Summer of Work Experience at NMLA

SUMMER OF WORK EXPERIENCE AT NMLA

SEPTEMBER 2024

Over a 4-week period this summer, we were delighted to host eight work experience students from a range of London state schools and sixth-form colleges. Our programme aims to inspire and provide insight into architectural practice through a bespoke week-long project involving a brief, site survey, research and consultation, design, drawing, image and model making, and presentation. Attending in pairs (and mostly having never met before), all four sets of students choose to work together on design proposals. It was wonderful to see their lively exchange of ideas, evolving team work and complementary skillsets being developed. Members of staff volunteered in pairs to support the students with their design project but also held portfolio review sessions for those interested in applying for architecture degrees, and involved the students in office meetings and design reviews. At the end of each week, a larger group of staff gathered for the students’ presentations as an informal crit, celebrating the excellent work and relaying constructive feedback. We’d like to thank Manar and Zain, Katerina and Khaterah, Megan and Wasim, and Kacper and Ayushi, and wish them all well for their future studies.

THE GUARDIAN ON THE ROYAL ACADEMY SUMMER EXHIBITION

JUNE 2022

Olly Wainwright has published his Guardian review of this year’s Royal Academy architecture rooms which have been co-curated by Níall McLaughlin and artist Rana Begum. With this year’s theme being ‘Climate’, Wainwright highlights that “Architects and engineers have, after all, some responsibility for the mess we’re in, given that 40% of carbon emissions come from buildings. They also have the means to do something about it”. Níall commented, “there can be a sense of fatalism about the climate, but our discipline can show that imaginative change is possible”.

The article reviews a few select pieces such as Stonemasonry Company and Webb Yates engineers’ large stone beam titled ‘Equanimity’, the Khudi Bari (or Tiny House), a modular monsoon-resistant shelter designed by Bangladeshi architect Marina Tabassum, and Thai architect Boonserm Premthada’s ‘Dung Power’ a structure made from elephant dung bricks.

The article can be accessed here.