Architecture

Architecture is about people and how we interact with our environments. This course embeds racial, social and environmental justice through a curriculum that centres on care, climate, cooperation and agency. BA Architecture will equip you with the real-world skills and understanding to develop new forms of architectural practice. 

Our vision is framed by a culture of critical care. We promote responsibility beyond the client and understanding the consequences of actions for people and planet. We locate ethical values beyond the personal into local and global contexts.

The climate and bio-diversity crises present significant challenges to which architecture and spatial practice must respond. We see the tensions and inequalities surrounding the built environment and environmental conflict. We foreground regenerative design, systems thinking and climate literacy to shift from doing less damage to making a positive and regenerative impact on planetary health.

The practice of architecture has always been collaborative. Our course goes further than this, to promote co-operation above competition. You will have the opportunity to explore making together as a social act. The course re-imagines professional roles beyond disciplinary limits because architects are increasingly called upon to design across a broad range of practices: from arts to urban development, landscape design to engineering; and working with ecologists, scientists, activists and more.

Rapidly changing modes of representation and production, and a changing work environment are our new constants. BA Architecture encourages you to embrace change as a value. We aim for you to become a proactive and agile self-learner as these are valuable workplace skills of the future. This demands both resilience and an openness to new and other forms of knowledge and skills that support invention, originality and diversity. The course integrates both digital and traditional knowledge, skills and technologies. We encourage you to engage in new forms of communicating, learning and making.

The relationship between making and thinking is central to understanding how architecture can engage with a range of scales and practices. As an architecture course based in an arts school, we will support you to explore of a broad range of ideas and knowledges to open alternative forms of space making. We will encourage you to develop your own critical and situated approach to architectural design and practice.

The course collaborates with external partners including social initiatives, cultural institutions, public and private sector bodies. There will also be opportunities to engage with other disciplines in the College. This creates a rich interdisciplinary learning experience, with opportunity to work on live projects, engaging with communities and clients. This will allow you to gain an understanding of spatial practice and your role as designer within it.

BA Architecture students leave with a broad and valuable understanding of architectural design practice in its many forms. The skills acquired equip graduates to become versatile practitioners in many exciting and diverse professions in London and beyond.

Recent BA Architecture alumni activity demonstrates the breadth of student activity within the subject:

• Ruben Everett is working with Michaelis Boyd Associates
• Katarina Joannides is working with Bjarke Ingalls (BIG), Netherlands
• Lily Papadopolous is working with Farrells
• James Williams is working for The Telegraph
• Myelin Mye has started Hau-Nork Studio, Bankok
• Ewelina Schraven is working at Eindhoven University of Technology, Netherlands
• Lewis Scott is working at UXUS
• Patrick Gorman is working with Ian Simpson Architects
• Richard Grenfell is working with Alan Thomas Chartered Surveyors
• Enrika Beigate has founded Beig Ltd
• Neil Quinn is working with Stephen Taylor Architects
• Benjamin Perrot is working with MUF
• Federica Zama is working with Poggenpohl
• Scarlett Hessian is working with Michaelis Boyd
• Jordan Cottage is working with The Decorators

Developing your skills - external activities

BA Architecture is designed to help you develop both transferable and industry specific skills. You'll be introduced to the issues, organisations and legal frameworks within which architecture and the creative industries operate. Media practice workshops and seminars develop your skills in drawing, model making and computer aided design and visualisation.

BA Architecture's strong links with the Arts Council, Design Council and other agencies in London and beyond create useful project opportunities, contacts and networks.

BA Architecture also works actively with clients and commercial organisations. Recent clients have included the Swiss Embassy, Saachi & Saachi, Hermes, the Home Office, TINO, Green Works and With Feeling. We also get involved in community activities in London, working with The Sorrell Foundation, The Stephen Lawrence Charitable Trust, and local secondary schools.

We think of London as an extension of the studio. We encourage all our students to consider how London, one of the great design capitals of the world, can deepen an appreciation of architecture and design.