School of Architecture Research Themes | Royal College of Art

Climate Crimes, Video installation (V&A, 2018)

Research in the School of Architecture centres on themes critical to contemporary social and spatial design challenges.

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Research themes

design-led research in the School of Architecture is integrated with more conventional text-based enquiry. We especially support practice-led and interdisciplinary design research with tangible public and social impact.

Meeting between Antonio Font from BeC and ADS7 MA Architecture

Architecture & Social Movements

The Architecture & Social Movements research group examines the practical, conceptual, and disciplinary questions that social movements present to architecture and urban design.

Cooking Sections: CLIMAVORE: On Tidal Zones

Climate Justice

Climate Justice brings together researchers from across the programmes of the School of Architecture on the foundational premise that environments are entangled hybrids of social, material-energetic and ecological relations, and that there are no social questions that do not enfold ecological relations, and no ecological relations that do not enfold social and political forces.

Drawing by Mark Brearley mapping the complex existing industry of Old Kent Road

Intergenerational Cities

Intergenerational Cities asks where are the new collectivities of intimacy and care for the intergenerational city if the single-family dwelling and the nuclear and extended family are no longer fit for purpose?

People’s Commune and Danwei

Institutional Forms & Practices

Institutional Forms & Practices studies the diverse spatial forms and social practices of architecture and urban design in relationship or resistance to the institutions and institutionalisations that shape them.

Accommodation Types According to 2011 London Census

Laboratory for Design & Machine Learning

The Laboratory for Design and Machine Learning is formed of a multi-disciplinary team working on experimental and fundamental research into new methodologies and knowledge needed for emerging design processes at the intersection of machine learning, data processing and visualisation, and legal and developmental frameworks.