WE ARE SEEKING A NEW FINANCE MANAGER
Nigel Coates: Liberating the Plan
AN INTERVIEW WITH ELLIOTT WANG, SECOND YEAR REP
PART 4 LAUNCH
IN MEMORIAM – CLIVE SALL
Our Design Charrettes – an insight into life at the LSA
BOOK NOW – OPEN EVENING WEDNESDAY 8 MARCH
An Interview with Emily Dew-Fribbance: LSA Alumna and First Year Design Tutor
Pathways: Optic Translations
Thursday Talks: Questioning How we Embed Sustainable Design in Practice
An Interview with LSA alumna Betty Owoo
Interview with Marianne Krogh – Rethinking water as a planetary and design element in the making of the Danish Pavilion at Venice Biennale
What do our students think of studying at the LSA? We spoke to Second Year student Semi Han
Hear from our Alumni – An Interview with Calven Lee
National Saturday Club Programme
LSA Alumnus Jack Banting published in FRAME
2022/23 Design Think Tank Module Launches
Mentoring can transform the architecture profession – for good
APPLICATIONS ARE OPEN FOR 2023/24
Alternative Routes To Registration: An Evening with ARB (17/11/2022)
Circular architecture needs material passports
Apply To The LSA: Online Intro (23/11/2022)
LSA Registrar
London School of Architecture announces strategic collaboration with Black in Architecture
LSA Summer Design Charrette
How fire has shaped London – from 1666 to Grenfell
Voices on: Architecture and Fire Safety
JOB OPPORTUNITY: DESIGN TECTONICS TUTOR
JOB OPPORTUNITY: DESIGN DIRECTION MODULE LEADER
JOB OPPORTUNITY: DESIGN HISTORY TUTORS
JOB OPPORTUNITY: DESIGN STUDIO TUTORS
JOB OPPORTUNITY: DESIGN CITIES MODULE LEADER
Voices on: Architecture and Displacement
Job Opening: Design Think Tank (DTT) Module Co-Leader — Apply by 20.06.2022
You’re invited to the LSA Summer Show 2022
LSA students shortlisted for London Festival of Architecture design competition
ELEVEN DESIGN THINK TANKS AIMING TO TRANSFORM THE CITY
LSA launches new bursary scheme for students from low-income backgrounds Copy
LSA announces Thomas Aquilina as inaugural Stephen Lawrence Day Foundation Fellow
LSA Tuesday Talks
Meet students, faculty and alumni at our Open Evening — 24.02.2022
Why Apply to the LSA? Thoughts from our Academic Director
Job Opening: Professional Events Co-ordinator — Apply by 18.03.2022
Will Tooze & Daniel Wood — Plan for Chalk Bridge
Siân Wells — Feminist City
Peter Salman — The Deconstruction Institute
Jayden Luk — Grow The City
Jack Morgan — Freedom of Movement
Harriet Stride — The School with Roots
Freddie Hutchinson — Channelsea Tidal Gardens
Our Design Charrettes – an insight into life at the LSA
At the LSA we combine ambitious, world-challenging design ideology with practical skill development for our students. One way we do this is through our termly Design Charrettes. These all-school events encourage students to think creatively about real-world issues, while developing core skills that will be essential in their future careers.
In January we held our second Design Charrette of the academic year. Led by Lara Kinneir, LSA faculty and Associate Professor at The London Interdisciplinary School, this year’s series of Charrettes are entitled ‘Drawing Life’ and they aim to address critical urban challenges and produce rapid spatial solutions to improve life with design. The second Charrette was entitled ‘Exchange’ and asked students to investigate and propose a set of urban interventions at the scale of the street, in the form of public furniture.
If you want to develop core design skills in formats like this Design Charrette, you can apply to join the LSA here.
The Brief
For the second Charrette we will investigate and propose another set urban interventions but at the scale of the street, and in the form of public furniture. It is here where moments of encounter can become moments of exchange – if the furniture is fit for purpose and people. From Roman amphitheatres to town band stands to high street park benches, urban furniture plays a fundamental role in how we engage and exchange with one another.
If we were to consider the essential pieces of furniture in our homes and consider the equivalent for our cities – what would it include? What would a street furniture catalogue contain? Who would create and manage its application? How could it be procured and maintained? What do other cities have that enable places of exchange? Italian piazzas, Spanish courtyards, American baseball bleachers and Parisian chess tables enable the manifestation of everyday life and culture to play out. What should be part of our culture in London?
Another consideration for this Charrette is that of implementation and maintenance as so many good ideas and great designs are limited by inefficient processes of installation and maintenance. Addressing the lifespan, responsibility and desire to care will only strengthen the impact that you design can have. Can your furniture be ‘resourceful’ and connect with existing infrastructure or can new installation requirements create opportunities for further growth and diversity of use? Can you devise creative ways to enable ownership and maintenance beyond the local authority?
Site
You will be allocated a group of around seven people, consisting of students across Year 1 and 2, and asked to choose a site from those studied by the Year 2 students in their DTT projects. In the coming days you should begin sharing this knowledge across the group, adding to it and discussing potential lines of enquiry.
Outputs
You are asked to design a kit of parts for street furniture that will allow for moments of exchange within the specific context and spatial conditions drawn on (1) one A0 axonometric drawing that records a number of you street furniture pieces, (2) a 1:10 drawing of two of the street furniture pieces and (3) a 1:5 model of one street furniture piece made from white model making card which will be supplied to you.