After studying architecture and planning in the UK and the USA, Derek Walker established his own architectural practice. During the sixties, Derek Walker Associates became recognized by virtue of a series of successes in national competitions. In 1970 Walker left the practice to become Chief Architect and Planner of the new city of Milton Keynes, the most ambitious undertaking in the history of British new towns.

This monograph concentrates primarily on work he was most intimately involved with in Milton Keynes, an international spread of competitions, and commissions in the eighties and nineties, which illustrate the practice's shared attitude to design where method derives from a common frame of reference for intelligent solutions.

The book is introduced by the architect and critic Stephen Gardiner, and by two recent clients, Iain Quicke and Guy Wilson. An essay by Derek Walker charts the preoccupations of the practice from inception to the present day. Over forty projects are illustrated and described, covering a range of design activity: architecture, animation, furniture design, interiors, landscape and urban planning.