Welcome to the LSA Summer Show 2022. Our students are presenting a broad range of work and approaches, balancing provocation and practicality as they prepare to work in a world undergoing rapid change. As a school, the LSA offers a radically accessible model of architectural education for those who want to create a more equitable and sustainable built environment. We educate future leaders to design responsive innovations that will shape better places, spaces and societies for all.
The show focuses on the final projects (Design Synthesis) of our second-year students. Taking the form of various London-based propositions – many of which are sited in Hackney – these projects are driven by context and research, and use design as a tool of transformation. Students have developed conceptual approaches that reconcile aesthetic design with technical requirements and user needs. The projects demonstrate the particular ambitions of each student as they look towards practice, and take critical positions in response to key challenges in the city.
In addition to the Design Synthesis projects, we showcase supporting work from the Design History and Design Tectonics modules, emphasising the balance between contextual analysis and technical resolution. We are also pleased to include work from our first-year Design Think Tanks (DTT), collaborations between practice and students, dealing with major challenges and opportunities in the development of the city.
The LSA and its future
A fast-changing world demands a different kind of architecture school in order to shape a different kind of practice. Climate emergency, the tragedy of the fire at Grenfell Tower, ever stronger demands for social justice: society and community need responsive forms of built environment practice – a new generation who will design, develop, and build more equitable and more sustainable cities.
The LSA exists to educate these future leaders to design the innovations society so urgently needs. Our mission is to develop a framework for practice-oriented, careerlong learning. We will expand our creation of radically more affordable and accessible routes into working in the built environment industry.
I’m so pleased to celebrate our students’ work at this Summer Show, comprising research-led, practice-embedded, critical design interventions all directed to the improvement of London, many of which are located in our local borough of Hackney. Over the coming months and years, we look forward to developing an exciting educational and civic partnership with the London Borough of Hackney, as well as other local institutions and community groups which help to shape the city and the life within it.
Our commitment to building social value and broadening access to the profession will hopefully find new form in what we are calling ‘Part 0’, a series of programmes and interventions aimed at 13-16 and 16-19 year olds. We are also working to develop a ‘Part 4’, designed to provide post-qualification and lifelong learning through modular short courses. Both of these will support our work to also strengthen our core component, the Part 2 course.
I look forward to growing the LSA with you all, and I want to congratulate this year’s graduating students on their fantastic work.
– Neal Shasore, Head of School
Thank you
The LSA would like to thank the following students for their hard work and outstanding commitment to the exhibition:
Jonathan Boon, Sam Brooke, Abigail Glancy, Dougie Haseler, James Mearns, Tomasz Owsianka, Dominika Pilch, Carlos Pereira, Imogen Phillips, Fabrice Rutikanga, Sam Pywell, Leo Sixsmith, Harriet Stride, Francesca Taplin, Jane Tocilina, George Wallis, Sian Wells, Ash Zul Parquear
The LSA would like to thank the following organisations and individuals for their generous support of the exhibition:
Grimshaw Architects
Hopkins Architects
The Furniture Practice
Alicia Pivaro
Top banner image by Dominika Pilch and Dougie Haseler
