Dr Peter Cookson smith is an architect, planner and urban designer. He is a director of Urbis Limited, the firm he founded in 1977, and one of the first planning, environmental, and landscape consultancies in Asia. The firm has since undertaken over 1500 projects in Hong Kong and the Asia-Pacific area, and won more than 70 local and international awards. He has over the past 30 years, directed a large number of planning, regeneration and urban design projects in Hong Kong, the PRC and other parts of S.E. Asia.

He writes and lectures regularly on the subject of urban design. He is an Honorary Professor at the Department of Architecture, the University of Hong Kong, and a Visiting Lecturer at the Centre of Urban Planning and Environment Management (CUPEM), and the Architectural Society of China Continuing Education Programme. He is the 2007 Convenor of Hong Kong¡¦s Urban Design Alliance made up of representatives from various professional institutes.