The London School of Architecture (The LSA)

The London School of Architecture is an independent higher education provider registered through the Charity Commission as a Charitable Incorporated Organisation (CIO).

We currently offer a single academic programme: a two-year postgraduate Diploma in Designing Architecture. The programme is validated by London Metropolitan University, supported by a Practice Network of 100 London-based architecture firms, and is fully recognised by the professional bodies – the Architects Registrations Board and the Royal Institute of British Architects.

For the 2019/2020 cohort, our tuition fees will be £8,000/year.  In the First Year, our students undertake an integrated practice placement, where they earn a minimum of £12,000/year, though frequently more than this depending on experience and the practice’s profile.  In Second Year, students may choose to work a day/week, either within the host practice or another firm (this is optional).

The programme asks the students a number of fundamental questions: What change do you want to see in the world? How does your architecture contribute to that change? And who do you want to be as a designer?

The programme supports students to address these questions over the two years. Many modules use the UN Sustainable Development Goals to provide a planetary framework for change, and to explore where architecture and design can intervene.

In the First Year, students are based in practice three days per week. In their other time, they are introduced to the issues of the city, collaborate on a design/research project with the Practice Network, and write a manual and a manifesto about their current and future professional life.

In Second Year, students are based at the LSA studio at Mare Street in Hackney and work on individual design projects. Alongside these components, the history module applies the lessons of the past to our current and future challenges, and the technical module resolves a building proposal to a buildable level of detail.

Graduates emerge with the knowledge, skills and behaviours that are increasingly required in the profession: adaptable, entrepreneurial and able to synthesise complex demands into visionary propositions that can have a positive impact on the world.