OSA is a platform for documenting, sharing and enabling the varied and exciting agendas being explored by students at the Oxford School of Architecture at Oxford Brookes University. There are two elements to OSA: a digital sketchbook for students to share the latest images of their work in progress, and a print publication to provide a space for them to collaborate and share their work and ideas with each other and the world.

Whats the story behind OSA?

The Oxford School of Architecture at Oxford Brookes is one of the biggest schools of Architecture in the country, with over six hundred students from undergraduate through to PhD programmes and beyond. The size of the school means we have a huge variety of agendas being persued by students, from our humanitarian programmes in Development & Emergency Practice, through to formal and representational investigations found in Advanced Architectural Design.

Here's one we made earlier: Advanced Architectural Design (AAD) has been read nearly 7000 times in over fifty countries worldwide.

As a group of students, we've found it hard to keep track of each others interests and specialisations, so we've set up OSA as a platform for documenting the varied interests and specialisations of our student body. The two elements - the digital sketchbook and the printed publication - coexist to capture and share the work being pursued in the School of Architecture.

The sketchbook functions as a very quick, accessible snapshot of the work being undertaken at that moment in the school. The magazine is a slower, more considered medium which will act as a forum for documenting the varied interests and specialisations of our student body. Together, it's hoped that these two platforms will encourage further collaborations and connections between the different agendas being pursued in our school, bringing students even closer together around our shared aims and experiences.

On top of our rather lofty ideas about building an even stronger and tighter knit student community, we also love designing things and making them - it's in our blood and it doesn't stop with our studio projects. Print, publishing and graphic design are just a few of the many areas of design that students at the Oxford School of Architecture are passionate about - here's a small collection of the many publications that have been made by students over the past year:

 A selection of publications, zines and catalogues made by units and individuals for the end of year show.

So who's making OSA?

We're a huge group of students brought together by the exciting prospect of making a magazine ourselves. Between us we represent pretty much every course, specialisation, unit and studio in the entire School of Architecture, from first year students through to PhD candidates.

We're split between a core team of sixteen who take care of the editorial and production side of things, and a group of nearly sixty collaborators who contribute conent for the magazine.

What do you need the funding for?

We've worked out the costs of printing and the prices we need to charge to keep the magazine self-funding beyond the first issue, but we still need that first bit of cash to get the magazine off the ground. We hope to raise this by pre-selling issues and subscriptions and offering opportunities for sponsorship from alumni and friends of the Oxford School of Architecture.

How we spend the funds will depend on how much funding we raise. If we reach our minimum, we'll be able to go to a company such as Ditto Press or Hato Press and do a limited run of 200 issues. The quality of the output from these presses is exceptional and will make for a very collectable magazine.

If we reach our target, however, we'll be able to purchase our own Risograph duplicator along with a full set of inks and masters, which means we'll have access to the same printing process used by the presses above but with the added bonus of having complete control over the choice and combination of papers and inks, enabling us to play and experiment with the machine to achieve exactly the output we're looking for.

In the long term not only will this work out much cheaper for us, but more importantly it will also provide other students in the School of Architecture with access to a high quality, low cost option for making pamphlets, catalogues and zines, further encouraging our burgeoning print culture at the Oxford School of Architecture.

The amazing print quality it's possible to achieve with a risograph:

Money Isn't Everything

If you can't afford to make a cash donation at this point in time, you can still support us by clicking the 'I want to help' button above and helping to publicise our fundraising campaign. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook, where we'll keep you up to date with the progress of the magazine.

Thank you!

Whatever you're able to offer, your help and support will be invaluable. It will enable us to further encourage students to pursue their interests in design beyond the already broad curriculum and transfer their skills into fields such as architectural journalism, criticism and photography and go a long, long way towards helping us build an even stronger student community at our school of architecture. Thank you!

Contact Us

If you need to get in touch, you can find us through any of the following ways:

Twitter: @OSA_Mag
Facebook: OSA Magazine
Email: info@osa.ink
Web: www.osa.ink