Like London, London Met’s school of architecture has shown over the years a remarkable capacity to assimilate students from almost every conceivable background. It comes as no surprise that it was and remains the main home for what may one day be called the “London school” of architecture. This “school” is best represented, indeed was to a large extent born at London Met. Starting many years ago with Florian Beigel and Phil Christou, it has shown great resilience and it has now created its own tradition, represented (after many detours in certain offices in Clerkenwell and Bethnal Green) by younger teachers including for instance David Kohn and Matt Barton.

Among my favorite innovations by the school in recent years are the 1:20 models of interiors and the photographs that accompany them. They are often beautiful objects in themselves. In the most direct possible way, they fill the void left by the demise of Modernist theory in being wonderful tools for the study of the alignment (and misalignment) of architecture with human experience. They typify what is best at London Met and in the “London school”: an exceptionally fine sensitivity to existing modes of life. Yet more could be done in anticipating future modes of life.

Magazine covers at a newsagent leave one in no doubt that climate change has become the major issue in the public’s mind. It is probably no less significant a transformation than industrialisation had been for earlier generations. Climate change is changing life: our habits, our economy, our comfort, our culture, our safety. Engineers are not merely responding to it. They are doing so with a vitality far greater than that with which they once embraced steel and concrete technology – and we know the consequence of that embrace for architecture.

But what of architects today? It is incumbent upon schools of architecture to draw the growing nexus that has formed around the issue of climate change from the margins of technical or specialist studies into the mainstream of the design studio. It would be fascinating to see how architects might, in addition to responding to present lives, anticipate alternative ways of life, for instance in 1:20 models of interiors or in the real-life projects that have become a halmark of London Met. Empathy requires sensitivity. It also requires prevision.

ASD Summer Exhibition 2008