Job opportunity: Open City seeks Head of Accelerate

Accelerate

May 11

Open City is recruiting for a Head of Accelerate. This new role, which will report to Open City’s Head of Learning, will deliver, develop and expand Open City’s pioneering Accelerate programme by securing new funding, driving an adventurous pedagogical programme and growing Accelerate to reach new students, partners and institutions.

Salary: £30,000 - £33,000 pro rata depending on experience
Contract type: One year contract with the possibility of extending after 12 months
Hours: Four days a week equivalent

Accelerate is the UK’s only free design and mentoring programme specifically for teenagers from under-represented backgrounds interested in pursuing careers in architecture and city-making. The programme supports young people to develop design skills, industry connections and outstanding portfolios in preparation for making strong applications to study architecture, landscape, engineering and other built environment courses at university.

Accelerate makes architecture and related built environment professions more equitable and accessible by ensuring they are more representative of society at large and helps young people to achieve their aspirations and potential.

Accelerate was founded by Open City in 2013 and is currently delivered in partnership with The Bartlett UCL, ft’Work Trust and a number of critical partners including leading architects and other built environment companies and the London borough of Southwark.

Since the course was established, it has delivered around 500 skills-development workshops and mentoring sessions to help nearly 300 young people successfully go on to study architecture and other built environment courses at university.

Each year Accelerate works with 30-40 students from schools across London. All students have come from black and ethnic minority backgrounds, lived in social housing or in social care, received free school meals, been the first in their families to go to university or had a disability.

The Head of Accelerate will work with the Head of Learning and wider Open City team to expand the Accelerate programme, securing funding to open new branches that can reach more students per year with a dynamic curriculum.

More about Accelerate

Students have been matched with 360 architect mentors from 90 top London practices including AHMM, Grimshaw Architects, Sheppard Robson, Squire + Partners, Jestico + Whiles and WilkinsonEyre.

Each student cohort follows a programme of workshops to develop skills in observation, design, mapping, planning and critical thinking. Workshops are currently planned and delivered by an Accelerate Course Leader and Tutor who work in collaboration with university tutors, practicing artists, architects and guest speakers from the built environment industry to create a rich programme.

Alongside the workshops, Accelerate students take part in a mentoring programme with city-making professionals with a design brief at its core.

At the end of each course, the students’ achievements feature in a public exhibition followed by a new one-day Accelerate festival and university application workshops.

Our ambitions for the programme

In the context of the climate crisis, the Coronavirus pandemic, the Movement for Black Lives, and wider societal inequalities which disproportionately affect Accelerate students and their communities, we want to work harder to support more young people across London and the UK from under-represented background to challenge barriers created by structural racism, classism and prejudice within built environment industries and beyond.

We plan to partner with more universities and partners to deliver new Accelerate programmes that reach an increased number and diversity of young people to change the built environment and its professions for the better. Additionally we want to improve our contact with Accelerate student alumni to enable them to develop their careers through building successful social networks.

We also want to develop the programmes’ core curriculum to enable students to engage with a wider mix of creative city-making disciplines while placing the social purpose of architecture as the heart of Accelerate’s skills-led pedagogy.

Finally, we want to explore the long-term possibility of opening up the course to helping young people outside of formal education to develop their own personal skills and interests without focusing on admission to university as being the ultimate course goal.

The Head of Accelerate will be ready to work on releasing the ambitions of Open City’s plans for expanding and developing Accelerate.

You will be responsible for establishing contact and building relationships with universities, schools, built environment professionals, local authorities, agencies and groups working with young people and potential course funders to grow the Accelerate programme across London and to the rest of the UK.

You will also be responsible for working with Accelerate’s course leaders, university tutors and guest practitioners to ensure course content is innovative, dynamic and focused on contemporary themes and practices within the built environment including social and ecological value.

Key roles and responsibilities

Working with Open City’s Head of Learning, Accelerate Course Leader and Course Tutor to manage, develop and expand the Accelerate programme.
Building and managing relationships with universities, schools, built environment professionals, local authorities, agencies and groups working with young people and potential course funders to grow the Accelerate programme across London and to the rest of the UK.
Working with Open City’s Head of Learning to fundraise for course expansion and regularly reporting to funders.
Working with Accelerate’s course leaders, university tutors and guest practitioners to ensure course content remains innovative, dynamic and focused on contemporary themes and practices within the built environment.
Managing and liaising with Accelerate’s advisory board and alumni network to realise their ambitions relating to the programme.
Planning and delivering an annual Accelerate festival for Accelerate alumni.
Collaborating with the Accelerate Course Leader and Course Tutor to curate and organise an annual Accelerate exhibition.
Managing the day-to-day delivery of the Accelerate programme including recruiting and managing students and mentors, organising and facilitating workshops and organising and facilitating mentoring sessions.
Promoting and advocating the Accelerate programme through managing editorial and social media content and presenting at industry events.
Recruiting and managing tutors, guest practitioners and speakers, workshop assistants and volunteers.
Actively engaging with and demonstrating an interest in the work and mission of Open City.
Supporting and collaborating with the Open City team across various programmes and live events where necessary.
Contributing to the overall curation of Open City and it’s programmes, proposing ideas, speaking on behalf of the charity and actively contributing to the development of the charity’s operations.
Contributing to improving Open City as a workplace and organisation on behalf of the staff who work there and the audience it serves.

Personal specification

Essential

Educational background in architecture or landscape architecture.
Experience of teaching or working with young people.
Experience in building and maintaining relationships with a variety of high profile stakeholders including funders.
Experience of managing public or education programmes.
Experience of managing freelancers and volunteers.
Experience of fundraising for public or education programmes.
Demonstrable commitment to inclusion, equality and diversity.
Excellent written and verbal communication.
Excellent administrative and organisation skills.
Avid interest in London’s architecture and citizens.
Familiarity with Google suites including Google Docs, Sheets and Slides.

Desirable

Experience of using social media platforms to promote public or education programmes.
Own laptop from which to work.
A good network of contacts within the built environment and/or academia.

Accelerate criteria

We are particularly interested in recruiting a Head of Accelerate whose background is aligned with the Accelerate students themselves. The ideal Head of Accelerate will therefore be of a black or ethnic minority background, have lived in social housing or in social care, received free school meals while at school, been the first in their family to go to university or have a disability. This role is unlikely to be suitable for candidates who attended fee-paying or selective schools.

Flexible Hours, weekend and evening events Open City has an office which is open Tuesdays to Fridays. However, the charity delivers many of its public and educational programmes in the evenings and weekends including Accelerate. The ability to work flexibly with your hours in this role is therefore vital. As a guide, candidates should anticipate working around one evening per week and two weekends per month.

Staff are expected to come into the office (which is currently in Tower Hamlets with the possibility of moving to the North Greenwich Peninsula in August) at least once or twice per week but the charity supports remote and home-working.

How to apply

Please send a covering letter of no more than one page of A4, CV and portfolio of past projects to Sophie Draper, Open City’s Head of Learning on sophie@open-city.org.uk with the words ‘Head of Accelerate’ in the subject of the email.