School of Architecture
Introduction
This exhibition by the School of Architecture at the Royal College of Art includes work by students in our Media Studies school-wide unit and Architecture, Interior Design, City Design, and Environmental Architecture degree programmes.
I like to think of the exhibition as a ‘compendium of social possibilities’. David Graeber and David Wengrow use that phrase to describe the kinds of lived social experimentation expressed in festivals and carnivals, but also in everyday practices. Design is a uniquely propositional way to exercise our social imagination. The proposals in this exhibition embody alternative modes of existence expressed in form, matter, structure and organisation. You might think about them as trials, rehearsals or experiments that attempt to make and unmake our modes of existence and ultimately our experience of freedom. In 2024 and living through the long end of the twentieth century, exercising our social imagination has never felt more important or seemed more dissident or difficult. The works on display in this exhibition by students from the School of Architecture are all the more powerful and resonant this year because of the circumstances they have been produced under and the resolute commitment they make to the possibility of another world
Dr Adrian Lahoud
Photograph credit – Gabriella Demczuk
Our Programmes
The School of Architecture offers an unparalleled interdisciplinary context to pursue design research in the spatial disciplines. Located in Kensington, the School of Architecture provides a stimulating and vibrant cultural context for study in one of the world’s leading cities. Working alongside leading designers and artists in a postgraduate-only environment, often on live projects, allows students to push their material, conceptual and technical skills beyond traditional disciplinary boundaries – expanding the potential of future practice while forming friendships. The studio-based learning environment is supported by historical, theoretical, media and technical seminars where students are introduced to a wide range of design research methods and approaches.