Assemble RA Elect

This event can be enjoyed in person at the Benjamin West Lecture Theatre, or via a digital livestream.

To celebrate their appointment as a Royal Academician, Assemble RA will give a special lecture about their working methods and latest projects. As the first collective to be elected as a Royal Academician, Assemble expresses an era in which collaboration is celebrated above individual genius.

They will discuss the ways champion democratic and cooperative working methods and share details of their recent larger projects, including student housing in Oxford and an extension to an art academy in Belgium.

The 16 members of Assemble came together in 2010 before they were qualified as architects. Initially they conceived, designed and built their own projects, beginning with The Cineroleum, a temporary cinema in a petrol station in Clerkenwell. This was followed by Folly for a Flyover, an arts venue under a dual carriageway in Hackney Wick. Their big break came in 2015 when they were shortlisted for the Turner Prize with a ground-breaking project in Liverpool, Granby Four Streets. Incorporating affordable homes, a Winter Garden which doubles as a community-owned social space and the Granby Workshop – a self-sustaining ceramics business.