Year: 2016
Location: Nida, Lithuania
Contribution: Co-organiser
Location: Nida, Lithuania
Contribution: Co-organiser
EASA (European Architecture Students Assembly) is an annual gathering that has taken place in a different European country every summer since 1981, when it was founded in Liverpool by architects Geoff Haslam and Richard Murphy. For two weeks each year, around 500 architecture students and young architects come together to design, build and live as one temporary community, working through more than 35 parallel workshops — many of which involve full-scale construction on site, from pavilions and installations to built interventions completed within the two weeks. Run entirely by students for students, each edition rests on four essential roles: organisers, tutors, helpers and participants.
Each year the host country builds the assembly from scratch. The organising team — itself a group of students — has to secure the funding, plan and run a temporary village for nearly 600 people, source the materials and tools for the workshops, and oversee the day-to-day life that holds everything together: accommodation, catering, lectures, public events, and the logistics of 35+ workshops running in parallel. There is no professional production company behind EASA; the organisers are it.
The role on the EASA 206 Lithuania organising team covered site and accommodation setup, spatial allocation, and real-time problem resolution across 35+ concurrent design and construction workshops.
Sponsorship and funding made up a substantial part of the work. Through outreach and partner coordination the team landed more than 50 industry stakeholders, securing €172,000 in project funding through targeted value propositions, contract management, and ongoing partner communications, alongside crowdfunding campaign and cultural outreach.
Photo credits: Alexandra Kononchenko, Lucas Bonnel