This year saw significant changes, and new opportunities. First of all we welcome our new Head of School, Chloe Street Tarbatt, who took over from Gerald Adler. Marialena Nikolopoulou completed her mandate as Deputy Head, and we welcome Gordana Fontana-Giusti in the role. Michael Richards took over as Director of Studies, and he and I continued to work together, this time with our respective BA hats, to keep the curriculum both up to date and exciting. He also kindly took over my role while on study leave in the Spring Term. Gerald Adler (Stage 1) and Rebecca Hobbs (stage 2) continued in their role as coordinators of stage 1 and stage 2 respectively, while Nikolaos Karydis took over stage 3. As we draw towards the end of yet another year, I should like to thank all of them for past, present and future, as it were, alongside all colleagues at KSAP for continuing to be such a nice and dedicated bunch of people. Equally, I am grateful to all students for making it through what remain challenging times, whilst, in fact, producing very good work. This is a testament to a cohesive community, of which I am proud to be part.

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As we finally moved back to full face-to-face teaching, the return to ‘normality’ continued to present its challenges, from attendance, experienced not just in our School but internationally, to studio culture, which is the essence of architecture. It is indeed increasingly clear that such return will not only take time, but requires an overall rethink of how we engage with students and the profession within an increasingly digitally, soon to come AI led environment. This presents significant challenges, and at KSAP, as we always do, staff and students came together and begun to openly discuss some of these issues. It was nice, for instance, to see the return of a variety of field and study trips, which so much characterise what we do here, and to re-engage fully with the RIBA South East mentoring scheme, which has proved very successful. More is to come! 

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As per the last few years, we continued to merge our international and diverse outlook with an effective engagement with the region. Our design projects were based in Canterbury, Ramsgate, Sittingbourne and Chatham, all easily accessible to students while allowing them to meaningfully engage with the surroundings. Briefs catered for variety of scale and scope with increasing complexity, and concentrated on both speculative and ‘live’ scenarios. For instance, stage 3 focussed on the redevelopment of ‘Chatham Intra’, a live project involving various stakeholders with which KSAP is involved, and for the second year in a row student work will be exhibited there as part of a series of public engagement events.

 

Alongside design, other modules related to fine art, technology and environment, professional practice, or indeed cultural context, including the dissertation, were praised by our External Examiners. Our cultural context offer remains amongst KSAP’s unique selling points. 

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As the recently introduced programmes within the School, Graphic Design, and Spatial and Interior Design, continue to grow, other important changes have been implemented. As I write, work is underway to virtually double our space with new state-of-the-art studios, followed by an overall refurbishment which will significantly further enhance our student experience. Equally, the revision of our provision and balance between design, technology, and cultural context within our BA Arch. curriculum, which involved extensive discussion with both staff and students, has been approved, and two new modules in stage 3, ‘Contemporary Architectural Investigation’, and ‘Detail’, will be live as of next year. This follows an overall review of our teaching, something we do year on year to address student feedback, requirements from our professional bodies, external examiners’ recommendations and indeed to keep the fun going! 

 

These continue, therefore, to be very exciting times for KSAP, where research, teaching and dedication to our colleagues and student community remain very strong indeed. We are, in effect, a very tight family, and we can all look forward to a new year where staff dedication, expertise and outstanding research will continue to synergistically feed into all of our activities. And within brand new spaces!