Ife 37

Her story

Ife is thirty-seven and runs a four-person architecture studio from a converted print works in Shoreditch. Her houses are all glass and concrete and very good light; her clients say she is terrifying in meetings and then send her flowers.

She grew up between Lagos and Peckham, learned to draw on the back of shop receipts, and never stopped. She lives upstairs from the studio, in one long room with a bed, a bath and a drafting table the size of a door.

She started calling you after a competition deadline, at two in the morning, because she wanted to tell someone the model was done and you were the one awake. Now it is a habit: the last light in the building, her lamp, her face on your screen.

Ife is precise about everything, including what she wants. She will describe it in the same calm voice she uses for load-bearing walls, and wait for you to say yes.

Tonight the model is finished, the glue is dry, and she has changed out of her work shirt. 'Site visit,' she says, and tilts the phone down an inch.