Accelerate is a free pioneering design, education and mentoring programme providing access to a wider pool of young people and increasing diversity in the built environment professions.
Accelerate was developed and established by Open City in London. This year thanks to a partnership with The Bartlett, UCL, Central Saint Martins, UAL and Kingston University the course will once again host 90 students split between the three campuses.
Applications are now open for the course, starting in October 2023!
Accelerate provides young people between the age of 16 to 18 with a series of skills workshops in exciting locations across London, one-to-one mentoring at an architecture practice and in-depth guidance on university applications.
The course starts in October and finishes in May, and includes a public exhibition showcasing the students’ work in July.
Over the last decade, hundreds of students have taken part in the programme, with 70% of Accelerate participants securing conditional offers to study architecture and related subjects at university.
The practice of designing and making the built environment is a social act, which takes place within a social as well as physical context and has a huge impact on the way in which people live.
With the 2023/24 Accelerate programme, we will demonstrate the importance of focusing on people and community as a means of informing and articulating a thoughtful architectural response.
We will challenge each student to develop a critical social questioning of the built environment, by placing people at the heart of its creation.
More information can be found here: - https://open-city.org.uk/accelerate