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But any wild drinking ambitions aroused by that statement are quickly doused by Sophie. 鈥淲e can鈥檛 drink too much, as three of us are cycling home.鈥� Well, four if you count 好色先生TV鈥檚 representative.

The odd person out is Christian. Not that he doesn鈥檛 own a bike. Like most of his 45 colleagues at Urban Initiatives, he does.

He鈥檚 just not using it.

鈥淪ince the beginning of the year, I鈥檝e been walking to work from Dalston along Regent鈥檚 Canal,鈥� he says. 鈥淚t takes an hour and 15 minutes. It takes me half an hour to cycle, but there鈥檚 only one shower in the office.鈥�

The conversation then freewheels into a discussion about cycling in London, particularly about swirling around the terrifying roundabouts at Elephant and Castle.

Not an architect, nor a town planner, Urban Initiatives styles itself as 鈥渙ne of Britain鈥檚 leading urban planning and design practices鈥�. The emphasis is on interdisciplinary rather than multidisciplinary working, and this is evident in the four pub-goers.

Between them, they have amassed degrees in architecture (Marcus and Christian), Urban Design (Marcus and Dan), urban regeneration (Christian) and manufacturing engineering (Dan).

鈥淎 lot of people here have strange career paths,鈥� comments Marcus. 鈥淎nd that makes them more rounded characters.鈥�

鈥淵ou find lots of disciplines feeding into one project,鈥� chips in Christian. 鈥淎nd we sit next to each other, so there鈥檚 cross-fertilisation of ideas.鈥�

Nearly all the practice鈥檚 projects are in towns and cities across Britain and Ireland. 鈥淔inding a nice place to eat and drink is an important part of staying overnight in a small town,鈥� says Dan. In Copenhagen, he notes, customers are given blankets so they can sit outside from early spring to late autumn.

鈥淚t鈥檚 becoming more and more acceptable to use the outdoors.鈥�

This provokes Christian to rail against the British vogue for outdoor heaters: 鈥淚t鈥檚 environmentally shocking to use gas just to heat the sky.鈥�

Then Sophie switches to her experiences of hostelries in Ireland since the smoking ban: 鈥淚 stayed in a hotel with what looked like a nice pub next to it. But when I went inside, it was absolutely dead and I couldn鈥檛 understand why. Then I discovered that they had put a canopy up over the outside space, and everybody was out there smoking.鈥�

Marcus need hardly add that there are no big smokers at Urban Initiatives.