LSA students showcase sweet creativity at London’s Gingerbread City
Posted on: 3 December, 2025
Students from the London School of Architecture (LSA) have taken their design ingenuity to one of the most imaginative events in the architectural calendar: the Museum of Architecture’s Gingerbread City®.
Now in its ninth year in London, this annual pop-up exhibition attracts architects and designers to hit their sweet spot when it comes to creating buildings, with gingerbread becoming “the canvas for future-forward city planning”.
An exhibit spokesperson said: “The Playful Gingerbread City showcases the imagination and creativity of our architects and designers, exploring playful ideas and innovative concepts – all through the delightful, unexpected medium of gingerbread.”
LSA becomes ‘Gingerbread Hall’ in ‘The Playful City’
Responding to this year’s theme, ‘The Playful City’, the LSA team created their own festive showpiece: a reimagined LSA building – a former church on Beechwood Road in Dalston – as ‘Gingerbread Hall’.
The project was led by students Emily Bradley and James Read, who co-designed the structure and oversaw baking and construction. Student Elen Togher brought precision and flair to the decoration with her role as head of ‘icing structural design’.
The LSA team said: “To get the LSA ginger ready for Christmas, our merry band of cookie-crafted creators chose a legendary design for our next great build: the mighty LSA Gingerbread Hall, destined to be transformed into a Winter Wonderland.
“We envisioned it with a shimmering, sugar syrup ice rink, a munchable market with shimmering windows that glistened like melted sugar at dawn.”
‘Construction-grade gingerbread’
The team approached the build with the seriousness of a studio project and the energy of a festive bake-off.
They sourced what they jokingly referred to as “construction-grade gingerbread,” fortified it with spices and considerable ambition, and baked batch after batch until “even the ovens begged for mercy”.
The final structure was assembled with meticulous care, with every biscuit brick and edible beam shaped to avoid what they called a “crumb-tastrophe”.
Transporting the finished piece to Coal Drops Yard became its own adventure. The students described themselves as “proud knights of the cookie Round Table”, guarding their gingerbread superstructure as they delivered it by hand to join more than 50 other edible creations designed by architects, engineers, students and school groups from across the UK.
The finished result now stands proudly among this year’s Gingerbread City® exhibits.
See the exhibits until 4 January 2026 at Coal Drops Yard, London N1C 4DQ
