An Interview with LSA alumna Betty Owoo

At the end of last year we sat down with LSA alumna Betty Owoo, to learn about what made her apply to the LSA and what she would want applicants to the LSA to know. She spoke about the intersection of academia and practice in our MArch programme and how she feels the course shaped her as a practitioner. She also shares what she thinks it is most important for prospective students to know before applying to the LSA.

If you are inspired by Betty’s experience, then you can apply to join our innovative MArch Designing Architecture programme here.

Betty graduated from the LSA in 2020 and now works as an Architectural Designer at BeFirst. Betty did her Student Placement at Hawkins\Brown, and in her studies she focused on urban green spaces and community and civic projects. Her final project was called Edible Education, a proposal for a collection of new urban growing spaces and buildings, including a community hall and a school, that would give students in Forest Gate, Newham, the chance to experience edible education.

Betty has recently launched  PATCH, a multidisciplinary group that uses writing as a springboard to create spatial interventions and design ephemeral events, through the lens of being of a diaspora. She has co-chaired the Architecture Foundation’s Young Trustees and worked as a Unit Teacher and Guest Critic at the University of Nottingham. In 2022 she was named as one of the RIBA Journal’s Rising Stars.

Read the full interview below:

Thanks for speaking to us today Betty! Firstly, can I ask, what attracted you to the LSA?
I guess for me, choosing to study at The LSA was maybe for three reasons. The first was that it was a school that was based in London and unashamedly focused on the city, and we’d have the chance to really interrogate and get into what makes a city and the mechanisms behind that.

The second reason was for the innovative pedagogical model; the fact that we would be working in practice three days a week and then studying two days, and what that intersection between practice and theory could generate for us in our own personal practice.

And then the third reason is it’s one of the only schools, I think, where you really get to interrogate what it means for you to practice as an architect. The school always asks you this question of who you want to be as a designer and what changes you want to see in the world and how you can contribute to that change through your practice.

Barking. Betty works as an Architectural Designer at BeFirst. She is currently working on drafting a design code for the Becontree Estate.

What’s the alumni community like?
I think the Alumni community is probably the best thing about the school and my favourite thing is that I know people from every single cohort that’s passed through the school and we can reach out to each other if we need help or advice. We’ve got loads of WhatsApp groups going all the time and we meet up quite a lot for dinner parties and socials; I feel really lucky to know all these amazing people.

Did you enjoy working in practice alongside studying?
When I was at the LSA, I was working at Hawkins\Brown, which is a large interdisciplinary practice based in Clerkenwell. They have projects across all sectors, and that was a really interesting experience, I learned a lot: I think it set me up pretty well for my career. I have to be honest, working while studying is pretty tough, it took a while to get into it and to appreciate it for what it was. But I think in the end, it made me realise that a week is a very long time, and it has really informed how I work now. So, for example, this is my primary job, working at BeFirst, but then I also do freelance writing, I’m a guest critic at universities and I’m in a collective called PATCH with some of my friends and my time at the LSA really enabled this.

“Edible Education”. Betty’s final project was a proposal for a collection of new urban growing spaces and buildings, including a community hall and a school in Newham

Did your time at the LSA also change how you design?
I think so. The LSA definitely equipped me with a new way of designing, a more strategic and higher level looking at things at earlier stages, and I think that’s really set me up well for where I’m working now at BeFirst.

What would you want prospective students to know?
You should know that the LSA is a completely different experience from anything you might have had at your Part 1 and, very practically speaking, if you’re working and studying, you’re earning money, which really does help you to live and get through everything.

Thanks so much for your time Betty.