Awards.

I'm looking forward to seeing how designers across the UK are responding to the way we live now. There has been a significant shift towards wellness-focused design, and I'm excited to see how that's being interpreted across residential projects. As an interior design studio, human wellbeing is central to our practice at TEN. Our homes are where we spend the majority of our time, and design has a profound ability to shape how we feel, function, and thrive within them. I'll be looking for entries that reflect a genuine understanding of that responsibility. The UK also has a remarkably varied residential landscape, and I'm looking forward to seeing that range reflected in the submissions. The diversity of typologies unique to British architecture is one of the things that makes this award so interesting to judge.