Architecture Window
20 February 2024 - 29 November 2026
Ronald and Rita McAulay Gallery | Burlington Gardens
Tues–Sun: 10am–6pm
Fri: 10am–9pm
Free
no booking required
Discover the next generation of architects, designers and curators in this changing display in the McAulay Gallery.
The Architecture Window is a space for new voices in architecture at the heart of the RA. It hosts a series of ‘microexhibitions’ which showcase work by young people, design and architecture students, young curators and architects.
Encounter new thinking about the world around us and architecture now, through 3D models, 2D works, film and installation, housed within an ever-changing structure.
MONITOR is a nomadic studio commissioned by Ukrainian arts foundation in exile, IZOLYATSIA, to offer a space for artists visiting Kyiv.
This ambitious work is a collaboration between artist James Capper with designer Thomas Pearce and architect Greg Storrar, building on Capper’s practice of making operational sculptures. The eight-metre-long inhabitable mobile sculpture learns from the physiology of reptiles in walking locomotion, with four hydraulic legs and a pivoting frame that allows it to navigate rough terrain, water and ice fields.
The display includes a 1:1 prototype of the wall of the structure, which has been designed and fabricated using cutting-edge robotic technology, in addition to new drawings by Capper and a commissioned film which features interviews with the MONITOR and IZOLYATSIA teams.
Supported by Hannah Barry Gallery.
MONITOR is on display from 27 September 2024 – 24 February 2025.
Tues–Sun: 10am–6pm
Fri: 10am–9pm
Free
no booking required
Gallery
The City is a Room
In the face of pressing concerns about housing in the UK and France – highlighted by the suburban focus of the 2024 Paris Olympics – the second microexhibition in the Architecture Window presents optimistic ideas for living in both countries. Through models, sketches and drawings, architect Nichola Barrington-Leach reflects on the Parisian housing projects designed from the 1960s to 1980s by pioneering French architect Renée Gailhoustet (1929-2023).
In the display, completed and live projects by Barrington-Leach are also presented, which respond to and expand upon themes in Gailhoustet’s buildings. The display presents research, ideas and raises questions for further exploration: how can we better live together? How can we make more generous spaces? What part do we play in imagining change in our cities?
Nichola Barrington-Leach completed a six-week residency in Paris in 2023, organised by the Royal Academy of Arts and supported by the British Council, to investigate the work of Renée Gailhoustet, as the winner of the 2022 RA Architecture Prize.
The City is a Room was on display 5 June – 22 September 2024.
Gallery
Edges, 2023
Unexpected Possibilities, 2023
Crunch
The first microexhibition Crunch brought together work by 2023 graduates of architecture and design schools that addresses environmental uncertainty. Their research, models, and drawings reveal the transformative potential of materials, and fuse traditional crafts with advanced digital technologies.
Offering new perspectives in response to concerns about extreme weather and resource scarcity, these young designers are forging links between design, environment and culture and changing the way we look at our surrounding landscapes.
Crunch was on display 20 February – 2 June 2024.
Gallery
Being Safe is Scary, Prototype, 2023
Vertical Urban Village , 2023
Mimicry & The Villa of Mysteries, 2023
Collective Jewellery Landscapes, Sample, 2023
