‘So, Amy, what do you do?’ A familiar question, or it was back when events and parties were still commonplace, and one I have often found tricky to answer with any brevity. 

 

Our mission to bring people together to shape a better city is a simple one. But NLA’s breadth of ambition and the scope of what it has achieved is so incredibly varied and far-reaching, it can be hard to know how to begin to describe what we do. 

 

True to the above, my time at NLA has brought me a variety of roles. Leading the design team, developing our core programme and running external collaborative projects, has given me the opportunity to work with brilliant clients across London and internationally. 

 

To celebrate NLA’s 15th year, I would like to share two of my favourite projects – our interactive city model gallery for The Chicago Architecture Centre and Museum of Us, a community engagement platform, in collaboration with Fieldwork Facility, for Southwark Council.   

In 2018, we embarked on the design of an interconnected multi-media digital exhibition for the Chicago Architecture Foundation’s new centre. It was year in the making, using 25 gigabytes of data, crunching thousands of data sets and working through hundreds of image files. Much like our NLA London model, the history of the city is explained through a film and interactive screens that allow you to explore additional content and trigger relating projections onto the physical model of the city. 

Museum of Us, was designed to gather and celebrate what matters to people in the Old Kent Road area. Our ambition was to establish a place for residents, businesses, community groups and built environment professionals to come together to share ideas about the future of the area. 

 

A collaboratively curated exhibition showcased contributed stories, photographs and locally made products, and a programme of free community workshops and tours offered easy ways for people to get involved.