ABSTRACT

The London School of Architecture (LSA) challenges the way architecture is discussed within universities and practice. Unusually for a school of architecture, there is a very clear mission statement: ‘To ensure that people living in cities experience more fulfilled and more sustainable lives’. Our responsibility is to educate future leaders in designing innovations that contribute to this change. The school subscribes to a set of ethical values that form the bedrock of the curriculum. The two-year Part 2 programme forms a ‘community of practice’ where students and professionals within the LSA network co-produce group design projects. Each cohort is invited to reflect critically on the practice they are working with and to construct a personal manifesto for their future. The pedagogic model that underpins the LSA is to encourage collisions between grounded ideologies that inform how architects work, with readings and theories whose purpose is to provoke and challenge their own embedded prejudices.