A great evening last night with Clem Blakemore, William Mann and the wider WWM team sharing the exciting work currently ongoing at the RCA and the proposed changes for forthcoming phases.
It was particularly fascinating to hear about the collaboration between both studios where creative ideation, workload, time and resources are actively shared and balanced, resulting in a genuine and successful partnership.
The archeology of the RCA archive and history is a rich source of inspiration, lessons and guidance. It was great to hear how these learnings are manifesting in contemporary and curated interventions to revitalise and refresh the 1962 Cadbury-Brown listed building.
Fantastic to hear of the aspirations to continue to encourage the culture, to indulge in the ‘RCA’ness’ and to maintain the soul of what is an iconic art school.
Thank you again to Clem and William for taking the time to visit the studio and share these exciting plans for the future. Great also to welcome Andrew Lane, Henry Davis, Amy Young, Seunghyun Yoo and Jonathan Anderson from WWM.
Thank you, it was a real pleasure.
@clementine.blakemore@wwmarchitects@rca_soa
The Inside/Out Lecture Series welcomes OK-RM for a lecture on design, visual culture, and cross-disciplinary creative practice.
📍 Room 801, Darwin Building, Kensington Campus
Thursday 14 May, 17:00–18:00
Free tickets via Eventbrite, link in bio.
Founded by Oliver Knight and Rory McGrath, OK-RM is a London-based design studio working across publishing, exhibition design, objects, interiors, and visual identity. Their practice explores how objects, images, and visual systems shape contemporary cultural experience, operating between design, fashion, and the arts. Their work has been developed in collaboration with institutions and clients including the V&A, Serpentine Galleries, the Venice Biennale, Frieze, Balenciaga, and Burberry, and has received international recognition including a Tokyo TDC Annual Award.
Join us for an evening of conversation and exchange, followed by an open dialogue with OK-RM.
RCA summer School 2026
13th-17th July
/study/programme-finder/architecture-summer-school/
It is our third year teaching at the @rca_soa Summer School ✍️ We would like to invite you to become part of an intensive platform for critical thinking, experimental practice, and portfolio development. Designed for students and professionals who wants to approach the architectural and design field - the programme offers a unique opportunity to strengthen your portfolio while engaging with contemporary spatial and cultural questions.
Through a combination of research-based methodologies and operative drawing techniques, participants will develop new ways of thinking, representing, and communicating ideas. The summer school encourages interdisciplinary exchange, collaborative exploration, and rigorous discussion, creating an environment where critical inquiry and creative production intersect.
We will be joined with some extraordinary guests and lecturers - whether you are preparing for postgraduate applications, advancing your professional profile, or expanding your creative practice, the RCA Summer School provides the tools, mentorship, and intellectual framework to challenge conventions and refine your voice within an international community of emerging practitioners and thinkers.
Bordeaux-based architect Duncan Lewis joins us this Thursday 14 May to share recent work, with a focus on his Ekko housing project. The lecture, called “The Untamed Dwelling”, is part of the ADS1-led annual research programme Lives in Common, supported by the Royal College of Art @rca_soa
Thursday 14 May 2026
Kensington Gore, Darwin Building Auditorium
13-14hr
Open to the public with advance registration - DM for details.
Pictured - Ekko housing by @duncan_lewis_architecture - photographs by @blndrfld
Clementine Blakemore and William Mann will be the upcoming speakers for the next Musings event!
Looking forward to hearing about the collaboration between Clementine Blakemore Architects, @clementine.blakemore , and Witherford Watson Mann, @wwmarchitects , and their reimagining of the RCA Kensington campus.
Excited to hear from two architects whose curated and attentive approach seeks to connect people and place with bold and inventive contemporary architecture.
All RCA students and staff are welcome.
6:30pm - 7.30pm
Tuesday 12th May 2026
MA Architecture studio.
Third Floor, Darwin Building.
Royal College of Art, Kensington Gore
@clementine.blakemore@wwmarchitects@royalcollegeofart@rca_soa@rca.architecture
One week in Milan for @milan.design.week , and I’m still processing it.
Being part of Live Camp-ing at BASE Milano (@base_milano@_lemonot ), sharing a terrace with 19 other students, sleeping in tents, waking up at 3am because the cold had other plans, was definitely not what I expected design week to look like. But it was exactly what it needed to be.
I watched that terrace transform every single day. Quiet and slow in the mornings, then full of people, energy, and conversations by evening. Strangers swapping Fuorisalone tips, seasoned MDW goers and first-timers finding common ground, nights at the bar stretching longer than they should have.
Somewhere in all of it, I started seeing design week differently. Not just through the installations, but through the people and the unexpected places the conversations led.
The terrace became a kind of home. And I didn’t want to leave.
We first met Annabelle Schneider @annabellesbubble in Miami Design Week in 2023. She was presenting VR. We were presenting TILLY AI. Both of us exploring how digital tools might be used in the service of care.
Since then, Schneider has moved from showing in a tiny room in. Miami Alcova to one of the most ambitious installations in Milan this year with @usmmodularfurniture
She calls it a Renaissance of the Real, a response to a world increasingly dominated by speed, screens and endless images.
Instead of producing another product, she has created an immersive environment that asks us to slow down, feel again, and reconnect with our bodies and each other.
This breathing pavilion is a beautiful example of how architecture can support the nervous system.
The structure literally expands and contracts with the wind, introducing biomorphic motion, the kind of slow natural movement our bodies instinctively read as safe.
Underfoot, the soft floor creates gentle proprioceptive stimulation, sensory feedback that helps regulate us through the body.
The irregular forms, stitched seams, unexpected voids and vibrant bursts of colour create novel sensory engagement, awakening curiosity, presence and emotional responsiveness.
The entire structure is inflated using just four fans.
And perhaps the most moving next chapter: Schneider plans to bring this work into hospices for the dying, projecting gentle imagery inside the bubble to create softness, comfort and dignity at the end of life.
A reminder that design does not only need to perform.
It can soothe. It can hold. It can care.
#MilanDesignWeek #Alcova #AnnabelleSchneider #NervousSystemDesign #DesignForCare #FutureOfDesign #DesignAndHealth #studiosnoop
Day 2 of Milan Design Week & our first roundtable at BASE Milano.
Yesterday, we had the pleasure of inviting Uau Studio founder Gianluca and artist Lucrezia to our terrace to share their thoughts, ideas, and observations drawn from their work. It turned into an inspiring afternoon of conversation 🤗🍹🍻.
Thank you both for joining us!@lucrezia.alessandroni .alessandroni @uaustudiodesign
BASE Milano × RCA Program: Live-Camping, Co-habitation, Creating dynamic communities
#royalcollegeofart #milandesignweek2026 #milandesignweek #roundtable #architecturedesign #designer #sharing #camping #citycamping
LIVE CAMP-ING
A TEMPORARY COMMUNITY ABOVE THE CITY
For one week, 20 students from the @royalcollegeofart will inhabit the Terrace of @base_milano , transforming it into a living urban campsite.
A place to co-live, observe, and experiment.
A space where design becomes experience, research, and exchange.
WHY A CAMPSITE?
Because camps are spaces where rules shift.
Where living together becomes a tool to question how we inhabit the world.
Ma quando riapre la terrazza di BASE? Abbiamo aspettato la Design Week per rispondere.
E sì, sta riaprendo con il Live Camp-ing di @_lemonot : un esperimento di vita collettiva con 20 studenti dall'RCA di Londra. Entra anche tu nel vivo della loro ricerca ogni pomeriggio alle 16. Ci vediamo su?
