4 OPEN2022 IS OUR celebration of a year’s creativity, and the achievements of our community of students and staff; and for the first time in three years, it’s wonderful to be able to throw a par ty and welcome all our friends and families back to our Marylebone home. The exhibition shows how after so much disruption we have rebuilt our community and reestablished our studios as joyful places full of creative serendipity, as places in which to spend time together learning and exchanging ideas and skills. It’s also a new kind of OPEN, with the physical show combining with a digital twin https://openwestminster.london through which we can share our work with an extended audience all around the world – a reach that we could only have dreamed of in 2019. The School remains committed to our Polytechnic inheritance of offering ‘a transformative higher education for all’. The Depar tment of Education has ranked us first of all UK Schools of architecture for social mobility, while at the same time we welcome students from all around the world, to create a mix of views and approaches that forms a key par t of our contribution to contemporary architectural culture, and to meeting our planetary and societal challenges. Our experimental design and research, inclusive place-making and transpor t, and low-carbon building are proving more impor tant than ever as we recognise the built environment as continuous with the living world. Work that we do in close cooperation with the world of practice, with myriad practitioners teaching in the School – and employing our students. Thanks are owed to many for OPEN. To our campus team led by Kow Abadoo, Chris Meloy and John Whitmore. To François Girardin, David Scott and the Fabrication Lab staff who have helped build the physical and curate the digital exhibition. To Mirna Pedalo who curates our http://www.openstudiowestminster.org and social media. To Clare Hamman who has designed and produced the catalogue and film. To Daniel Scroggins who has helped organise seemingly everything. Above all, thanks to our students and the staff. Perhaps by next year this will feel normal again. Please enjoy the show. Harry Charrington Head of the School of Architecture + Cities
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