AA PROSPECTUS

ARCHITECTURAL ASSOCIATION
SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE
 CONTENTS

Introduction 3

AA SCHOOLS
Undergraduate School
Foundation 34
First Year 36
Intermediate 40
Diploma 64

Complementary Studies
History & Theory Studies 96
Media Studies 104
Technical Studies 112
Architectural Practice 118

Graduate School
Design Research Lab 124
Emergent Technologies 130
History and Critical Thinking 134
Housing and Urbanism 138
Landscape Urbanism 142
Sustainable Environmental Design 146
Conservation of Historic Buildings 150
Design & Make 152
Projective Cities 154
PhD Programme 156
AA Interprofessional Studies 158
Independents Group 160
Research Clusters 162

Visiting School
One Year at the AA 166
Spring Semester Programme 166
Summer Make 167
Summer School 167
Summer dLab 168
Visiting Teachers 168
Global Schools 169

RESOURCES AND INFORMATION

Resources
The AA Participatory Democracy 180
Development Office 181
Library 181
Photo Library 181
Computer Room 182
Audiovisual Lab 182
AAIR 182
Wood and Metal Workshop 183
Model Workshop 183
Digital Prototyping Lab 183
Hooke Park 183
Maeda Workshop 184
Drawing Materials Shop 184
AA Bookshop 184
Bar & Restaurant 184

Information
Undergraduate Admissions 184
Undergraduate Entry Requirements 184
Graduate Admissions 186
Fees 186
Scholarships and Bursaries 186
Required Qualifications 188
Staff List 190
AA PROSPECTUS
 INTRODUCTION
I. WELCOME

Welcome to the 2010/11 academic year of the Architectural Association

School of Architecture. The following prospectus provides an overview and
introduction to the courses and public programme activities that make the
AA the world’s most diverse and international school of architecture. It is
divided into four parts: 1) a general introduction to the Architectural Asso-
ciation, the larger organisation within which the AA School operates; 2)
course, unit and programme information related to this year’s undergradu-
ate and graduate schools in Bedford Square, London; 3) a summary of our
international visiting school programme of design workshops held in cities
around the world; 4) a brief guide to resources and other information that
will answer the questions of prospective applicants and current students.
Now in its 163rd year, the AA School is not only the world’s most
influential and well-known school of architecture but also an incredibly
fluid, dynamic and active learning environment. Alongside the formal
coursework it offers a year-long schedule of visiting lectures, symposia,
book launches, exhibitions and other events, bringing together a growing
public audience who collectively push the boundaries of architectural
culture today.
The AA School lies at the heart of a global association of architects and
other committed individuals dedicated, in every way imaginable, to engag-
ing with and preparing for the challenges that lie ahead in the collective
futures of our world. This prospectus offers only a summary guide to the
depth of the AA’s commitment to this goal: the best way to experience the
AA is through direct participation in it – whether as a full-time student, as
an AA Member, or as part of the audience convened here throughout the
coming year. Please remember also to consult our growing online and print
materials, including the Events List, which will keep you updated on a
weekly basis.
The prospectus should give you a sense not only of the range of our
interests, but also of the unsurpassed opportunities we provide for learn-
ing. To prospective students, we welcome your enquiry and reach out to
you as our future. To those of you who are already at the school, thank
you – your hard work, intelligent insight and unbridled talent already lie at
the centre of everything we do and believe in. To all of you, I hope this
prospectus opens the door to the AA and encourages you to join us as we
go forward and seek to create not only the leaders of architecture’s future,
but an architectural culture itself that can lead the world forward in new
and unexpected ways.

Top: Introduction Week picnic in Bedford Square Garden,

Bottom: Projects Review Opening 2010 Photos Valerie Bennett

3
INTRODUCTION
II. THE AA SCHOOL: A LEGACY OF EXPERIMENTATION
Our mission at the AA School isn’t to teach architecture as it is already
known, but rather to create the conditions for new forms of teaching,
working and above all thinking and learning that will ultimately transform
architecture in ways not yet fully realised. This has long been the central
ambition of the AA School, which has for decades been home to the
world’s leaders – and leading experimenters – in architecture.
AA Students on a survey trip in the 1940s
The AA is, at its heart, an experimental school of great independence,
ambition and expectation. As a school, we expect that architecture can and
will be more than it is today; that it can and will be an essential aspect of
public and political debates about our collective futures; that it can and will
be central to shaping a better world for everyone.
The AA is a famously independent educational experiment: we are
self-directed, self-motivated and even self-funded. As the UK’s oldest and
only remaining private school of architecture, it has grown up alongside –
and to a very great degree helped shape – the architectural profession. It
should be stressed that the AA School sits entirely outside the state fund-
ing of higher education in the UK, and as a private school – with a broad
commitment to bringing issues of contemporary architecture, cities and
the environment to a large public audience – we are deeply committed to
realising the potential that our independence allows, by adapting intelli-
gently to the changing conditions of architecture at a time when the profes-
sion is facing a spectacular range of challenges.
4 5
The AA’s independence also means that we are able to push bounda-
ries, test new ideas and promote new ways of teaching and learning. We
takes immense pride in the opportunities that our organisation and govern-
ance present. As a small and independent school located at the heart of the
world’s most international and multicultural city, the AA is unique in at
From top left: Bernard Tschumi with Rose Lee Goldberg in the 1970s; technical
bricklaying exercise in the 1930s; AA student pantomine, 1928
least three important ways. First, we are by far the world’s most interna-
tional school of architecture, with nearly 90 per cent of our full-time
students and nearly as many of our teachers coming to the AA from
abroad. Secondly, we are organised around two distinct kinds of activities,
both of which are of immense value to our students and staff: our formal
courses and our Public Programme of evening lectures, symposia, exhibi-
tions and publication launches –the world’s largest year-round series of
public events dedicated to contemporary architectural culture. Thirdly, there
is the famous pedagogical basis for the school itself: our ‘unit’ system of
teaching and learning in which, in various ways, all of our students partici-
pate as the foundation for the experimental forms of teaching that remain
the hallmark of the AA.
INTRODUCTION
III. NEW ACADEMIC UNITS, STAFF AND PROGRAMMES
Over the past five years, the Office of the Director at the AA School has
created new courses of study; initiated a series of research clusters con-
necting different parts of the school with outside partners; led a historic
expansion of the AA’s main campus in Bedford Square; secured unprec-
edented levels of outside funding, helping our students and staff to help
realise new kinds of projects and events; organised and expanded the AA’s
public programme; and brought in dozens of new teachers to work in every
part of our undergraduate and graduate schools. Above all, the AA’s inde-
pendence and organisational structure enables the Director’s Office to
make swift and targeted changes to existing parts of the school. It allows
for the identification of new challenges and opportunities, the launching of
new academic initiatives and the invention of entirely new kinds of educa-
tional experiments, all of which figure prominently in our school today.
Left: ‘Datafossils’ by Tobias Jewson and Ioana Iliesiu, Intermediate 7,
Right: First Year Zbigniew Oksiuta workshop, photo Valerie Bennett
Like our student body, our academic staff have been attracted to the
unique opportunities at the AA and have come to London from across
Europe, Asia, Latin and North America, adding to the uniquely global forms
of architectural knowledge that make the AA School such a distinctive
voice in architectural education. Many of our new AA teachers have moved
here to combine practice with teaching small, focused and self-selected
groups of students. In 2010/11 many more new teachers, design units and
academic staff will join us, further enhancing the incredible diversity of
talent, agendas and experiences that make up our school.
The AA Foundation Course is aimed at young UK year-out students
or mid-career individuals contemplating an academic or professional career
in the creative arts, including architecture, and will continue to evolve this
year in a new dedicated studio setting. Flora Maclean will join our existing
studio teachers and Course Director Saskia Lewis.
In our Undergraduate School, we are pleased to announce the launch
of several new units and the appointment of new teachers at every level
6 7
of the five-year ARB/RIBA accredited AA Diploma Course, which is the
traditional core of the AA’s academic life.
In First Year, Sarah Entwistle and Ingrid Schröder bring new agendas
and experiences to the studio, and join our existing Studio Masters there
in the delivery of a studio-based programme of projects and workshops
that allow the AA’s youngest and least experienced students to prepare for
their academic and professional lives.
In the Intermediate School, unit studios will again be based in our
building at 4 Morwell Street. This year Stewart Dodd joins Mark Campbell
in Intermediate Unit 1, which will continue its work on land-, water- and
Piranesian Constructivism, Doyeon Cho, Intermediate 12
air-based networks, looking at the Mississippi River Delta. Our new Inter-
mediate Unit 2, taught by the London architect Takero Shimazaki, with
Ana Araujo, will look at a tale of ‘architecture, craft and love’ in a pro-
gramme based upon a Venetian Renaissance text published in 1499.
Roz Barr will join Stefano Rabolli Pansera in Intermediate Unit 5, which will
look at energy as a poetic device for the development of space and form.
Our new Intermediate Unit 6 will pursue prototypes for urban dwellings,
and is jointly led by Jeroen van Ameijde, Head of our Digital Prototyping
Lab, and Olivier Ottevaere, now based in London after leading prototype-
driven design studios in the the US and Switzerland. Maria Fedorchenko
will lead a new Intermediate Unit 7, which will look east and to transitions
in the urban context of Moscow at the outset of a multi-year research and
design agenda in Eastern European cities.
An evolution in new personalities, projects and agendas will mark our
Diploma School this year. Our new Diploma Unit 3, led by Peter Karl
Becher, a London-based architect, assisted by Matthew Barnett Howland,
introduces history as an active contemporary design reality, with a brief
that looks at the completion of Beauvais Cathedral in Normandy alongside
the urban context that the structure has long sought to transform.
INTRODUCTION
Liam Young and Kate Davies, jointly teaching our new Diploma 6, will
embark with the unit on a road trip across Australia as the latest stage of
their work on dreamscapes and architectural speculation. Tom Tong joins
Diploma Unit 16, which will extend its ongoing work on adaptive ecologies,
seeking better forms for adapting urban culture to natural ecologies. Theo
Sarantoglou Lalis and Dora Sweijd transfer their infrastructural work from
Self-Packaging Project, Mahsa Ramezan Poor, Foundation
the Intermediate School to a new Diploma Unit 17, which will look at
the latent territories of airports as sites that materialise the myths and
ambitions of a globalised world. The well-known Barcelona architect
Enric Ruiz-Gelli leads an experienced team teaching a new Diploma Unit 18,
which connects Jeremy Rifkin’s call for a new culture of empathy with the
capacity for new technologies and design agendas to deliver ecologically
intelligent form, space and material. Piers Taylor, leader of the Hooke Park
summer programme ‘Studio in the Woods’ and Kate Darby, AA graduate
and principal of the rural UK architectural practice KDA, adding their tre-
mendous experience and vision to that of Martin Self. Together they will
lead a small and selective Diploma Unit 19, which will extend the collabora-
tion between the Diploma School and the AA’s new Design & Make pro-
gramme. Its focus this year will be on the design and construction of a new
big shed at Hooke Park, the AA’s rural campus in Dorset.
In our Graduate School new studio, seminar and workshop staff join
nearly every programme. Robert Stuart-Smith leaves the undergraduate
First Year Studio and joins the DRL as a new Studio Master, building on his
previous part-time appointment with the course. The DRL will be directed
8 9
in 2010/11 by Theodore Spyropolous, as Yusuke Obuchi steps away from
the programme mid-year to take up new teaching opportunities in Japan.
Mollie Claypool and Ryan Dillon both join the course this year as
Programme Tutors working with DRL students on every aspect of the
written and seminar-related coursework and submissions. Suryansh
Chandra, a research architect at Zaha Hadid Architects, joins Emergent
Technologies as a Studio Tutor assisting the programme’s core studio. AA
Files Editor Thomas Weaver and Diploma Unit 4 Master John Palmesino
join existing teaching staff and Programme Director Marina Lathouri in the
newly renamed History and Critical Thinking programme, which provides
a platform for enquiry into theoretical debates. Alfredo Ramirez joins
Landscape Urbanism as a new Studio Master, which this year will focus
on China’s ambitions to develop the countryside and not only new urban
conditions. Paula Cadima joins Sustainable Environmental Design, where
she will lead core studio and seminar courses. David Hills, an architect with
a major conservation practice and a special interest in modern architecture
with heritage significance, joins the AA’s part-time Conservation of Historic
Buildings programme. Two exciting new graduate programmes launch this
year, extending the forms of specialised teaching and learning that already
make the AA Graduate School one of the world’s most challenging and
influential settings for advanced architectural studies. The new Design &
Make programme is a 16-month, studio- and site-based MArch design
programme located at the AA’s Hooke Park campus in Dorset, and will be
Left: Modelmaking Workshop, photo Valerie Bennett
Right: DRL Projects Review installation 2010, photo Valerie Bennett
taught by an accomplished team including Piers Taylor and Kate Darby
alongside Course Director Martin Self. Our other new graduate programme
is Projective Cities, offering a taught MPhil degree awarded at the end of
20 months of study and led by Christopher C M Lee and Sam Jacoby. The
studio-based course offers a unique combination of studio design and
written analysis of the contemporary and emergent conditions of the city.
Finally, in the AA’s long-running PhD programme, applications are again
being accepted for the programme’s new PhD in Design course, offering
INTRODUCTION

advanced research into highly specialised areas within contemporary IV. THE AA: FULL-TIME LONDON AND PART-TIME
architectural and design culture. GLOBAL VISITING SCHOOLS
In the AA’s growing part-time Visiting School, new global design work-
shops will again be led by AA teachers across the world, following last The AA’s five-year ARB/RIBA accredited AA Undergraduate School leads to
year’s enrolment of several hundred visiting students in nearly two dozen an AA Diploma and Parts 1 and 2 of the UK qualification as an architect.
cities worldwide. As an extension of our Visiting and Graduate Schools, the This part of the school also includes an associated, full-time Foundation
AA will lead the establishment of the Independents Group (IG) under the Course for those contemplating studies in architecture or associated
aegis of London-based architect Alan Dempsey. The IG is a new worldwide creative fields at the AA or elsewhere. The focus of our undergraduate
network of six of the world’s leading independent schools of architecture in
Asia, the Americas and Europe, who will meet and work together to estab-
lish an annual series of design fellowships, independent studies projects
and public events associated with today’s revolution in new distributed,
networked design platforms, manufacturing and production.

Hooke Park workshop in Dorset, photo Valerie Bennett

Alongside these and many other smaller adjustments to the structuring

of our undergraduate and graduate courses, there are other important
announcements to make regarding our staff and spaces in 2010/11. Follow-
ing last year’s acquisition of three new properties as part of our larger
Bedford Square campus, masterplanning work will continue this year in
preparation of a guiding strategy for the medium- and long-term develop-
ment of our historic home, which for now covers ten buildings and twice
the floor area of the AA only five years ago. Over the past summer an
operational advisory group within the school has helped define plans for
the 2010/11 academic year. These include a significant expansion of key
workshop areas already underway, with an expanded and relocated
Computing Workshop, Digital Prototyping Workshop and many other vital
learning spaces. Following last year’s introduction of new studio spaces for
all of the Intermediate School, this year will see a doubling of the floor area
within the Diploma School, where 14 unit spaces will operate as studios
across the third floor of the entire front six buildings of the AA, facing onto
Bedford Square.
Top: Juries with Intermediate 9 and Diploma 9,
Bottom: FAB Village Underground, photos Valerie Bennett
students’ academic lives are the units, which involve year-long design
teaching and learning alongside associated Complementary Studies cours-
es. The AA Graduate School is accredited by the Open University in the
UK, and encompasses ten programmes that last one or more years in
graduate design or other specialised courses of study. Our Conservation
of Historic Buildings and AA Interprofessional Studio (AAIS) both offer
options for part-time study; all other undergraduate and graduate pro-
grammes are full-time.
In 2010 two-thirds of our 650 full-time students in London were under-
graduate completing the AA Diploma leading to professional qualification

10 11
INTRODUCTION

as an architect in the UK, and one-third were graduate students pursuing

advanced studies in a Graduate Diploma, Masters or PhD programme.
While admission to all parts of our full-time schools is very competitive,
all interested prospective students are actively encouraged to visit the AA
and to make an application in the knowledge that what the AA seeks above
all are self-motivated students who are able to bring with them interesting
personal, professional and other academic qualities that will allow them to
contribute to a school filled with like-minded students and staff.

Left: Visiting school in Korea, photo Peter Ferretto

Right: São Paulo global school, photo Anne Save de Beaurecueil

The AA Visiting School was formalised and expanded in early 2008 by

the Office of the Director of the School as the global extension of the AA’s
influential forms of unit-based teaching and learning in London. In less than
two years the Visiting School has arranged short design workshop courses
in 30 different cities worldwide, bringing together AA tutors, outside
partners and local teaching staff together to do work on important projects
and problems related to the challenges of local cultures, cities and environ-
ments. Adding established workshops in Dubai, Istanbul, Turin, Singapore,
Shanghai, Tel Aviv, Berlin, Madrid, Pagu Book City and Daejon in Korea,
AA tutors have, during the past year, directed two-week design studios in
Tehran, Venice, São Paulo, Santiago, San Francisco and other new loca-
tions. Visiting students from around the world have been able in this way
to experience the AA’s unique, intensive forms of teaching and learning.
In 2010/11 the AA Visiting School will add yet other new and challenging
opportunities to its existing roster of destinations and events.

Top: Students pinning up work for an open jury,

Bottom: Workshop, photos Valerie Bennett

12 13
 DIPLOMA HONOURS
2009/10

Bottom: Amandine Kastler, Diploma 9, Iconicfiction –

Top: Jorgen Tandberg, Diploma 14, Immeuble Cité a world of interiors

Visiting school in London, photo Valerie Bennett

15
INTRODUCTION
STUDENT AWARDS
AND PRIZES 2009/10

10 11

1
2

3 12 13

5 15
4 14

6 7 17
16

8 9 18 19

Memorial Travel Fund; 16. Simon Whittle, Diploma 14,

1. Albane Duvillier, Foundation, Julia Wood Foundation
Prize; 2. Lara Lesmes, Diploma 9 Alex Stanhope Forbes
Prize; 3. Aimee O’Carroll, Diploma 11, Foster & Partners
Prize; 4. Zachary Fluker, Intermediate 10, Henry Florence
Studentship; 5. Camille Steyaert, Intermediate 1, AA Prize;
6. James Kwang-ho Chung, Intermediate 4, AA Travel
Studentship; 7. Elliot Krause, Diploma 16, 8. James Rai,
Diploma 7, 9.Erland Skjeseth, Intermediate 11, 7–9
Holloway Trust
10. Alma Wang, Diploma 13, Howard Colls Studentship;
11. Wiktor Kidziak, First Year, 12. Jerome Tsui, Diploma 14,
13. Akhil Bakhda, First Year, 11–13 Nicholas boas Travel
Award; 14. Amber Wood, Diploma 10, Henry Saxon Snell
Scholarship; 15. Max Hacke, Intermediate 8, Alexander
Dennis Sharp Prize for outstanding writing; 17. Fredrik
Hellberg, Diploma 13, Nicolas Pozner Award; 18.
Yheu-Shen Chua, Intermediate 11, Ralph Knott Memorial
Fund 19. Huida Xia, Intermediate 13, William Glover
Bequest

16 17
INTRODUCTION

In 2010/11 the AA will carry forward its recent and ongoing transformation
of our historic home in Bedford Square, as part of a long-term strategic
plan for the AA, which will create far-reaching changes and improvements
to the learning resources of the entire Architectural Association in the
coming years.

Ching’s Yard in the 1950s, Photo David Critchlow

The AA has been located on the west side of Bedford Square, London’s
last-remaining intact Georgian Square, since the early years of the twenti-
eth century. Today the surrounding area of Bloomsbury is recognised as
Europe’s single-largest academic precinct. It not only includes some of the
UK’s largest and best-known research universities, but also serves as the
home for leading independent academic institutions and as the European
headquarters for many overseas universities, colleges and schools.
Major cultural institutions such as the British Museum are also nearby.

Outside the AA in Bedford Square

18
INTRODUCTION

V. A LEGACY OF UNITS, COLLABORATION AND EXPERIMENTATION 1970s, to the studios seeking a new kind of metropolitan architecture led by
Elias Zenghelis and his former student and collaborator Rem Koolhaas.
The modern history of the AA School is bound up with the incredible During a period when it was directed by Alvin Boyarsky, one of the twenti-
legacy of architectural personalities, projects and pedagogies which have eth-century’s leading architectural educators, the AA School was a hive of
emerged from the school during the past half century, and have gone on to experimentation and invention, with teachers like Jan Kaplicky, Ron Herron,
shape the profession and culture more of architecture broadly throughout Bernard Tschumi, Nigel Coates, Zaha Hadid, Peter Cook and many others
the world. laying out agendas for work and careers that would unfold over the past
When we consider that three of the past decade’s recipients of the quarter century.
Pritzker Prize are AA graduates from a brief, intense 17-year period during
the 1960 and 70s – Richard Rogers (AA ’60), Rem Koolhaas (AA ’72) and
Zaha Hadid (AA ’77) – we realise that our small, independent school has
fostered remarkable architectural careers and personalities. The AA has
long been a home for some of the most experimental advances in architec-
tural education, teaching and learning, hosting countless avant-gardes –
from the thinking of Cedric Price or the seminal group Archigram in the
1960s, the provocative NATO collective of the 1980s, to the formalised,
team-based experimentation across electronic design networks begun with

AA 125th Anniversary exhibition catalogue

designed by Archigram Architects
the formation of the DRL in the 1990s. For decades the school has been
the place where young architectural interests and agendas have been given
space to establish themselves, seek audiences and mature into the kinds
of projects and careers that gain worldwide recognition.
Past AA prospectuses are where architects can go to find the origins
of many of the ways of thinking that spawned some of the great architects,
designers and educators of our time, from the experimentation with classi-
cal and pre-modern architecture described in the units of Léon Krier in the
20
From top left: Installation at Hooke Park 2008; EmTech canopy 2007,
photos Sue Barr; Fibrous room installation in Istanbul, part of a collaboration
by students from the AA and Bilgi University led by ecoLogicStudio
Today this legacy of invention runs strong in a school that is committed
not only to new kinds of architectural projects, practices and ideas but also
to an open experimentation with the many new ways of working and
thinking architecture. Our era has been transformed not just by the realities
of globalised economies and forms of practice, but by fundamental chang-
es to the organisation of architectural studios and design networks, based
21
INTRODUCTION

on an increasingly collaborative, multidisciplinary approach. Today the

AA seeks to embrace, confront and transform the conditions of architec-
tural practice and culture – as well as the very idea of how an architectural
school should be organised, operated and inhabited in an era of change.
At the heart of the AA’s exploration of new approaches lies our belief
that architecture – including architectural thinking – will be transformed one
project at a time. The school’s famed ‘unit’ system of teaching is built
around a few, simple challenges to a conventional school of architecture.
We believe that:
1) Students learn best by working in small, highly focused groups
around a single tutor or team for an entire year. The expectation is that our
students can direct their own path through a school that offers an intense
diversity of possible paths; our students assume a great part of the respon-
sibility for defining their own future through their selection of a specific
unit (in the Undergraduate School) or programme (in the Graduate School).

Top left: Korea visiting school, photo Peter Ferreto, Top right: Media Studies
Pending Structures on the AA Terrace, photo Valerie Bennett, Bottom:
Members’ visit to London Olympic Stadium, photo Camille Steyaert
Second Year Technical Studies bridge building project, photo Valerie Bennett
Taken together, these features of the AA’s internal organisation help
2) AA learning is project- and portfolio-driven. AA students learn account for how a small and independent school such as ours can so
architecture and address the broad spectrum of associated professional consistently define the conditions for the emergence of unexpected and
and political issues by embedding these realities within the scope of a promising new architectural agendas. Year in and year out, the AA School
single, resolved, design portfolio. The AA remains committed to the pursuit continues to be a distinctive learning environment formed not only just by
of architectural learning by doing – by the making of design projects the global range of experiences and expectations of the staff and students
(or in the case of some specialised graduate programmes, dissertations). who inhabit it but by the unparalleled soft academic infrastructures that
3) Collective assessment and enquiry. The AA School’s unit system of encourage individual experimentation and the communicating of these new
year-long teaching and learning is unique not only in its emphasis on the discoveries to countless audiences.
close collaboration of small groups of students and tutors, but also in the
way student projects are assessed at the end of the academic year – across
a panel of tutors, who together determine the relative success of any given
project and portfolio. The AA undergraduate end-of-year review panels,
as well as our Graduate School’s double-marking of design studio results,
ensures that our students’ work is seen and socialised across the school,
as part of a process that counterbalances the emphasis on the autonomy
and independence of each design unit, course or programme.

22 23
INTRODUCTION

VI. AA PUBLIC PROGRAMME

One of the most remarkable resources of the AA, and one that sits entirely
outside the formal coursework of the school, is the Public Programme, a
year-long collection of evening lectures, exhibitions, publications, open
workshops, symposia, performances and other events by which the AA
seeks to create new audiences for architectural ideas, projects and prac-
tices. Each year the AA brings to London dozens of the world’s leading
architects, artists, designers and scholars as part of its global mission to
operate at the forefront of contemporary culture.

Recent exhibitions from top left: Minimaform, photo Sue Barr; Invisible University Department
of Unbinding & Overprinting; Books of OMA; photo VB, photos by Valerie Bennett

The AA Public Programme, coordinated by the AA School Director’s

Office, has grown in recent years to include not only established activities
in our lecture halls and exhibition galleries but also design competitions,
music performances and other activities. We have expanded the planning
and coordination of the activities through the research cluster initiative as
well as through the formation of AACP Critical Projects and Cultural Prac-
tices, headed by Shumon Basar, which has overseen major exhibitions and
other special events. This year will also see the launch of a new summer
series of talks and events called FORMAT – a new, annual ‘live magazine’
Enzo Mari in front of the Autoprogettazione installation, photo Valerie Bennett
25
INTRODUCTION
that takes place during the month of July, running in parallel to the AA’s
Projects Review exhibition. While the appetite for live discourse keeps
soaring – despite the digitalisation of life – the forms it is customarily
delivered in have flat-lined. FORMAT hopes to offer alternatives to these
complacent conservatisms, involving writers, editors, artists, philosophers,
theorists, magicians and broadcasters in varied configurations of repose
and rhetoric. Through experiments in ways of talking, seeing and listening,
FORMAT will suggest that the grammar of presentation is not extraneous
to knowledge production but in fact utterly dependent on it.
From top: Martin Creed; Andrea Branzi; Autoprogettazione Revisited Roundtable,
photos Valerie Bennett
In the past two years lecturers in the Public Programme have included
architects and others at all stages of their careers. The AA has hosted
Denise Scott Brown (AA ’52) and Robert Venturi, the Belgian architect
Pierre Hebbelinck, the architectural curator and writer Aaron Levy,
Hanif Kara, Phyllis Lambert, Greg Lynn, Michael Silver and Kelly Shannon.
Autumn evening lectures were given by Jorg Heiser, Ingo Niermann,
Sam Jacob, Detlef Mertins, Iwan Baan, Peter Cook, Paul Nakazawa, Bernard
Cache and Lars Spuybroek, among others. During the past year some of
the world’s leading architects have presented current and past work, includ-
ing Thom Mayne, Toyo Ito, Rafael Moneo, Mike Webb, Zaha Hadid and
26
Lebbeus Woods. Alongside architects the school has presented artists,
animators, filmmakers, critics and scholars whose work challenges assump-
tions and beliefs about what architecture, cities and culture can be today.
Last spring’s major conference on Architecture and its Pasts organised by
Mark Cousins, brought together historians and critics in a two-day sympo-
sium examining the current state of history in architectural education.
Toyo Ito in the AA Director’s Office, photo Valerie Bennett
In recent years the AA’s Public Programme has played host to the
architectural world’s leading thinkers, practitioners and teachers, with
lectures by Rem Koolhaas, Beatriz Colomina, Mark Wigley, Ben van Berkel,
Ross Lovegrove, Hella Jongerius, Nicolas Bourriaud, Hal Foster, Charles
Jencks, Peter Murray, Claude Parent, Bernard Tschumi, Jeffrey Kipnis,
Karl Chu, Julia Peyton Jones, Ken Frampton, David Greene, Jan de Cock,
Peter Bouchain, Eric Owen Moss, Stan Allen, Robert Somol, Sarah Whiting,
Felicity Scott, Kengo Kuma, Jürg Conzett, Peter Saville, Cristiano Toraldo di
Francia/Superstudio, Madelon Vriesendorp, Joseph Rykwert, Keller Easter-
ling, Ryan Gander, Norman Klein, Joris Laarmann, Francois Roche, Cather-
ine Ingraham, Sylvia Lavin and many, many, others. This year, the AA will
again bring a host of visitors to the school to give evening lectures and, in
many cases, participate in juries and workshops. Combined with the AA’s
growing programme of exhibitions and publications, which increasingly
includes international events, the AA today remains an unparalleled setting
not only for architectural education, teaching and learning of all kinds but
also for the promotion of contemporary architectural culture in all its forms.
27
INTRODUCTION

VII. THE AA INC: A UNIQUE ARCHITECTURAL ENVIRONMENT

The AA School is the core activity and cultural centre of the larger Archi-
tectural Association, which currently includes more than 3,800 members
who join us in helping to shape the future of one of the world’s great
organisations dedicated to promoting, discussing and debating the condi-
tions of architectural practice, learning and education.

From top left: Rem Koolhaas, Shumon Basar, Todd Reisz and Brett Steele in conversation,
photo Valerie Bennett; Beyond Entropy cluster presentations, photo Valerie Bennett;
AA installation at Takenaka A4 Gallery, Tokyo, photo Yuma Yamamota

The AA was established more than 160 years ago by two young archi-
tectural apprentices, initially as a public forum and learned society. Within
a few years of its founding, the AA established itself as an important space
for the presentation and discussion of new architectural ideas, attracting
such luminaries as John Ruskin, who visited the AA to give lectures on the
conditions of a newly industrialised modern world and the challenges this
presented to young architects and designers.
More than half a century passed before the AA evolved from offering
part-time evening courses to become the country’s first full-time, profes-
sional day school in architecture, providing one of the first professional
diplomas in architecture in Europe. The AA grew steadily throughout the
A selection of recent and forthcoming AA Publications
29
INTRODUCTION

first half of the twentieth century and in 1947 on the occasion of its cente-
nary became, for the first time ever, a school of more than 500 students –
a size still close to its current enrolment of 600. What has changed most
dramatically over the past half century has been the demographics of the
AA, which today makes it not only the architectural world’s most interna-
tional membership organisation, but also the world’s most international
school of architecture.

Left: Orientation room. Right: Graduation 2010, photos Valerie Bennett

As the AA School goes forward in these early years of the twenty-first

century, all of us involved in the AA are committed to advancing both our
historical mission as well as our ongoing commitment to transforming
architecture and its potential everywhere. We actively seek out new
members who will join us in this project and continue to welcome any and
all enquiries by those interested in helping us make the AA the world’s
most unique environment for the learning and promotion of architecture.

Brett Steele
Director, AA School

30
AA SCHOOLS
 UNDERGRADUATE SCHOOL
The AA Undergraduate School is a RIBA/ARB-accredited five-year,

UNDERGRADUATE
full-time course of studies in architecture leading to the AA Intermediate
Examination (RIBA/ARB Part 1) and AA Final Examination (RIBA/ARB Part
2). It is divided into three distinct parts: Foundation/First Year, Intermediate
School (Second and Third Years) and Diploma School (Fourth and Fifth
Years). Students join the school in October and attend three terms of study
concluding the following June. Entry into the school at any level can be
from Foundation to Fourth Year, depending on experience.
The AA’s one-year, full-time Foundation is open to students who do not
have an extensive visual or design background. Some students joining
have already begun their studies in architecture, engineering or art, some
are exploring a career change, while others come direct from school. In a
group of approximately 20, students learn to think conceptually and crea-

SCHOOL
tively via the disciplines of art, film, architecture and craft in both group
and individual projects. Ideas and designs are explored through the proc-
ess of models, sketches, drawings, films and performance. While exploring
individual design sensibilities and approaches, students have the opportu-
nity to engage with the rich educational, cultural and social life of the
AA and London.
First Year introduces students to architectural design, critical thinking
and experimental ways of working. First Year comprises approximately
65 students working both individually and in groups in an open studio
format under the guidance of five experienced and energetic design tutors.
Students begin to form their own architectural identities and personalities
through a diverse range of design ideas, agendas and interests. In addition
to the studio, students take courses in history, theory, media and technol-
ogy. Together these courses lead to a portfolio of the year’s work, the basis
for entrance into the Intermediate School.
The Intermediate School gives Second and Third Year students the
basis for development through experimentation within the structure of
the unit-system. Each year the Intermediate School has a balance of units
covering a diversity of questions and innovative approaches to material,
craft and techniques of fabrication. Explorations of cultural and social
issues are often set in inspiring places around the world. In parallel to
the unit work, skills are developed through courses in history and theory,
technical and media studies as well as professional practice.
The Diploma School offers opportunities for architectural experimen-
tion and consolidation. With a broad range of interests and teaching
methods, the aim is to marry drawing and technical proficiency to complex
intellectual agendas in an atmosphere of lively and informed debate.
Students are in an environment that fosters the development of creative
independence and intelligence. They learn to refine their research skills
and develop proposals into high-level design portfolios at the end of the
year. Here students begin to define their voices as designers and to articu-
late individual academic agendas that will carry them into their future
professional careers.

32
 FOUNDATION FOUNDATION
DIRECTOR
Saskia Lewis
STUDIO STAFF
Matthew Butcher
Takako Hasegawa
UNDERGRADUATE

Flora McLean
The Foundation course offers a one-year introduction to an art- and design-
based education. It allows students to develop their conceptual ideas
through experimenting with a wide range of media and a variety of creative
disciplines from fine art to architecture. Students are taught in an intimate
studio-based environment and work on both individual and group projects.
Drawing on a number of pedagogical practices, experienced tutors and
visiting practitioners, the Foundation offers a unique cross-disciplinary
education within the context of an architectural school.

Trust that little voice in your head that says, ‘Wouldn’t it be interesting if?’
And then do it. – Duane Michals

Set Your Sights: Inspired by the installations of Robert Morris, the imagined
film characters of Cindy Sherman’s Film Still series and the curious gar-
ments of Hussein Chalayan, this year we will explore scale, site, materiality,
scenario and identity. The Foundation cohort will feature as both makers
and players in this process.

Get Set: Projects range in scale from a hand-held object to a journey

through the city. Bespoke workshops will provide students with the appro-
priate skills to develop their individual projects. The first two terms follow a
fictionalised autobiographical figure within the city through its relationships
to self-image, clothing, personal possession, memory, atmosphere and
context. Students will make and represent their work using photography,
drawing, painting, model-making, casting, mapping, material studies, form,
structure, pattern-cutting, costume, sewing, weaving, textiles, carpentry,
performance, lighting and filmmaking. After developing skills in observa-
tional, visual and verbal representation, they will then spend the final term
concentrating on a self-generated project, which will complete the portfolio
describing their creative journey over the year.

Go: A series of field trips will allow students to broaden their understand-
ing of context and culture, including tours of London and Paris, gallery
visits and residential periods in Hooke Park. Lectures in history and theory
and talks from visiting artists will stimulate dialogue within the Studio,
defining a context behind student work. Throughout the year students
will be encouraged to identify and develop their own intellectual ambitions
and expand the boundaries of their experience and personal development.

FOUNDATION Buildings published in School, Chelsea College Flora McLean is the head
DIRECTOR October 2007 by Wiley. of Art and Nottingham. designer at the House of
Saskia Lewis has taught Flora specialising in
at the AA since 2001. She STUDIO STAFF Takako Hasegawa was avant-garde headwear.
practised in New York, Matthew Butcher is an born in Tokyo and She has collaborated with
Paris and London and has architect based in educated at the AA. many successful labels
taught at many London London, a founding Working on the periphery including Blumarine,
schools of art and member of the design of architecture, art and Bruce Oldfield and
architecture. She is collective Post Works performance. She also Riccardo Tisci at Givenchy
co-author and photogra- and editor of architectural teaches at Chelsea Haute Couture. She also
pher of Architectural magazine P.E.A.R. He College of Art and Design. teaches at the Royal Andra Miruna Mazilu – Headpiece constructed to examine
Voices: Listening to Old has taught at The Bartlett College of Art. parts of the body that normally remain hidden from view

34 35
 FIRST YEAR STUDIO STAFF
Valentin Bontjes
van Beek
Sarah Entwistle
Ingrid Schroeder
UNDERGRADUATE

David Greene
Welcome to the island of interest. You have arrived at the very beginning Samantha Hardingham
Tobias Klein
of the five-year course leading to an AA Diploma and are now officially
lost – but don’t worry about starving – there’s plenty of food for thought...
The AA First Year Studio seeks to equip students with knowledge,
skills and interests, so they can take those interests to places they never
imagined and visually declare and dissect their curiosity. By taking a stand
for their beliefs in an unknown world called architecture, AA First Year
students are asked to do as much as they can with the little they know.
Why? To find out more, to question what it means to be an architect from
all angles, and to create beauty in the face of ugly failures. For all technical
problems there also exist aesthetic ones… or so they say. Perhaps most
pertinently, AA First Year students are asked to develop their critical think-
ing for making design decisions. Differing projects, agendas and teaching
approaches prepare them to travel along any one of the multifarious paths
through the school. The course reflects the importance the AA places on
students’ uncovering their own talents and identities. Whatever the lessons
learnt, in all mediums imaginable and unimaginable, students are asked to
arm themselves with tools, ideas and interests and test them with a burn-
ing spirit of enquiry.
The year is organised around the combination of a year-long Design
Studio, History & Theory Studies, Media Studies, and Technical Studies.
Together these courses lead to the preparation of a portfolio of the year’s
work, the successful completion of which becomes the basis for entrance
into the AA Intermediate School.

Design Studio Organisation 2010/11: One Room Stripped Bare

Autumn Term
1. One Room…One Day
The year begins with an individual design giving each student the opportu-
nity to introduce themselves to the entire group. Students are asked to
think about one room – if you could have one book, one song, one t-shirt,
one room, one day… what would you do?

2. Full-Scale Elaborations: Construction, Making and Placement

An introduction to methods of construction, measuring, drawing, making,
composition (manual and digital) and ideas of placement in two phases.
Phase one is an exploration of shaping, joining and installing at full scale
(1:1) in locations throughout the AA School. Students will work in groups
to develop their ‘elaborations’ and will be introduced to the workshop,
discovering the qualities, properties and performance of different materials.
The project engages students in thinking about the implications of design-
ing and making at full scale – taking the act of ‘making’ from the abstract
and into the tectonic.

Locus 1
The provisional physical fabrications are further explored through digital
media – a dedicated workshop will introduce students to a variety of digital
software for drawing and model production.
First Year students select lawnmower machine parts: an
exercise in measured drawing in order to understand the
technical nature of the beast.

36 37
FIRST YEAR UNDERGRADUATE

3. Surveyswap: Measuring, Drawing + Remaking Locus 3

Phase two begins with explorations into technical drawings that will
address questions of precision, proportion and material properties. Later,
this will expand into different modes of representation and alternative
techniques including the tracing and the mapping of movement. Utilising
the full-scale ‘elaborations’ from phase one students will produce a unique
construction document that will be swapped between groups and used
to design alternative construction solutions.
Winter Term
4. The Quintessence of Place, or… Has Anyone Found My Genius Loci?
The second term will be preoccupied with site on the larger scale of micro-
metropolitan neighbourhoods, using six locations in London as compara-
tive testing grounds. These will be explored in an intensive video workshop
introducing film and editing tools as time-based techniques for exploring
architectural space and its social context. Captured video footage will be
used to describe the atmosphere and experiential qualities of a locale and
provide raw material for new imagined spaces.
5. Designing the Species of Spaces… Places, Traces…
Students will work individually using their video material of localised
geographies to develop one of six programme briefs around questions
of neighbourhood, locale, territory, concentration, proximity and stomping
ground. These conventional (and increasingly awkward) definitions will
be challenged in order to invent new terms and define their time-based
conditions through the making of a series of one-room design proposals.
All students will work together as one group to develop a full-scale installa-
tion for Projects Review. This proposal will enable students to design
strategic links and contrasts between their different projects, allowing them
to be communicated to a wider public audience as one body of work.
Requirements
The principal course requirement is participation in the year-long design
studio, including daily work and tutorials in the studio. All work is present-
ed at the end of each project and compiled in the year-long portfolio, which
is the basis for each student’s end-of-year final assessment. In addition to
the design studio, each student selects courses from Complementary
Studies including four First Year Media Studies courses, two each in the
Autumn and Winter Terms from the list of those on offer. Students attend
lectures and write several short essays and one longer essay throughout
the year as part of the First Year History & Theory Studies course, and
prepare a project analysis submission for First Year Technical Studies.
Special Events
In addition to scheduled coursework there will be a number of workshops
with outside critics and specialists. A critical part of studio activity this year
is the in-studio lecture series, ‘First Year Talks’. Established artists, writers
and scientists will come to show their work to the First Year students. We
will also take full advantage of London as a cultural think-tank for museum
visits, film screenings, music events and live performances. Other site
visits, design competitions and festive events are also part of the year.

Locus 2
Every other week, specific open studio days will be used for cross-Studio
STUDIO STAFF nervous twitchy career, Westminster 2003–09. Entwistle. She has worked
discussions – with Technical Studies playing an integral role. A number Valentin Bontjes van Beek from big buildings to She co-edited a book and for Thomas Heatherwick
of visits to fabrication workshops and architectural wonders in the UK will lives and works in London t-shirts for Paul Smith to co-curated the accompa- Studio, Cazenove
and trained as a carpenter conceptual speculations nying exhibition for Architects and Charles
take place during this term. In addition, a competition brief focusing on an in Germany before for Archigram which he L.A.W.U.N Project #19+20. Tashima Architecture.
aspect of the work will be issued for all to enter over the Easter holidays. graduating from the AA founded with Peter Cook. She is currently research- She has taught at the AA
in 1998. He has worked in RIBA Gold Medal 2002 ing for the ‘Complete Summer School as Unit
New York with Bernard (Archigram). Joint Annie Works of Cedric Price’ Tutor, and at the
Tschumi, in Berlin and Spinks Award with Sir publication. Dunamaise Arts Centre,
Spring Term Masterclass Tutor.
London, and has taught Peter Cook (2002)
6. Mutations of Species of Spaces… at the AA since 2001. Currently visiting Prof. Tobias Klein worked for
Part of the AA’s Interim of Architecture at Oxford Coop Himmelb(l)au and Ingrid Schroeder is a
Students will reconvene and work intensively for three weeks in new Brookes University and collaborated with Nigel practising architect who
Management Group
groups and with different tutors to review and refresh their one-room during the 2004/5 search External Examiner on the Coates. He is co-founder has been teaching studio
for a new chairman, he Masters in Advanced of .horhizon and since 2001 at the
designs initiated in the Winter Term. runs the Pending Research at the Bartlett. researches as a tutor in University of Cambridge
Structures Media Studies the Royal College of Art. where she also lectures
course, which explores Samantha Hardingham He studied at the RWTH on American Urbanism.
7. Portfolio Reconstruction: Presenting the Unpresentable the design and fabrication is an architectural writer Aachen, the University She is a PhD candidate
The final design problem is to reinvent the idea of the typical two-dimen- of CNC-machined and editor publishing for applied Arts Vienna at LSE writing on the
plywood structures. work in several editions (dieAngewandte) and relationship between
sional, linearly assembled flat portfolio. The project asks students to of the original ellipsis at the Bartlett School for political ideology and
present and position their work from the year in an accentuated and critical David Greene, born architecture guide series. Architecture, UCL. urban planning in
Nottingham 1937, usual She graduated from the Washington, D.C.
way that reflects their individual experiences. The portfolio will seek to English provincial AA in 1993. She was Sarah Entwistle research-
challenge conventional modes of selection and assembly by expanding the suburban upbringing, Art senior research fellow es on the theme of the
School, elected Associate in the Research Centre architectural archive,
range of media through which to communicate a body of work. member of the RIBA and for Experimental Practice focusing on the unreal-
onto London to begin a at the University of ised designs of Clive

38 39
 INTERMEDIATE 1 UNIT STAFF
Mark Campbell
Stewart Dodd
UNDERGRADUATE

To understand the world, you must first understand the Mississippi

– William Faulkner

The Lost Highway

This year the unit continues its three-year investigation into the architec-
tural possibilities of land-, water- and air-based networks. In 2010–11 we
will study the Mississippi River Delta in the Southern United States – a
system David L. Cohn once noted ‘begins in the lobby of the Peabody
Hotel, Memphis, and ends on Catfish Row, Vicksburg’.
The Mississippi River runs for 2,320 miles from the Canadian border
in the north to the dead zone off the Gulf of Mexico in the south. Along the
way it drains 31 US states, from the Rocky Mountains in the west to the
Appalachian Mountains in the east, and forms a major navigational channel
through the United States, protected against flooding by thousands of
levees and dams. The architectural possibilities of the ‘Big River’ are as
pragmatic as they are symbolic. We will examine how the cultural history
and serpentine reach of the Mississippi creates new architectural and urban
typologies, such as the emergency rehousing of disaster victims, to the
rusted barges that ply its muddy waters, to those communities along the
river who – in the words of photographer Alec Soth – ‘live with their feet
in the water and their heads in the clouds’.
By utilising and critiquing representational precedents such as maps
and technical manuals, films and interviews, together with intellectual
precepts like Venturi and Scott Brown’s ‘forgotten symbolism’ in
Learning from Las Vegas (1972) or Koolhaas’s hypersymbolic in S,M,L,XL
(1995) and Great Leap Forward (2002), we will examine how architects
employ – and distort – research during the design process.
As a unit based largely around 2D modes of representation, we will
employ graphic methods such as drawing, mapping, photography, film
and television advertising to explore the Mississippi River Delta system
and work toward defining a new type of research-based design studio.
Following the collection of spurious research data, debatable information
and seemingly irrelevant documents, students will be asked to design a
‘drive-thru’ – an architectural junction between the user, the vehicle and the
river. ‘The Mississippi River will always have its own way’, as Mark Twain
once offered, and ‘no engineering skill can persuade it to do otherwise’.
In light of this assertion, we will again endeavour to be as architecturally
persuasive as possible.

UNIT STAFF of paperaeroplane and and has previously taught

Mark Campbell is a PhD has taught at Auckland at the Bartlett and
candidate in the School University, Princeton Brighton. He has lectured
of Architecture at University and the widely and the work of his
Princeton University. His Cooper Union. practice has featured in
research interests include a number of architectural
contemporary American Stewart Dodd is an and design publications.
culture between 1960 and architect and founding He currently sits of the
1975, paranoia, cultural director of Satellite RIBA Validation Board.
exhaustion and dreams. Architects. He is a
A practising architect, graduate of the Bartlett
he is a founding principal School of Architecture 1927 Flood, Mississippi Delta

40 41
 INTERMEDIATE 2 UNIT STAFF
Takero Shimazaki
Ana Araujo
UNDERGRADUATE

Crafted Narratives
Intimate Spaces, Hidden Spaces, Spaces You don’t See
Published in Venice in 1499, the book Hypnerotomachia Poliphili
(hypno = sleep; eros = love; mache = fight; polis = city) is a tale of architec-
ture, craft and love. In a dreamlike scenario the main character, Polyphilo,
pursues his beloved Polia. Polyphilo’s saga is embellished with minute
descriptions of the spaces through which he travels. Landscape, buildings
and building ornaments perform as allegorical figures that express his
erotic desire for Polia.
Hypnerotomachia Poliphili is illustrated using 168 delicate and superbly
crafted woodcuts that poetically portray the settings for Polyphilo’s
adventures. The artefact bears a deep resonance with the tale it narrates.
We can think of this book as a microcosm in itself, a miniaturised setting
where Polyphilo’s oneiric voyage is not only represented but also enacted.
In Polyphilo’s microcosm, architecture and landscape operate as bearers
of shifting associations. Meanings, or use, are never fixed. Instead, they
change constantly, adapting to the circumstances of the plot as they do
in our dreams.
Hypnerotomachia Poliphili will be one of the sources of inspiration
for our work in unit 2. We will explore old-fashioned techniques of craft
production and venture into the restoration of obsolete narratives in search
of hybrid, controversial and sophisticated architectures to respond to a
culture in a state of shift.
In the first term we will design a fictional set inspired by a literary
narrative. Fine handcraft drawing and modelling will be our major design
tools. In the second term we will design a building in London’s South
Kensington area, working with history and the narrative of the site. The
programme will materialise in a medium-scale scheme that will include:
a place to hide, a place to be intimate and to indulge the body.
We will pursue the potential of the craft-led, bespoke design in this
economic downturn, and look at how it might contribute to the social
balance between short-term gain and lasting, adaptable cultural heritage.
We will work with a variety of collaborators, visit craft workshops in Japan
and explore the resources of Hooke Park in Dorset. Our work will focus on
the material, the miniaturised, the fine and the graceful.

UNIT STAFF and Peter Smithson, UK, Japan, Australia). She

Takero Shimazaki is a Richard Rogers and Itsuko is a co-founder of Atelier
director of Toh Shimazaki Hasegawa. Domino, a London-based
Architecture in London. studio committed to the
He also runs t-sa forum Ana Araujo practises as realisation of hand-craft-
workshops, which are a designer, educator and ed art and design.
associated with the researcher. She works
practice. He has taught at the crossover between
and lectured internation- spatial and textile design,
ally. He graduated from having published and
the Bartlett and previ- exhibited internationally
ously worked for Alison (Germany, Holland, Brazil, Context and craft, t-sa forum 2008

42 43
 INTERMEDIATE 3 UNIT STAFF
Nannette Jackowski
Ricardo de Ostos
UNDERGRADUATE

The way to get wonderfully lifelike behaviour is not to try to make a really
complex creature, but to make a wonderfully rich environment for a simple
creature. – David Ackley

Burning Wastelands
This year, culturally interactive landscapes and narrative-driven infrastruc-
tures will be the point of departure for Inter 3. We will examine energy
by investigating natural resources and alternative energy technologies,
focusing on collaborative energy strategies and an analysis of the protocols
of extraction, processing and utilisation and the landscapes these occupy.
From a heartbeat to a nuclear reactor, we will investigate industrial land-
scapes in relation to urban demands. Counter to the myth of technological
percision- the myth of immaculate extraction facilities and hermetically
sealed laboratories- the unit welcomes uncertainty. We will create experi-
ments that articulate personal assumptions through collective stories. From
symbiotic buildings to mechanical interactive landscapes, we will design
and make, test and build, dream and act.

Collaborative Efficiency
The unit will analyse the concept of participation and DIY attitude in rela-
tion to techo-infrastructures and create alternative scenarios for Silicon
Valley. Acting as agents ‘provocateurs’ we will blur the logic of corpora-
tions embedded in advanced technologies and crossbreed these with narra-
tive and myth while investigating manufactured landscapes. Visiting high-
and low-tech facilities, deep uranium and solar mines, vast oil fields,
concrete dammed rivers and toxic algae lagoons in the UK and abroad we
will extract information from science to slum surviving techniques.

Welcome to the Techo-social

In our maverick energy safari we will collect stories, interact with sub-cul-
tures and invent and encounter eccentric characters. In the process, Inter 3
will contrast the realities of high-developed industrial areas with energy
poverty scenarios. As a result, student theses will offer small proposals as
alternatives to large infrastructural corporations, generating links, networks
and partnerships to create our alternative suns and their new gods. Ulti-
mately, mythologies of the urban will be woven with the rituals of the
ancient to create provocative and hopeful environments.

UNIT STAFF Nannette is a former Ricardo has taught at Peter Cook, Future
Nannette Jackowski project architect at Lund University in Systems and Foster
and Ricardo de Ostos Wilkinson Eyre and Sweden and at Ecole + Partners.
(naja-deostos.com) currently works for Speciale d’Architecture in
are principals of NaJa Zaha Hadid. She has Paris. He is the coordina- Together they are the
& deOstos, a studio taught at the AA-SAKIA tor of the AA-IE Summer authors of The Hanging
developed as a platform Summer School 2009 in School in Madrid and he Cemetery of Baghdad
for experimental Daejeon, South Korea as has been appointed (Springer, 2007) and
architecture. part of the AA Visiting curator of the Brazilian Pamphlet Architecture 29:
School’s programme. Pavilion for the London Ambiguous Spaces
Festival of Architecture in (Princeton Architectural Conner Callahan, The White Drought – Chain Reaction
2010. He has worked for Press, 2008). Prototype, Inter 3 2009/10

44 45
 INTERMEDIATE 4 UNIT STAFF
Nathalie Rozencwajg
Michel da Costa Gonçalves
UNDERGRADUATE

Envelop(e): Locus
Inter 4 will trawl through the intricacies of the city’s entrails in search
of hidden multi-scalar microcosms of imbricate typologies. Looking for
organisational patterns that shape informal urban forms and individual
behaviours within directive landscapes, we will thicken walls into urban
fabric: grow blocks into cities.
As an accumulative history of immobile progress, futures set in stone,
frozen utopias or muted manifestos, European urban conditions fluctuate
between forms of cultural exacerbations and self-referential isolated
objects. Within increasingly regulated environments, we will subvert these
sporadic and secluding modes of evolution through novel definitions of
‘place’, encapsulating manifested and perceived contextual heterogeneity.
Exploring how complexity overlaps within different scales, from detail
to the whole, we will aim to generate new combinatorial responses with
architectural forms bridging meaning and experimentation.
The building surface will be our medium of intervention. As an environ-
mental and narrative interface, it will provide a framework instigating the
reinvention of typologies within spatial boundaries as well as socially and
historically dense fabrics. ‘Scale’, as an instrument, allows us to compress
an understanding of the richness of urban living, folding it in on itself
in order to create more within restricted space and decorum. In converging
multilayered aspects of the Parisian setting, we will be creating qualitative
densities through proposals for new urban building blocks.
Through a staged exploration of domestic morphologies, focusing on
the housing/working typology, the proposals will explore spatial, experien-
tial and perceptive qualities to inform the possibility of territorial evolution
without expansion. Within the city’s contrived fabrics, students will develop
design processes that embed individual readings of eclectic, (though organ-
ised) conditions into new hierarchic spatialities. Building on the unit’s
grammar, forms of codified representation will hybridise objective mapping
and phenomenal interpretation, while performative responses will equally
fashion formal vocabularies. Extended into collaborative conversations,
proposals will be developed along collective and individual hypotheses.
In strongly defined and mutating European cities, the unit will pursue
our exploration in the fragilely balanced territory between response to
a seemingly homogenous context and the singularities of the designed
object, along the way questioning the contemporary paradoxical demand
for growth, spatial scarcity and environmental accountability.

UNIT STAFF different scales integrat- project architect for

Nathalie Rozencwajg ing research, design and Shigeru Ban and AS in
has been teaching at experiment. Paris working on various
the AA since 2004 and prestigious international
is coordinator of the Michel da Costa projects. Director and
AA Visiting Workshop Gonçalves studied in author of ‘City’ series
in Singapore. She is Spain and France, and for Autrement publishers,
cofounder of rare later graduated from the he has previously taught
architects (r-are.net), Emergent Technologies & at the ENSAPL and has
based both in Paris Design programme. been coordinator of the
and London. The office Cofounder of rare AA Singapore Visiting
emphasises work at architects, he is a former Workshop since 2006. Kien Pham – Manhattan regulations

46 47
 INTERMEDIATE 5 UNIT STAFF
Stefano Rabolli Pansera
Roz Barr
UNDERGRADUATE

The principle of the conservation of energy is mingled in every artist

or technician… In architecture this search is undoubtedly bound up with
the material and with energy; and if one fails to take note of this, it is not
possible to comprehend any building either from a technical point of view
or from a compositional one. – Aldo Rossi, A Scientific Autobiography

Beyond Entropy
By refusing the rhetoric of sustainability and the promises of ecology,
Intermediate 5 focuses on the concept of energy as a poetic device to
develop a new understanding of space and form. Developed from
Aldo Rossi’s observations on the city, this approach is far removed from
pseudo-science and robotic renders. Energy becomes a conceptual device
for considering space as the temporary moment of a complex system
of forces that remain visible in the evidence of form. The unit is interested
not in turbines or solar panels, but in the relationship between the city and
architectural form as temporal coalescing of ever-changing social, political,
technical and economic energies.
These forces provide a framework for urban intervention in the north
of Italy, a region of urban sprawl that offers an extreme example of how
submerged our landscapes have become in the ambiguity of being neither
‘nature’ nor city. In this entropic landscape, how can we reactivate social
and political functions? We will look at how urban sprawl may be countered
through a more efficient use of resources, with the reintroduction of formal
principles able to reanimate our environment at both the urban and the
architectural scales.
The unit work operates through ‘progressive’ design stages – making,
unmaking and remaking. The first term will focus on the notion of energy
through drawing, crafting and performing, with a conceptual model that
acts as spatial prototype. The second term will adopt the prototype as
a tool to analyse the context and to define a programme and architectural
proposal. The third term will articulate the design project in constant
confrontation with technical requirements. The final proposal, an urban
intervention, will be fabricated through a constructive analysis of defined
and urban constraints concluding with a 1:100 scale model.
The work will, in large part, be structured by weekly student submis-
sions in the form of pin-ups that will include visiting critics, including
external consultants Goswin Schwendinger and HTS tutor Ryan Dillon.

UNIT STAFF teaching in the AA UK and Spain, with

Stefano Rabolli Pansera Intermediate School since the emphasis being
is founder and director of 2005. He is director of the ‘the process of making’.
Rabolli Pansera Ltd, an Research Cluster ‘Beyond She worked as Associate
architectural practice Entropy: when Energy Director with Eric Parry
involved in projects in becomes Form’. for nearly ten years. She
the UK, Italy and Lebanon. has taught at the Bartlett
After graduating with Roz Barr founded her School of Architecture
honours from AA in 2005, practice Roz Barr and sits on the RIBA
he worked for two years Architects in 2009. The Validation Panel for
for Herzog & de Meuron London-based studio is Education.
in Basel. He has been working on projects in the Potential Energy – Giuseppe Penone, Albero Fiume, 1987

48 49
 INTERMEDIATE 6 UNIT STAFF
Jeroen van Ameijde
Olivier Ottevaere
UNDERGRADUATE

In-fill / Out-fits: Prototypes for Urban Dwelling

Intermediate 6 investigates the critical application of innovative digital
design and construction processes in relation to the challenges facing cities
today. Deploying fabrication-based design strategies in dense urban envi-
ronments, we will develop architectural structures that negotiate spatial
and material constructs within contexts of limited resources, infrastructure
and space. The year will be structured in two interdependent phases,
with students working collaboratively on the design and construction of
a 1:1 scale prototype as well as individually to develop their projects and
portfolios, which will include research into context, programme and site.

Phase 1: ‘In Vitro’

Starting out as a laboratory for the discovery of inventive techniques of
making, the first phase of the year will involve the production of a series
of physical prototypes that can be deployed as small urban shelters or
enclosures. Starting from existing construction methods and extracting
design criteria from specific material properties, we will develop file-to-
factory processes exploring architectural vocabulary in relation to methods
of construction. Assisted by computational tutorials with invited experts,
our digital design processes will aim to produce a ‘living unit’, a minimum
dwelling capable of being adapted to a range of different environments
and living scenarios. To complement a catalogue of models and drawings
recording various stages of design to production, we will develop diagram-
ming techniques to describe our generative strategies and potential out-
comes. The first phase will end with the collaborative design and construc-
tion of a proposal sited within the premises of the AA.

Phase 2: ‘In Vivo’

During the second phase we will test our concepts, applying them to the
extremely dense, integrated and networked context of Hong Kong. We
will seek out three-dimensional gaps within the city fabric where we can
reformulate our living units in increased numbers, operating on a range of
scales and exploiting issues of grounding, verticality, site constraints and
infrastructures. We will envision how our fabrication strategies can develop
the particularities of context and the specific needs of its users. These
design models can be applied to negotiate between the collective project
and the interests of individuals, building on living structures that can grow
over time.

UNIT STAFF Digital Prototyping he the experimental computation. He has

Jeroen van Ameijde has been teaching at the architecture practice practised in New York,
studied Architecture and AA since 2007, working Material_Codes. Lisbon and London and
Building Technology with various units and has taught design studios
at the Delft University of programmes including Olivier Ottevaere in Denmark, the UK and
Technology. He has one of the design studios graduated with a degree for last four years in
worked in offices in in the DRL with Marta in Architecture from the Switzerland. He currently
Holland, New York and Malé-Alemany. He has Cooper Union in New develops design works
Hong Kong and taught in lectured and taught York in 2002 and in 2008 under his initials –
a graduate design studio workshops in several from the Bartlett in double(O).
at the University of universities worldwide London with an MSc in ‘Huesos varios’, series of precast (reinforced concrete)
Pennsylvania. As Head of and has recently founded adaptive architecture and elements by architect Miguel Ficas (1913–2006)

50 51
 INTERMEDIATE 7 UNIT STAFF
Maria Fedorchenko
+ co-tutor
UNDERGRADUATE

Eastern Promises: Shopping Transfers

This unit is concerned with design responses to transitional urban contexts,
targeting ‘transfers’ between conflicted site systems in Eastern European
cities. Our focus will be on the excesses and ingenuities of shopping in the
bewildering context of Moscow – a sophisticated monster with a method to
its madness. Political and economic overhauls loaded post-Soviet Moscow
with severe tensions. With the transition from central planning to the free
market, the unprecedented explosion of commercial space had to absorb
clashes between old and new built forms, transit links and use patterns.
From imposing hypermarkets to informal outlets, promiscuous shopping is
at the core of Moscow’s paradoxical commingling of control and freedom,
stability and turmoil, staging and neglect. To engage with such an ambigu-
ous context, we will interrogate our approaches and tools.
Fieldwork in Moscow will link extravagant boutiques and clubs with
utilitarian stalls and bars, awe-inspiring treasures with shocking eyesores,
grand masterplans with ad hoc deviations. Looking for rules behind the
inconsistencies, we will remain alert to what things look like in contrast to
how they work. The unit will devise analytical and generative tools to
convert problems and malfunctions into inventions. Relying on research
and diagrammatic analysis of local and global case-studies, we will tackle
Moscow’s sore spots to alleviate ruptures between transportation, recrea-
tional and cultural programmes via shopping. Interventions will exploit site
conflicts instigated by colonised structures, residual public spaces or
circulation bypasses, and will experiment with synthetic infrastructures
that can mediate between forms and processes at the level of organisation.
Combining previously untested design strategies within a structured
framework, projects will test the effects of commercial space on urban
resilience. As tools of modification, shopping transfers will supply the
missing infrastructure for heterogeneous design measures with plastic
relationships between form and programme. Projects will test dissimilar
precedents, merging, for example, performative approaches by Bernard
Tschumi and OMA with material approaches to continuity by Reiser &
Umemoto and FOA. By expanding shopping typologies, exchanges be-
tween internal and external architectural arsenals will occur via an active
graphic interface between research and design.

UNIT STAFF UCLA and CCA. Joining numerous conference

Maria Fedorchenko the AA in 2008, she has proceedings and
studied at UCLA, been involved in the exhibitions. Recent work
Princeton University and First Year Studio, History focuses on methodolo-
Moscow Institute of and Theory Studies and gies for urban analysis
Architecture. She has the Housing & Urbanism and projection as well as
practised architecture in programmes. Her art, design systems that link
the United States, Russia designs and research formal and programmatic
and Greece, and currently have appeared in Salon agendas.
directs a design consul- Interior, Art of Russia and Top: ‘Mall of Russia’ at the core of Moscow City Bottom: ‘Ohotniy Ryad’ Shopping and Entertainment
tancy. Since 2003, she has Architectural Theory Business Centre (Source: AFI Development, Complex on Manezh Square, Moscow
taught at UC Berkeley, Review, as well as afi-development. ru) (Source: Zurab Tsereteli, tsereteli.ru)

52 53
 INTERMEDIATE 8 UNIT STAFF
Francisco Gonzalez de Canales
Nuria Alvarez Lombardero
UNDERGRADUATE

Politics of Fabrication II
Challenging Political Expression in Little Havana, Miami
Inter 8 continues exploring the politics of today from its most basic mani-
festations in the city, experimenting with new scenarios of political expres-
sion in intentionally polemical locations. In today’s cities, where tourists
and natives, immigrants and citizens, temporary and life-long residents all
live side by side, the traditional meaning of politics has changed. Conse-
quently, political representation depends less on constituencies than it
does on direct, voluntary and unbinding associations among people who
assert their presence in the public arena. The unit posits the possibility
of redefining the political expression of the multitude as the making visible
of the relationship between everyday activities in public and the particular
material constructions that ultimately give them political value.
This year the unit will be working on the Versailles Restaurant in the
Calle Ocho (SW 8 St.) of Little Havana, Miami. This has been the epicentre
of political expression of Cuban exiles in the United States since 1971,
and manifests within its walls the invisible barriers that lie between Cuba
and the US. Students will analyse this building and the small public space
in front, exploring their socio-cultural milieu in order to redefine them
within a sophisticated understanding of politics today.
The year will begin with two small workshops introducing students to
the political implications of architectural elements that are used or seen in
everyday life, such as the Architectural Association’s front door or the US
embassy perimeter in London. Such architectural thresholds articulate and
mediate the identities between the different users, comprising the cultural
and social diversity that makes London so rich.
Following this initial conceptual development, students are expected to
present their own critical arguments on the changing associations of
individuals within the public realm manifested in material articulations.
After our site visit to Little Havana, each student will propose specific urban
strategies and architectural-material systems that articulate the relationship
of Cuban exiles and Latinos to the city. Students will test the formal, pro-
grammatic, atmospheric and constructive organisation of their design
proposals in relation to their arguments. Projects will address construction
methods which can be produced by the collective, bringing political expres-
sion of the masses into the realm of fabrication.

UNIT STAFF architectural critic, he has Nuria Alvarez Lombardero & Lombardero. She has
Francisco Gonzalez de previously lectured in studied architecture at lectured at the University
Canales studied England, Mexico, Spain ETSA Madrid and in the of Seville and worked as a
architecture at ETSA and the USA, collaborated Housing and Urbanism researcher at Harvard
Seville, ETSA Barcelona and worked on different MA programme at the AA. University, the University
and Harvard University, architectural publications, She has worked for of Cambridge and the AA.
and worked for and is the current AACP Machado & Silvetti She is currently finalising
Foster+Partners and coordinator. He recently Associates in Boston, and her PhD on the dissolu-
Rafael Moneo. He is completed his PhD on is part of Neutra Magazine tion of boundaries traced
co-director of award- the radical domestic editorial board. Since by modern urban
winning Canales & self-experimentations of 2003 she has been planning.
Lombardero. An active the 1940s and 1950s. co-director of Canales Aerial view of Calle Ocho (SW 8 St.), Little Havana, Miami

54 55
 INTERMEDIATE 9 UNIT STAFF
Christopher Pierce
Christopher Matthews
UNDERGRADUATE

Bullish
On the Carrer de Girona in Granollers, just up the coast from Barcelona,
there sits a rough concrete and masonry building whose inside is stuffed
full of various machines. A few of these are obsolete, others ignored,
while the greater majority are whirring away, finishing the final stalactites
as part of the endlessly drawn out restoration of Gaudí’s Sagrada Família.
In between these different engines are the objects of future and past
buildings – ceramic moulds, CNC polystyrene pieces and porcelain proto-
types – remnants of a century of different fabrication processes. Each floor
is an alchemical mix of ovens, scales, beakers, powders and formulas,
and the roof is a field of unfinished and discarded objects. This is the
studio of Toni Cumella (one of the world’s leading ceramicists and someone
constantly in search of new architectural finishes and applications) –
a four-storey building and its contents that the unit will take this year as
a living ‘found drawing’.
Tomb-raiding this space, we are going to invent ways to make our own
2D, thick 2D and 3D fragments and assemblages by scanning the atelier’s
machines and objects; sampling environmental, cultural and historical
registers; engaging in all forms of digital prototyping; and drawing with
rapier-like precision. We will invent and mis-read ‘operational legends’,
referencing systems and catalogues. By moving back and forth between
the exacting visual language of hydrographic and aeronautic draughtsmen
and the three-dimensional delicacy of the butterfly collector (both modes
that engage in the precision of the laboratory scientist with the technique
of the fine artist), Inter 9 will exploit the by-products of digital technology
to produce unimaginable 3D architectural drawings.
We will then move this armoury of textures, surfaces, volumes and
objects from Granollers to the Plaza de Toros Monumental in Barcelona.
Responding to Catalonia’s recent edict to outlaw bullfighting in 2012 we
will lose ourselves in the refinery of the matador’s psychedelic patterns,
colours and textures and bullfighting’s processes and producers. In a
typically surrealist fashion, we will then deploy this substance to contrive
the completion of Gaudí’s Colònia Güell in Santa Coloma de Cervelló,
and, as Cedric Price once said, ‘delight in the unknown’.

UNIT STAFF Pavilion, ‘Chinese Christopher Matthews, Poultry before setting up

Christopher Pierce studied Whispers’ (2010); and, principal of Pastina PMA in 2000. PMA has
at Virginia Polytechnic with Tom Weaver, ‘In Matthews Architects recently completed a
Institute and State Conversation with Léon (PMA), was educated two-storey penthouse
University and gained a Krier’ (2010). He formed at the Bartlett School of above the Factory Gallery
PhD from the University Mis-Architecture Architecture. For nearly in Redchurch Street,
of Edinburgh. Among (mis-architecture.co.uk) a decade he worked with London and current pro-
his recent publications with Christopher James Stirling, Michael jects include the Museum
are essays on Ron Arad’s Matthews in 2000. Wilford and Associates for Captain Cook in
Design Museum, ‘In on projects including the Whitechapel, London. Spanish bullfighter Julio Aparicio is gored in the throat by
Praise of the Harpoon’ Singapore Arts Centre, his first bull at Las Ventas bullring in Madrid, 21 May 2010
(2010); EMBT’s Shanghai Lowry Centre and No 1 Photo © Corbis / Gustavo Cuevas

56 57
 INTERMEDIATE 10 UNIT STAFF
Claudia Pasquero
Marco Poletto
UNDERGRADUATE

The Self-organising City v1.0: [Network-Oasis]

Inter 10 is returning to the Arabian peninsula to develop a Network-Oasis
[NO], self-organising trading hubs for the twenty-first-century Emirati
metropolis. Resurfacing from last year’s coral reefs, Inter 10 will head
inland, to one of the largest, most desolate and fascinating deserts
on earth, the Rub Al Khali. Travelling in the footsteps of the Bedouin we
will retrace their distributed territorial networks, the oases as the nodal
trading hubs. We will learn how their nomadic practices have functioned
as mechanisms of adaptation within such an extreme environment.
The souks or markets have been the heart of this dynamic and diffused
urban model for centuries, as the places where flows of goods, social
information and environmental energy are exchanged and regulated. Our
work will focus on a contemporary version of the ‘souk’ or ‘trading market’,
set within one of the rapidly modernising global Emirati metropolises.
The unit’s first workshop will investigate the contemporary relevance
of these practices and engage with the re-evaluation and remaking of
Constant Nieuwenhuys’ nomadic utopia, New Babylon. A second workshop
will introduce parametric drawing techniques and the fabrication of physi-
cal experimental models as a design apparatus [for simulating] patterns
of self-organisation and visualisations of emergent urban networks.
The exercises will be developed largely in 1:200 plans and detail drawings
which will then form the basis for investigating the critical intersection
of our emergent Network-Oasis with the existing urban fabric. Term 3 will
be dedicated to the production of a final physical model of the Oasis.
The field trip to the Arabian Desert will involve a nomadic existence
aided by modern-day 4WD and GPS, a visit to the ancient oases of
Al Ain and Liwa, and a 1:1 replica of the 1974 experiment ‘Desert Cloud’
by Graham Stevens.
As a building prototype, the Network-Oasis will support the redistribu-
tion of locally grown products and imported merchandise found in tradi-
tional souks while promoting the social interaction and experimentation
of contemporary malls. As a model of self-organisation, the Network-Oasis
will attempt to spatially organise and temporally balance multiple proc-
esses to achieve symbiotic urban growth and promote increasing differen-
tiation of social spaces.

www.aainter10.blogspot.com

UNIT STAFF developed prototypes and

Claudia Pasquero and installations for the most
Marco Poletto are important Architectural
co-founders of ecoLogic- Biennales, and it runs
Studio, an architectural international workshops.
and urban design studio Claudia and Marco are
based in London. currently writing a new
Completed projects book on Systemic
include a public library, Architecture; they have
private villas, large been Inter 10 Unit Masters
facades and parametric since 2007.
roofs. ecoLogicStudio has (ecologicstudio.com) The Rub Al Khali near Liwa Oasis – Satellite View

58 59
 INTERMEDIATE 12 UNIT STAFF
Sam Jacob
Tomas Klassnik
UNDERGRADUATE

Deep Copy
The greatest gift of the digital revolution is copying. Cut! Copy! Paste! is
the implicit mantra of modern culture ritualised through familiar keystrokes.
The cover version and the mash-up are the default settings of contempo-
rary culture. Whether genetic clones, bootlegged iPhones or X-Factor
covers, everything that has ever happened is a click away from revival.
This is not a new phenomenon. In fact, we might think of contemporary
cut-copy-paste vernaculars like the LOL Cat as heirs to a century of avant-
garde art practice. The unoriginality of copying as a cultural mechanism
is only rivalled by the originality of its capacity to reinvent.
The copy sets into stark contrast issues of cultural meaning and value.
Copies ask us to look, hard. How, why and who copies determine the
nature of the output: it’s not what you steal, it’s the way that you steal it.
Despite modernism’s continuing myths of originality, copying is funda-
mental to the founding myths of architecture. Greek temples were stone
copies of wooden structures, Romans copied Greeks, and the Renaissance
copied both of them. Modernists copied engineers (and each other – as
with Philip Johnson’s explicit copy of Mies’ Farnsworth House, see right).
Neo-modernists copied modernists, and post-modernists copied every-
thing. Each time the act of copying allowed something new to be said.
These deep historical traditions of copying and the shallow puddle of
contemporary culture will be our sites of investigation.
We will learn from art practice, science, music, digital culture, criminals
(and architecture), developing our own dictionary of copying. This will
investigate the difference between bootlegs, forgeries, mash-ups, facsimi-
les and reproductions. It will help us understand the errors, degradations
and hybridisations that copying introduces.
We will use a wide array of representational techniques including
3D modelling and printing, Photoshop collage, YouTube videos, physical
models and measured drawings, and apply these tactics to architectural
proposals addressing programmatic briefs developed in response to
individual student research.
We will start the year amongst the replicas of the Victoria & Albert
Museum, visit the (original) Venice – while thinking of its duplicates –
and make proposals where dialogues between the original and the copy
reinvent the possibilities of the present.

UNIT STAFF Tomas Klassnik is director

Sam Jacob is a director of The Klassnik Corpora-
of FAT (fat.co.uk), an tion (klassnik.com), a
award-winning London- design practice focused
based architectural on architectural specula-
practice. He is also tion. UK correspondent
contributing editor to for Deutsche Bauzeitung,
Icon, columnist for Art he has also taught at
Review and is also the Chelsea College of Art Top: Canon iR 110 Digital Photocopier capable
editor of Strange Harvest and the RCA. of 110 A4 copies per minute
(strangeharvest.com). Middle: Dolly (1996–2003) first mammal cloned Bottom: The Glass House, Philip Johnson, Connecticut,
from an adult somatic cell using nuclear transfer USA, 1949

60 61
 INTERMEDIATE 13 UNIT STAFF
Miraj Ahmed
Martin Jameson
UNDERGRADUATE

The beautiful in nature is connected with the form of the object, which
consists in having boundaries. The sublime, on the other hand, is to
be found in a formless object.
– Immanuel Kant, Critique of Judgment, 1790

A dictionary begins when it no longer gives the meaning of words, but their
tasks. Thus formless is not only an adjective having a given meaning, but
a term that serves to bring things down in the world.
– George Bataille, Informe (Formless), 1929

Formless
Inter 13 will continue to work with cultural readings of space. We are
interested in the oppositional interplay between form and formlessness,
order and disorder, sacred and profane, as essential to a heterogeneous
urban experience.
Contemporary interest in complex and exotic form has led to a prolif-
eration of architectural objects that disallow the crude, contingent or
everyday and instead promote the ‘ideal’ and, unintentionally, the homoge-
neous. In our post-crash, post-digital-excess world we can reengage with
the concept of the ‘formless’. Formless here is understood as a phenom-
enon and process; in other words, we are asking what does formless do
to form? Our prime focus is on the temporal and atmospheric, occupation
and use, making and decay. In contrast to the glossy and the clinical,
material concepts such as ‘base matter’ have renewed relevance in today’s
cities where ‘baseness’ – related to formlessness – can be inferred by the
unclassified or ‘raw’, both in substance and in programme.
Against this background the unit will continue its engagement with
London and social context. Observation and research will provide the
ground for understanding formless phenomena such as entropy, estrange-
ment and transgression. Theoretical positions will be explored through
a wide range of media tools. To better understand the potential of base
matter we will be placing increased emphasis on materiality and physical
model-making, and in this regard casting, with its relation to ‘brut’ and the
sacred, will become a key technique. Architectural precedent and site
analysis will be used to develop programmes that are critically juxtaposed
within dense urban fabric. Above all, we will be exploring strategic proposi-
tions that reflect contemporary urban and economic conditions that viscer-
ally engage with the city.

UNIT STAFF Martin Jameson is an where he studied Kantian

Miraj Ahmed is a
practising painter and
architect exploring the
interstice between art
and architecture. He has
taught at the AA since
2000 and is a Design
Fellow at the University of
Cambridge and Associate
Lecturer at Camberwell
College of Art.
associate at Serie philosophy and political
Architects. He studied for theory, and an MBA from
five years at the AA and IMD, Switzerland.
received his Diploma with
honours. Before studying
architecture he was a
business consultant
advising corporations on
strategy and organisa-
tional design. He has a BA
from Oxford University Eli Lotar, ‘Abbatoir’ La Villette, Paris, 1929

62 63
 DIPLOMA 3 UNIT STAFF
Peter Karl Becher
Matthew Barnett Howland
UNDERGRADUATE

Completing Beauvais Cathedral

The cathedral Saint-Pierre in Beauvais, Normandy, is the tallest Gothic
structure ever attempted. The monument collapsed twice during construc-
tion and was eventually left unfinished after the crossing-tower fell down
in 1573 just a few days after completion. Only half of the cathedral has
been built, including the choir and the transept.
This project’s objective is to complete the fragmented cathedral in a
contemporary and secular way, and to reinvent its immediate urban con-
text. In this ambitious task, history is not seen as a ‘closed book’ but is
valued as a complex, inspirational source for resolving major architectural
problems of our time – such as the lack of urban complexity, the meagre-
ness of public spaces, or the loss of material quality and craftsmanship –
and as a mirror to understand and question our own positions.
We will be interested in the monumentality of this building fragment,
a result of its odd proportionality; in the radicalism, courage and ingenuity
of the Gothic visionaries; and in the fact that the abandoned super-cathe-
dral excellently represents the abrupt succession of the experimental
Gothic style by a revival of the classical style, the Renaissance.
By transforming sacred space into civic space the project taps into
important contemporary questions of socio-cultural transformation and
the role of architectural discourse. In seven preliminary experiments stu-
dents will explore issues of incompleteness, structural and tectonic innova-
tion, scale and context, and typology and function – echoing John Ruskin’s
1849 essay The Seven Lamps of Architecture. Underpinning the work
will be juxtapositions of students’ own observations made during visits to
great French and English cathedrals, with Gothic Revival theories, as well
as a consideration of other unfinished precedents like Narbonne Cathedral
or Sagrada Familía.
A conceptual unit for innovators, Diploma 3 is not interested in imitat-
ing any particular architectural style. Instead, it aims for inventive, diverse
and unprecedented solutions, and for architectural form as result rather
than anticipated intention. The portfolio will include a large digital ‘paint-
ing’ and a substantial timber model.
The unit will be inspired and critiqued by international professionals
including artists, engineers, historians, theorists and entrepreneurs.

UNIT STAFF SCI-Arc in Los Angeles. Architecture and has

Peter Karl Becher
established Studio Becher
in London in 2007 after
working for Herzog & de
Meuron in Basel, Beijing
(Bird’s Nest) and London.
He studied at the
Städelschule in Frankfurt
under Enric Miralles, Peter
Cook, Mark Wigley and
Cecil Balmond, as well as
He has taught at Kingston extensive teaching
University London, experience from Kingston
London Metropolitan University London,
University and NTNU London Metropolitan
Trondheim. University, Cambridge
and the University of
Matthew Barnett Howland East London. In 2004 he
is co-founder of MPH was awarded the RIBA
Architects. He studied at Tutor Prize.
Cambridge University and Karl Friedrich Schinkel, Cathedral by the Waterside,
the Bartlett School of c 1813/4

64 65
 DIPLOMA 4 UNIT STAFF
John Palmesino
Ann-Sofi Rönnskog
UNDERGRADUATE

Polity and Space: The Coast of Europe

The work of Diploma Unit 4 investigates the design of new forms of assem-
bly, combining different and multiple agents – from international institu-
tions such as the European Union, the United Nations, the OECD et al. to
NGOs and individuals – in the re-organisation of material space. We will
work within the multiple material, cultural, economic and political transfor-
mation processes that are reshaping the coastal territories of contemporary
Europe. Our research and design unit will explore an architecture aimed at
reassembling the complex urban and metropolitan forces into an integrated
plan, where divergent and individual transformations interact with natural
processes and forms.
Diploma Unit 4 combines contemporary architecture, urbanism and
research with the design of devices that spatially transform the coastal
territories of Europe. Architecture is undergoing a set of negotiations and
realignments that alters the relation between the form of the inhabited
territories and their institutional frameworks. The shifts, expansions and
modifications in the forms of contemporary polities have wrought parallel
changes in the material configuration of their spaces of operation. Can
architecture operate as a technology to link contemporary polities to
contemporary spaces?
Our work will examine the possibilities of integrated spatial transforma-
tion in the complex contemporary maritime territories of Europe. Relating
architecture and urbanism with other disciplines, we will investigate the
current state of affairs and the potentials of the coastal regions, from
St. Petersburg to the Kattegat, from Norway to the British Isles to Gibraltar
and Naples, from Venice to Athens, over the Golden Horn towards Odessa.
The unit explores the potential of new image-making in the creation
of a shared space for the multiple forces that transform the European
coastal territories. Architecture is used both as the object and the method
of enquiry into the many form-generating processes by which Europe is
adapting and reconfiguring the specific forms, materials and structures
of its territories. The work structures architectural design, urban forming,
remote sensing and surveying technologies into a series of in-depth
projects. The unit work is accompanied by a Diploma History and Theory
seminar that analyses territorial and political transformations in a number
of global contexts.

www.aadip4.net

UNIT STAFF John is Research Advisor Institute and has

John Palmesino and at the Design Department co-founded Multiplicity,
Ann-Sofi Rönnskog are of the Jan van Eyck an international research
architects and urbanists. Academie in Maastricht. network. Ann-Sofi was
They have established He is researching for his previously a researcher at
Territorial Agency, an PhD at the Research ETH Studio Basel, she has
independent organisation Architecture Centre at studied in Helsinki,
that combines architec- Goldsmiths, where he Copenhagen and Zurich.
ture, analysis, advocacy also teaches. He has
and action for integrated previously been Head of
spatial transformation of Research at ETH Studio United Nations, Geneva
contemporary territories. Basel / Contemporary City Photo Armin Linke

66 67
 DIPLOMA 5 UNIT STAFF
Cristina Díaz Moreno
Efrén García Grinda
UNDERGRADUATE

Tyen Masten
(Re)public: Third Natures – Carnal and Mundane Assemblies
Public space has been kidnapped by the market economy. Throughout
its history it has always oscillated between representations of power and
political control, but today this power is one that increasingly seems de-
fined by consumerism. In light of this condition, the unit will look to estab-
lish a strong political affinity in constructing a new kind of architecture of
the everyday – a new pop architecture and space that has links to contem-
porary culture but retains a significant critical dimension.
In the past, according to Bruno Latour, it has been easy to see the
world as being divided between humans, non-humans and objects. Today,
however, it is the blurred connections between these categories that offer
the most exciting possibilities. Following the work carried out in 2009/10,
Dip 5 will focus this year on the role of architecture as assemblies or
complex ecologies that act as mechanisms for the interrelation between
living beings, social groups and technological objects. We will explore the
notion of public buildings as third natures – deliberate, material and intel-
lectual manipulations of our biotope. To encourage a profound rethinking
of buildings as public and, more specifically, congregational spaces, we
will focus on the conceptual and technical development of a medium-scale
project that involves linking inert and living materials.
Students will begin by selecting a social group as the context and
scenario for their research. Using this group they will then develop a
technically inventive material system and process of fabrication that will
ultimately be applied to the project at various scales. Our working method
will be based upon an experimental design office and will include brain-
storming sessions, collective seminars, constant pin-ups, micro-lectures,
work with consultants, sessions with special guests and workshops, all
designed to stimulate creativity. Advanced digital design techniques will
also be integrated into a combination of systems and tools that will come
close to a kind of methodological anarchy and will focus on novelty, on
the unconventional, on innovative thinking, audacity and fresh solutions.
The range of interests will be extended from the programmatic, social,
structural and climatic to the representational, contextual or conceptual.

UNIT STAFF ESARQ or EPSA among Tyen Masten works at

Cristina Díaz Moreno and others. They have won Zaha Hadid Architects.
Efrén García Grinda are more than 30 prizes in Prior to joining the office
both architects and national and international in 2004, he was a
founders of the Madrid competitions, and their graduate fellow at UCLA
based office AMID.cero9 projects and writings and worked extensively in
and usual collaborators of have been collected in both Los Angeles and
El Croquis. Since 1998 Breathable and From New York.
they have taught at cero9 to AMID.
ETSAM and ESAYA, and Phyllis Galembo, Gwarama Masquerade, Yegueresso
have been visiting Village, Burkina Faso (2006)
teachers at Cornell, (John Ng, Isle of Samba, London / Dip Unit 5 2009–10)

68 69
 DIPLOMA 6 UNIT STAFF
Liam Young
Kate Davies
UNDERGRADUATE

In the Land of the Never-Never; in that elusive land with an elusive name –
land of dangers and hardships and privations yet loved as few lands are
loved – a land that bewitches her people with strange spells and mysteries,
until they call sweet bitter, and bitter sweet.
– Jeannie Gunn, We of the Never-Never

Never Never Lands: Prospecting in Dreamtime

Diploma 6, The Unknown Fields Division will enter into new relations with
the territories of science, nature and fiction. We explore the complex, rich
and contradictory realities of the present as a site of extraordinary futures
and probe our preservationist and conservationist attitudes toward the
natural world. Two years ago, in Galapagos, we mused on evolution; last
year, in the Arctic, we contemplated the end of the world; and now we
will look to strange new beginnings as we voyage to bear witness to the
reinvention of nature through technology in the Australian Never-Never.
The Division will embark on a dust-blown road trip across Australia,
into the vast and mysterious interior of the island continent in search of
ancient tribal hinterlands and techno-landscapes. This land of rich resourc-
es and sparsely inhabited expanses houses feats of engineering and tech-
nological incisions into the narrative landscape of the Dreamtime – the
creation mythology of the indigenous Aboriginals. Stories and ceremonies
of dreaming beings who once shaped the sacred sites of mountain ranges
and riverbeds are now spun alongside the ghosts of modern technologies.
Here, beneath the Southern Cross, telescopes listen to the beep-beep
from alien worlds, solar arrays track the sun, observatories scan the Milky
Way and all the while machines harvest the earth for the precious ingredi-
ents of our daily lives. We will venture ‘out back’ to a strange landscape
behind the scenes of modern living – visiting the vast mines of the interior,
stalking mechanical beasts the size of buildings and exploring excavations
as big as cities. Towering mountains, articulated valleys and expansive
lakes emerge from these incisions – remade as new nature. We will be both
visionaries and reporters, engaged with the conditions of today through
speculation about tomorrow. Clambering over the wreckage of the future,
our architecture will operate in the no-man’s land between the cultivated
and the natural: a new dreaming for a new kind of wilderness.

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

– Arthur C Clarke

UNIT STAFF Today who explore the Kate Davies is a designer, Art and run various
Liam Young studied consequences of fantastic writer and educator. She design workshops in
architecture in Australia perverse and underrated is a co-founder of the Sweden, Spain, Belgium
and now works in London urbanisms. Their projects multidisciplinary group and Korea. She graduated
as an independent are sited in the projective LiquidFactory, which from the Bartlett School
designer, futurist and worlds of speculation and explores the rich of Architecture, London
curator. He has taught fiction and become hinterlands of art, and has worked for a
design studios at schools critical instruments for architecture and number of architectural
across Europe and instigating debate about performance. She has practises in the UK and
Australasia and he is a the cultural consequences taught at London Europe.
founder of the think tank of emerging biological Metropolitan University
Tomorrows Thoughts and technological futures. and Chelsea College of Vincent Fournier – Space Project

70 71
 DIPLOMA 7 UNIT STAFF
Simon Beames
Kenneth Fraser
UNDERGRADUATE

Where does the singularity of an urban artefact begin?...in the event

and in the sign that it has marked the event.
– Aldo Rossi, The Architecture of the City, 1984

Events have their own fluidity, shifting – politically, economically, techni-

cally, culturally and tectonically. We are used to recognising persistent
architectural elements that have modified over long periods of time and
have evolved in a more complex way than the host economy. This implies
the existence of typological constants, yet no type exists for resisting
earthquakes. The immunity of the surviving structures has not been passed
down through the building vernacular to subsequent building offspring.
Should there be a fault-line vernacular?
In February 2010 the Haiti earthquake, the most deadly in modern
history, killed 222,570 people, devastating the urban environment. The
super-specificity of designing for earthquake zones should extend from
buildings to the landscape and planting which forms their habitat. The
relationship between a specific location and the architecture it sustains is
both singular and universal. While this concept is well researched in topo-
graphic or functional terms we would like to emphasise the conditions and
qualities within undifferentiated space which are necessary for the safety
and security of the ubrban artefact.
While earthquake design is embedded in building codes, we want to
find ways to embed the engineering aspects in the broader agenda of the
role of building within the social structure of communities – a haven.
Our interest lies in designing and cataloguing systems and typologies to
shape the many reciprocal relationships that can be established through
the dangers of the settings – whether ecological, hydrological, material
and climatic or cultural and aesthetic.
Projects developed by the unit will survey a broad range of interactions
to generate interventions at differing scales while pursuing a rigorously
green agenda that by its nature is transdisciplinary and reliant on collabora-
tion and context. The typological studies will be tested at a territorial level,
through the development of collaborative networks and partners.
Technical ambitions will guide the unit’s work through an investigation
into the reappropriation of digital tool-making and of accurate means to
predict the behaviour of materials under severe loads. The expectations
of the unit are technical, social and critical, emphasising the development
of workable systems for addressing the danger of place.

UNIT STAFF Kenneth Fraser has taught Council of England

Simon Beames is a at the AA since 2007 and Architectural Assessor.
director of Youmeheshe is a director of Kirkland
(youmeheshe.com) and Fraser Moor Architects
architect for COTE, an (k-f-m.com). He has also
NGO involved in construc- served as an RIBA
tion and re-socialisation external examiner, an
following conflict and advisor to the Department
disaster, completing of the Environment
community projects in Construction Research On screen: Haiti 2010
Romania and Kosova. and Innovation Strategy In book: Jürg Conzett’s Ottoplatz Building stress fields,
Panel and as an Arts from the AA Publication Structure as Space

72 73
 DIPLOMA 8 UNIT STAFF
Eugene Han
UNDERGRADUATE

Corporate Domain
Diploma 8 seeks to establish architectural guidelines that operate on vari-
ous scales of architecture and infrastructure within the realm of contempo-
rary models from computational methodologies. The foundation of such
research is the definition of reductive elements necessary to limit and
define space, its organisation and its coherence. Elements are then regu-
lated in an open framework and tested within an array of operative applica-
tions. To fully exploit the potential of such a regulated investigation, the
unit will test its proposals against large-scale architectures constituted by
recurrent elements such as the structural grid.

Corporate Complex
In response to the need for architecture to adapt to the constantly shifting
demands of space, the unit will seek proposals that are unencumbered by
the constraints of programme yet highly articulated in formal and spatial
composition. Investigations will centre on the corporate complex, no longer
exclusively relegated to the metropolitan centre with its array of office floor
plans, nor to the outskirts of the secluded campus. The unit will propose
the design of systematically massive complexes able to engage with the
wide range of programmatically unbiased spaces required by a contempo-
rary corporation.

Compositional Frameworks
The implementation of a compositional framework enables an investigation
of hierarchically independent types and levels of spaces. In opposition to
the modern movement’s rigid functional strategies, student proposals will
seek to define a highly specific rationale that can accommodate an open
implementation within their designed frameworks.
The unit will visit precedent cases in US cities such as Chicago, Detroit
and New York, as well as major complexes developments such as Saarin-
en’s General Motors Technical Center, Wright’s Johnson Wax Headquarters
and SOM’s Lever House. Students will then choose their own site and
corporate body, based on their initial studies. Implementing their own
established set of reductive architectural elements, students will propose
a large-scale corporate complex that simultaneously works with different
compositional classes and proposes a precise yet accommodating defini-
tion of architecture.

UNIT STAFF
Eugene Han is the founder
of AVA-Studio, research-
ing and developing
systems in industrial
design, architecture and
planning.

Top: Amberg, Siemens, 1991 – Andreas Gursky

Bottom: Pfortner, Thyseen, Dusseldorf, Desk Attendants,
1982 – Andreas Gursky

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 DIPLOMA 9 UNIT STAFF
Natasha Sandmeier
UNDERGRADUATE

iContext
This year Dip 9 shifts its attention away from the single iconic object and
towards the context of and conversation between architectural objects.
So, what is context? Since the 1970s, architectural theory has defined
context in banal and inadequate ways, as that which neighbours or sur-
rounds a building. By contrast, we will approach the topic as an opportu-
nity for something radical, in the true dogma of Dip 9 – to (re)unite and
design an architectural project within a larger cultural world of your own
making. We will develop a contextualism defined by the connections
between constructed realities and architectural fantasies – somewhere
between fact and fiction. In the manner of Marcel Duchamp’s Box in a
Valise or Kurt Schwitters’ Merzbau, you will invent a new self-contained
world – a wunderkammer of sorts – within which you set the stage for your
proposal. You will pursue your project as one intimately connected to and
constructed from its physical and cultural relationships.
‘Conversation’ and ‘context’ will be our ruling forces. With these we will
question, debate and collaboratively construct a new form of reading,
designing, and communicating that will result in an alternate and more vital
form of architectural project – as one intricately woven with its (historical,
physical, geographical) materials. You will each develop your proposal and
conversation with a small group of project consultants, including one
specialist in a field related to your agenda. In this way you will situate your
own proposition within a larger cultural discourse.
The students of Dip 9 will each begin their year with the making of a
personal manifesto, whose expression frames the year ahead. This year the
manifesto will also set up the context that you will weave around your
personality and project and shape your proposal.
In terms 1 & 2 we will continue our collaboration with the graduate
History and Critical Thinking programme through a series of seminars on
‘context’. The unit will also be supported by workshops and tutorials with
AA Dip 9 graduates Adam Furman, Marco Ginex and Amandine Kastler in
addition to other consultants (including editors, graphic designers and
technical consultants) who will join us throughout the year.

UNIT STAFF
Natasha Sandmeier is an
architect and partner of
Big Picture Studio. An AA
Unit Master since 2001,
she also co-directs the AA
Summer School. She was
project architect for the
Seattle Public Library and Amandine Kastler’s (AADip Honours 2010) room contains
has worked at offices in and defines the world of its inhabitant, and expands
Europe and the US. outward to connect and relate to the empire of cities and
rooms just beyond its borders.

76 77
 DIPLOMA 10 UNIT STAFF
Carlos Villanueva Brandt
UNDERGRADUATE

Direct Urbanism: Engagement or Control?

Working with the interaction between the live realm of the city and the
urban fabric, we will continue to experiment with composite urban inter-
ventions that influence the city at the architectural and urban scales.
In 2008/09, we speculated on the urban potential of topics such as
‘food’ and ‘sex’, and last year we focused on the role that urban, spatial
and interactive rules play in the making of the city. The topics highlighted
the importance of engagement and the rules revealed the multiple systems
that control the urban environment. This year we will use combinations
of engagement and control to design real and interactive urban proposals.
Through a process of immersion we will identify variables that make up
the reality of urban space. There is an often overlooked intrinsic relation-
ship between physical and social structures, which we will tackle head-on.
Live or direct interventions create new spaces, delineate territories, require
specific physical structures and deploy adaptive organisational systems.
Unlike current architecture and masterplans, these direct interventions
engage, control and overlap with the existing urban context.
This year we will appropriate the initiatives of Crossrail to anchor our
interventions on one of the proposed stations. We will devise ways of
working with physical and social structures and reconfigure them to gener-
ate composite interventions that concentrate on the spatial overlap be-
tween the architectural and the urban scales.
We will restrict our urban experiments to an experiential scale and,
using direct action, video, working drawings, 3D models, primary evidence
and strategic documents, we will propose the following interventions: a
constructed situation as immersion that will include one to ten people, an
architectural construct that is a public building of minimum dimensions
(10 x 10 x 10 metres), a strategic territory that is an expansion of the archi-
tectural construct (500 x 500 metres), and a proposed situation as insertion
to include 10 or more users.
What is the relationship between space, engagement and control?
The city itself may hold some answers. We will work with the city, experi-
mentally during immersion, propositionally during insertion, and we will
conclude by testing our proposals within the social, political, economic
and physical contexts of the city.

UNIT STAFF was awarded the RIBA

Carlos Villanueva Brandt President’s Silver Medal
formed his practise Tutor Prize 2000.
Carlos Villanueva Brandt
Architecture in 1984
(villanuevabrandt.com).
The varied work of the
office has been published
widely and exhibited Engagement: ‘Polyclinic’, appendicitis – a direct establish the most effective form of security; the more
internationally. He has experience of the NHS. Chelsea Barracks, Amber Wood public the boundaries between the differing conditions,
been Diploma 10 Unit Control: ‘Best Defence is a Good Offence’ – two pathways the more secure its spaces will be. US Embassy Nine
Master since 1986 and respond to a variety of urban conditions in order to Elms, Korey Kromm

78 79
 DIPLOMA 11 UNIT STAFF
Shin Egashira
UNDERGRADUATE

A City Stripped Bare

Unit 11 continues to develop architectural design strategies for the post-
infrastructural landscape and the ‘inner-periphery’ of London. The unit
examines the city’s current topology and identifies moments of disjuncture
where adjacencies of textures, scales, structures and programmes are
revealed. We explore the city’s ability to generate responsive urban arte-
facts with composite structures and material organisations that challenge
the notion of the permanent and the temporal, the dynamic and the static,
the transformative and the accumulative.

Sampling
The area between Hackney and Dalston is itself sandwiched between the
City on one side and the Olympic site on the other (two different models
of development: sprawling and autonomous with the Olympics; speculative
and steady with the City). By reinterpreting the city as a catalogue of
beautifully incomplete objects excluded from urban gentrification, we will
gather fragments of textural detail, leftover gaps, exposed edges, subsidi-
ary service networks and incomplete narratives. We will also reclassify,
de-collage and aggregate urban resources and condense them into small
groups of micro-components. In the process, as architects we will recom-
pose a Micro City: a small city inside the city.

Modelling
Borrowing the notion of reverse urban engineering we will unmake the
architecture of the city. Material studies will be made in non-scale, 1:5 and
1:10 detail components, developing a new vocabulary of forming structures
as well as textural expressions, mixing digital analysis and the use of
inherent material qualities with combined methods of fabrication.

Micro Urban Condenser

Proposals should speculate on the realm between localised service struc-
tures and reimagined infrastructural typologies. Edge conditions will then
be reinvigorated. Ultimately, the projects will contextualise the uncertain-
ties of the city’s future histories and allow the city to continue to represent
a new spatial anthology.

Supplementary investigations will include: a workshop on urban erasure,

material experiments at Hooke Park, revisiting collage city with Grahame
Shane and seminars on fragmentation with Peter Carl.

UNIT STAFF the remote village of

Shin Egashira worked in Koshirakura each summer
Tokyo, Beijing, and New for more than a decade.
York, before coming to
London, and has exhibited
artwork and installations
worldwide. He is the
author of Before Object,
After Image (AA
Publications, 2006), a
document of the work-
shop he has organised in Project Review exhibition Dip 11 Micro City 2010

80 81
 DIPLOMA 13 UNIT STAFF
Oliver Domeisen
UNDERGRADUATE

Ornament negotiates among several contradictory concepts, including

antiquity and modernity, mechanical objectivity and artistic subjectivity,
convention and expression, and the real and the ideal.
– Debra Schafter, The Order of Ornament, the Structure of Style, 2003

The Principles of New Ornament

In 1892 a second edition of The Principles of Ornament by James Ward
was published as an instruction manual for the students of architecture at
the Royal Academy of Arts. One year later, in Berlin, Alois Riegl released
his seminal Stilfragen (Problems of Style: Foundations for a History of
Ornament, 1893). Whilst the training of architects in the artistic practice
of ornamental design was commonplace in London at the time, Riegl
identified an elementary human drive within precisely those ornamental
practices: the Kunstwollen – the artistic impulse to adorn. This year Dip13
will follow that impulse, once again battling our horror vacui. In view of
a profession that is in danger of disintegrating into vacuous parametric
accountancy, contract management and vapid environmentalism, we will
reclaim the designing of architecture as an exhilarating artistic act. Dip13
will produce The Principles of New Ornament: Architectural Ornament
and Ornate Architecture for the Twenty-first Century. Through ornament
we will deliver architecture into the vibrant maelstrom of contemporary
visual and material culture, fluctuating signification and transhistorical
correspondences.
You will design iterations of potent iconographic, naturalist, materialist
and geometric ornament for the London residence of one of the world’s
foremost art collectors. In restoring the space of secular art to its domestic
origin, and in rejecting the tyranny of the white cube, your system of
ornament will fuse container and contained into a total work of art. Your
ornament will manifest itself in exquisite drawings, models and material
prototypes, all experimentally crafted within a painterly and sculptural
sensibility that layers digital with traditional methods.
The unit will be accompanied by a Diploma History and Theory course
and a series of lectures and talks by invited ornamentalists, art collectors
and artists. Tristan Simmonds (founding member Arup AGU, consultant
Studio Antony Gormley) will once again act as technical consultant. A
Rococo monastery in Switzerland, an English castle and the Alhambra will
be but a few of the pit-stops on our journey towards an architecture of
beauty, meaning and complexity.

UNIT STAFF currently writes and

Oliver Domeisen studied lectures – and has curated
at ETH Zurich and the AA. an exhibition – on the
From 1997–2000 he topic of ornament.
worked as Project
Architect for Zaha Hadid;
since 2000 as Director
of dlm ltd; from 2001–07
as Unit Master for Inter 9
and from 2007 for Dip 13;
from 2005–07 as a Studio
Master for AAVSP. He James Ward – The Principles of Ornament, 1892

82 83
 DIPLOMA 14 UNIT STAFF
Pier Vittorio Aureli
Barbara-Ann Campbell-Lange
UNDERGRADUATE

Fenella Collingridge
Volker Bradke:
Architecture Between the Generic and the Common
In 1966 the German painter Gerhard Richter composed a multimedia instal-
lation that examined the everyday life of an average German young man:
the 22-year-old Volker Bradke. What is interesting about this installation is
how it mixes the generic nature of its subject with the monumentality of its
representation. On one hand the subject remains elusive, average, lacking
any specific attribute; on the other, its representation is emphatic, almost
mimicking the rhetorical, monumental effect of social realist painting.
The formal and political ethos of this artwork is the best way to intro-
duce this year’s topic for Dip 14: the relationship between forms of labour,
the generic and the common in architecture. By labour we mean not simply
one activity among others, but an essential human condition: the produc-
tive (and reproductive) status of our life. By generic we mean what is
common within the general condition of the city. By common we mean
how to transform the latent generic condition of the city into a collective
sphere, beyond the idea of it being simply a public and private space.
Over the year architectural form will be addressed precisely in terms of its
ability to construct and represent the idea of common space. Because of
this, the unit will insist on issues of architectural form, composition, syntax
and materiality. It is our conviction that only by engaging with form in its
deepest, most elemental condition is it possible to trace architecture’s
political motivation.
The task for the unit will be the design of a housing unit for 1,600
people closely connected with a public transport network. The design will
proceed from inside-out. Each project will be developed starting from
the basic single cell of one inhabitant. This will then be developed to form
the basis for the entire complex. The qualities of the resulting design will
emerge out of the sharpness of the argument, the immediacy of its repre-
sentation (the project must be expressed with very few drawings) and the
conviction of its idea.
The context of the project will be the city of Rome. A city of monumen-
tal exceptions, Rome will form the dialectical (back)ground to the idea of
a common architecture. The extreme and conflicted history of the city will
challenge the possibility of a common and generic architecture, and yet
at the same time the very idea of the common and generic will be a return
to the defining characteristic of ancient Roman architecture.

UNIT STAFF Delft University of Barbara-Ann Campbell- Fenella Collingridge

Pier Vittorio Aureli is an
architect and educator.
His theoretical studies
focus on architectural
form, political theory and
urban history. After
graduating from the
Istituto di Architettura di
Venezia, he obtained
masters and PhD degrees
at the Berlage Institute/
Technology. At the
Berlage Institute he heads
the ‘City as a Project’ PhD
programme. He is the
co-founder of Dogma,
with Martino Tattara, a
prize-winning architec-
tural collective.
Lange is a graduate of the studied painting at
Bartlett, AA, Cooper Camberwell and architec-
Union and Cambridge. ture at the AA and taught
She has practised, written architecture at the Royal
on, taught, governed and College of Art. Her
examined in art and teaching and practice look
design since 1988, is a at patterns of inhabitation
registered architect and a and urban design. She is
director at the Campbell- currently working on a
Lange Workshop. housing project with Gerhard Richter with flag ‘Volker Bradke’ painted
Peter Salter. by himself, 1966

84 85
 DIPLOMA 16 UNIT STAFF
Jonas Lundberg
Andrew Yau
UNDERGRADUATE

Tom Tong
Adaptive Ecologies 3 – Composite RE-Formulation
Dip 16 will be pursuing a primary interest in exploiting the host of complex
relationships informing an overall architectural ecology that synthesises
ideas of technology, nature and people across a range of scales. Drawing
inspiration from the visionary work of Wolf Hilbertz, Dip 16 will embrace a
time-based holistic ecological understanding of engendering spatial affects,
eliciting a new sensibility via new technology. We are challenging standard-
ised modes of production, materiality and conventional forms of represen-
tation and reductive models of topology and typology.
The research of Dip16 will draw on two main sources. The first is the
vision of the Dutch philosopher Marcel de Geus and specifically his book
Ecological Utopia, describing how society could ideally be related to nature.
The second is Global Scenario Group’s (GSG) essay titled Great Transition:
The Promise and Lure of the Times Ahead, which outlines how different
values regarding the environment, human well-being and global justice
may lead to three different future scenarios: Conventional Worlds, Barbari-
sation and Great Transitions. Dip16 seeks to exploit rapidly changing envi-
ronmental, economic and cultural conditions as a springboard for imagina-
tive and innovative green design and a visionary aesthetic.
We will be looking at Ruskin’s parameters of delicacy, intricacy, variety
and irregularity in architecture, as outlined in his book Stones of Venice.
This will be explored via a superimposition study projecting 2D artefacts
to 3D space in the creation of a space object. This initial study will lead to
the production of a prototype using a range of modes of representation,
modelling and digital fabrication techniques. Subsequently, scale shifts,
forms of building taxonomy and production techniques will be explored
with the aim of making the structure and materiality both organisational
and projective. The prototype, with its innate capacity for redeployment,
will be territorialised as an architectural project and tested and evolved
according to a range of criteria based around social, natural and technical
conditions as well as GSG’s future scenarios.
The research of Dip16 will be carried out using field studies, specialist
consultancies, computational workshops, hands-on design workshops,
a prototyping workshop at Hooke Park and collaborations with industrial
manufacturers. Dip 16 encourages diverse research agendas, design briefs
and choice of sites within the unit framework.

www.dip16.net

UNIT STAFF Biennales and was

Jonas Lundberg, Andrew recently featured in
Yau and Tom Tong are 10X10 v. 2.
members of Urban Future
Organization, an
international architecture
practice and design
research collaborative.
UFO has won a number
of international competi-
tions, exhibited its work
at the Venice and Beijing Insub Lee. Reconstituted ship hull prototype

86 87
 DIPLOMA 17 UNIT STAFF
Theo Sarantoglou Lalis
Dora Sweijd
UNDERGRADUATE

Latent Territories: Airside global metropolis

Airports materialise the myths and ambitions of a globalised world. Air-
travel used to be a privilege for the elite living in capital cities, but over the
last decade it has gradually become accessible to a diverse array of people
from all demographics. According to recent reports, each of the top 20
European airport hubs will reach capacity by 2012. New EU policy is en-
couraging the development of a regional network of 430 airports to facili-
tate decongestion – a multitude of airfields and surrounding territories that
could take on absurd proportions, covering an area of land potentially
larger than some European states, and all of it inaccesible to the public.
In a period of increased mobility, airports have gradually acquired the
full programmatic range of cities in order to accommodate ever-increasing
transient populations. For example, Heathrow has a yearly transit popula-
tion of 85 million and the new airport of Dubai has been designed for a
capacity of 180 million people a year.
Diploma 17 pursues a critical investigation on residual territories of
transportation networks such as ports, airports, train and highway inter-
changes. This year we will be studying airports as part of a more global
scheme: a transcontinental conurbation of airside cities. We will start by
formulating the unspoken manifesto of this airside global metropolis from
the perspective of history, journalism, anthropology and semiotics. During
the first part of the year we will be using photomontage as a means of
formulating speculative proposals or critiques. We will study the relation-
ship between vehicular and navigation technology and how this affects the
morphology of the airside territories, seeking a greater integration between
aviation and the city.
Based on our observations, anticipated technological changes as well
as social evidence found in the real, students will be proposing possible
futures for the airside of a regional airport. In a period of doubt and vanish-
ing certainties, the unit proposes a critical view on urbanism, revisiting the
critical engagement and playfulness of the 60s and 70s architectural avant-
gardes now re-invigorated by the added eloquence of the last decade’s
computational design and materialisation processes.

UNIT STAFF led workshops and taught LA.S.S.A he worked at London and NYC
Theo Sarantoglou Lalis undergraduate studios Future Systems and including REX and Foster
and Dora Swejd are the in Sweden and more Asymptote in NY. In 2008 + Partners before
principals of LA.S.S.A, recently Intermediate 11 he led Asymptote’s establishing LA.S.S.A.
a design practice based at the AA. European office as well as She has taught at Lund
in London and Brussels being one of the directors University in Sweden,
working on commissions Theo Sarantoglou Lalis in charge of Yas Marina published and lectured
in Egypt, Greece and has studied in Brussels Hotel, in Abu Dhabi. internationally. Her work
Korea as well as entering and The Bartlett. He has has been exhibited
international competi- taught postgraduate Dora Sweijd graduated recently at the Brussels
tions. Dora and Theo have studios at Columbia and from the Bartlett. She Biennale. Theo Sarantoglou Lalis, Airside: A Forbidden
lectured internationally, Harvard. Prior to founding previously worked in Territory, 2002

88 89
 DIPLOMA 18 UNIT STAFF
Enric Ruiz Geli
Edouard Cabay
UNDERGRADUATE

Nora Graw
Energy Attack Team: Architecture and the ‘Third Industrial Revolution’
When we think about the causes of global warming at the forefront are
discussions about the effects of air travel, cars and pollution caused by
industrial processes. But what we often fail to consider is that one of the
major contributors to global warming can actually be attributed to architec-
ture. Diploma 18 looks to embrace the realities of the ‘Third Industrial
Revolution’ – a term coined by Jeremy Rifkin, author of numerous publica-
tions on the impact of scientific and technological changes on the environ-
ment including The Hydrogen Economy. It is Rifkin’s belief that we are on
the cusp of a revolution defined by new forms of transportation, construc-
tion and energy. Central to this revolution will be the explosion of new
technologies that will transform buildings into power plants producing
renewable energy that will be distributed by a smart grid.
The unit will actively engage with architecture and its integral role in
the reality of changes to our environment and adhere to the macro trend
of GGG (Global Green Growth) with the aim of understanding the science
of empathy, human-life and nature – solution: ‘Think Gaia’. Projects will be
the result of an exploration of technologies that engage with seven differ-
ent current conflicts associated with global warming: Caribbean islands vs
hurricanes; Taipei vs river floods; Bahrain vs the end of the aquifer; Antarc-
tica vs melting ice; Mongolia vs the methane landscape; Barcelona vs the
death of marine life in the Mediterranean; and Los Angeles vs mobility.
To inform the projects, the unit will travel to Spain and study architec-
ture defined as ‘zero emission’, including the Media-TIC building in Barce-
lona, a solar farm in Catalonia and energy-free flying in the Pyrenees. We
will then travel to Los Angeles and visit off-grid houses and universities
while looking at mobility strategies, electric vehicles, sailing and hydrogen
cars. The investigation will begin with students working in pairs, initiating
research by analysing present conditions and local threads of global warm-
ing. Following this collective assignment each student will devise their own
brief relating to one of the seven conflicted territories as a case study. This
will act as the facilitator to the final project, a large-scale structure with a
performative skin that provides local solutions to highlighted problems.
Throughout the year technological, scientific and political consultants
will assist the students with their research. The unit travel, research and
design projects are devised to allow students to think about the possibility
of a GGG and Gaia architecture.

UNIT STAFF Edouard Cabay graduated Nora Graw graduated

Enric Ruiz Geli studied from the Architectural from Greg Lynn’s Master
architecture in Barcelona. Association in 2005. He Class at the University of
He founded Cloud 9 in has worked for Foreign Applied Arts, Vienna. For
1997, an interdisciplinary Office Architects and Cloud 9, she compiles and
architectural team in Anorak and is currently directs the office’s
Barcelona that works at working with Cloud 9, research agenda.
the interface between where he runs various
architecture and art, international projects. The Barrier-Cities powered by bio-etheric ovo-pacs that
digital processes and protect the remaining settlements of humans on earth
technological material against the phantoms.
development. Final Fantasy: the Spirits Within.

90 91
 DIPLOMA 19 UNIT STAFF
Martin Self
Piers Taylor
UNDERGRADUATE

Kate Darby
Big Shed
Diploma 19 this year will be a unique collaboration between the Diploma
School and the newly established MArch Design & Make programme,
developing design methodologies in which making is an integral part of the
design process. The work itself will focus upon the design and prototyping
of a lightweight long-span building – a 500m2 ‘big shed’ for a full-scale
prototyping and fabrication facility for the AA at Hooke Park. This assembly
workshop, to be completed in Autumn 2011, has precise functional require-
ments, giving us the oppurtunity to explicity test the relationships among
form, function, material and construction, as well as the environmental and
phenomenal conditions of this richly wooded site.
The first term starts in London with intense design-and-fabricate
studies through which relevant mechanisms for exploiting the directness
of digital fabrication will be determined. In parallel, we will research the
histories and technologies of lightweight clear-span sheltered space
(for example, the principles and qualities of Ferdinand Dutert’s Palais des
Machines, Pier Luigi Nervi’s hangars or Frei Otto’s gridshells) and visit
other related projects. Next we shift in scale to test ideas at 1:1, designing
and building site-specific occupiable structures in the Hooke Park wood-
land. The feedback generated by these physical artefacts, their representa-
tion and construction will lead to individual design propositions that qualify
the nature of light, space and shelter.
From the start of second term the unit will be based full-time at Hooke
Park and will become increasingly collective, synthesising the propositions
so as to develop a single schematic design, detailed documentation and a
full-scale construction prototype. We will work with landscape architects to
integrate the project within the Hooke Park masterplan and with consultant
engineers on the technical systems. Each student will retain design respon-
sibilities relating to their original proposition, which will also determine
the theme of their final prototype piece and project documentation. We will
be looking for technically and conceptually compelling solutions to what
appears to be a simple brief.

UNIT STAFF consultancy within Piers Taylor is a partner in Kate Darby is principal of
Martin Self is an engineer practices such as Zaha award winning architects rural architectural
and designer who has Hadid Architects and Mitchell Taylor Workshop, practice, KDA. She is a
taught design and theory Antony Gormley a unit master at the founder member of
at the AA since 2004. Studio. University of Cambridge, Studio in the Woods and
He was a founder member and the founder of the has taught design studio
of Arup’s Advanced annual Studio in the at Bath University and
Geometry Group, studied Woods which is con- the Bartlett School of
architectural theory at cerned with the testing of Architecture.
the AA, and has provided ideas through making.
structural engineering Interior of Ferdinand Dutert’s Palais des Machines,
and form-finding Paris, 1889

92 93
 UNDERGRADUATE:
COMPLEMENTARY STUDIES

COMPLEMENTARY
UNDERGRADUATE:
Three kinds of Complementary Studies courses in History and Theory,
Media and Technical Studies are an essential part of every year of the
Undergraduate School. In term-long courses or shorter projects students
obtain knowledge and gain experience related to a wide range of architec-
tural learning. Third and Fifth Year students additionally take a Professional
Practice course as part of their RIBA Part I and II requirements. These
courses also provide opportunities for students approaching architecture
from the different agendas of the units to come together in shared settings.
History and Theory Studies includes courses that develop historical
and theoretical knowledge related to architectural discourses, concepts
and ways of thinking. Media Studies helps students to develop skills in

STUDIES
traditional forms of architectural representation as well as today’s most
experimental forms of information and communication technology. Techni-
cal Studies offers surveys as well as in-depth instruction in particular
material, structural, environmental and other architectural systems, leading
to Technical Submissions that build upon the ideas and ambitions of
projects related to work within the units. Together, the various courses on
offer in Complementary Studies allow students the opportunity to establish
and develop their own individual interests and direction within the school.

94
 HISTORY & THEORY STUDIES PROGRAMME DIRECTOR
Mark Cousins
UNDERGRADUATE

History and Theory Studies courses run over all five years of a student’s
study at the AA. Overall the courses have the function of introducing
students to the nature of architecture, not solely through the issue of
design but also in the larger context of architecture’s relation to culture
now, in the past, in the future and across different cultures. The courses
are also linked to another and major a function – writing. Architects are
increasingly expected at a professional level to describe and analyse both
designs and buildings in written form. Writing is a central skill for the
architect and the lack of it would stunt individual professional development.
As a consequence, History and Theory Studies is renewing those aspects
of the courses enabling students to develop their own point of view in
seminars and through course requirements to develop their writing skills.
In the first three years the intention of the courses is to provide a
fundamental framework for the student’s comprehension of architecture at
several levels. Such is envisioned through a series of distinct stages in the
student’s development, moving from a broad background on the theories
and concepts of architecture, to architecture’s role in the materialisation
of cultural ideas and then an understanding of contemporary buildings in
detail. We think it is important that students are given the tools to under-
stand the histories and theories behind architecture. It is for the student to
decide what he or she thinks; it is for the course to enable the student to
articulate their thoughts and choices; it is for the seminar to allow an open
discussion of the choices.
In the first year students will be introduced to an understanding of the
diversity of theoretical concepts and the history of architecture via a series
of select themes that travel in time from antiquity to the present. In the
second year the student is introduced both to the past of architecture and
to the nature of architecture in different cultures. It considers the different
ways in which architecture has been used as the material support of differ-
ent religions, forms of political power and forms of family life. In the third
year students will study a variety of seminal twentieth-century buildings.
By studying plans and other forms of architectural representation students
will develop experience and ways of critically understanding architecture.
Students in the Intermediate School follow the courses outlined in the
course document while students in the Diploma School choose from a
number of optional courses taken in the Autumn Term only. These courses
are designed to be much more focused and specific, covering a wide
spectrum of contemporary topics that are continuously changing from year
to year. Students, who wish, can choose to write either a thesis or two
separate diploma essays. At the end of the Diploma School we would hope
and expect that students would be able to independently research a topic
and write about a problem clearly and with a definite argument.
History and Theory Studies organises evening lectures, special events
and symposia. This year’s Friday lectures by Mark Cousins will be on
Technology and the Subject. The course document proivdes a full account
of courses and reading lists and will be available at the beginning of term.
It contains relevant dates and new regulations concerning student work. Ornament: Reconstructing Architecture’s Battle Royal,
HTS seminar, 2009/10

96 97
HISTORY & THEORY STUDIES
First, Second and Third Year courses take place in Autumn and Winter Terms.
First Year: Constructs + Contexts
An Introduction to Histories and Theories of Architecture and Urbanism
Course Lecturer: Lara Belkind
Course Tutor: Mollie Claypool
Teaching Assistants: Daniel Ayat and Marlie Mul
This course introduces foundational concepts and seeks to create a dia-
logue between contemporary practice and the history of architecture from
antiquity to the present. Employing wide-view thematic lenses such as
media, technology, utopia and fantasy, we will explore key moments in a
global history of buildings, cities and texts. Although rooted in the western
tradition, we will draw on case studies from a range of continents and
cultures. Our approach will incorporate an analysis of evolving theoretical
concepts of formal production and aesthetics and will also situate built
environment constructs within their social and political contexts. Course
readings will provide an orientation in key ideas while writing assignments
emphasise the development of original arguments and criticism.
Second Year: Architecture and its Pasts
Course Lecturer: Mark Cousins
Course Tutor: Ryan Dillon
Teaching Assistant/s: Alejandra Celedon and Ivonne Santoyo
This course introduces students to the historical and cross cultural range
of built forms. It does so by looking at buildings that are related to the insti-
tutions of politics, of religion and of private life. But it also considers
architecture from the point of view of modernisation in which architectural
forms are increasingly both internationalised and globalised. It considers
the bases upon which new organisations of variation can be thought about
in architectural terms.
Third Year: 16 Canonical Buildings and Texts + 16 Alternatives, 1900–68
Course Lecturers: Christopher Pierce and Brett Steele
Teaching Assistants: Shumi Bose, Braden Engel and Emanuel Rocha public sphere, appropriated by graffiti artists, political protest, flash mobs,
Ferreira de Sousa
The course will continue to recalibrate its 16 entries to a twentieth-century
architectural canon while also introducing an equal number of alternative,
less consensual, projects that signal other important architectural trajecto-
ries in this period. The course will start with the Amsterdam Bourse and
Adolf Loos’s Ornament and Crime and finish with the Vanna Venturi House
and Denise Scott Brown’s and Robert Venturi’s ‘On Ducks and Decoration’.
On a week-by-week basis students will come to understand and interpret
key texts and decipher their different terms and issues. At the same time,
they will learn ways to comprehend and analyse wildly different architec-
tural projects and consider and question the role of the architect in prac-
tice. Between design and architectural theory there is a constant exchange
of categories and students will develop knowledge of these and the wide
range of debates and practices defining modern architecture.
98
UNDERGRADUATE
Diploma School courses take place in the Autumn Term only.
The Possibility of an Absolute Architecture
Pier Vittorio Aureli
The seminar starts by posing the question ‘What is Architecture?’
By highlighting and arguing six ‘projects’ in which the notion and the
practice of architecture has been deeply theorised in its most essential
aspects the seminar will not answer the initial question in a straightforward
manner. The projects presented week by week will be the theories and
work of Donato Bramante, Domenico Fontana, Andrea Palladio, Etienne
Louis Boullée, Oswald Mathias Ungers and OMA.
The seminar will maintain that the essential nature of architecture has
emerged less in vacuo, meaning in the abstract space of treatises, and
rules, and much more within the accidental, critical and precarious space
of the city. Towards such space architecture has projected exemplary and
paradigmatic forms. It is precisely by struggling with the city that architec-
ture has revealed its absolute form.
Flow
Lara Belkind
This seminar investigates the spaces and infrastructures of an emerging
twenty-first-century urban paradigm: the polycentric mega-city or ‘city of
flows’. Focusing on high-speed transport and communications links, we will
employ frameworks from the field of science, technology, society studies
(STS) and the work of Bruno Latour to explore the cultural complexity
underlying technological mega-projects. On the one hand, splintering and
specialisation have characterised the evolution of the city from node to
network. The design of a network is itself a battleground upon which the
form of the metropolis and its politics are determined – and the line be-
tween civil and social engineering is finely drawn. Yet infrastructure may
open an ‘other space’ in the city: a heterotopia as conceptualised by Michel
Foucault. Networks can also operate as liminal zones that invite participa-
tion or subversion in a dispersed and polarised metropolis. This is a new
teen subcultures and the subtle everyday exchanges of urban dwellers.
This is not my Beautiful House
Mark Campbell
Scratch beneath the surface of normality and you are likely to find the
complete opposite – the perverse, paranoiac, or maladjusted. This course
will examine the architectural dynamics of normalcy and perversion in the
post-war American suburb through a critical reading of a series of textural,
cultural, and filmic references. As JG Ballard once offered, this architecture
expressed his fear that ‘nothing exciting or new or interesting is ever going
to happen again, the future is just going to be a vast, conforming suburb
of the soul’.
99
HISTORY & THEORY STUDIES
The History of Homecoming
Mark Cousins
The history and nature of ‘home’ causes a great deal of trouble for archi-
tectural analysis. At one level the category of ‘home’ is related to the
‘house’ and thus to the nature of domestic space and architectural form.
On the other hand, the term ‘home’ has importantly migrated in historical
terms to include such things as the region or the nation of one’s origin.
Clearly this has created important consequences for nationalism, and for
political conflict. It also creates a condition of homelessness which refers
not to just the lack of a house but to exile, migration and of inhabiting the
planet without a visa. This course tackles these problems through the
history of stories and aspirations to homecoming. It starts by considering
the most famous homecoming of Homer’s Odyssey and looks at a twenti-
eth-century version in the film of Jean Luc Godard, ‘Le Mépris’.
The Jean-Eric (or ‘Eight lectures on everything Zaha hates’)
Paul Davies
Jonathan Meades’ ten-page essay (‘Zaha: The First Great Female Architect’;
Intelligent Life, The Economist 2008) is the ‘best thing I’ve read about
architecture for years’, said a good friend of mine, who was the best archi-
tect I knew till he started throwing so much coke up his nose. In that
sentence resides the content of the course: a penetrating if oblique and
over-stylish essay; a smart but inebriated and now dulled individual (lost);
a hoity, self-aggrandising and often preposterous discourse to be slapped
around; a concern for the everyday, for the wider facts (whatever they are)
with Bukowskiesque leanings.
Ornament: Between Virtue and Iniquity
Oliver Domeisen
The Rococo of the eighteenth century, the stylistic eclecticism of the nine-
teenth century, and the Art Nouveau of the early twentieth century have
habitually been described as architectural periods of decline and deca-
dence. But who is it that condemns such ornamental virtuosity? And
what are their ulterior motives? Are there alternative points of view? Using
source texts from all three periods we will discover how ornament had
repeatedly become the battleground upon which the future of architecture
was forged. Authors such as William Hogarth, Gottfried Semper, Owen
Jones, Alois Riegl, John Ruskin, Louis Sullivan or Adolf Loos have all
defined ornament for their own age and for their own wilful objectives. We
will discuss the historical contexts, underlying pathologies and enduring
legacies of these seminal texts, and we will determine their relevance
in establishing a desperately needed contemporary theoretical framework.
We will also discover how each author provides us with interpretative tools
that allow us to critically assess contemporary ornamental production, be
it by Herzog & de Meuron, Toyo Ito or you. This course will give you a
glimpse into one of architecture’s biggest conspiracies and equip you with
the knowledge and vocabulary to partake in a rapidly emerging discourse.
100
UNDERGRADUATE
Error: The False Economy of Precision in Architecture
Francesca Hughes
If we put aside the dominant narratives of twenty-first-century architecture,
an alternative account emerges that might go something like this: things
just got more and more precise. Or did they? How precisely defined is
the term ‘precision’ in the first place? Can we make a distinction between
effective and redundant precision in its control of error? Why is error
aligned with matter and not form? If effective precision was not always
actually increased and the architect’s fear of error (with matter in tow) only
symbolically assuaged, then what other undeclared agendas were served?
And how exactly does the space of a margin for error operate within the
greater spatiality of practice? This course argues that from the removal
of ornament to the invention of standards and specifications, or later, the
radical inflation of precision in digitalisation, the way architecture under-
stands, fears and engages with error has silently steered its cultural and
technological transformations. A critical analysis of the practical and sym-
bolic performance of precision and the shadow category of error will bring
us to understand differently what lies behind some of contemporary prac-
tice’s modus operandi: instrumentalism, parametricism and optimisation.
Through a series of case studies of key cultural and technological shifts in
twenty-first-century architectural production we will address the shifting
role of error and chart the ever-increasing fetishisation and opportunistic
colonisation of the false economy of the apparently precise.
Polity and Space
John Palmesino
The seminar investigates the relations between the process of construction
of inhabited space and the forms of polity in the twenty-first century. Using
architecture as both the object and the method of enquiry, we will analyse
a series of complex territorial transformations to reveal the underlying
organisational processes in the theoretical junctures between notions of
inhabitation, architecture, space, territory, government and intervention.
The contemporary territory is the seat of a multiplicity of transformational
patterns and evolutive rhythms wrought by concurrent and often distant
interests and promoted by a number of actors. Their interplay and competi-
tion reshapes, carves, moulds and reorganises their spaces of operation.
Natural, mineral, technological, linguistic, biological, economic, political,
cultural, social and institutional factors constantly interact and form the
materials that constitute the complex dynamics of the contemporary terri-
tory. The seminar will explore a series of transformations in the connec-
tions between organisation of contemporary politics and their spaces of
operation with architecture and urbanism being agents of that relation.
101
HISTORY & THEORY STUDIES
Architecture and Beauty, A Troubled Relationship PROGRAMME DIRECTOR
AND 2ND YEAR LECTURER
Yael Reisner Mark Cousins is Director
Good architecture and brilliant buildings are mostly judged by their capac- of History and Theories.
He has taught at the AA
ity to produce an aesthetic experience. Yet people outside the profession for many years in the
are surprised to discover that architectural design is neither led by nor Undergraduate pro-
gramme, the Graduate
generated through a process that is engaged with aesthetic issues or visual programme and the PhD
thinking. Some of the reasons why architects are reluctant to generate programme. He is a
founding member of the
architecture through its appearance are a result of a culture initiated in Graduate School, the
the early twentieth century, when the perception of the individual’s wide London Consortium, has
been Visiting Professor
pallette of senses and judgments was substituted with a unified public at Columbia University
opinion. Subjectivity became a taboo in architecture, and objectifying the and is currently Guest
Professor at South
design process was the main agenda. Focusing on technological aspects Eastern University
or on intellectualising the design process became equally attractive options Nanjing China.
for architects. Nevertheless personal expression is a reflection of one’s COURSE LECTURERS
culture and, architecturally, a visual discrimination that comments on a Lara Belkind is a PhD
Candidate at Harvard
broader, collective cultural spectrum. It is through culture that architectural University where she also
poetics are evolving. The aesthetic capacity of architecture is charged by earned Master’s degrees
in Architecture and in
visual qualities that might evoke emotions in people. This is when beauty Urban Planning. She has
comes into the conversation. taught at the Yale School
of Architecture and at
Harvard and has worked
Landscape professionally creating
large-scale design and
Patrick Wright redevelopment plans with
The course concerns the recent work of Patrick Wright, whose writings public agencies in New
York and Washington DC.
express a long-held interest in the subject, both in the urban and rural land- Her publications include
scape. Recently he has worked with the film director Patrick Keiller and a study of bloggers and
urban transformation on
this generates the starting point of the course. Patrick Wright is a writer, New York’s Lower East
and author of, amongst other works, Living in an Old Country (1985), The Side and a history of
urban camouflage in that
Village that died for England (1995) and Tank – the Progress of a Monstrous neighbourhood since the
War Machine (2000). He wrote a regular column for The Guardian in the 1970s. As a Fulbright
Scholar, she documented
1990s and regularly contributes to the Washington Post, The Independent Paris’s Hôtels Industriels.
and The Guardian newspapers. Her dissertation examines
infrastructure as a site of
conflict and negotiation in
Open Lecture Course: contemporary Paris.
Technology and the Subject Christopher Pierce studied
Mark Cousins at Virginia Polytechnic
Institute and State
Fridays at 5.00pm in the Lecture Hall University and gained a
This year’s lecture series will attempt to grapple with two different but PhD from the University
of Edinburgh. Among
related issues concerning technology. The first is concerned with the his recent publications
question of how the introduction of new technologies affects what we are essays on Ron Arad’s
Design Museum, ‘In
will call the experience of the human subject. How are we to assess their Praise of the Harpoon’
consequences? This section of the course will take a number of case (2010); EMBT’s Shanghai
Pavilion, ‘Chinese
histories as examples of the issues that such an analysis raises. The cases Whispers’ (2010); and,
themselves will include writing, printing, telephony and phonography. The with Tom Weaver, ‘In
Conversation with Léon
second half of the course will consider the inverse case – to what extent Krier’ (2010). He formed
can we consider certain psychical organisations such as repression, projec- Mis-Architecture
(mis-architecture.co.uk)
tion, and conscience as a form of technology, a technology of the self. with Chris Matthews
in 2000.
102
Brett Steele is Director
of the AA School. His
research and writings can
be found online at
brettsteele.net
COURSE TUTORS
Mollie Claypool is an
architect and educator.
She is currently a tutor
at the AA, the University
of Reading and the
University of Brighton,
and is a Project Editor at
Phaidon Press. She has
previously worked at
James Harb Architects,
Werner Sobek NY, and
ARX Kabul in New York.
Ryan Dillon is currently
working for EGG Office
based in Los Angeles. He
is a tutor in the Design as
Research Laboratory
programme at the
Architectural Association.
He is a graduate of the AA
and Syracuse University
School of Architecture.
He has previously worked
at Moshe Safdie and
Associates.
PROGRAMME STAFF
William Firebrace is an
architect and author of
Marseille Mix, recently
published by AA
Publications, and teaches
in various London schools
of architecture.
CONSULTANTS
Pier Vittorio Aureli is an
architect and educator.
His theoretical studies
focus on architectural
form, political theory
and urban history. After
graduating from the
Istituto di Architettura
di Venezia, he obtained
masters and PhD degrees
at the Berlage Institute/
Delft University of
Technology. At the
Berlage Institute he heads
the ‘City as a Project’ PhD
programme. He is the
co-founder of Dogma,
with Martino Tattara, a
prize-winning architec-
tural collective..
Mark Campbell is a PhD
candidate in the School of
Architecture at Princeton
University. His research
interests include
contemporary American
103
culture between 1960 and
1975, paranoia, cultural
exhaustion and dreams.
A practising architect,
he has taught at Auckland
University, Princeton
University and the
Cooper Union.
Paul Davies has lectured
at the AA since 1997,
predominantly on the
subject of Las Vegas
and entertainment
architecture. He writes
for Modern Painters and
other magazines, and is
coeditor of The Architect’s
Guide to Fame (2005).
Oliver Domeisen studied
at ETH Zurich and the AA.
From 1997–2000 he
worked as project
Architect for Zaha Hadid;
since 2000 as director of
dlm ltd; from 2001–07 as
Unit Master for Inter 9;
and from 2005–07 as a
Studio Master for AAVSP.
Since 2007 he is the Unit
Master for Dip 13. He
currently writes and
lectures – and has curated
an exhibition – on the
topic of ornament.
Francesca Hughes joined
the AA in 2003 where she
has been unit master of
Dip 15 since 2004 and
intermittently taught HTS.
She has lectured
internationally and served
as external examiner in
numerous schools, both
in the U.K. and abroad.
Author/editor of The
Architect: Reconstructing
her Practice (MIT Press:
1996), she is currently
completing a book
entitled Error. Hughes
Meyer Studio is an art /
architecture practice
whose work has been
published by AR, ANY, Art
Forum, Merrel, Routledge
and Wiley and exhibited
in the UK and abroad.
John Palmesino is an
architect and urbanist. He
is a Diploma Unit Master
at the AA and is currently
Research Advisor at the
Jan van Eyck Academie,
Maastricht. He also
teaches at the Research
Architecture Centre,
Goldsmiths in London
UNDERGRADUATE
where he is pursuing his
Doctoral research. He has
established with Ann-Sofi
Rönnskog Territorial
Agency. He previously
has been Head of
Research at ETH Studio
Basel and he is founding
member of multiplicity,
an international research
network.
Yael Reisner has a PhD in
Architecture from RMIT in
Australia, a Diploma from
the Architectural
Association in London
and a BSc in Biology from
Hebrew University in
Jerusalem. She runs her
own Studio of Architec-
ture and Design. She
currently teaches
internationally (Sci-Arc in
LA, Lund Univ. in
Sweden). She has taught
at the Bartlett (UCL). Her
book with Fleur Watson,
titled Architecture and
Beauty, Conversations
with Architects about A
Troubled Relationship was
published by Wiley UK in
April 2010. She is one of
the contributors to the
AD Magazine on the issue
of Exuberance, March
2010. Lately she was
commissioned by the
Karelic company to be
the art director of a new
porcelain lighting line –
Ostracon.
(www.yaelreisner.com)
Patrick Wright is a writer,
author amongst other
works of Living in an
Old Country (1985),
The Village that Died for
England (1995) and
Tank – The Progress of a
Monstrous War Machine
(2000). He wrote a regular
column for the Guardian
in the 1990s and regularly
contributes to the
Washington Post,
Independent and
Guardian newspapers.
TEACHING ASSISTANTS
Daniel Ayat
Shumi Bose
Alejandra Celedon
Braden Engel
Marlie Mul
Ivonne Santoyo
Emanuel de Sousa
 MEDIA STUDIES HEAD OF MEDIA STUDIES
Eugene Han
UNDERGRADUATE

Media Studies at the AA includes required studio-based courses for First

and Second Year undergraduate students, covering methods of production
in the design process. In addition, Media Studies offers a set of computer
laboratory-based courses that focus on direct instruction in a series of
significant digital applications in the architectural pipeline.
Studio-based courses for Second Year students are also open to partici-
pation by all students in the Intermediate or Diploma Schools, while labora-
tory-based courses are open to students throughout the entire school.
Together the many classes and special events comprising Media Studies
expose students to the work of architects, artists and other practitioners,
to the innovative skills associated with traditional forms of architectural
media and representation, and to the today’s most experimental forms of
information, communication and fabrication technologies. Media Studies
emphasises the integration of established design techniques with progres-
sive media and production methods, underlining the potential of produc-
tion within the creative process.

Required Media Studies Courses

Media Studies courses are a required part of the First Year and Intermedi-
ate Schools, providing students with the knowledge and skills associated
with a wide range of contemporary design, communication and fabrication
media. These weekly courses are taught by AA unit staff, the school’s
AV department, Workshop and Computing staff, as well as by invited
outside architects, artists, media and other creative specialists. Each term-
long course focuses on the conceptual and technical aspects of a specified
topic of design media, and emphasises a sustained development of a
student’s ability to use design techniques as a means for conceiving,
developing and producing design projects and strategies.

Media Studies Lab Courses

Working in close relationship with the AA Computer Lab, Media Studies
offers a range of workshop-format courses that allow students to grasp
fundamental techniques in major digital applications for architecture. As
the recent proliferation of digital design technologies has now matured as
an integral part of the architectural education offered by the school, Media
Studies provides for concise one-day courses that cover the fundamentals
of many common computer applications, covering content such as 3D Mod-
eling, Computer Aided Drafting, Imaging, Publication, Digital Computation
and Scripting, and other relevant software.

First Year Courses

The Violet Hour
Sue Barr, Autumn and Winter Terms
Photographs made during the fleeting light of dusk present technical
challenges but also the opportunity to explore the notions of transience
and mysterious psychological states. This course will introduce students
to the basics of photography and digital cameras whilst producing images Student: Song Jie Lim
shot within the parameters of this transient time. Course: Painting Architecture (Alex Kaiser), 2009–10

104 105
MEDIA STUDIES
Translation Object to Drawing
Shin Egashira, Autumn Term
The links between procedures used in representing and making space are
explored through the translation of objects into drawings and the interpre-
tation of sets of drawing into models.
One-to-One Instruments
Shin Egashira, Winter Term
Techniques for constructing performative instruments, including collage
and bricolage, are tested through application to the city. We will be working
on both drawings and physical assemblages to develop design concepts.
Life Drawing
Trevor Flynn, Autumn and Winter Terms
The figure will be used as a departure point as we work through several
exercises that enable us to study tone, mass, line and simple underlying
structures in a range of drawing media and in short and longer poses from
male and female models. We will also explore concept sketches, viewpoint,
biomorphic improvisations and remind ourselves of the Matisse maxim
‘exactitude isn’t truth’.
Painting Architecture
Alex Kaiser, Autumn and Winter Terms
Students will become confident in drawing with perspective – from quick
sketching to more complicated perspective constructs. A set of drawings
will be produced that constantly develop a better understanding of per-
spective, moving from one, two, and three-point perspective to orthograph-
ic translations and drawing complex curvatures within scenes and objects.
Information Design
Heather Lyons, Autumn and Winter Terms
How does the way we present information influence the way it is perceived
and understood? The aim of this course is to introduce students to different
techniques for the presentation of information. Each session will look at dif-
ferent toolsets and devices, from the typographic through to graphing,
charting and mapping tools, the iconographic and other representational
devices and techniques.
Materiality of Colour
Antoni Malinowski, Autumn Term
This course focuses on the potential of colour in creating/manipulating
space. Students will be introduced to the materiality of pure pigments with
the focus on colour as micro-structure. Students will be encouraged to
create their own distinctive notational system sensitive to space, time, light
and the characteristics of materials.
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UNDERGRADUATE
Colour and Light
Antoni Malinowski, Winter Term
The course focuses on the interaction of subtractive and additive colour.
We will consider the micro-structure of pigments and other materials
as a source of the perceptual interdependence of micro and macro scale.
Object Organisation
Marlie Mul, Autumn Term
In a course focused on formal improvisation, we will work towards the
creation of 1:1 scale functional objects made from styrofoam. Working
according to a set of parameters, the object will be the site for finding a
successful structure by means of both improvisation and calculation.
Substantial Coating
Marlie Mul, Winter Term
Further research and experiment with coatings will follow in the second
term, allowing students who took the autumn term course ‘Object Organi-
zation’ to complete their object with a suitable coating. Students who did
not participate in the earlier course will research strengthening and coating
materials that can be applied to three-dimensional objects.
Video: First Year
Joel Newman, Autumn Term
Cinema is the most beautiful fraud in the world – Jean-Luc Godard
In these sessions we will make a 1500-frame animation using video tech-
nology. That’s one minute in real time. After looking at examples of animat-
ed work will we embark on an exploration of techniques and methods. No
techniques are excluded but students must create their own soundtracks.
Second Year Courses
F2F
Shany Barath, Autumn Term
This course will experiment with systemic procedures and speculate on the
possibilities of production modes as both performative and sensual aspects
of digital craft. Focusing on subtractive fabrication processes, we will
explore issues of non-sequential scalar growth, surface articulation and
the fenestration of continuous non-repeating surfaces. Through our ability
to design directly at the information level, we will seek a novel range of
control sensibilities for each and every part of our geometrical design,
and trigger a generative approach towards the craft of carving/contouring.
ColorCode/DataMurals
Shany Barath, Winter Term
This course observes BioImaging visualisation techniques as potential
indicators for new computational methods revealing extreme high data
resolutions and unique contemporary exposure of materiality. Within an
architectural realm that is in itself composed of multi-scalar material prop-
erties, we will first expose the ghosted data sets of simple physical envi-
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MEDIA STUDIES
ronments in order to find correlating edges between the physical and the
digital. Through the development of data-sorting techniques (geometry,
colour, fabrication method, etc.) we will translate variables into design
components of both performance and effect.
Drawing(s) Animation
Valentin Bontjes Van Beek, Autumn Term
In this course we will animate ideas by creating and erasing drawings both
in analogue and digitally. We will explore animation technique through the
capture and erasure of drawings on a single canvas. Animation is that
which gives life to the static. This distance between drawings and anima-
tions is what we wish simultaneously to explore, manipulate and convey.
The course will culminate with a short animated filmic clip.
Pending Structures
Valentin Bontjes Van Beek, Winter Term
Going beyond the scale of the standard model, this course focuses on
developing a working understanding of fabrication through designing on
the CNC for an actual scale. Throughout the term, students will develop
projects that address the design of installation pieces within the school,
examining the relationship of material structures and physical resolution.
The ‘pending structure’ should be beautiful and consider ideas of independ-
ence while respecting forms of integration – a measured ratio of direction-
ality and belonging. The course will culminate with the fabrication of a final
project at Hooke Park.
Replicas v.1
Monia De Marchi, Autumn Term
This year’s investigation will create replicas of an initial architectural detail.
In the first phase replicas will be manufactured with similar materials but
differing forms producing a range of copies that transition from a reductive
to exaggerated. With the use of varied fabrication processes such as CNC
machining, we will manufacture flexible moulds in which different replicas
can be originated. The final output will be a series of constructed details
with the related drawings necessary for fabrication and manufacturing.
Replicas v.2
Monia De Marchi, Winter Term
During the spring term we will maintain the formal attributes of the detail
such as shape and dimension while changing the materiality. Using differ-
ent methods of manufacturing, students will investigate ways of replicating
details within an economy of construction procedures. The final output will
be a series of constructed details with the related drawings necessary for
their fabrication and manufacturing.
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UNDERGRADUATE
Digital Ceramics
Adam Furman and Marco Ginex, Autumn Term
The course focuses on the conceptual and technical aspects associated
with the fabrication of digitally controlled architectural ceramic surfaces
designed with 3D modelling software. The aim of the course is to provide
students with the knowledge and skills necessary to design and create fully
fired and glazed, ceramic tiling elements.
Digital Ceramics
Adam Furman and Marco Ginex, Winter Term
Building on the material investigations of the autumn term, the course will
deepen the plane of experimentation to probe the possibilities of additional
three-dimensionally complex forms, pushing the boundaries of what ce-
ramic elements and surfaces can contain. Students will develop from
digital design through to firing and glazing highly articulated and robust
architectural details.
Customised Computation
Eugene Han, Winter Term
This course will focus on the manipulation of digital geometry using script-
ed techniques within a NURBS modelling environment, using Python for
Rhino. We will cover the basics of scripted logic to customise geometry
using iterative logic. Students will be introduced to the basics behind the
theory of computation and processing as a means to establish intelligent
geometrical systems that can be applied to their ongoing unit projects.
Graphical User Interfaces
Eugene Han, Winter Term
In the spring term, students will be extending their knowledge in the
scripting environment to include techniques in developing graphical user
interfaces to control workflow strategies within Rhino using Python script,
with associated .NET components specifically within the Windows environ-
ment. Students will produce and document relevant processes to deter-
mine the most effective customised workflows for design research projects.
Rendering Environments
Matej Hosek, Autumn and Winter Terms
Using both 2D digital collage and 3D renderings, we will experiment with
the genius loci phenomenon, aiming to achieve a seamless manipulation
of the mainly photographic environment.
The Invisible Visible
Max Kahlen, Autumn and Winter Terms
This course will explore two contrasting forms of representation through
a sensible transition from the beautiful reality of the photograph to the
fascinating abstraction of the drawing. In a series of workshops students
will learn surreal but pragmatic techniques to produce one image and one
drawing, capturing precisely one moment and one idea.
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MEDIA STUDIES UNDERGRADUATE

Painting Architecture HEAD OF MEDIA STUDIES Shin Egashira worked in Alex Kaiser graduated Marlie Mul is an artist
Eugene Han is the founder Tokyo, Beijing and New from Oxford Brookes from The Netherlands,
Alex Kaiser, Autumn Term of AVA-Studio, research- York before coming to University, and has living and working in
Students will become confident in drawing with perspective – from quick ing and developing London. Artworks and worked in Rogers, Stirk, Berlin and London. She
systems in industrial installations include Harbour and Partners. received a Masters
sketching to more complicated perspective constructs. A set of drawings design, architecture and ‘English House’ at the Following this he Degree in Architectural
will be produced that constantly develop a better understanding of per- planning. Camden Arts Centre, attended and graduated Histories & Theories from
eugenehan@ ‘Impossible Vehicle’ at the from the AA. He is the Architectural
spective, moving from one, two, and three-point perspective to orthograph- aaschool.ac.uk Spiral Garden, Tokyo, and currently obsessed with Association, School of
ic translations and drawing complex curvatures within scenes and objects. ‘Slow Box/Afterimage’ for combining traditional Architecture in London
MEDIA STUDIES STAFF- the Tsunami Trienalle painting techniques with in 2009 and a Bachelors
Shany Barath studied 2000. He has taught at the experimental architec- Degree in Fine Art from
Ecclesial Anatomy architecture at TUDelft in AA since 1990 and is tural drawing. the Academy of Fine Arts
the Netherlands, and currently Unit Master of in Maastricht in 2003.
Tobias Klein, Autumn Term completed her Post-pro- Diploma Unit 11. Tobias Klein studied archi- She is an initiator of the
This course seeks to cross medical voxel based softwares (used for Mag- fessional Masters Degree tecture at the RWTH online artists’ publication
at the Architectural Trevor Flynn MFA (Aachen, Germany), the publishing platform
netic Resonance Imaging) with representational mesh-based 3D packages. Association Graduate Goldsmiths, is Course University of Applied Arts www.xym.no that was
We will investigate the geometries of the great churches of London, amal- program. She established Director of Drawing At (Vienna,Austria) and the launched in 2009
together with Gary Work and is freehand Bartlett School for
gamating properties of MRI-scans. We will then create models fusing sheet Freedman SHaGa Studio; drawing tutor at several Architecture (London, UK) Joel Newman was born in
material technologies (CNC,laser-cutting,etc.) and 3D-printing techniques. an interdisciplinary architectural and and has worked for Coop 1971 in rural Hertford-
design practice at the engineering offices Himmelb(l)au. He is a shire. He studied fine art
interface of architecture, including Foster & founder of .horhizon, an at Reading University and
Mundanities visual art, ecology and Partners, Future Systems, experimental architec- has exhibited in the UK
computation. Shany has and Rogers, Stirk, tural design platform and and abroad. He has run
Tobias Klein, Winter Term practiced Architecture Harbour and Partners. He is researching narrative the AA’s Audio Visual
Opposing a computational design trend of scripted logic, the course with Ben van-Berkel _UN- is visiting tutor at Central design in digital department since 1994
Studio in Amsterdam and St. Martins College of Art environments at the Royal and taught Video within
explores digital sculpting by the means of poly-modelling/mesh geometries Adriaan Geuze _West 8 in and Design and R.I.S.D. College of Art and as a Media Studies since 1998.
modification. Using animation-derived software (3DS Max and Modo) Rotterdam. First Year Unit Master at
Adam Nathaniel Furman the AA since 2008. Goswin Schwendinger
this course seeks to fuse, hybridise and collage the vast 3D components Sue Barr is a director at Madam was born in Belgium,
freely available within the city of London creating a rich and unexpected heathcotebarr.org Studio. He studied at the Heather Lyons is an became an architect in
Architectural Association, architect and interaction Switzerland, went to
landscape of oddities and digitally sculpted interventions. Valentin Bontjes Van Beek graduating with honours designer who has Spain to learn photogra-
trained as a carpenter in 2008, and has worked designed everything from phy and moved to London
in Germany before at OMA in Rotterdam, and mobile handsets to to live. He has been
Video: Intermediate attending the AA, Boyarsky Murphy in interactive kiosks and teaching at the AA since
Joel Newman, Winter Term graduating in 1998. He London. environments. Herfocus 1999 and recently
has practised architecture has been on mobile collaborated with Paul
The course will investigate private, new spaces shaped by the audio in Berlin, New York and Marco Ginex is a director interactivity, designing McCarthy on a Tate
components that you will create in the initial stages of the project. The London, and has taught at Madam Studio. He handsets for companies Modern publication.
at the AA since 2001, studied at the Architec- like Vodafone, though
piece and its structure, which may be without narrative, will be a minimum where he is currently a tural Association, she’s now researching
of three minutes in length and will incorporate live-action footage. First Year Tutor. graduating with the interactive environments
annual AA Prize in 2009, with an interest in kinetic
Monia De Marchi is an and has worked for architecture. Heather
Colour Photography: The Original architect who studied in Massimiliamo Fuksas received her Master’s
Venice and completed her Architetto in Rome, as degree in Architecture
Goswin Schwendinger, Autumn Term M. Arch at the AA well as for DLM Architects from Princeton University.
This year Colour Photography will again focus on the constructing of an graduate programme. In in London.
addition to teaching the Antoni Malinowski is an
desired image. We will dissect our personal life strategically to come up Media Studies course, she Matej Hosek studied artist whose practice
with an all encompassing scenario for a staged set. A constructed reality, has been Unit Master at architecture at the comprises painting and
the AA since 2005, and Technical University of large-scale drawing
using all means of photography at hand. ‘It changed my life’. she co-directs the Spring Liberec and has worked installations. He has
Semester Programme. at MilkStudio Architects. exhibited in the UK and
He is a regular consultant Europe, and his paintings
Colour Photography: The Classic on computational and are in most major
Goswin Schwendinger, Spring Term imaging platforms. collections, including
Tate’s. He is currently
The Classic has all the ingredients of The Original plus some extra top- Anderson Inge studied working as artist-colourist
pings. ‘One not to be missed’. architecture at the AA and with MJP Architects on
at the University of Texas the redevelopment of the
at Austin before BBC’s Broadcasting
completing additional House.
academic training in
structural engineering
(at MIT) and sculpture
(at St Martins).

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 TECHNICAL STUDIES DIPLOMA MASTER
Javier Castanon
UNDERGRADUATE

INTERMEDIATE MASTER
The Technical Studies programme stands as a complete and coherent Wolfgang Frese
technical education over five years, and constructs a creative collaboration
with the material demands of individual unit agendas. The programme
continues to evolve from detailed discussions with lecturers all of whom
are drawn from leading engineering practices and research institutions that
engage in a wide range of disciplines and current projects. It is founded on
the provision of a substantial knowledge base, developed through critical
case studies of contemporary fabrication processes, constructed artefacts
and buildings. These studies include reflection and experimentation with
the ideas and techniques taught. Knowledge acquired in this way generates
a ‘means’, a set of precepts capable of negotiating the technical require-
ments of construction in unforeseen futures, and unpredictable contexts.
Lecture courses form a portion of each year’s requirements, with a
particular emphasis on the First, Second and Fourth years. In these years
students concentrate on critical case studies, analysis and material experi-
ments, undertaking two courses in each year.
In the Third Year, lecture coursework, workshop experiments and
technical ambitions are synthesised in a detailed Technical Design.
Students conduct design research and experiments to explore and resolve
the technical issues of the main project of their unit portfolio, with the
guidance of Technical Studies tutors.
In the Fifth Year, students undertake a Technical Design Thesis, a
substantial individual work that is developed under the guidance of Techni-
cal Studies. The Thesis is contextualised as part of a broader dialogue in
which the technical and the architectural agendas that arise within the unit
are synthesised. Its critical development is pursued through case studies,
material experiments and extensive research and consultation.
The Prospectus contains a brief summary of the courses offered. Full
details of the courses and a statement of the course regulations will be
found in the Complementary Studies Handbook, which will be available
at the beginning of the Autumn Term.

First Year
Workshop Introduction
Making is an important part of the programme for the year, and students
spend a significant portion of their time in the workshop. The induction
sessions are run by the workshop staff and cover the use of tools,
machines and facilities, including correct safety procedures.

Case Study (Compulsory Course – Autumn Term)

Marissa Kretsch with Ben Godber
This introductory course teaches students the skills to examine a building
with a critical and technical eye, ranging through research, analysis and
drawing to first-hand experience, site visits and physical modelling. Assem-
bled in groups, students will undertake a case study of a contemporary or
iconic London structure. From analogies with nature through to case
studies of ‘live’ projects (currently in the design process or construction
phase), the core topics of structure, materials and construction will be Barcelona ceramics, Rebecca Crabtree, 2009–10

112 113
TECHNICAL STUDIES
explored in class. Each student group will build a physical model of their
structure, testing it to failure. In the final class, each team will be required
to present their case study.
Structures (Compulsory Course – Autumn Term)
Phil Cooper and Anderson Inge
This course aims to develop a feel for forces in structures. Students will
learn how shape and material influence the performance of real structures.
Designing a structure requires choices about materials, assembly and
performance in use, making it essential to have the tools to predict the
behaviour of the unbuilt object while it is only an idea. After an introduc-
tion to the development of structural form through past centuries, common
structural elements will be examined in order to gain an understanding
of the behaviour of structures under load. During the lecture programme
students will design, make and test a structural model as a competition.
Intermediate School
Second Year students take Structures and one of two other courses
offered. Third Year students, in addition to the Structures course, undertake
a Technical Design study as part of their main project, which synthesises
their individual architectural ambitions with an account of the material
production of the proposal.
Structures (Second Year Compulsory Course)
Phil Cooper and Anderson Inge
This course examines how the structural elements of a building carry load.
Well-known buildings are analysed to show how strength and safety can
be predicted by calculation. Physical models are made and load-tested to
illustrate deformation and failure. Emphasis is also placed on finding
idealised conceptual models to demonstrate structural behaviour, in par-
ticular the stability of the whole building structure. Examinations are made
of how forces create stresses and deformations in architectural structures
taking account material properties.
Material and Technologies (Second Year Optional Course)
Carolina Bartram
This course will conduct an investigation of the range of materials used in
contemporary structures including concrete, timber, brick and blocks, glass,
fabrics and composites. Material properties, methods of manufacture,
durability, cost and appearance are significant factors that will be reviewed,
leading to an understanding of how different materials can be used in a
variety of applications.
Environmental Design in Practice (Second Year Optional Course)
Giles Bruce
We all know environmental design is important – but we just can’t see how
it is relevant to our studio work. This course aims to challenge this senti-
ment by showing how every design decision that architects make has an
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UNDERGRADUATE
immediate and quantifiable impact in terms of environmental performance.
The course aims to provide students with an intuitive grasp of the under-
lying principles of environmental design and the creative opportunities
these present in terms of architectural form, materiality and expression.
Above all, the course aims to eliminate the temptation of ‘greenwash’ from
studio design work by providing students with analytical techniques to test
and validate their environmental hypotheses.
Structures (Third Year Compulsory Course)
Phil Cooper and Anderson Inge
This course introduces structural model analysis – inviting students to
make and test scale models and to predict the static and dynamic behav-
iour of structures under load. The theory and practice of the effects of scale
will become obvious from the model testing, promoting better intuition
for predicting the behaviour of real, full-size structures. Analytical skills will
be demonstrated and used to make predictions. Observed behaviour of
physical models under load is used to establish the parameters of a de-
tailed digital model that a computer can analyse.
Third Year Design Project
Wolfgang Frese with Dancho Azagra, Giles Bruce, Fernando Perez
and Manja van de Worp
Third Year students undertake a comprehensive design study that explores
and resolves the central technical issues of their projects in collaboration
with individual unit agendas. The study records the strategic technical
decisions made as the design is developed, integrating knowledge of the
environmental context, use of materials, structural forms and processes of
assembly. It also documents the research carried out in the process of
developing the design project. The individual projects are developed with
support from technical teaching staff within the unit and from tutorials with
Wolfgang Frese and the Intermediate TS staff. Seminars on specific rel-
evant subjects are organised by the technical teaching staff and guest
speakers as a means of further support.
Diploma School
Fourth Year Seminar Courses
Fourth Year students choose two courses from the selection on offer and
may attend others according to their interests:
Process in the Making
Wolfgang Frese
This course aims to highlight and explain the complex forces underlying
the transformation of architectural designs into built form joining the
processes that link the design of architecture with the ‘art of building’.
We will focus on interdisciplinary collaboration since the architect, as lead
consultant, has to constantly adjust and evaluate his designs to address
these often contradict forces. Guest speakers from other consultantancy
will discuss their own perspective on the importance of collaboration.
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TECHNICAL STUDIES UNDERGRADUATE

Small in Large – the Interrelation of Component and System tion of sustainability issues, passive energy design and renewable energy
Martin Hagemann sources are examined through real projects that can generate exciting
For reasons of rationalisation, prefabrication, flexibility, exchangeability and solutions. We will examine the application of computer modelling tools for
maintenance the use of components in architecture has become very the design of buildings and Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD). Students
common. The course is aiming to give the designing architect an insight will complete a project involving research of completed buildings in differ-
into the theory and practice of component based structures, their organisa- ent climatic zones and can conceive a futuristic building that extends
tion, assembly, performance and the current and future research. Research- design and social boundaries.
ers from different European and American institutes will be invited to show
their latest experiments in theory and practice. Sustainable Urban Design
Ian Duncombe
Studies in Advanced Structural Design A new course will be presented in the 2011/2012 academic year
Emanuele Marfisi
Structures are complex systems providing strength, stiffness and stability Fifth Year Technical Thesis
to buildings. This course starts with a brief history of the most common Javier Castañón with Giles Bruce, Kenneth Fraser, Martin Hagemann,
types of constructions and is followed by detailed studies of structural Paul Loh and John Noel
principles and forms that describe the theory and potential of the various The Technical Design Thesis is a substantial individual work developed
systems. The objective of the course is to make students more aware under the guidance of Javier Castañón and the Diploma TS staff. The
of structural options and thus more comfortable during the development central interests may emerge from current or past design work, or from
of their unit project designs and in their future professional endeavours. the many lecture and seminar courses the student has attended in previous
years. The thesis is contextualised as part of a broader dialogue in which
Technology Transfers or Technomimetics the technical and the architectural agendas that arise within the unit are
John Noel synthesised, and its critical development is pursued through case studies,
This course pushes the boundaries of precedence studies by exploring the material experiments and extensive research and consultation. Assessment
relevance of the manufacturing of everyday life artefacts and the formation is by a panel of Technical Studies tutors and unit staff, and full details are
of living things to the technologies, processes and materials at use in the set out in the Complementary Studies handbook.
construction industry. Ranging from studies of food packaging techniques
to automobile chain production processes to nanotechnology material
research, the course will aim to expand the student’s technical awareness DIPLOMA MASTER partnership. He studied in research and biomimicry and the RWTH Aachen,
Javier Castañón is in Ireland and Norway, and research groups. Germany. He is a
beyond the realms of traditional construction and encourage the applica- private practice as at the AA SED pro- structural engineer at
tion of these technology transfers to architectural designs. director of Castañón gramme. Anderson Inge studied Buro Happold.
Associates (London) and architecture at the AA and
Castañón Asociados Philip Cooper is technical at the University of Texas Manja Van de Worp is
Environmental Modelling & Simulation (Madrid). director of Cameron at Austin before a graduate of the AA’s
Taylor Bedford, Consult- completing additional Emergent Technologies
Simos Yannas INTERMEDIATE MASTER ing Engineers, in academic training in & Design programme.
This hands-on technical course is on the use of environmental design Wolfgang Frese studied at Cambridge. He has taught structural engineering (at
Stuttgart and the Bartlett. at Cambridge Universit, MIT) and sculpture Fernando Perez Fraile
software for the generation and assessment of climate data and the simula- He is an associate at Leeds University and at (at St Martins). studied architecture in
tion of solar, thermal and lighting processes in and around real or virtual Alsop Architects working the AA. Spain and has worked at
on many international Paul Loh is educated in Frank O. Gehry and
buildings. An introduction to fundamental environmental design param- projects. Kenneth Fraser has taught Singapore, Melbourne, at Associates. He joined
eters is followed by a study of adaptive comfort mechanisms relating to the at the AA since 2007 and the University of East and IDOM in 1993 and set up
PROGRAMME STAFF is a director of Kirkland the AADRL in 2000. He IDOM UK. He has taught
different climatic, programmatic and operational conditions characterising Dancho Azagra is a Fraser Moor Architects has previously worked for at the University of
unit projects. This becomes input for modelling and simulation studies chartered structural (k-f-m.com). He has also Ken Yeang and Zaha Navarre and has
engineer. He has written served as an RIBA Hadid Architects. He has collaborated with the
using software aimed at achieving thermal and visual comfort with mini- about the subject of external examiner, an taught at the University Technical Studies since
mum use of non-renewable energy sources. collaboration between advisor to the Department of East London and is 2002.
architects and engineers of the Environment currently an associate
in the design process. Construction Research at NEX. CONSULTANTS
Form, Energy and Environment and Innovation Strategy Carolina Bartram
Giles Bruce is an architect Panel. John Noel studied Ian Duncombe
Mohsen Zikri specialising in environ- mathematics and physics Ben Godber
The course explores territories where architecture and engineering meet. mental performance. He Martin Hagemann is an in Clermont-Ferrand Marissa Kretsch
is director of A_Zero architect at Grimshaw’s, before completing a civil Emanuele Marfisi
It examines the links between building form, energy and the micro/macro architects and in where he is a member of engineering degree at Simos Yannas
environment and reviews the development of building skin. An investiga- consultancy with BDSP the computational design Imperial College, London Mohsen Zikri

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 ARCHITECTURAL PRACTICE
Javier Castañon
Hugo Hinsley
Developing an understanding of architectural practice is a mandatory
requirement within the Intermediate and Diploma schools, and specific
courses are run for third year and fifth year students. A Professional
Studies Advisor is available for year-out and post-Part 2 students to help
with work experience. Developing practice experience is essential prepara-
tion for the final Part 3 examination.
Part 1
Professional Practice for Third Year
Javier Castañón
This course prepares Third Year students for their year out, a time for
practical training taken after completion of RIBA Part I. It aims to provide
students with an idea of what working in an architectural practice entails.
Students will learn how to ‘make themselves useful’ in an office with the
intent that the sooner they are perceived as useful, the sooner they will
become part of the action and the more they will benefit from the experi-
ence. The first lecture, titled Roadmap to Architectural Registration, de-
scribes the steps required for registration as an architect. Four additional
lectures cover a wide range of subjects illustrating issues with real-life
examples and well-known case studies. The final lecture consists of a
15-minute presentation by four groups of students on a topic selected from
those covered in the previous sessions. Those students not participating
in this presentation will need to submit a short written essay. Since AA
students come from all over the world, and many of them intend to practise
back home, the essays are encouraged to be comparative in nature, for
studies of situations arising both in Britain and in home countries. The
essays should present concepts, facts, points of law, etc., clearly and
succinctly, in no more than 1,500 words.
Part 2 practice. For students subject to UK Border Agency visa regulations sign-on
Future Practice for Fifth Year
Hugo Hinsley
The context and conditions of architectural work are changing rapidly.
Practice needs to adapt, both conceptually and practically. Being a good
designer is not, in itself, enough to succeed in practice. This course pro-
vides an opportunity to investigate how design work is implemented in the
real world and the implications of this for developing a practice of architec-
ture. There is no standard model of practice and each student should
address the question of how to design a concept and structure of practice
that will best support the type of work they aim to achieve.
A series of lectures and discussion sessions explores issues related
to the changing context of design and production of the built environment
and different concepts and models of practice. These issues include the
changing context in which projects are realised; different responsibilities
towards clients and users; economic and cultural impacts; political and
legislative considerations; environmental issues and ethical implications.
There are also more practical points, including ways to collaborate with
118
UNIT STAFF
Alastair Robertson
Robert Sparrow
UNDERGRADUATE
other disciplines and consultants; effective ways to engage with the
construction process; and suitable models and scales of an ‘office’.
Students work with a tutor to develop a critical paper of approximately
3,000 words. This should discuss, in relation to the issues covered in the
course, some implications for developing a practice of design, as well as
potential techniques and structures to support the evolution of the most
effective future practice.
ARB/RIBA validation procedures for Part 2 require evidence of Professional
Studies. Fifth Year students must achieve a pass in this course and include
the assessed paper in their final portfolios.
Professional Practice for Intermediate & Diploma School
For year-out and post-Part 2 students, Alastair Robertson, the AA
Professional Studies Advisor (PSA) provides counselling on all aspects
of training and work experience in architectural practice. Students can
make an appointment through Rob Sparrow (sparrow_ro@aaschool.ac.uk)
to meet with Alastair. A guidebook on the year-out, Working out in Archi-
tecture gives advice and tips on how to obtain a job and what is expected
from year-out experience. The guidebook is downloadable from the AA
Website (www.aaschool.ac.uk/architecturalpractice).
All year-out and post-Part 2 students must register with Rob Sparrow.
Registration for the year out is free. For post-Part 2 students it is £250.
Registration entitles students to workplace oversight, tutorials with the
PSA, UKBA liaison, as required.
Review and sign-off of PEDR records – the Professional Education and
Development Record (PEDR – see www.pedr.co.uk) is a mandatory part
of students’ final Part 3 requirements and a failure to keep the records up
to date during Part 1 and Part 2 can cause serious problems in future
is critical because the AA cannot support visa extensions and renewals
without proper documents.
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ARCHITECTURAL PRACTICE UNDERGRADUATE

Part 3 details, including fees, are documented in the AA’s Part 3 Prospectus,
AA Course and Exam in Professional Practice which can be downloaded from the professional practice section on the
Leading to exemption from the ARB requirements for Part 3 AA website (www.aaschool.ac.uk/architecturalpractice).
Alastair Robertson and Robert Sparrow Although the Part 3 process at the AA follows the same standards
Each year, the AA provides two courses and examination programmes, that adopted by all other recognised schools in the UK there are some differ-
are approximately 10 weeks long, one beginning in March and the other in ences. For example, the AA does not, like most other schools, require
mid-September. Alastair Robertson, the AA’s Professional Studies Advisor a case study. Our approach to grading examination papers follows the
(PSA) and Rob Sparrow, the Architectural Practice Coordinator, advise and legal system where everything the candidate presents to the examiners
help students through the process. forms part of a single ‘body of evidence’. The examiners can weight
There are currently 25 places available for each course and examination the component parts of the exam however they wish, to reach their deci-
programme. Candidates are drawn from the AA, other UK schools and sion of ‘competent’ or ‘not yet competent’.
others who have had their initial architectural training outside the UK. To support Part 3 candidates, a 48 week/year advisory and support
Typically, pass rates exceed 75 per cent and any lack of success is generally programme is provided for students out in the practice environment.
caused by a lack of preparation or exposure to key practice activities such Meetings with the PSA are by appointment, through Rob Sparrow, and
as contract administration. meetings are usually in the AA Members’ Room over a cup of coffee.
The ‘gold’ standard is to pass the ‘Part 3’ and thus be recognised as Alastair will also visit students in their offices if the situation warrants it.
competent in architectural practice. The AA’s examination is formally For Part 3, the essential starting point of the process is to register with
recognised by the Architects Registration Board (ARB) and the Royal the school (through Rob Sparrow: sparrow_ro@aaschool.ac.uk) as soon
Institute of British Architects (RIBA), meaning not only that students can as possible after completing Diploma School/Part 2. The registration fee
become registered without further examination and use the title ‘Architect’ for 2010/11 is £250, which covers the costs of practice monitoring, PEDR
but also that employers, potential clients and insurers in the UK and most review and sign-off, an initial Part 3 Assessment and tutorials with the PSA,
other countries in the world will recognise that they have reached the most as required. For those subject to visa regulations, this is critical because the
critical benchmark in their career. AA School cannot otherwise meet its sponsorship obligations to the UK
An intensive full-time, two-week course offers an introduction to the Borders Agency. The PSA also cannot sign PEDR forms unless the student
examination process and covers all the topics central to professional is registered with the AA School.
practice, including building contract, planning and building regulations as
well as business management and soft skills such as personal presentation.
It is delivered by experts from the world of architectural practice who are
current with the latest changes in practice and procedure. It is not a foun-
dation course, but the AA provides an extensive bibliography, lecture notes
and past papers that are on a CD.
The AA Part 3 programme uniquely brings together a group of many
graduates from the AA, other UK schools, schools outside the UK and
qualified practitioners involved in the course as Continuing Professional
Development (CPD)
The examination is a two-step process. First, candidates must establish
their eligibility by submitting an essay and related documentation to
the PSA for an Initial Assessment. Second, they must submit four written
papers in a scenario-based examination and present themselves for PROGRAMME STAFF He also teaches in the Business School and has
Javier Castañón is in Housing & Urbanism taught at the AA since
a professional review by two examiners from the AA Board of Part 3 private practice as programme in the 1971. As a senior
Examiners. The review is based on their record of professional experience Director of Castañón Graduate School. His consultant he has worked
Associates (London) recent research explores on several English new
(normally a PEDR record – see www.pedr.co.uk), the documents submitted and Castañón Asociados London’s design and plan- towns and St Katherine’s
for their initial assessment and their exam papers. (Madrid). He has taught ning, particularly in the Docks in London and
at the AA since 1978. East End and Docklands; currently advises industry
To be eligible to sit the exam, candidates must have exemption from European urban policy sector organisations in
the ARB/RIBA Part 1 and 2 Examinations, at least two years’ practice Hugo Hinsley is an and design; and housing the UK and several
architect with experience and urban density. governments in the
experience (three to four years is more usual), of which one year must be in housing, community Middle East on vocational
after passing Part 2 and one year must be working in the UK on UK-based buildings and urban Alastair Robertson trained training and qualification
development projects. at the AA and Manchester systems and policies.
projects and under the supervision of a UK-registered architect. All of these

120 121
 GRADUATE SCHOOL

GRADUATE SCHOOL
The AA Graduate School includes eleven postgraduate programmes offer-
ing advanced studies in one of the world’s most dynamic learning environ-
ments. All enrolled students join the school in October at the outset of
an academic year, and attend full-time studies according to the length of
the course selected.
Full-time masters programmes include 12-month MA and Msc and
16-month MArch options. The Design Research Lab (AADRL), the AA’s
innovative team-based course in experimental architecture and urbanism,
offers a Masters (MArch). Emergent Technologies & Design (MArch/MSc)
emphasises forms of architectural design that proceed from innovative
technologies. Sustainable Environmental Design (MArch/MSc) introduces
new forms of architectural practice and design related to the environment
and sustainability. Landscape Urbanism (MA) investigates the processes,
techniques and knowledge related to the practices of contemporary urban-
ism. Housing & Urbanism (MA) rethinks urbanism as a spatial discipline
through a combination of design projects and contemporary theory. History
& Critical Thinking (MA) encourages a critical understanding of contempo-
rary architecture and urban culture grounded in a knowledge of histories
and forms of practice.
Complementing these masters programmes, the AA PhD programme
fosters advanced scholarship and innovative research in the fields of
architecture and urbanism through full-time doctoral studies. A new PhD by
Design programme, provides a setting for advanced research and learning
for architects, designers and other qualified professionals. The part-time
Building Conservation course offers a two-year programme leading to an
AA Graduate Diploma.
All graduate degrees at the AA are validated by the Open University.

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 DESIGN RESEARCH LAB DRL DIRECTOR
Theodore Spyropoulos
DRL PROGRAMME
TUTORS
Marta Malé-Alemany
Riccardo Merello
Yusuke Obuchi
Christos Passas
GRADUATE

FOUNDER Alisa Andrasek Robert Stuart-Smith

Design Research: Experimentation and Innovation (v.14) Patrik Schumacher Yota Adilenidou Mollie Claypool
Shajay Bhooshan Ryan Dillon
The DRL is a 16-month post-professional design programme leading to a Lawrence Friesen
masters of Architecture and Urbanism (MArch) degree. The DRL investi- Hanif Kara

gates digital and analogue forms of computation in the pursuit of systemic

design applications that are scenario- and time-based. Considering controls
systems as open acts of design experimentation, the Design Research Lab
examines production processes as active agents in the development of
Proto-Design systems.

Course Structure
Four terms of study are divided into two phases. Phase I, a three-term
academic year beginning each autumn, introduces design techniques and
topics through a combination of team-based studio, workshop and seminar
courses. In Phase II, beginning the following autumn, teams carry forward
their Phase I work in the form of comprehensive thesis design projects. At
the end of January these projects are presented to a panel of distinguished
visiting critics, after which each team documents their 16 months of design
research work in a hardbound book.

Phase I design research agenda: Proto Design (v.3)

In autumn term the DRL will continue to pursue its design research agenda,
Proto Design, investigating digital and material forms of computational
prototyping. Parametric and generative modelling techniques are coupled
with physical computing and analogue experiments to create dynamic
feedback processes. New forms of spatial organisation will be explored
that are not type- or context-dependent. The aim is to detect scenarios that
challenge the parameter-identification that allows systems to evolve as
ecologies of machines, as material and computational regulating systems,
towards an architecture that is both adaptive and hyper-specific. This
performance-driven approach seeks to develop novel design proposals
concerned with the everyday. The iterative methodologies of the design
studio will focus on the investigation of spatial, structural and material
organisation, engaging in contemporary discourses on computation and
materialisation in the disciplines of architecture and urbanism.

Phase II design research agenda: Proto Design (v.2)

Proto-Design systems developed in Phase I will be tested in site-specific
testing scenarios. Theodore Spyropoulos’ studio, Digital Materialism,
examines behaviour as a catalyst to explore adaptive and deployable
models. Yusuke Obuchi and Robert Stuart-Smith’s studio, Proto Tectonics,
investigates the life-cycle of buildings. Patrik Schumacher and Christos
Passas’s studio, Proto-Tower, is focusing on the design of inherently adap-
tive, parametric proto-types that intelligently vary general topological
schemata across a wide range of parametrically specifiable site-conditions
and briefs. Alisa Andrasek’s studio, Agentware, is exploring the potential
of rewriting material agency via the agency of information. Marta Malé- Anon_SoftCast
Tutor: Theodore Spyropoulos
Alemany’s studio Machinic Control, examines architectural design proc- Team: Omrana Ahmed [USA – India] Mustafa El Sayed
esses incorporating novel digital fabrication. [Egypt], Sara Saleh [Italy – KSA] Nick Williams [Australia]

124 125
DESIGN RESEARCH LAB
Phase I Design Studio: Proto-Architectures
Marta Malé-Alemany, Alisa Andrasek, Patrik Schumacher,
Theodore Spyropoulos, Robert Stuart-Smith
Five design studios will continue to challenge the notion of the design
project driven exclusively by contextual and programmatic parameters.
Each design studio will introduce a specific arena of design concepts, tools
and intended outcomes, ranging from prototypes of urbanism, architecture
and detail systems. This body of initial design research work will be carried
forward to Phase II in 2011/12, and applied to a series of specific briefs and
sites for each studio.
Phase I Design Workshops: Material Behaviour
Marta Malé-Alemany, Alisa Andrasek, Theodore Spyropoulos,
Robert Stuart-Smith, Autumn Term
Autumn term begins with two sets of three design workshop modules,
emphasising computational and material prototyping as both an analytical
methodology and the prime mode of design production and representation.
Each five-week module focuses on a specific set of methods and intended
design output, introducing Phase I students to a broad range of concepts
and techniques that can be taken forward to further workshops and the
year-long Phase I and Phase II studio projects.
Phase II Design Workshop: Adaptive Systems and Structures
Marta Malé-Alemany, Alisa Andrasek, Yusuke Obuchi, Christos Passas,
Patrik Schumacher, Robert Stuart-Smith, Theodore Spyropoulos,
Autumn Term
This five-week workshop in the midstage of Phase II addresses a detailed
part of the spatial, structural, material and environmental systems of each
team’s thesis project, with an emphasis on modelling techniques which act
as feedback for the testing and development of the larger-scale proposals.
A presentation in November will serve as a major interim review.
Phase II Design Studio: Urban Protocols
Marta Malé-Alemany, Alisa Andrasek, Yusuke Obuchi, Christos Passas,
Patrik Schumacher, Robert Stuart-Smith, Theodore Spyropoulos,
Autumn Term
Design teams in five studios will carry forward their Phase I work on gen-
erative design systems, structures and prototypes in developing thorough
Phase II design proposals. The aim is to develop adaptive models through
proto-versioning that affords generative, transformative and parametric
controlled systems that can be deployed on multiple sites. Systems will be
developed to construct context-specificity, developing models of spatial
practice that are hyperspecific rather than generic. The ambition is to
design open systems that have the capacity to rethink conventions of
practice through the design and fabrication of architectural prototypes and
processes. Contemporary fabrication protocols will be explored to create
correlations of nonstandard elemental distributions through an active
engagement with digital and material interaction.
126
GRADUATE
Phase I Core Seminars: Design as Research I – Open Source
Robert Stuart-Smith, Autumn Term
Pursuing design as a form of research raises a series of questions that this
course will examine in relation to larger technological, economic and
cultural contexts. The seminar will explore ways of associating design with
forms of research, as well as the implications of this for architectural and
design practice. Weekly sessions will include presentations related to
course readings.
Phase I Core Seminars: Embodied Patterns
Alisa Andrasek, Autumn Term
This seminar will investigate key ideas from the history of computation and
contemporary sciences and their reverberations in the domain of architec-
ture and design. It will probe concepts such as generative design, algorith-
mic information theory and key ideas from quantum physics, biology
and systems theory as a knowledge resource and means of production.
A productive dialogue will be instigated with experts from other fields,
including mathematics, computer science, quantum physics and engineer-
ing, under the larger collaborative platform of Computational Salon.
Synthesis: Project Submission, Writing & Research Documentation
Mollie Claypool, Ryan Dillon, Autumn and Winter Terms
These weekly sessions will review the basics of writing and research
related to DRL course submissions. Presentations will cover resources
in London, the preparation of thesis abstracts, writing styles and issues
related to essays, papers and project booklets. Tutorials will discuss
ongoing research topics and seminar and studio presentations.
Behaviour: Examining the Proto-Systemic
Theodore Spyropoulos, Winter Term
This core seminar will articulate Proto-Design as a behaviour-based agenda
that engages experimental forms of material and computational practice.
Examining cybernetic and systemic thinking through seminal forms of pro-
totyping and experimentation, the seminar will look at the thought experi-
ments that have manifested since the early 1950s as maverick machines,
architectures and ideologies. Team-based presentations will examine these
methods and outputs as case studies for studio experimentation.
127
DESIGN RESEARCH LAB GRADUATE

Design as Research II: Computational Space DRL DIRECTOR Yota Adilenidou studied Yusuke Obuchi studied at
Theodore Spyropoulos is at A.U.Th. and Columbia Princeton, Sci-Arc and the
Alisa Andrasek, Winter Term director of the experimen- University. She has University of Toronto.
This seminar is an overview of computational approaches to architectural tal architecture and previously taught as an He has worked at ROTO
design practice Minima- Adjunct Lecturer at AUTh Architects and Reiser +
design, strategies and processes. Weekly readings on software technolo- forms which published and worked for Eisenman Umemoto and is
gies and design systems will relate computational work in art, music, new Minimaforms: Experi- Architects, Evan Douglis cofounder of Foresites,
ments in Communication and Sakellaridou & Papan- based in London. He has
media, science and other sources to contemporary architectural discourses in 2010. He is a visiting ikolaou Architects. been a visiting professor
around parametric design. Teams will make weekly presentations related to research fellow at MIT yota@arch-hives.net at the University of
and has previously taught Kentucky and New Jersey
the readings and an analysis of selected projects. at the graduate schools of Shajay Bhooshan is a Institute of Technology.
University of Pennsylvan- researcher in the yobuchi@gmail.com
nia and the Royal College Computation and Design
Digital Tools: Maya, Rhino, 3D Studio, Catia, Processing, of Art Innovation Design (co|de) group at Zaha Christos Passas studied
Arduino & Macromedia – Software & Scripting Engineering Department. Hadid Architects. He is a at the AA, completing the
He has previously worked graduate of the DRL, and AAGradDes in 1998. As
Shajay Bhooshan, Brian Dale, Mustafa El Sayed, Chikara Inamura, as a project architect at has taught computational Associate Director at
Jose Manuel Sanchez, Diego Perez-Espitia, Robert Stuart-Smith, the offices of Peter design at various schools. Zaha Hadid Architects,
Eisenman and Zaha Hadid he led the design for the
Paul Jeffries, Torsten Broeder, Autumn and Winter Terms Architects. Lawrence Friesen studied Phaeno Science Centre
These optional workshops provide an introduction to the digital tools and theo@minimaforms.com at Dalhousie University, in Wolfsburg, among
Canada, and worked at a many other prestigious
systems used in the DRL, introducing the basic skills needed to build and FOUNDER number of architectural projects.
control parametric models and interactive presentations. Sessions will build Patrik Schumacher is practices in Canada
partner at Zaha Hadid before setting up the Robert Stuart-Smith is
up to advanced scripting, programming and dynamic modelling techniques. Architects. He studied design geometry studio a Design Director of
philosophy and architec- at Buro Happold. Over the Kokkugia, and former
ture in Bonn, Stuttgart, past nine years he has graduate of the AADRL.
London and received his participated in a number He has worked in the
doctorate at the Institute of complex projects offices of Lab Architec-
for Cultural Science at whose innovative ture Studio and Sir
Klagenfurt University. He realisation has entailed Nicholas Grimshaw &
is a visiting professor at digital fabrication. Partners and previously
the University of Applied taught at RMIT University,
Arts in Vienna, and Hanif Kara is a co-founder the University of East
university professor at of Adams Kara Taylor, London. He is a consult-
Innsbruck University. a design-led structural ant to Cecil Balmond
patrik.schumacher@ engineering practice. on algorithmic design
zaha-hadid.com He has assisted various research.
diploma units at the AA
DRL PROGRAMME TUTORS since 1998 and is Mollie Claypool is an
Marta Malé-Alemany is currently an examiner for architect and educator.
Co-director of the Masters the Institute of Structural She is currently a tutor
Programme of the IAAC Engineers and CABE at the AA, the University
Institut d’Arquitectura Commissioner. of Reading and the
Avancada de Catalunya. University of Brighton,
She previously taught at Riccardo Merello and is a Project Editor at
Sci-Arc and UCLA School specialises in developing Phaidon Press. She has
of Architecture. innovative design previously worked at
marta@ methodologies based on James Harb Architects,
male-alemany.com multi-disciplinary Werner Sobek NY, and
systems optimisation. He ARX Kabul in New York.
Alisa Andrasek is an has a MEng in structural
experimental practitioner engineering from MIT. Ryan Dillon is currently
of architecture and He works in the Advanced working for EGG Office
computation in design Technology and Research based in Los Angeles.
and director of Biothing. Group and Arup He is a tutor in the History
She studied at the Associates’ Unified and Theory Studies
University of Zagreb and Design Research Unit and department at the
Columbia University and other R&D teams at Arup. Architectural Association.
has taught at Columbia, He is a graduate of the AA
Pratt, UPenn, RMIT and Syracuse University
Melbourne and RPI. School of Architecture. He
andrasek@gmail.com has previously worked at
Moshe Safdie and
Associates on projects
such as the Peadbody
Essex Museum and
Khalsa Heritage Complex.

128 129
 EMERGENT TECHNOLOGIES DIRECTORS
Michael Weinstock
George Jeronimidis
STUDIO MASTERS
Christina Doumpioti
Toni Kotnik
TUTORS
Evan L Greenberg
Suryansh Chandra
GRADUATE

The Emergent Technologies and Design Programme is open to graduates in

architecture or engineering with interest in architectural design that pro-
ceeds from innovative technologies, who wish to develop skills and pursue
knowledge in design research that is located in new production paradigms.
There are two phases: Phase 1 contains the taught courses, studio work-
shops and projects and supervised research within the studio; Phase 2 is
the Design Dissertation for the MSc or the Design Thesis for the MArch.
The programme is focused on the concepts and convergent interdisci-
plinary effects of emergence on design and production technologies, and
on developing these as creative inputs to new architectural design proc-
esses. Seminar courses and workshops of Phase 1 provide the theoretical
context, setting out the origins, theories, instruments and practices of
Emergent Technologies and exploring relations to the discourses of con-
temporary architecture. Outputs from the seminar courses are critical and
technical analysis, digital experiments, computational design systems
and material strategies are driven by industrial processes and production.
The Core Studio consists of design experiments and projects that together
comprise an integrated evolutionary development of a population of active
material systems. The outputs from Phase 1 provide the aims, techniques
and conceptual armature for Phase 2, the Design Thesis or Design Disserta-
tion developed in spring term and finalised in summer term.

Core Studio: Active Systems

Studio Masters Christina Doumpioti and Toni Kotnik, with support
from Wolf Mangelsdorf, Evan Greenberg and Suryansh Chandra
Autumn and Winter Terms
The Core Studio course runs for two terms and has three modules –
Induction Studio (Boot Camp), Studio 1 and Studio 2. Each student
has access to the archive of previous successful dissertations and theses,
comprehensive manuals for constructive geometry, manuals and video
tutorials for scripting, and examples of computational fluid dynamics and
structural analysis of natural and constructed systems. Students work in
small groups that will change with each rotation of the three studio mod-
ules. The Core Studio concludes with the presentation of the evolutionary
series of materially constructed and digitally modelled artefacts, the full
documentation of their structural and environmental characteristics and
of the role played by material properties and fabrication techniques in the
development of their individual and group morphology, along with a critical
assessment of their potential for deployment in spatial and programmatic
architectural scale applications.

Core Studio 1
Evolutionary strategies and computational techniques are used to develop
the architectural qualities of different material systems. Built models will
explore the integration of material behaviour and fabrication processes.
Core Studio 1 is supported by weekly sessions on associative modelling Branching Strategies for Microclimates:
A computational fluid dynamics analysis studying the
in Grasshopper/Rhino, workshops on scripting in VB and in Grasshopper, existing turbulent wind patterns at the Waterloo Railway
sessions on geometry and iterative processes, and L-Systems to model and Terminal site. Shuai Feng – MArch with Distinction

130 131
EMERGENT TECHNOLOGIES GRADUATE

control growth processes. The studio will conclude with fully fabricated gent biomes). Students may choose one of the three fields, and will work
and digitally modelled, doubly curved material systems that exhibit fully in pairs. The Design Research Studio facilitates the development of a
integrated structural and environmental properties along with comprehen- deeper understanding of emergence and its application to advanced pro-
sive documentation and assessment of their individual and group potential duction in architecture, urbanism and ecological engineering, while inte-
for further development towards architectural scale applications. grating theoretical discourses, science and the insights gained from experi-
ments. It will develop the ability to analyse complex issues and to engage
Core Studio 2 in independent research. The Design Research Studio concludes with the
Genetic algorithms for the optimisation of computer-controlled fabrication presentation of the fully developed Thesis/Dissertation proposal.
will be developed and integrated with further development of the evolu-
tionary morphogenetic techniques. With the parameters developed previ- Master Classes, Autumn Term
ously, exploration and development over succeeding generations will also The MArch fourth term runs simultaneously with the autumn term for the
include spatial organisations and environmental behaviour. We will work new students of the 2010/11 cohort. The MArch studio will be supported by
towards fully fabricated and digitally modelled, doubly curved material a series of master classes delivered by invited guests and the Visiting
systems that exhibit advanced and integrated material properties, and Professors. The master classes provide design inspiration and knowledge
structural and environmental properties with optimal computer-controlled of implemented techniques in the professional field, and deliver an extend-
fabrication. Comprehensive documentation will include critical evaluation ed presentation of work to all students (incoming Phase 1 students and
of their individual and group potential for spatial and programmatic organi- summer term MArch students). Further studio sessions are then delivered
sations across a range of architectural scales. in seminar and workshop format to the MArch students, concentrating on
how their projects were produced and delivered – their digital techniques,
Emergence Seminar Course operative constraints, and optimisation techniques for structural and
Michael Weinstock, Autumn Term environmental performance and fabrication.
Emergence has been an important concept in biology, mathematics, artifi-
cial intelligence, information theory and computer science, newer domains
of climatic modelling and other complex systems analysis and simulations.
DIRECTORS George Jeronimidis is the MArch with distinction Design. He has worked
A survey is presented of the mathematics of evolution and embryological Michael Weinstock is an Director of the Centre for from the AA Emergent in architecture and
development, the data structures and processes of the genome to popula- architect. Born in Biomimetics in the School Technologies and Design, engineering offices and
Germany, lived as a child of Construction Manage- and followed this with a with product designers
tion dynamics and pressures. Applications to structural and architectural in the Far East and then ment and Engineering. He postgraduate course on and artists in both New
design are explored in The Generative Design Experiments. The experiment West Africa, attended an is an active member of Computing and Design at York and London, and is
English public school. Ran the Smart Materials and UEL. She is an architect currently an architectural
will conclude with the detailed modelling and analysis of the set of forms, away to sea at age 17 Structures Committee of and computational designer at Populous.
surfaces and structures evolved in the experiment. after reading Conrad. the Institute of Materials, consultant at Arup Evan earned his Master of
Years at sea in traditional Minerals and Mining Associates. Science with Distinction
sailing ships, with (IoM3). He has published in Emergent Technologies
Biomimetics Seminar Course shipyard and shipbuilding extensively in these fields Toni Kotnik is founder and Design from the AA
experience. Studied with articles in scientific of Kotnik.architects, a School of Architecture in
George Jeronimidis with Evan Greenberg, Autumn Term Architecture at the AA journals, book and Zurich-based architec- 2008, and his Bachelor
An introduction to the ways in which organisms have evolved their form, and has taught at the conference contributions, tural office, and principal of Science in Architecture
AA School of Architecture including keynote researcher in OCEAN. from the University of
materials and structures in response to varied functions and environments since 1989. Founder of lectures. He is a member He studied at the Swiss Virginia in 2005.
will be followed by an account of engineering design principles that have Emergent Technologies of the Scientific Advisory Federal Institute of
Masters Programme. His Board of the Max Planck Technology (ETH) Zurich, Suryansh Chandra is a
been abstracted from nature in current research projects for industry and research interest lies in Institute for Colloid and the University of research architect at Zaha
material science. An in-depth study of a natural system (general form, exploring the conver- Interface Research in Tübingen, and the Hadid Architects where
gence of biomimetic Golm, Germany and on University of Utah, and he developed parametric
anatomy, energy flows and behaviour) will be carried out, the interrelations engineering, architecture, the Editorial Board of the received his doctoral design systems at the
explored and the engineering principles abstracted. (Analysis continues emergence and material International Journal degree from the architectural and urban
sciences. He received the of Virtual and Physical University of Zurich. scale that explore new
into winter term.) Acadia Award for Prototyping. Currently, he works as paradigms of the design
Excellence 2008. He has senior researcher at the process. His specialised
published The Architec- STUDIO MASTERS ETH Zurich. teaching includes associa-
Design Research Studio and the Thesis/Dissertation, ture of Emergence, and Christina Doumpioti [Dipl tive modelling in Rhino
Spring and Summer Terms Emergent Technologies Arch/Eng MArch AA RIBA TUTORS with Grasshopper and
and Design – Towards II Architect GR TCG] Evan L Greenberg, BSc scripting in VB.net.
Three main fields of design research are offered – Active Material Systems a Biological Paradigm studied Architecture at AAMSc (Dist) is an
with Advanced Fabrication, Natural Ecological Systems Design (currently for Architecture. He has the Aristotle University of architectural designer VISITING PROFESSORS
been visiting professor Thessaloniki and is a and co-director of the Achim Menges
focused on shorelines and deltas), and Urban Metabolic Design (currently at Rome, Barcelona registered architect in research collaborative Fabian Scheurer
focused on algorithmic design for energetic models of new cities in emer- and Yale. Greece. She received her Network Research + Wolf Mangelsdorf

132 133
 HISTORY AND CRITICAL THINKING DIRECTOR
Marina Lathouri
STAFF
Mark Cousins
Francisco Gonzalez
VISITING TUTOR
Pedro Ignacio Alonso
GRADUATE

de Canales CONSULTANT
History and Critical Thinking (former Histories and Theories) provides a John Palmesino Braden R Engel
Thomas Weaver
platform for enquiry into theoretical debates and forms of architectural and
urban practice. The aim is three-fold: to connect contemporary arguments
and projects with a wider historical, cultural and political context; to pro-
duce a knowledge which will relate to design and public cultures in archi-
tecture; to enquire into new forms of knowledge, research and practice.
Central to the 12-month programme is an emphasis on writing as
practice of thinking. Different forms of writing such as essays, reviews,
short commentaries, publications and interviews will allow students to
engage with diverse forms of enquiry and to articulate various aspects
of their study.
A common concern of the different courses is to investigate the rela-
tions of theoretical debates to particular projects and practices in order
to develop a critical view of the arguments underpinning the design and the
knowledge produced through its mechanisms and effects. To this aim, the
programme is involved with the design work produced by the graduate
design courses and Diploma units through joint events, and HCT students
act as jurors during reviews, and comment in current AA publications.
The programme also provides research facilities and supervision to
research degree candidates (MPhil and PhD) registered under the AA’s joint
PhD programme, a cross-disciplinary initiative supported by all of the
Graduate programmes.
Term 1 has three main objectives: to help students understand the
discipline of architecture and the critical role of writing in the process of its
formation; to interrogate the writing of history; to investigate the question
of modernity and emergence of the modern subject.

Histories of Modernism, Marina Lathouri

This seminar series re-visits several key texts and examines the role they
played in the construction and critical assessment of a canonical history
of architectural modernism. Through an examination of forms of architec-
tural writing, it will interrogate a particular account of architectural and
urban modernity that was propagated during the first half of the twentieth
century but came to be dismantled in the years immediately prior to 1968.

Aesthetics and History, Mark Cousins

This course provides an account of the intellectual bases of architectural
theories within a modern field of aesthetics. Starting with the traditional
understanding of the relation of architecture to beauty through a brief
summary of theories of the fine arts in Antiquity and in the Renaissance, it
focuses on the fundamental text of aesthetics, Kant’s Critique of Judgment.
This argument lays the foundation for the modern idea of art based upon
the idea of a subjective aesthetic response.

Architecture Knowledge and Writing, Marina Lathouri / Thomas Weaver
This course, organised around a series of lectures, writing sessions and
conversations with invited authors, critics, journalists and editors, has two History and Critical Thinking in Architecture thesis
parts. The first part discusses the rise of architectural history, theory and seminar, Seville, May 2001. Photo Troy Conrad Therrien

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HISTORY AND CRITICAL THINKING GRADUATE

criticism in relation to the emergence of the architect, the notion of the HCT Debates: City, politics and spaces
architectural project, the concept of space and the establishment of archi- Hosted by Marina Lathouri
tecture as distinct discipline and profession. It seeks to show how a knowl- Many of the emerging urban formations and forms of urbanity are partially
edge specific to architecture emerged and developed. The second part or completely novel institutional orders or systems of relations. What is it,
looks at the multiple formats within which this knowledge is being gener- then, that we are trying to name with the term city? Would that mean that
ated and communicated, including drawings, treatises, pattern books, the emerging spaces are also spaces for a new politics? Is it possible to
essays, manifestos, journals, exhibitions, and among others. proceed through a critical body of architectural references, existing or to
be constituted, in order to rethink urban space against a background of a
Term 2 provides a platform for critical enquiry into contemporary theories, recent political philosophy that has questioned the communal? These are
design research and forms of architectural and urban practice. Organised some of the questions, which will be addressed in this year’s debates with
around lectures, seminars, debates and events, it enables the students to invited architects, scholars, critics and historians.
engage with a diversity of approaches and discuss disciplinary knowledge
in a broad cultural and political arena. Term 3: Thesis Research Seminar
The thesis is the most significant component of the students’ work. The
Reinventing the Contemporary choice of topic, the organisation of research and the development of the
Part 1: Critical Theories, Marina Lathouri central argument are discussed within the Research Seminar which may
This series of four seminars considers the conditions in which architecture be supplemented by individual tutorials. Central to the development of the
organises its particular responses to current debates and investigates how thesis, however, is the collective seminar where students learn about the
these either reinforce or displace processes traditionally inherent to archi- nature of a dissertation from the shared experiences of the group.
tecture. Terms, concepts and themes used in current debates and practices The unit trip at the beginning of the third term includes intense ses-
will be investigated in order to clarify the ways in which they are put in sions to help students solidify their topic, field and argument. At the end
arguments and projects. of term, the thesis outline and argument is individually presented to a jury
Part 2: Critical Practices, Francisco Gonzales de Canales of invited critics.
These seminar-based sessions examine specific contemporary architectural
projects, recovering a role for architectural theory, which has been involved In term 4 the students further develop and complete their thesis to be
with cultural studies, philosophical thinking and media and literary studies submitted in September.
that it has distanced itself from explicitly assessing the work of the archi-
tectural practices of its own time. Rather than denying the validity of these
different ways of criticism, this course refocuses attention on the produc-
tion and design strategies employed by architects. DIRECTOR STAFF John Palmesino has been VISITING TUTOR
Marina Lathouri studied Mark Cousins directs the Head of Research at ETH Pedro Ignacio Alonso
Part 3: Critical Fabrications, Pedro Ignacio Alonso studied architecture at the
architecture in Greece AA’s History and Theory Studio Basel and is
These three lectures and seminars investigate the ways in which the con- and the Berlage Institute Studies at the undergrad- currently Research Universidad Católica de
and philosophy of art and uate level. He has been Advisor at the Jan Van Chile and completed his
temporary notion of ‘fabrication’ has come to acquire the status that the Visiting Professor of Eyck Academie, Maas- PhD on the rhetorical and
aesthetics at the
notion of ‘construction’ had in accounts of modern architecture. Université de Paris I, Architecture at Columbia tricht and Diploma Unit discursive strategies of
Sorbonne. She taught at University and a founding Master at the AA. He also assemblage in modern
the Graduate School of member of the Graduate teaches at the Research architecture at the
The Post-Eurocentric City, John Palmesino Fine Arts, University of School at the London Architecture Centre, Architectural Association.
Pennsylvania where she Consortium. Goldsmiths in London Since 2005 he has taught
This lecture and seminar series seeks to articulate the theoretical conjunc- also completed her PhD where he is pursuing his architectural theory at the
tions of the contemporary city. It analyses the links between the transfor- on the multiple forms of Francisco Gonzalez de doctoral research. He has AA and worked for Arup’s
engagement of modern Canales studied established Territorial Urban Design. He
mations in international and sub-state polities, processes of institutional architecture with the city architecture at ESTA Agency with Ann Sofi currently teaches at the
change and the material structures of human environments. Investigating focusing on the concep- Seville, ETSA Barcelona Rönnskog. Universidad Católica de
tual and design tools and Harvard University, Chile.
the subtle and nuanced modes of streamlining architectural and urban developed in the 1940s and worked for Foster + Thomas Weaver is the
differences to reorganise sovereignty in contemporary human territories, and 1950s. Since 1999 she Partners and Rafael editor of AA Files. He has CONSULTANT
has been teaching Moneo. He has lectured in previously edited ANY Braden R Engel studied
the course articulates notions of the post-colony, extraterritoriality and architectural history, England, Mexico, Spain, magazine in New York environmental design and
world-systems away from the traditional model of expansionism and theory and design at the and the USA, and was and has taught architec- philosophy in the USA
AA and at Cambridge director of the Spanish tural history and theory at and Histories and
diffusionism of the European city. University. Her current Magazine Neutra. He Princeton University and Theories at the AA. Since
research concerns completed his PhD on the the Cooper Union. 2008 he has been
contemporary forms of radical experimentations teaching history and
architectural research and on the domestic in the theory at the AA and the
emerging urban practices. 1940s and 1950s. University of Greenwich.

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 HOUSING & URBANISM DIRECTORS
Jorge Fiori
Hugo Hinsley
PROGRAMME STAFF
Lawrence Barth
Nicholas Bullock
Dominic Papa
Elena Pascolo
Alex Warnock-Smith
GRADUATE

Kathryn Firth
The Housing and Urbanism Programme applies architecture to the chal-
lenges of contemporary urban strategies. Today’s metropolitan regions
show tremendous diversity and complexity, with significant global shifts
in the patterns of urban growth and decline. Architecture has a central role
to play in this dynamic context, in developing far-reaching strategies and
generating novel urban clusters. This programme focuses on important
changes in the contemporary urban condition and investigates how archi-
tectural intelligence helps us to understand and respond to these trends.
Offering a 12-month MA and a 16-month MArch, it is balanced between
cross-disciplinary research and design application. Students’ work is
divided among three equally important areas: design workshops, lectures
and seminars; and a written thesis for the MA or a design project for the
MArch, which allow students to develop an extended and focused study
within the broader themes of the course.

Lecture Courses and Seminars:

Design Workshop, Autumn, Winter and Spring Terms
The Design Workshop is the core course of the programme, providing a
framework for linking design investigation to a politically and historically
informed approach to issues of contemporary urbanism. It has two compo-
nents: the Group Workshop, in which small teams of students and teachers
explore and develop design responses to well-defined urban challenges,
and the Urban Seminar, which opens up a debate on different approaches
to key themes in the programme’s areas of research. While each of the
Group Workshop teams will pursue distinctive lines of investigation, the
Urban Seminar and individual work provide the opportunity to evaluate and
reflect on different approaches to key issues in urbanism today.
The H&U programme places particular emphasis upon the urban inner
periphery, where the complexity of the urban process is plainly visible, and
our project work in the Design Workshop reflects this emphasis. Each team
will define the balance and integration of architectural, social and political
concepts that drive its work. Our main site for design investigation will
be an inner-peripheral area of northeast London. We will engage with this
site within the larger frame of London and the metropolitan region. We will
also hold an intensive design workshop in Taiwan, taking the opportunity
to collaborate with other urbanism programmes and to test our design and
conceptual approaches in a different context.

Cities in a Transnational World, Autumn Term

This course explores the social and economic context of housing and
urbanism as it interacts with the formulation and implementation of strate-
gies of urban development and with the reshaping of the role of architects
and planners in the making of cities. It offers a comparative analysis of the
restructuring of cities in the context of the global internationalisation of
the economy, placing strong emphasis on issues of policy and planning
and on current reforms in systems of urban governance.
Urban Study: Fitzrovia – business incubator and
training centre

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HOUSING & URBANISM GRADUATE

The Reason of Urbanism, Autmn Term
This lecture and discussion series provides the foundations for an engage-
ment with the urban as a problem-field in western governmental reasoning.
The course will trace the twentieth-century development of urbanism to
highlight the inherent political issues, and will develop a theoretical per-
spective through an engagement with the work of Arendt, Foucault, Sennet
and others. Through this, students will investigate the relationship of key
political concepts to the generation of new urban spatiality.
Critical Urbanism, Autumn and Winter Terms
This course will explore urbanism’s role as an instrument of diagnosis and
critique. Beginning with lectures and readings in the first term and building
toward a seminar format in the second term, the course explores the ways
architecture has generated a range of critical and reflexive responses to
the city over the last four decades. Emphasis will be placed on developing
students’ facility with the critical analysis of contemporary urban projects,
while background readings will include Koolhaas, Rowe, Rossi, Eisenman,
Tschumi and others.
and Karel Teige’s 1932 critique of the minimum dwelling as opening coun-
terpoints, this course develops students’ understandings of type and
diagram in the pursuit of fresh approaches to urban living. Core readings
for the course include theoretical and historical writings of Michel Foucault,
Jacques Donzelot and Nikolas Rose.
Thesis Seminar, Spring Term
This seminar is organised around the students’ work towards their written
or design thesis. It provides a forum for students to discuss work in
progress with members of staff and invited critics, and to comment on
each other’s work.
Other Events
We will make a study trip to Hamburg in the Spring Term. The programme
also invites a number of academics and practitioners from all over the
world to contribute to its activities during the year. Students are encour-
aged to attend complementary courses offered by other Graduate School
programmes and by History & Theory Studies.

Shaping the Modern City, Autumn and Winter Terms www.aaschool.ac.uk/hu

This course explores the various national and local strategies evolved by
the state to meet the challenge of urban expansion during the twentieth
century. Rather than presenting a continuous narrative history, the lectures
DIRECTORS
and seminars will look at key events, projects and texts that illustrate Jorge Fiori is a sociologist
contemporary responses to the opportunities and problems created by and urban planner. He
studied in Chile and has
growth. The course will focus on post-1945 housing and planning in a worked in academic
number of European and US cities, offering a vantage point from which to institutions there and in
Brazil and England. He is a
consider critical issues such as density, regeneration, mixed use and new visiting lecturer at several
working and living patterns. It will also review the development of ideas Latin American and
European universities,
about housing form and production. and consultant to a
number of international
and national urban
Housing and the Informal City, Winter Term development agencies.
This course uses housing as a strategic vehicle for investigating the evolu- He researches and
publishes on housing and
tion of ideas and approaches to the informal and irregular processes of urban development, with
city making. In particular, it reviews critically the growing despatialisation particular focus on the
interplay of spatial
of strategies to deal with urban informality and its associated social condi- strategies and urban
social policy.
tions and explores the role of urbanism and spatial design in addressing
those conditions. It draws from the extreme circumstances of irregularity Hugo Hinsley is an
architect with expertise
and socio-spatial segregation in the cities of the developing world. With in housing design,
reference to relevant projects, it attempts to identify appropriate tools and community buildings
and urban development
instruments of spatial intervention and design and examine their articula- projects. He has a wide
tion through the redesigning of urban institutions and rules. range of practice
experience in the UK, and
has been a consultant to
Domesticity, Winter Term many projects in Europe,
Australia and the US. He
This seminar series explores trends in contemporary multi-residential is a member of the
housing against the background of a discursive formation linking domestic- research committee of
Europan, and has taught,
ity and urbanism. Taking Mies van der Rohe’s patio houses of the 1930s lectured and published
internationally. Recent
research includes
London’s design and plan-
ning, particularly in
Docklands; urban policy
and structure in European
cities; and rethinking
density for housing and
urban development.
PROGRAMME STAFF
Lawrence Barth lectures
on urbanism and political
theory, and has written on
the themes of politics and
critical theory in relation
to the urban. He practises
as a consultant urbanist
to architects, cities and
governments on
large-scale strategic
projects, and is engaged
in research on urban
intensification, innovation
environments and the
transformation of
workspace in the
knowledge economy.
Nicholas Bullock studied
architecture at Cambridge
University, and completed
a PhD under Leslie Martin.
His research includes
issues of housing reform
with a special interest in
Germany; post-war
housing design and
policy; and the architec-
ture and planning of Elena Pascolo is an
reconstruction after architect who has worked
World War II. in London and South
Africa on large housing
Kathryn Firth is the and urban regeneration
Director of Urban Design projects. Her research
at PLP Architecture in focuses on the develop-
London, where she leads ment of spatial tools for
international projects in urban strategies, and the
masterplanning, urban role of institutions in
design and urban promoting urban
regeneration. She has transformation. She is a
worked on research core member of the AA
projects on urban design research cluster on the
policy and practice, and architecture of the
lectures internationally informal city, and has
on issues of urbanism and participated as a design
urban design. She taught tutor in numerous interna-
in the Cities Programme tional workshops on
at the LSE, the GSD at design and urbanism.
Harvard University,
Rhode Island School of Alex Warnock-Smith is
Design and the University an architect and urban
of Toronto. designer. Alex trained at
the University of
Dominic Papa is a Cambridge and the
founding partner of the Architectural Association,
practice s333 Studio for and has a range of
Architecture and experience in practice,
Urbanism, which has won teaching and research.
awards for projects His work is concerned
across Europe. He is a with the relationship
design review panel between social experi-
member for CABE and the ence and urban space.
West Midlands, and has He has taught at the AA,
been a jury member for London Metropolitan
a number of international University and University
competitions. of Brighton.

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 LANDSCAPE URBANISM PROGRAMME DIRECTOR
Eva Castro
PROGRAMME STAFF
Douglas Spencer
Tom Smith
WORKSHOP TUTORS
Clara Oloriz
Enriqueta Llabres
GRADUATE

STUDIO MASTERS Nicola Saladino

Landscape Urbanism is, by definition, transdisciplinary. Whilst drawing on Alfredo Ramírez Teruyuki Nomura
Eduardo Rico
the legacy of landscape design to address the dynamics of contemporary
urbanism, it integrates knowledge and techniques from environmental
engineering, urban strategy and landscape ecology, deploying the science
of complexity and emergence, the tools of digital design and the thought
of political ecology. All of these means are combined to project new mate-
rial interventions that operate within an urbanism conceived as social,
material, ecological and continually modulated by the spatial and temporal
forces in which it is networked.
The Landscape Urbanism MA programme is a 12-month studio-based
course designed for students with prior academic and professional qualifi-
cations. It comprises a design studio, interrelated workshops and a series
of lectures and seminars that form the core of project development.

Prototypical Urbanities: Iterations

China’s economic boom, combined with migration from the countryside
to the cities, is boosting a high-speed urbanism that produces new cities
in the shortest imaginable time, changing the faces of older towns. This
directional urbanisation, propelled from the coastal zones into the country-
side, has brought the smallest villages face to face with the phenomenon
of globalisation – and its foreign capital and generic architecture.

Framework 2010/11
The course will focus on China’s ambitions to build 400 new cities by the
year 2020 as the basis for its brief. We will engage opportunistically with
the generation of ‘proto-strategies’ for new large-scale agglomerations as
a means of critically addressing the phenomena of mass-produced urban
sprawl. Our test bed will be the urban agglomerations of the Yangtze River
Delta – including Shanghai, Nanjing, Hangzhou, Suzhou, Ningbo – with
students focusing on the emergence of three benchmark issues:
1. Metabolic rurbanism: the emergence of ‘desakota’ (urban villages)
in which urban and rural processes of land use are combined, and the
potentials it presents for the origin of industrial ecologies
2. Tactical resistance: where generic, top-down masterplanning collides
with informally developed urban cores, there may be the potential to locate
the fault lines of this dynamic as a space from a tactical urbanism that is
qualitatively informed and territorially specific.
3. Material identities: the inadequacy of providing new urban settle-
ments with an instant ‘identity’, through application of either vernacular or
western styles of building, in the context of ‘post-traditional’ urbanisation.

Design Studio
1. Indexical Models: Mediation Between Typical Organisational
Paradigms and Local Conditions
The autumn term is based on a series of intensive workshops. It aims
to initiate a dialogue between the techniques being acquired and their
This drawing explores the flooding and pollution levels
application in the development of new organisational models. through the territory and sets a primary strategy of flood
planes and irrigation canals.

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LANDSCAPE URBANISM GRADUATE

2. Sensitive Systems: Development of a Prototype DFC (Digitally Fabricted Cities)

The second term begins with a field trip to China, providing us with the
opportunity to engage with a real large-scale urban project and local
planners and architects. Central to this phase will be the development
of a prototype, a malleable model capable of continuous transformation.
3. & 4. Network Urbanism: Global Behaviour
During the third term work develops different logics of proliferation while
mastering degrees of self-differentiation, specificity and responsiveness
within the field. Investigations developed during the year will be presented
as a final Design Thesis in a public review at the end of September.
Seminars and Lectures:
Douglas Spencer, Autumn and Winter Terms
This lecture series and seminar unit is designed to synergise with its
workshops, projects and field trips. Over its two terms it introduces the
student to the transdisciplinary origins of landscape urbanism whilst
defining its unique configuration and potential in the context of contempo-
rary urban conditions.
Eva Castro, Alfredo Ramìrez, Autumn Term
The workshop explores digital fabrication techniques to acquire an instru-
mental deployment of these tools and to create a feedback loop to over-
come the traditional bi-dimensional reading of the city.
Scripting Prototypes
Alfredo Ramìrez, Eduardo Rico, Clara Oloriz, Winter Term
Differing scripting techniques will be explored as a means of creating
flexible design tools that are capable of accommodating change and a
degree of indeterminacy within the design process.
Relational Urbanism
Eduardo Rico, Enriqueta Llabres, Winter Term
This workshop will deal with the mediation of bottom-up readings and
strategic decision-making concepts. The overall arrangement of the mate-
rial components produced will be adjusted and further articulated to
respond locally to specific conditions and globally to relational strategies.

Machining Landscapes Lu_ In The Field 10–11

Tom Smith, Autumn and Winter Terms Eva Castro, Eduardo Rico, Alfredo Ramìrez + Trento University
Félix Guattari, in his essay ‘On Machines’, proposed that the concept of Easter break
the ‘technological machine’ be expanded to one of ‘machinic assemblage’. This is the fourth of a series of workshops to be held each year during
Following this proposition the lecture series introduces a range of construc- the spring break in conjunction with different LU collaborators. Its aim
tion techniques related to the design of landscape projects that adopt a is to serve as a quick and intense test-bed for the application of the
‘machinic’ ethos to technical practice. techniques acquired into a real project within a new political context.
A final public presentation of the project will be given to the clients.
Ecology & Environment
Ian Carradice & Ove Arup Associates, Autumn Term
This lecture series by experts from the Ove Arup Environmental Unit PROGRAMME DIRECTOR STAFF has been diverse, ranging subsequently completed
Eva Castro has been Douglas Spencer has from masterplanning for the AA graduate
addresses environmental concerns, introducing a wide range of techniques programme Landscape
teaching at the AA since studied design and the Chelsea Flower Show,
aimed at ensuring sustainable management and design. 2003. She studied at the architectural history, to developing networks Urbanism in 2005. He has
Universidad Central de cultural studies, and of rural communities practised in Mexico City,
Venezuela and subse- critical theory, and has on the Portuguese coast, Madrid and London.
Landscape Urbanism Guest Lecture Series 04, Winter Term quently completed the taught history and theory to large-scale multidisci- Alfredo is also collaborat-
AA Graduate Design at a number of architec- plinary landscape, ing with Fundacion
These lectures, which are open to the public, allow the Landscape Urban- programme with Jeff tural schools. His engineering and Metropoli.
ism programme to continue to refine its own transdisciplinary approach Kipnis. She is cofounder research and writing on architecture projects. He
of Plasma Studio and urbanism, architecture, has been instrumental in Eduardo Rico studied civil
by inviting an international and diverse range of speakers to offer new GroundLab. She is winner film and critical theory the design of the London engineering in Spain and
perspectives on the issues that concern its practice. of the Next Generation has been published in 2012 Olympic and graduated from the AA’s
Architects Award, the journals including The Legacy Masterplan. He Landscape Urbanism
Young Architect of the Journal of Architecture, is currently focusing on programme. He has acted
Workshops: Year Award, the Contract- Radical Philosophy, leading the design and as consultant and
World Award and the AA Files and Culture delivery of the Olympic performed research in
Indexing Territories HotDip Galvanising Machine. He is currently and Legacy Parklands, as the fields of infrastructure
Eva Castro, Alfredo Ramìrez, Eduardo Rico, Autumn Term Award. Her work is researching for a book well as the development and landscape in Spain
published and exhibited that formulates a Marxian of the Legacy Masterplan and the UK. Currently he
This workshop aims ito develop the students’ capacity for reading informa- worldwide. Plasma and critique of contemporary framework. is involved in the develop-
tion from fields and then decoding, synthesising and systematically GroundLab are currently architecture and ‘control ment of infrastructural
lead designers for the society’. Alfredo Ramírez is an strategies for large-scale
processing it into indexical models. There will be tutorials on software International Horticultural architect and co-founder urban projects within the
packages such as Maya, Rhino, Land-desktop and Space Syntax. Fair in Xi’an, China a 37ha Tom Smith is a landscape of GroundLab, He studied Arup engineering team as
landscape with a wide architect and urban Architecture at the well as being part of the
range of buildings due to designer currently at Universidad Iberoameri- collective GroundLab.
open in 2011. EDAW AECOM. His work cana in Mexico City and

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 SUSTAINABLE DIRECTOR
Simos Yannas
Paula Cadima
Joana Carla Soares Gonçalves
Jorge Rodríguez Álvarez
GRADUATE

ENVIRONMENTAL DESIGN UNIT STAFF

Klaus Bode
Rosa Schiano-Phan

Gustavo Brunelli

The main research object of the master’s programme in Sustainable Envi-

ronmental Design is the relationship between architectural form, materiality
and environmental performance, and how this relation evolves in response
to climate change and emerging technical capabilities. Sustainable environ-
mental design is not a fixed ideal but an evolving concept to be redefined
and reassessed with each new project. Observation, measurement and
computer modelling and simulation are fundamental techniques that
underpin the programme’s design research. These are applied at various
levels of detail and intensity, extending the understanding of theoretical
principles to inform the design process. The MSc option runs over 12
months (from October 2010 to September 2011) and is offered to both
architects and engineers. The MArch option is addressed to architects and
teachers of architectural design. Its 16-month duration (from October 2010
to January 2012) enables the exploration of detailed design agendas that
can include the realisation of experimental structures.
The taught programme is in two parts. The first half (Phase I, October–
March) is common to both the MSc and MArch candidates and is struc-
tured around a series of joint studio projects undertaken in teams combin-
ing the two groups. Projects are supported by weekly lectures, seminars
and workshops. The second half of the course (Phase II, April to September
2011 for MSc, April 2011 to end January 2012 for MArch) is organised
around candidates’ dissertation projects.

Studio Projects:
Phase I Studio: What Can Buildings Tell Us, What Can We Tell Back,
Autumn and Winter Terms
During the autumn term building studies in London combine occupant and
designer interviews with on-site observations and environmental measure-
ments. Some 15–20 buildings will be selected for study, highlighting chang-
es taking place in environmental standards and benchmarks, the large
potential for environmental improvements across the housing stock and the
challenges of zero-carbon design and climate change. The findings from
these case studies provide starting points for design briefs to be developed
over the spring term. The objective of the spring term studio will be to
explore innovative and performative designs that address climate change
and maximise use of natural resources, aiming at zero-carbon buildings.

Phase II Studio: MSc Dissertation Projects, Spring Term

Phase II of the MSc encompasses an extended six-month summer term that
accounts for half of the total duration of the taught programme. During
this term MSc candidates are expected to undertake a significant piece of
research that addresses the programme’s areas of research as well as the
student’s background, professional interests and special skills. Research
topics are decided by the end of the spring term and are subsequently Katerina Pantazi MArch Dissertation Project 2010
Urban Mataphors : Making rooftops work for the city and
grouped into thematic clusters which provide areas of joint research that its inhabitants. Proposals for an urban block in Athens
can be developed in teams of 2–4 students as well as individually.

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SUSTAINABLE ENVIRONMENTAL DESIGN GRADUATE

Phase II Studio: MArch Dissertation Projects, Modelling & Simulation Workshop, Autumn and Winter Terms
Autumn, Winter and Spring Terms Following the weekly sessions of the Environmental Analysis Tools course,
In the autumn term and first part of the spring term 2010–11 the MArch this is a hands-on workshop that provides training in the application of
studio will host the final stage of Phase II dissertation projects begun in the digital tools and procedures, helping to build the necessary knowledge and
previous academic year. This comprises fifteen projects set in a dozen skills under close supervision.
countries in different climatic regions. They are due for completion in early
February, to be followed by a new group of over 20 MArch Phase II disser- Research Seminar, Autumn, Winter and Spring Terms
tation projects starting in April. Focusing on housing design and refurbish- This seminar fosters the development of the research, presentation and
ment, the MArch studio will expect to contribute a selection of projects for writing skills required for studio projects, dissertations and professional
exhibition and publication. work. A primary aim is the acquisition of a shared visual language for
communicating the principles and outcomes of sustainable design.
Lectures, Seminars and Workshops:
Myths & Theories of Sustainable Architecture, Autumn Term Other Events
Many architects and students take sustainable design for granted, as if it Study trips to Spain will undertake fieldwork as part of the spring term
were now standard practice, while others see environmental performance studio, collaborating with research teams there. All of this year’s students,
as a mere by-product of the digital revolution. The course dispels such and many of the programme’s recent graduates, will attend the PLEA 2011
myths, which continue to obscure the development of an architectural international conference on Architecture & Sustainable Development to be
discourse of sustainable design. Far from being a computational gadget or held in Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium in July 2011. There will be continued
an issue of engineering, the environmental performance of buildings is collaboration over the next two years with six other schools of architecture
fundamentally a matter for architecture, being an outcome of programmat- and several professional institutes of architects in the development of
ic, formal and operational choices made, or ignored, by design. Sustainable environmental design and architectural training in Europe.
environmental design requires essential architectural knowledge that recent
generations of architects did not receive. Its main concepts and performa-
DIRECTOR Berlin. He has collabo- A practising architect she awarded an MA in
tive criteria are introduced in this course, providing the cognitive grounding Simos Yannas received rated with the Rogers chaired the Sustainable Building Conservation
and critical framework needed for design research and practice. his doctorate for research Partnership on the Welsh Architecture Working and Urban Regeneration
on low energy housing Assembly building in Group of the Architect’s from the University of
design, and has under- Cardiff, with the sculptor Council of Europe in 2009 Santiago. He completed
Environmental Design Primer, Autumn and Winter Terms taken projects on Antony Gormley on the and will be taking over as the MSc in Sustainable
sustainable design with engineering of the Blind president of PLEA later Environmental Design
The course deals with key topics in environmental design research, focus- awards from national and Light exhibition and is this year. She has been at the AA with Distinction
ing on adaptive responses as instrumental properties of intelligent build- international organisa- working with Hopkins working for the European in 2008. He co-founded
tions. He was a Sir Isaac Architects on schemes Commission in Brussels SAAI in 2009, an environ-
ings and sustainable cities. Lectures will look at the historical relationship Newton Design Fellow in for the London Olympics. since 2005. mental consultancy firm
between climate and architecture; adaptive theories of environmental Architecture at the with projects in Europe,
University of Cambridge Gustavo Brunelli Joana Carla Soares Asia and America.
comfort and their application in design; daylight and artificial light in and has lectured as graduated from the Gonçalves completed her
architecture; natural and mechanical ventilation and other related topics. visiting professor in some Faculty of Architecture MA in Environment and Rosa Schiano-Phan
thirty countries. His book and Urbanism of the Energy Studies at the AA studied architecture in
Roof Cooling Techniques University of São Paulo and a PhD on the Italy and completed her
Lessons from Practice, Winter Term was shortlisted for the and won an Alban sustainability of tall Masters and PhD studies
RIBA Book Award in scholarship to the MA in buildings at the University in environmental design
The course looks at both historical and contemporary approaches with case Architecture and Lessons Environment & Energy of São Paulo, where she in the UK. She has worked
studies from the research and practices of the programme’s teaching staff from Traditional Architec- Studies at the AA, which has taught since 1998. with WSP Environmental
ture is due for publication he completed with She has practised in Rio and at Brian Ford &
and visiting lecturers to highlight design strategies and assess environmen- this year. He was awarded Distinction in 2004. He de Janeiro with Ana Maria Associates, and was a
tal performance in practice. PLEA Awards in 2001 has worked as environ- Niemeyer and has worked Research Fellow at the
and 2008. mental consultant on the as an environmental Department of Built
new headquarters for consultant on projects Environment, University
Environmental Analysis Tools, Autumn and Winter Terms STAFF Petrobras in Rio de in Brazil and won design of Nottingham. She is a
Klaus Bode co-founded Janeiro and with BDSP. competition awards. co-author of The
This technical course is on methods and tools applied before and during BDSP Partnership, a She is the author of The Architecture & Engineer-
design to test ideas and environmental targets, simulate and compare the London-based environ- Paula Cadima has taught Environmental Perform- ing of Downdraught
mental engineering firm at the Technical Univer- ance of Tall Buildings Cooling published by
likely performance of alternative designs, assess predictions of environ- with offices in London, sity of Lisbon, where published by Earthscan PHDC Press in 2010.
mental conditions against measured data and benchmarks, fine-tune design Lisbon and Belgrade. she created and directed in June 2010.
He was project engineer the master’s course on VISITING LECTURERS
proposals and inform final design decisions. on Foster + Partners’ Bioclimatic Architecture, Jorge Rodríguez Álvarez Nick Baker
Commerzbank and on and at the AA Graduate graduated from the Catherine Harrington
Rogers/Piano’s Potsdam- School where she Architectural School of Raul Moura
er Platz developments in completed her PhD. A Coruña, Spain and was

148 149
 CONSERVATION OF PROGRAMME DIRECTOR
Andrew Shepherd
PROGRAMME STAFF
David Hills
David Heath
GRADUATE

HISTORIC BUILDINGS
The stewardship of the historic environment requires heritage practi-
tioners with special skills in understanding, investigating, enhancing and
communicating the legacy of the past. It is the ambition of this programme
to inspire the participants to build upon their existing knowledge and skills
to become more effective, competent and confident practitioners.
This two-year part-time programme takes place on 32 Fridays over each
of the two academic years and is designed to offer a comprehensive and
innovative approach to the conservation of historic buildings. It attempts
to address the need to conserve, the artefacts that require conservation,
and the methods of conserving. Philosophical issues and craft techniques
are explored and modern value systems of assessing significance are
investigated. The programme includes site and craft workshop visits that
are connected to current conservation issues of interest.
The First Year engages the students in developing their own conserva-
tion philosophies, allied with the study of early and medieval building
types. Students learn about causes of defects to buildings, as well as their
diagnosis and repair. Amongst the required pieces of written work are a
materials essay/investigation, a church development study, a conservation
statement exercise, and a fabric condition survey of a building.
The Second Year extends the scope of these studies including the
issues associated with the development and repair of historic interiors
and the introduction of services into historic buildings, further developing
the students’ philosophies. The principal work for the student is a thesis
of 15–20,000 words on a subject of their choice to be approved by the staff.
This is developed with the assistance of a specialist external tutor for
submission to external examiners.
Those directing the programme benefit from the expertise of its advi-
sors, Richard Halsey, Elain Harwood, Frank Kelsall, John Redmill, Clive
Richardson and Robert Thorne. Many former students show their continu-
ing commitment to the course by returning to lecture to current students.
For 35 years the AA’s Building Conservation Programme has
been recognised as one of the leading courses of its kind. The course is
designed to meet the ICOMOS Guidelines for Education and Training
and is informed by current developments in conservation best practice.
The course is accepted by the RICS and IHBC, meeting the standards for
members involved with conservation works.

PROGRAMME DIRECTOR PROGRAMME STAFF David Heath was latterly

Andrew Shepherd is David Hills is an architect Chief Conservation
an architect and has run with a major conservation Architect to English
a practice specialising practice. He has a special Heritage. He is also the
in conservation work, interest in the conserva- Thesis Tutor. He is the
principally in the eccles- tion of modern architec- current Chairman of the
iastical field for over 30 ture with heritage Society for the Protection
years. He is involved in significance. He is a past of Ancient Buildings. He is
international training graduate of the course. also a past graduate of
programmes. He is a past the course.
graduate of the course.
Church Fabric Survey site visit

150 151
 DESIGN & MAKE DIRECTOR
Martin Self
PROGRAMME STAFF
Piers Taylor
Kate Darby
GRADUATE

Design & Make is a full-time 16-month graduate design programme, locat-

ed at the AA’s Hooke Park woodland campus in Dorset, southwest England.
It is open to post-graduate students of architecture who wish to pursue
studio, workshop-based design and alternative rural architectures. On a
yearly cycle, the programme designs and constructs experimental buildings
at Hooke Park. In 2010, the AA gained outline planning consent for new
workshops, accommodation buildings and other teaching facilities.
The core aspiration of the programme is to close the gap between
design and making in architectural education, by placing students in an
unique environment that physically combines design studio, workshop and
building site. The studio is located within a forest that provides building
material, and in a rural community famed for its rich craft traditions.
The Design & Make programme consists of Design Studio projects
and seminar courses, the construction-based Make Studio and individual
production of the Design & Make Thesis. The induction project provides an
intensive introduction to the programme’s key design methodologies; the
core project is dedicated to individual, full-scale, site-specific design-and-
make explorations at Hooke Park. Design approaches and skills developed
in the first term are applied in the collective design of the Hooke Park
project in the second. The four seminar courses are focused on the cultural
theory of making as design; sustainability theory and practice; fabrication
and construction technologies; and the theories of collective design.
The Make Studio consists of hands-on workshop-based fabrication
and on-site construction work. Learning is acquired experientially through
collaboration with the project’s tutors, engineers, contractors and trades-
people. Concluding the course, the Design & Make Theses form individual
analyses and critiques of the built project and present propositional argu-
ments concerning the role of making with architectural design.
This year Design & Make will be a unique collaboration between the
Diploma School (Diploma 19) and the MArch Design & Make programme.
The work itself will focus upon the design and prototyping of a lightweight
long-span building – a 500m2 ‘big shed’ for a full(-)scale prototyping and
fabrication facility for the AA at Hooke Park. This assembly workshop, to
be completed in Autumn 2011, has precise functional requirements, giving
us the opportunity to explicitly test the relationships among form, function,
material and construction, as well as the environmental and phenomenal
conditions of this richly wooded site.

DIRECTOR
Martin Self is an engineer
and designer who has
taught design and theory
at the AA since 2004. He
was a founder member of
Arup’s Advanced
Geometry Group, studied
architectural theory at the
AA, and has provided
structural engineering
and formfinding
consultancy within
practices such as Zaha
Hadid Architects and
Antony Gormley
Studio.
PROGRAMME STAFF
Piers Taylor is a partner in
award winning architects
Mitchell Taylor Workshop,
a unit master at the
University of Cambridge,
and the founder of the at Bath University and
annual Studio in the the Bartlett School of
Woods which is con- Architecture.
cerned with the testing of
ideas through making. STUDIO TUTORS
Kostas Grigoriadis
Kate Darby is principal of Barak Pelman
rural architectural Geraldine Dening
practice, KDA. She is a
founder member of MAKE TUTOR
Studio in the Woods and Charley Brentnall Dartmoor Arts Project installation 2010,
has taught design studio led by Piers Taylor and Charley Brentnall

152 153
 PROJECTIVE CITIES PROGRAMME DIRECTORS
Christopher C M Lee
Sam Jacoby
GRADUATE

The new Projective Cities Programme is dedicated to a research-and

design-based analysis of the emergent and contemporary city, leading to
an MPhil in Architecture. It proposes the City as an architectural project
and as a projection of the possibilities of architecture. The programme
recognises the City as a new contemporary field, area of study, design
and research agenda, and pursues through architectural experimentation
and speculation the meaningful production of new Ideas for the City. The
focus of the course is the formation and design of cities explicated within
its dominant types and large-scale architectural artefacts. It systematically
examines and speculates on the design challenges of the contemporary
city through both theoretical and specific architectural design enquiries.
By providing a unique integrated research platform dedicated to the exami-
nation and research of the future of the City, the taught MPhil programme
unites theoretical and practical design research. This research will be
demonstrated in a distinct contribution to scholarship in an integrated
design and written dissertation.

A Contemporary City
For the past two decades, the discourse of architecture in relation to its
larger context has been predominantly discussed and reasoned through
concepts of urbanism and articulated by complex form, with little or no
relevant alternative overarching theories for its existence and relentless
proliferation. The Idea of the City, on the other hand, can be seen as dis-
tinctly different from urbanism and is directly concerned with the emergent
phenomena of the contemporary city.
The current area of investigation will be the contemporary city itself.
The contemporary city is understood here as the expansion and cumulative
construction of the city in progress, for example witnessed in the emerging
and fast expanding cities in the Far East and Middle East. This understand-
ing will focus on the conception and articulation of the city through its
dominant types.
The aim of this investigation is to arrive at a proposal for a Contempo-
rary City as an architectural project. Implicit in such a proposal is the role
of the dominant type as the embodiment of the Idea of the City – its raison
d’être – and as a deep structure and pliable diagram of the city.

PROGRAMME DIRECTORS the co-founder and Sam Jacoby trained as a Intermediate School (Unit
Christopher C M Lee principal of the award cabinet-maker, graduated 2, 2002–04), and at the
graduated with the winning Serie Architects from the AA, and is an University of Nottingham
AA Diploma (Hons). He (serie.co.uk) and is architect in private (BArch Unit 6, 2007–09).
previously taught at the currently conducting his practice. He is a co-direc- Currently pursues a
AA in the History and doctoral research in the tor of the Spring doctoral degree at the
Theory Studies (2009–10) Berlage Institute Semester Programme at TU Berlin.
and was the Unit Master Rotterdam on the topic the AA. Previously taught
for Diploma School of type and the city. at the AA in the History
(Unit 6, 2004–09) and and Theory Studies
Intermediate School (2009–10), Diploma Yifan Liu, The Great Flight Forward, Chengdu,
(Unit 2, 2002–04). He is School (Unit 6, 2004–09), People’s Republic of China, 2008

154 155
 PHD PROGRAMME PROGRAMME STAFF
Lawrence Barth
Paula Cadima
Hugo Hinsley
George Jeronimidis
Toni Kotnik
Patrik Schumacher
Thomas Weaver
Michael Weinstock
GRADUATE

Mark Cousins Marina Lathouri Simos Yannas

The AA School’s PhD Programme combines advanced research with a Jorge Fiori Rosa Schiano-Phan

broader educational agenda, preparing graduates for practice in global

academic and professional environments. The preferred entry route is
through one of the AA School’s post-professional MA, MSc or MArch
programmes which provide the theoretical grounding and appropriate tools
for engaging in advanced research in their respective fields. Applicants
from outside the AA School must hold a post-professional master’s degree
in their proposed area of PhD research. Study for the PhD is full-time, with
a minimum duration of two calendar years and a maximum of four years.
The Architecture & Urbanism Management Group set in partnership with
the Open University administers PhD research degrees.

PhD in Architectural Design

From the last academic year applications are also considered for the PhD
in Architectural Design – a studio-based option for qualified architects with
experience in design research and an interest in relating theory to design
practice. This is a full-time, post-professional research degree option aimed
at enabling candidates from an architectural background to make creative
use of their design skills within the scholarly tradition of doctoral research.
Entry requirements are a five-year professional degree in architecture and
a master’s degree from one of the AA School’s postgraduate programmes,
or equivalent academic qualifications. Applicants will be assessed on
design portfolio, reference letters, research statement and an interview.
The PhD in Architectural Design can be taken over a minimum of two
calendar years and a maximum of four years.

Seminars and Special Events

While preparing their research proposals under the supervision of two
of the programme’s teaching staff, PhD candidates are expected to attend
postgraduate courses related to their areas of research. The PhD pro-
gramme will run seminars serving its different areas of study on practical
issues of research and on the writing and presentation of dissertations and
research papers. An international event is organised annually by research
students in the summer term on topics of current interest within the school.
A new, short course will be offered this year as part of the AA School’s
summer programme for students completing PhDs this year and to post-
doctoral applicants who wish to train as PhD supervisors and examiners.

Emanuel de Sousa, Photomontage: Teatro del Mondo by

Aldo Rossi / Arrival to Dubrovnik, August 1980

156 157
 AA INTERPROFESSIONAL STUDIO UNIT STAFF
Theo Lorenz
Tanja Siems
GRADUATE

The AA Interprofessional Studio is a post-professional course leading to

a Graduate Diploma in spatial performance and design. The course re-
searches and applies alternative forms of collaboration between the multi-
ple creative professions through the research, conception and implementa-
tion of a series of genre-defying spatial performances and constructions.
The novelist, dramatist and game designer Thomas M Disch defines
creativity as the ability to see relationships where none exist. As a continu-
ation of this observation the agenda for the AAIS aims to expose a hidden
‘worknet’ between multiple professions and their products. Contrary to
typical interdisciplinary design approaches, where individual professions
remain in their respective field of expertise, AAIS seeks to place students
outside their normal comfort zone, learning knowledge from other disci-
plines that will ultimately extend and adjust their own practice technique.
To achieve this overlapping of disciplines, the studio will continue to build
up its network of professionals and experts within performance, design,
music and film through workshops and symposia.
With this network in place we will organise, design and construct a
series of interdependent spatial performances. Events will commence in
March 2011 with the performative installation ‘In Motion’ in Madrid. A
collaboration with the ‘Matadero’, the dance group ‘New Movement’ and
music producers ‘Music Technology’, the projects will attempt to merge
fashion, dance, music and architecture to form one continuously changing
environment. We will test these performative interactive spaces through a
design and construction at the 2011 C’n’B convention in Cologne. Our focus
will investigate the required configurations for a commercial environment
where the border between the producer and consumer (‘prosumer’) seems
not to exist. The series will conclude in September with a two-week event
titled ‘A Little Communication’ in London that reappropriates previous
happenings in Madrid and Cologne through dance performances, cultural
and political salon talks and musical projects in one overall construction.
By creating unique events that form the basis for continued discussion,
the AAIS provides students with a starting point for individual careers
within a new overarching discipline, and continues its attempt to make the
impossible possible.

UNIT STAFF objects. He has been The office tackles social, of Urban Design at the
Theo Lorenz is a teaching at the AA since political, economic and BUW, Germany.
registered architect in 2000 and has directed environmental problems
England and Germany, as the AAIS programme as fuel to the design
well as a painter and since 2008. process and the develop-
media artist. Trespassing ment of a dialogue that
between art and Tanja Siems is an urban can lead to an enhanced
architecture, his interest designer and infrastruc- built proposal or solution
lies in the relation of tural planner and the rather than a reduced
digital and physical space director of the interdisci- compromise. She
and the associations plinary practice T2 spatial co-leads the AAIS pro- Performance of ‘New Movement’ at the AAIS ‘Seed 2
between subjects and work (to.spatialwork.net). gramme and is Professor Scene’ Festival. Image by Takako Hasegawa

158 159
 INDEPENDENTS GROUP DIRECTOR
Alan Dempsey
GRADUATE

A Global Network of Independent Organisations in Digital Design

and Manufacturing 

The Independents Group is a new programme at the AA that will establish
a four-year experimental learning network comprising design and industrial
leaders at the forefront of new computational thinking in architecture. The
group seeks to harness the collective knowledge and experimentation of
each of its partners to inform a larger, global network of expertise operat-
ing at the forefront of today’s revolution in design, collaborative platforms
and manufacturing capability. Initiated by the AA School, the proposed
partners for the Independents Group (IG) include five of the world’s leading
independent architecture and design schools: Pratt School of Design in
New York, Sci-Arc in Los Angeles, Control Shift at Hong Kong University,
Central Academy of Fine Art in Beijing and SIAL at RMIT in Melbourne.
Each of the IG’s five proposed academic partners are independent bodies
operating research initiatives outside of the conventional bureaucratic
setting that now dominate university research. Their independence and
smaller size allows them to be more responsive to cutting-edge computa-
tional design and manufacturing.
The programme will enable collaborative project-based research and
experimentation through a new annual residency programme open to
graduates from any of the partnered schools. The 24-week residency will
be a new formally acknowledged position within the school and the awards
will be offered on a competitive basis to the most outstanding graduates
from all six academic partners. Housed in a dedicated studio space at the
AA School, residents will be given the opportunity to develop prototype
projects for public presentation, exhibition and publication in collaboration
with consultants and manufacturing partners and with guidance from the
IG team. The programme will be launched at the first global conference
for the group held at the AA in the autumn term. The conference will be a
public event bringing all partners together for the first time to discuss the
status of recent work, the year’s research agenda and to announce the brief
for the first competition.

DIRECTOR Design Entrepreneurs in

Alan Dempsey is founding the UK in 2008, and as
director of NEX, a one of the 40 most sig-
multidisciplinary design nificant architects under
office with an interna- 40 in the EU in 2010.
tional profile that works Alan’s work has been
at the intersection of widely published in the
architecture, infrastruc- US, Europe and Asia,
ture and urban design. and he was selected to
He was selected by the represent the UK at the
British Council as one of Beijing Architecture
the six most significant Biennale in 2008. Independents Group five proposed academic partners

160 161
 RESEARCH CLUSTERS
Charles Tashima
AA Research Clusters are a programme of year-long special projects,
activities and events that bring together diverse groups of AA staff, stu-
dents and outside partners for the purpose of realising a body of focused
research. As originally conceived in 2005, Research Clusters are mecha-
nisms for triggering and integrating discussion and exchange across the
school. Operating in part as ‘vertical units’, they are intended as platforms
through which to consolidate expertise within the school, exploring and
enhancing existing and new territories and modes of research. It is the
ambition of the clusters to take the lead on enhancing the culture of applied
research in the school.
Each year the AA Research Cluster Group, managed by the AA’s Aca-
demic Head, Charles Tashima, in consultation with existing cluster curators,
takes applications from across the school for a new cycle of research areas;
so that there are approximately four clusters operating at any one time.
The deadline for new Research Cluster proposals this year will be in
January 2011, with the expectation of their launch in the Spring of 2011.
In addition to developing diverse areas of expertise and projects,
Research Clusters are expected to challenge existing forms of research and
presentation – exploring alternative ways in which work can be produced.
These methods have been in the form of events, symposia, conferences,
workshops, performances, publications, off- or on-site exhibitions, fabrica-
tions and inter-disciplinary collaborative research and competitions.
Research Clusters not only bring audiences, researchers and specialists
into the school, they are effective platforms in which the school’s teaching
staff gains valuable experience and develops expertise by connecting to
research activity outside the AA.
162
COORDINATOR
CLUSTER CURATORS
Stefano Rabolli Pansera
Marianne Mueller
Marina Lathouri
Jorge Fiori
Elena Pascolo
GRADUATE
Olaf Kneer Alex Warnock-Smith
Active Research Clusters are as follows:
Beyond Energy: When Energy Becomes Form
Directed by Stefano Rabolli Pansera
The cluster attempts to fuse science, architecture and artistic collaboration
in order to develop new ways of thinking about energy. The 12th Interna-
tional Exhibition in Venice marked the end of the first year and brought
together work, research material and ideas from the eight research groups
for display and public debate.
http://beyondentropy.aaschool.ac.uk
Concrete Geometries
Directed by Marianne Mueller and Olaf Kneer,
The research investigates the intimate relationship between spatial form
and human processes, whether social, aesthetic or material. The cluster
launched an international call for submissions in January 2010, attracting
415 entries from the fields of art, architecture, design and the humanities.
A symposium was held in October 2010 with invited guests drawn from the
submissions. From this a final shortlist of works will be selected for an
exhibition and publication.
www.concrete-geometries.net
City Cultures
Initiated by Marina Lathouri
The research seeks to develop new conceptual frameworks that redefine
what historically has been constructed and institutionalised as the ‘city’.
During 2008/09 the cluster held an open seminar that brought together AA
tutors and outside visitors to identify a range of contemporary positions on
the city. The ideas generated in this seminar fed into a 2010 conference
seeking new manifestos on the city.
http://aacitycultures.blogspot.com
Urbanism and the Informal City
Launched by Jorge Fiori, Elena Pascolo, and Alex Warnock-Smith
The aim of the cluster is to explore the concept of the ‘ìinformalî’ as a
parallel modality that shapes the urban condition. With particular emphasis
on spatiality, the cluster is seeking to discover ways in which ‘ìinformalî’
processes contribute to a radical rethinking of the city and its institutions.
The team is identifying unexplored themes and contradictions for design-
ers, thinkers and practitioners to consider at a series of Unit ‘ìopen-mikeî’
sessions, talk-shops and a symposium at the AA. The results of these
findings will initiate an international design workshop in 2011, followed by
an exhibition and publication.
163
 VISITING SCHOOL
Launched in Dubai in January, 2008, the AA Visiting School (also known

VISITING SCHOOL
colloquially as the A(A) Longitudinal School) includes a global network of
design workshops, symposia and public forums organised for international
visiting students, teachers, architects and others interested in experiencing
the AA’s unique learning model, which is based on combining the highly
focused agendas and interests of small design units with a prominent
public programme, audience and outside visitor participation.
Launched by the AA School Director Brett Steele, the AA Visiting
School, directed by Christopher Pierce, seeks to invent a new, elastic
21st-century educational infrastructure able to quickly realign and reconfig-
ure partnerships, location and focus. By doing so, the AA School is grow-
ing its ability to rapidly adjust to the fast-changing, unpredictable realities
and challenges confronting global architectural and design cultures today.
The AA Visiting School is an extension of the AA’s ongoing commit-
ment to actively participate in the shaping of global architectural culture
and develop its belief in a fundamentally experimental approach to
architectural education. With nearly 90 per cent of its 650 full-time students
arriving in London each year from 65 or more overseas countries, and with
an equally high percentage of foreign teachers and tutors leading design,
learning and research activities, the AA’s Visiting School offers a new
dimension to the AA’s existing make-up as the world’s most international
school of architecture: one able to enhance the flow of architectural ideas,
knowledge and talent – outward from, and not only into, our historic
London home.
In the 2010/11 academic year the AA will organise more than two dozen
unique short courses and other events and programmes as detailed in
this section these will engage hundreds of new visiting students and bring
together AA tutors, local educators, architects and other experts from
throughout the world, for the purposes of exchanging information, ideas
and critical speculation on subjects at the forefront of architectural dis-
course. Additional programmes are also currently being planned in Ten-
erife, Buenos Aires, Sydney, Moscow, Costa Rica and Delhi; Koshirakura/
Tokyo will continue with a new programme; and SummerMake will expand
its series of programmes to include a new spring course.
All of the AA Visiting School programmes, both in London and interna-
tionally, will be fully detailed in the AA Visiting School Prospectus, pub-
lished in early November 2010. To obtain further information and register
for any of the programmes please go to the Visiting School section of the
AA website or contact the Visiting School at visitingschool@aaschool.ac.uk

164

ONE YEAR AT
THE AA
Autumn, Winter, Spring
2010–11
The AA offers places to students
from schools of architecture overseas
who wish to participate in the activi-
ties of the AA as a year away from
their home institutions. Students
are accepted into the Second, Third
or Fourth Year, depending on their
previous experience and the portfolio
of work they submit as part of the
application process.
The three-term, 32-week pro-
gramme involves students in all
aspects of undergraduate life at the
AA, including participation in Inter-
mediate or Diploma School units,
Complementary Studies courses
and the AA’s evening lecture series,
exhibitions and other special events.
Many overseas schools are will
grant credit to their students for their
study at the AA and we will help to
advise on these arrangements during
the admissions process.
Applications should be made via the main undergrad-
uate application form. For further information please
contact: Meneesha Kellay on
undergraduateadmissions@aaschool.ac.uk
166
SPRING SEMESTER
PROGRAMME
Winter, Spring 2011
The AA Spring Semester Programme
(SSP) is a full-time, 15-week studio-
based programme open to talented
undergraduate and graduate students
from around the world. SSP sets
a challenging and exciting design
agenda, which includes the core
studio as well as electives from the
AA undergraduate history and theory
seminars, media and technical
studies courses.
The programme is specifically
designed to allow transferable study
credits and the AA School awards
a Certificate of Completion. Agenda
2011: London Calling combines con-
ceptual and material design research
with the production of architectural
projects in the form of comprehen-
sive design proposals. As in previous
years, the programme will focus
on the city of London as a site for
architectural speculations.
UNIT STAFF
Monia De Marchi
Sam Jacoby
SUMMER MAKE
Summer 2011
The Hooke Park visiting school
programme provides short residential
courses at the AA’s woodland cam-
pus in Dorset, south-west England.
Through access to the timber work-
shop, design studios and the working
forest, these courses provide hands-
on engagement in workshop-driven
design and production.
In the annual two-week pro-
gramme participants design, build
and test full-scale architectural propo-
sitions. By engaging in a challenging
cycle of conception, fabrication,
prototyping and testing, they are
introduced to the methods of an
architecture focused on making.
Additionally, a new programme in
spring 2011 will design and build
refurbishment modifications to the
existing student accommodation
building located on the campus.
UNIT STAFF
Luke Olsen
Martin Self
167
VISITING
SUMMER SCHOOL
Summer 2011
The AA Summer Architecture School
is a three-week, full-time programme
consisting of challenging design
studios, field study, seminars and
lectures that emphasise the impor-
tance of both practice and theory in
contemporary architecture. Based
on the AA’s unit system, it offers
participants a selection of varying
design approaches, agendas and
techniques. Rooted in London, each
of the school’s units creatively use
the city’s surroundings as their focus
of research. Past school themes have
included speed, visions of the future,
disaster and micro-strategies for
difficult financial times. Tutors,
lecturers and critics include past and
present AA unit masters as well as
professionals pooled from diverse
disciplines. Creative collaboration
is encourage with over 80 students
working in distinct groups hailing
from more than 35 countries.
UNIT STAFF
Natasha Sandmeier

SUMMER DLAB
Summer 2011
The AA Summer dLab offers visiting
architects and students an opportu-
nity to be involved in a two-week
workshop that openly experiments
with the potential of innovative digital
design and its relationship to proto-
typing, manufacturing and communi-
cation technologies. The programme
introduces participants to a changing
array of computational platforms
and a forum to openly discuss pro-
gressive ideas on digital design. dLab
participants will be introduced to
the basics of digital modelling and
scripting, laser cutting, CNC-milling,
3D printing and other forms of com-
putational tools will also be explored.
The course combines seminars
and design exercises with presenta-
tions and discussions with dLab staff
and visiting critics. The Summer
dLab is open to current architectural
students, recent graduates and
mid-career professionals wishing to
further their understanding of digital
and computational design concepts
and their applications.
168
VISITING TEACHERS
Spring 2011
The AA’s innovative model as a place
of education and debate attracts
interest of academic visitors from all
over the world. In response we offer
a short programme to give teachers
of architecture an opportunity to
engage with the teaching and re-
search of the school and to develop a
debate about the aims and strategies
of teaching architecture.
The programme provides the
opportunity for detailed discussion
of ideas and methods of education
during meetings with the school’s
students and teachers. Participants
will present work for debate in a
seminar and visits are organised to
important examples of architecture
and planning in London.
The three-week programme is
open to a small group of participants
who are currently teaching architec-
ture or related subjects and begins at
the end of May 2011. Applicants will
be selected on the basis of a brief
written statement outlining the issues
of architectural education. There is no
fee for the programme.
UNIT STAFF
Hugo Hinsley
BEIJING
HYPERLINK
Tsinghua University
Winter 2011
Despite the global economic down-
turn the city of Beijing is rapidly
expanding. This is nowhere more
evident than in the proliferation of
motor travel and the city’s response
of widening the streets to dissipate
traffic congestion. The entire city
fabric has been profoundly modified
and as a direct consequence cross-
walks have become an unsafe and
frightening proposition
for pedestrians to traverse. Through
the invention of ‘proactive proto-
types’ the Beijing-based workshop
will propose alternative crossing
patterns and structures to alleviate
the increasing congestion and foster
experimental interaction and events
through complex programming.
UNIT STAFF
Yan Gao
169
VISITING
DUBROVNIK
MITTELMEERLAND
Winter 2011
Mittelmeerland is investigating the
future of the Mediterranean as a
territory of water. Over three years
we will investigate six different
Mediterranean cities located near
the coast starting with Dubrovnik.
The coastline from Dubrovnik to
Ploce stretches 113 km, producing a
liquid context that spawns a conflict
between the natural landscape and
the shipping industry. This conditon
forces us to ask: how is the rapid
growth of global trade affecting
Mediterranean ports? Can each city
along the Mediterranean turn one
of the world’s largest hotspots into
a vibrant ecospot?
We will analyse existing condi-
tions such as Tangier Med, playfully
utilise small-scale phenomena,
translate conditions into large-scale
urban interventions and envision
future changes of the port area.
UNIT STAFF
Medine Altiok
 VISITING

ISTANBUL MEXICO CITY OMAN PARIS

COMPUTED CRAFTS
Istanbul Technical University,
School of Architecture
Winter 2011
Computed Crafts will focus on inte-
grating local Turkish craft-making
methods with digital computation.
The workshop’s main challenge is
to identify and interpret the unique
artistic and historical periods of
Istanbul via its craft production and
transform these artefacts through
current discourse and the use of the
latest fabrication techniques based
on algorithmic tools. Throughout the
workshop we will take advantage of
Istanbul’s geographic diversity by
inhabiting and making in many of its
different spaces. Parallel design
projects and non-overlapping units
will support this urban mobility.
RECOVERING WATERSCAPES
Universidad Iberoamericana
Winter 2011
Historically the lack of water has
always been a major concern for the
viability of Mexico City, posing a
huge challenge on the metropolitan
scale, with infrastructural, social and
urban implications. The workshop
will explore the idea of recovering
waterscapes and the potential they
can offer Mexico City in its quest to
reassess the present and rethink the
future. The course will aim at defin-
ing different strategies based on the
exploration of local conditions,
specific material processes, experi-
mentation with digital and represen-
tational techniques and the use of
prototyping concepts. Diversity in
design proposals is encourage a way
of opening up critical discussions
and facilitating new and exiting ideas
for Mexico City’s waterscapes
PATTERN
German University of Technology,
Muscat
Winter 2011
Pattern will occupy the space be-
tween the contemporary and the
traditional. It will draw on Oman’s
historical precedents to investigate
new typologies for Muscat. Histori-
cally, Oman has been careful in its
urban expansion; however, the
growing tourist trade and the profits
it brings are forcing a rethink this
philosophy. In 2003 the sultan’s
‘Diwan’ of Royal Court Affairs circu-
lated a pattern book for architects
– ‘Elevational Guidelines for Buildings
in Oman’. It suggests that architects
look to the existing buildings of
Oman’s cities and environs as their
models for creating an Omani charac-
ter. With this book as our guide we
will invent ways of filling the void in
architectural thinking and identity,
which is a critical aspect of the urban
growth of Oman.
F(AA)SHIONS
Musée des Arts Decoratifs
Winter 2011
The fashion scene today has become
an ensemble of ‘socio-morphological
forces’ connecting people and cata-
lysing experimental, open-ended
design. Fashion, and its affinity for
transformation, is a complex terrain
of architectural identities, scenery
and performance. These dynamic
spaces are the field where vanguard
ideas incubate. From right within
fashion’s creative nexus F(AA)shions
will foster ‘integral spatial qualities’
by harnessing the surprising typolo-
gies intrinsic to temporal bodies, fluid
matter(s), and singular proportions.
On the edge of couture’s technologi-
cal transformation, we will rapid
prototype templates that stage sharp,
raw, urban, experimental and alien
spatial apparel logics.

UNIT STAFF UNIT STAFF UNIT STAFF UNIT STAFF

Elif Erdine Jose Alfredo Ramirez Galindo Omid Kamvari Jorge Ayala

170 171

RIO DE JANEIRO
MATERIA PRIMA
Winter 2011
The design workshop in Rio de
Janeiro will collaborate with artist
Ernesto Neto and the Gentil Carioca
Gallery located in the SAARA neigh-
bourhood market. The area is charac-
terised by its raw materials – from
the colourful plastic confections used
in carnival costumes to the vibrant
displays of bags of spices and beads
used by Ernesto Neto in his perfor-
mative fabric structures. The work-
shop will employ these analogue
modelling techniques to inform
parametric design generation and
digital fabrication techniques that will
create a feedback loop between
manual physical models and compu-
tational derived forms. The pro-
gramme’s agenda is to create a series
of interventions to help revitalise the
dilapidated public squares of the old
centre of Rio de Janeiro.
UNIT STAFF
Anne Save de Beaurecueil
Franklin Lee
172
SANTIAGO DE CHILE
DESERTA
Catholic University School
of Architecture
Winter 2011
Deserta will daringly approach a very
harsh climatic and geographical
condition – the Atacama Desert in
northern Chile. The workshop will
address the revision and redesign
of its urban and architectural layout
based on the new demands of the
upcoming industries of lithium
extraction, desert agriculture and
concentrated solar power (CSP).
Evening lectures, site visits to the Loa
Oasis and extraction sites will pro-
vide an insight into the surrounding
landscape of Atacama. The 10-day
workshop is open to students and
professionals interested in exploring
alternative forms of practice.
UNIT STAFF
Pedro Alonso
TEHRAN
MANUFACTURING
SIMPLEXITIES_ 002
Summer 2011
In recent years Iran has emerged as
a cultural and economic hub within
the Middle East. With its illustrious
history in architecture it offers a
fertile ground for research and
investigation. Tehran, its capital city,
has become a major laboratory for
contemporary cultural production.
Continuing the agenda of last year’s
workshop we will engage with algo-
rithmic thinking through prototyping
and experimenting at the 1:1 scale.
This year the investigations will be
developed into site-specific strategies
occupying abandoned construction
sites. Drawing upon Le Corbusier’s
Maison Dom-ino we will seek to
understand how simple methods of
manufacturing are present within
historical Iranian structures and will
attempt to influence today’s construc-
tion and design projects.
UNIT STAFF
Omid Kamvari
173
VISITING
BANGALORE
HYPERTHREADS 2011
B M Sreenivasaiah College
of Engineering
Summer 2011
The objective of HyperThreads is to
expand on applied design research
with two main focal points. First, we
will explore how to use modelling to
streamline the multi-stage processes
of a design concept through to its
physical manifestation. Second, we
will investigate the synthesis of
computational design research with
its constraints to give an emergent
labour-effective economy.
The workshop will continue its
agenda of exploring the following:
physics-based design methods,
integration of form and structure,
computational methods of optimisa-
tion for fabrication and adaptation
to local means, methods and crafts.
UNIT STAFF
Shajay Bhooshan
 VISITING

BEIRUT BLACK MOUNTAIN MONTERREY MONTREAL

BEIRUT AND BEYOND
Lebanese American University
Summer 2011
This year’s two-week Beirut visiting
school, hosted by LAU in Lebanon,
will focus on the production of
spatially stimulating and fully usable
structures for public gathering.
Students will indentify misused
niches in the city as opportunities to
revitalise public space. The workshop
aims to push the boundaries of
producing large and elaborate struc-
tures within a limited timeframe and
budget. Our objective is to hybridise
the last decade of digital design
culture with local ingenuity and
craftsmanship. Selected designs
will be made available on a shared
platform for anybody to download,
customise and experience.
EXPERIMENTAL COMMUNITIES
Black Mountain College
Summer 2011
Black Mountain is the first of an
annual series of ‘in situ’ workshops
exploring past models of architectural
and artistic communities within the
context of the rich cultural landscape
of the United States. In collaboration
with a motley crew of leading practi-
tioners and theorists we will explore
methodologies and materials specific
to Black Mountain College (1933–
1957) and develop design strategies
that operate at the juncture of histori-
cal research and the act of making.
The programme will give participants
the opportunity to experience the
environment that inspired Albers,
Cage, Fuller, Gropius and Rauschen-
berg and explore its untapped poten-
tial as a resource for contemporary
production.
POLITICS OF FABRICATION OH CANADA
LABORATORY
Politécnico de Monterrey
Summer 2011
Politics of Fabrications Laboratory
(PFL) is a research-through-design
initiative that explores the changing
political implications of material
experimentations when applied to
public urban space. PFL is a series
of speculative workshops in Latin
America which experiment with
politically charged material construc-
tions in actual city sites. The work-
shop will be structured over 12 days
in which students will construct
innovative political arguments by
experimenting with the relationship
between everyday activities and
a particular material organisation.
Working in groups students will
fabricate one scheme on-site as a
temporary prototype.
McGill University
Summer 2011
Mis-Architecture’s annual summer
workshop will develop innovative
methods for synthesising drawing
and 3D methods of digital fabrication.
We will test 2D, ‘thick 2D’ and 3D
digital printing techniques according
to three agendas: (1) As hybrid
laboratory scientists/fine artists we
will invent an ‘atlas’ of volumes,
surfaces and textures through intri-
cate sampling and testing proce-
dures; (2) as contemporary archaeolo-
gists we will construct architectural
souvenirs of the worlds that we see
existing in the interstices of represen-
tational abstraction; and (3) as inter-
preters we will abstract, reduce, layer,
fold, print and scan to challenge the
boundaries between 2D and 3D
drawings, which will be the platform
to develop modular systems.

UNIT STAFF UNIT STAFF UNIT STAFF UNIT STAFF

Dora Sweijd Noam Andrews Nuria Álvarez Lombardero Christopher Pierce
Theo Sarantoglou Lalis Francisco González de Canales Christopher Matthews

174 175
 VISITING

ROAD SHOW SAN FRANCISCO SÃO PAULO SEOUL

WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE...
Summer 2011
Where The Wild Things Are will
throw open the doors of the institu-
tion and set off on an annual road
trip studio that will voyage to the
edge of the world, visit unreal land-
scapes, alien terrains and strange
ecologies. The studio will be a travel-
ling circus of research visits, field
reportage, rolling exhibitions, and
impromptu tutorials. You will be both
visionaries and reporters, part docu-
mentarian and part science fiction
soothsayer as the otherworldly sites
we encounter will afford us a dis-
tanced viewpoint from which to
survey the consequences of emerg-
ing environmental and technological
scenarios. We will clamber over the
wreckage of the future to visit no-
man’s lands between cultivation and
nature and spin cautionary tales of a
new kind of wilderness.
BIODYNAMIC STRUCTURES
California College of the Arts
Summer 2011
Biodynamic Structures will explore
active systems in nature and investi-
gate biomimetic principles in order to
analyse, design and fabricate proto-
types that respond to environmental
stimuli. Students will work in teams
to research specific biological sys-
tems, extracting logics of organisa-
tion, geometry, structure and math-
ematics. Advanced analysis,
simulation, modelling and fabrication
tools are introduced in order to apply
this information to the design of both
passive and active responsive archi-
tectural systems.
The course is a 10-day workshop,
co-taught by the faculty of Emergent
Technologies and Design (Emtech) at
the AA and the faculty of Architecture
and MEDIAlab at California College
of the Arts.
HIGH-LOW
Summer 2011
The aim of this programme is to
rehabilitate marginalised populations
and disused materials through the
use of innovative computational
design and digital fabrication proc-
esses. With this tactic we will define
a new generation of digital design
that employs both high-tech and
low-tech strategies. Parametric
design generation and digital fabrica-
tion techniques will be used to
computationally redesign low-tech
recycled `found objects` and to
develop assemblage techniques that
can be adapted by local inhabitants.
The work will be inspired by the
Brazilian tradition of creative use of
simple materials, embodied in works
like the Campana Brothers, Ernesto
Neto and even the Nilson Garrido
Sports Academy.
SEOUL LAND-INGS
Summer 2011
Skin has become inadequate in
interfacing with reality. Technology
has become the body’s new mem-
brane of existence. – Nam June Paik
Seoul is in constant transformation
– a city condemned to be authentic.
Present-day Seoul is full of contradic-
tions and complexities that global
gentrification is trying (hard) to iron
out. In a city where land is at a
premium, its presence is constantly
eroding. This workshop will explore
Seoul’s DNA–LAND.
The prestigious topographical
setting of Seoul forged a sacrosanct
relationship between man and na-
ture. However, this connection evapo-
rated with modernisation and the
advent of concrete, which has forever
inverted Seoul’s connection with the
landscape. This workshop will be led
by six AA tutors, each developing
their own position on Seoul and how
technology is altering its landscape.

UNIT STAFF UNIT STAFF UNIT STAFF UNIT STAFF

Liam Young Evan Greenberg Anne Save de Beaurecueil Peter Ferretto
Christina Doumpioti Franklin Lee

176 177

SHANGHAI
CITY OF THE SEA
University of Hong Kong
Faculty of Architecture
Shanghai Study Centre
Summer 2011
The topic for this year’s programme
concerns an imminent crisis facing
the megalopolis of Shanghai (which
translates as ‘City of the Sea’) – its
rising sea levels. This condition is
exacerbated by the insatiable demand
for land that causes urban densifica-
tion. Design proposals will negotiate
the paradoxical dynamic forces of
urban development and environmen-
tal change. The nine-day studio-
based course will investigate new
computational design approaches in
architecture and urbanism within the
context of Shanghai, one of the
world’s most rapidly growing, em-
blematic twenty-first century cities.
UNIT STAFF
Tom Verebes
178
VISITING
SINGAPORE
FRAGILE
School of Design,
Singapore Polytechnic
Summer 2011
Fragile offers an introduction to the
AA’s unique approach to architectural
education and design. This year our
migration to southeast Asia will
explore the fragile state of our sur-
roundings and inform alternative
uses for the banal. Within this unique
urban setting we will investigate
how new forms and uses can emerge
from ordinary mass-produced ele-
ments. The workshop will build on
the diversity of approaches brought
by the participants to propose new
design strategies that emerge from
the particularity of everyday Singapo-
rean commodities, thus blurring the
delicate boundaries of different
scales between objects and the city.
UNIT STAFF
Nathalie Rozencwajg
Michel Da Costa Gonçalves
RESOURCES AND
INFORMATION
RESOURCES

Past President Since 1971, council has chosen DEVELOPMENT OFFICE The library’s loan, reference and

Jim Eyre, OBE BA(Hons) to exercise these responsibilities Since its founding in 1847, the AA information services are available
AADipl RIBA in a triangular relationship has remained both independent only to staff and registered
Ordinary Members between itself, the director of the and self-supporting. A pioneering students and members of the
John Andrews, AADipl school and the school community, higher educational UK educational Association. Most materials may
Daniel Aram, MA MBA a structure which has become an charity, the AA School receives no be borrowed from the library,
Michael J P Davies, CBE AADipl important hallmark of the school’s statutory funding either for its although periodicals and some
MArch RIBA FRSA FRGS FICPD independent status. teaching activities or for its books are for reference only.
David Jenkins, BA(Arch) The council also consults the acclaimed cultural programme, LIBRARY Up to eight books at a time can
THE AA: PARTICIPATORY
DipArch FRSA school community on important which operates one of the world’s Term-time hours: be borrowed by members and
DEMOCRACY AND MEMBERSHIP
Julia King, AADipl governance decisions, such as largest calendars of lectures, 10am–9pm Monday to Friday undergraduate students.
The AA is more than a school of
Sophie Le Bourva, Ceng MIStructE the selection of the director of the exhibitions and other public events 11am–5pm Saturday Graduate students can borrow
archi­tecture. In its constitutional
Diana Periton, MPhil DipArch school. Although the director is dedicated to contemporary www.aaschool.ac.uk/library a maximum of ten books.
structure it is first and foremost an
Kenneth Powell, MA HonFRIBA fully accountable to the council, architectural culture. Each year the The AA library was founded in The library website provides
association of members, originally
Christina Smith his contract with the council is AA attracts the world’s foremost 1862 with a stock of ten books, information about opening hours
established by students in 1847.
Rebecca Spencer dependent on maintaining the architects, engineers, designers, various societies’ Transactions and and policies and acts as a portal
Currently there are 4,400 members
Jerome Tsui confidence of the school critics, theorists, artists and other Proceedings, and a number of through which research can be
of the AA internationally, including
Jane Wernick, BSc(Hons) FICE community. The process of leaders as part of its academic and journals. It now has almost 46,000 undertaken on the internet. The
some of the world’s leading
FIStructE FRSA decision-making between director, cultural programmes. The AA takes volumes, with books and journals online catalogue allows users to
architects, who play a vital role in
council and school community very seriously its role as an on the history of architecture of check the library’s holdings and
shaping the identity and assisting
The council meets at least six makes the school unique in the independent setting for the all countries and periods, current their availability, as well as to
in the develop­ment of the school.
times each academic year in order world of architectural education. teaching, learning, discussion and architectural design and theory, reserve and renew books online.
Registered students and staff
of the AA automatically become to monitor the Association’s Along with the council itself, all debate of architecture, including building types, interior design
members, and membership is financial health, approve new registered students and contracted the vital role it can play in bridging and landscape design. It holds
open to anyone with an interest in business and review current members of staff (with the between public, professional and rare and early works – the earliest
architecture. Members participate initiatives and activities. The exception of the director of the political interests in the future of is the Nuremburg Chronicle of
in lectures and events, visit meetings are open to all AA school) are constituents of the the world’s cities and built 1493 – and special collections on
exhibitions and make use of the members (including staff and school community, where every environment. Like the city of the modern movement, the AA,
AA’s facilities. For further students), and the minutes of past individual has an equal vote. The London that is its home, the AA is international exhibitions, the
information contact: meetings are made available for school community has, at distinguished by its inter­national nineteenth century and garden
T +44 (0)20 7887 4076 viewing in the library. particular times, influenced the and multicultural make-up. cities. A large collection of CDs/
membership@aaschool.ac.uk On a yearly basis, the council future direction, not just of the Maintaining the AA’s DVDs is available. In addition to
endorses the school’s academic school but of the association as a independence is the key to the online access to the Avery Index, PHOTO LIBRARY
agenda, reviews the educational whole. School community school’s ability to remain at the the Art Index (full text), JSTOR, 10am–1pm and 2pm–6pm
AA COUNCIL
and cultural development of the meetings are therefore a very forefront of architectural and the Construction Information Monday to Friday
The AA council – the governing
school and Association, and important part of the Architectural education, and its leading position Service, the library has full text www.aaschool.ac.uk/photolib
body of the Architectural
considers and approves the Association’s governance. is made viable and enhanced subscriptions to a number of art The Photo Library holds around
Association (Inc) – is elected each
Association’s financial statements The Architectural Association through the generous support, and architecture journals. The 150,000 slides of both historical
year by the membership of the
and proposed budgets. is proud to have the benefit of an both financial and in-kind, provided library also receives print editions and contemporary buildings,
Architectural Association including
On an ongoing basis, the council active and participatory by many individuals and of more than 137 periodicals 25,000 slides of AA student work
staff and students. The
confirms the appointment of all democracy. Through membership organisations throughout the and holds a substantial number of and several valuable photographic
Architectural Association is
staff, approves new applications participation in its governance, world. The AA’s development key historical magazines, including archives by F R Yerbury, Eric de
governed constitutionally as a
to the membership, ratifies all as well as student and staff office cultivates mutually beneficial Wendingen and L’Architecture Maré, Reyner Banham and
charitable company, the primary
AA Diplomas and other academic involvement, the Architectural relationships between the school Vivante. Ahrends Burton Koralek.
object of which is the running
awards, and promotes the work Association has maintained and and individuals, organisations, The library has recently begun The unique collection was
of a school of archi­tecture. The
of the Architectural Association developed as an independent, institutions and corporate the process of organising the originally created by AA students
Architectural Association (Inc)
through participation in its cultural self-governing democratic body. companies. Interested parties are Archives of the Architectural and staff returning from school
is both a registered charity and
events and support of its It is this independence from state actively encouraged to join the Association, and making it trips and other travels. Many were
a company limited by guarantee
fundraising initiatives. The council and institutional control, at times AA’s international network of available to users. The Archives members of the AA Camera Club
and its council are the trustees of
appoints a company secretary to fiercely fought for, which has supporters and partners, and can (approximately 450 cubic feet of (founded in 1893, relaunched in
the charity and directors of the
execute and administer the allowed it to sustain continual gain more information by documents) primarily contains the 2006 to encourage current
company.
Architectural Association’s legal success and renewal. contacting Esther McLaughlin, organisational and administrative students to contribute images to
The council of the Architectural
and statutory affairs. For information concerning the Head of Development at the records of the Association and the the library). AA students and staff
Association for 2010/11 is as
AA’s council, or its charitable Architectural Association School school. Dating back to 1847, it also can download low-res images from
follows:
DECISION-MAKING IN THE status, contact Kathleen Formosa, of Architecture, on holds a wealth of AA ephemera a fully searchable website
President
SCHOOL COMMUNITY company secretary, on +44 (0)20 7887 4090. Direct funding including posters, leaflets, featuring 8,000 images from the
Alex Lifschutz, BSc
As trustees and directors, the +44 (0)20 7887 4018. Information or sponsorship enquiries can also photographs and medals, together collection. We also publish cards
Vice Presidents
council carries ultimate on the AA’s constitution, minutes be sent to: with over 250 plans, drawings and and postcards from the collection
Julia Barfield, MBE RIBA
responsibility for the proper of council meetings, and the rules development@aaschool.ac.uk. paintings. The Archives contains which are available from the
Hans Henrik Lønberg, AADipl
conduct and execution of the governing school community the institutional memory and AA Bookshop and hold regular
Honorary Secretary
Architectural Association’s affairs. meetings, can be found in the history of the AA and serves as exhibitions featuring the work of
Christopher Libby, AADipl RIBA
Day-to-day responsibility for the AA library. a key resource for the study of photographers who have made the
Honorary Treasurer
running of the school, however, architectural education over the biggest contributions to the
Sadie Morgan, BA(IntDes)
is delegated to the AA director. last 160 years. collection in recent decades. The
MA(RCA)

180 181
RESOURCES
photo library also holds archive
recordings of over 1,500 AA
lectures and conferences dating
back to the 1970s that include titles
by Cedric Price, Peter Cook,
Robin Evans, Rem Koolhaas and
Zaha Hadid. A broad selection
of the 08/09 lectures are available
online (www.aaschool.ac.uk/
lectures). There is also a collection
of over 1,000 films and
documentaries which can be
viewed in the Cinema or borrowed
overnight. The AA Film Club holds
weekly film nights, showing
filmmakers such as Agnes Varda
and Alfred Hitchcock and genres
that this year will include
Bollywood and Film Noir.
COMPUTER ROOM
Term-time hours:
9am–9pm Monday to Friday
10am–4.30pm Saturday
The proliferation of digital design
technologies has had a profound
effect on architecture. As part of
its educational remit, the AA
equips its students to use current
design systems and software
packages to their fullest extent.
Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign,
Flash, AutoCad, Microstation,
3DS Studio Max and Maya will be
introduced through one-day
workshops in the autumn term.
Software introductions will
consist of six-hour teaching
sessions and will be held in
Morwell Street Studio Room 101
and the electronic media lab
back room. The spring term
programme offers introductions
to the advanced use of selected
software packages for interactive
presentations, digital 3D modelling
and the preparation of files for
digital fabrication. There will
be eight full-day Saturday
workshops in the Morwell Street
Studio Room 101.
It is important to note that all
students need to register for the
software workshops online. The
registration for each term will be
in the second week of term. More
specific details about the
workshops and registration can
be found in the Course Booklet.
AUDIOVISUAL LAB
Term-time hours:
10am–6pm Monday to Friday
for video editing
2pm–5pm Monday to Friday
for student equipment loans
enquiries:
Manager/tutor
joel@aaschool.ac.uk
Technician
nick.wayne@aaschool.ac.uk
www.aaschool.ac.uk/avlab
The audiovisual department is
concerned with video, sound and
display technology, supporting
teaching and events throughout
the AA. It lends equipment to
staff and registered students,
assists guest speakers presenting
lectures, documents and digitally
archives public events and
operates a video-editing resource
studio presently located in the
Computer Room.
Equipment for teaching and the
Event series is booked through an
established procedure. Staff and
students should liaise with their
relevant coordinator at least one
week prior to when the equipment
is required. The department is
unable to provide support for late
or impromptu classes or events.
The video studio is an open area
for those undertaking video and
sound work. Courses run within
Media Studies allow students
to develop skills in this area. For
those not able to take these
courses, instruction can be found
with the AV Manager / Video tutor.
Software commonly used includes
Final Cut Pro Studio, Adobe CS,
After Effects and Garage Band;
additional software is sourced
based on demand. Outside of
182
teaching times, the area is run on
a booking system that allows
students to work in a focused
manner. Staff and students must
be aware that this area is for video
and sound work only, and that they
may not occupy the space without
prior agreement. Unit-based
projects (those outside of Media
Studies) are possible if arranged in
advance; teaching staff should
speak to the AV Manager with
regards to technical instruction.
Students are advised to discuss
proposals at an early stage to
assess their viability.
Students wishing to borrow
equipment (such as video cameras
or sound recorders) should speak
to the AV technician to check
availability and discuss conditions.
Those borrowing equipment from
the AV department are fully
responsible for its security and
care. An agreement form must be
signed to this effect.
Groups may borrow equipment
as part of a well-defined unit
project on or off school premises
only after discussion with the AV
Manager. Students are reminded
that loan requests should be made
between 2pm and 5pm and that
most equipment is lent for a period
of two days.
AAIR
www.aaschool.ac.uk/radio
radio@aaschool.ac.uk
Created and produced by AA
students, AAIR broadcasts music,
interviews, events, documentaries,
field and found recordings,
compositions, spoken word and
various other shows contributed
by listeners. AAIR projects include
Radio Anacapri (radioanacapri.
com) and AAIR Salon evenings
at the AA with live performances
by students and invited artists.
WOOD AND METAL WORKSHOP
Term-time hours:
10am–6pm Monday to Friday
10am–2.30pm Saturday
www.aaschool.ac.uk/
workshop
The workshop is equipped with
machine and hand tools for wood
and metal. Facilities are available
for working in steel and nonferrous
metals, and for precise working in
hardwoods, softwoods and panel
products. Facilities may be used
by all registered students and staff
members; external registered
students may do so at the
discretion of the workshop staff
and on payment of a prearranged
fee. Hand tools and portable power
tools may be borrowed when
available. All First Year and new
students will be required to attend
a short induction course on safe
working practices before they can
use the workshop. Staff have a
broad range of experience and
their aim is to support individual
projects as well as units whose
programmes depend upon the use
of the workshop.
MODEL WORKSHOP
Term-time hours:
10am–6pm Monday to Friday
Saturday by appointment
www.aaschool.ac.uk/
modelshop
The model workshop offers
assistance and equipment to
construct small-scale objects.
It specialises in casting, plastics
and small-scale modelmaking,
and has an adjoining yard for
larger work. All registered students
are able to use these facilities.
New students must attend a short
induction course.
DIGITAL PROTOTYPING LAB
Term-time hours:
10am–6pm Monday to Friday
www.aaschool.ac.uk/
digitalprototyping
The Digital Prototyping Lab offers
a number of digital fabrication
technologies including five
laser-cutting machines available
to individual students, four CNC
milling machines and two 3D
printers operated by lab staff.
Students interested in using the
laser cutting machines are first
required to attend an induction
course, after which they are able
to reserve machine-time through
an online booking system. People
interested in using CNC or 3D
printing do not need an induction
but are recommended to follow the
guidelines as listed on the website.
In addition to the online tutorials,
the lab offers inductions on file
preparation for digital fabrication
to groups and individual students
and organises independent
workshops open to students across
the school.
HOOKE PARK
www.aaschool.ac.uk/hookepark
Hooke Park is a 350-acre woodland
site in an area of outstanding
natural beauty in west Dorset,
approximately four miles from
Beaminster, near the village of
Hooke, and 12.5 miles from
Dorchester. Hooke Park provides
the AA with a platform from which
to research future material
concepts in the building industry
and operates as a showcase for
183
experimental sustainable
construction.
The facilities were originally
developed by an institute
researching new uses for working
with wood in modern construction.
This ‘laboratory of experimentation
and research’ will be further
developed in a way that takes
account of the biodiversity of the
natural environment, which
includes woodlands, wetlands,
boundary banks and meadows.
The spacious facilities and outdoor
environment provide a setting for
workshops and projects that might
be problematic to carry out in the
confines of central London.
Students are able to explore
techniques ranging from model-
making to object fabrication and
prototyping and to produce work
on a larger scale, supported by
specialist staff based at the site.
The existing structures at Hooke
Park were designed by teams
dedicated to pushing the
boundaries of building with wood.
The workshop, a collaboration by
Frei Otto, ABK and Buro Happold,
experiments with bending ‘green’
wood and carrying loads across
large spans on small-diameter
roundwood beams. The refectory,
by the same team, is a prototype
for a house in which the structure
hangs like a tent on four A-frames.
Westminster Lodge, by Edward
Cullinan and Buro Happold,
features a grass roof and the use
of unmilled, untreated timber.
Located around a central common
room are eight double study-
bedrooms, each with its own
shower and toilet, in pods that
penetrate the exterior wall of the
building. In addition there is
accommodation for another two
people in a cabin close by.
Hooke Park is open to registered
students and staff from all sections
of the school. The A V Custerson
Annual Award provides funding to
carry out projects associated with
timber at Hooke Park. Projects are
open to all registered AA students
in the Undergraduate or Graduate
Schools. See the Scholarships &
Bursaries section of this
Prospectus for more details.
RESOURCES/INFORMATION
MAEDA WORKSHOP
Generously supported by the
Maeda Corporation in Japan, who
have sponsored exhibitions and
other events at the AA for more
than a decade, the Maeda
Workshops have brought in a
series of visiting artists who have
worked closely with registered
AA students and staff on intensive
short-term projects leading to
installations within the school.
Workshops have been led by
internationally renowned artists
including Richard Wilson, Krzysztof
Wodiczko, Tadashi Kawamata and
others. A second three-year cycle
has focused on the use and long-
term development of Hooke Park
as a vital part of the school.
DRAWING MATERIALS SHOP
10am–5.45pm Monday to Friday
www.aaschool.info/
drawingmaterials
It stocks a wide range of stationery,
drawing instruments, computer
consumables, videotapes and
other essential equipment and
supplies – all at very competitive
prices. This includes a range of
AA merchandise items. The shop
also runs an overnight ordering
facility for items not regularly kept
in stock. Additional services
include large-scale printing on the
plotter and fax sending.
AA BOOKSHOP
10am–6.30pm Monday to Friday
11am–5pm Saturday
bookshop@aabookshop.net
www.aabookshop.net
T +44(0)20 7887 4041
F +44(0)20 7887 4048
The AA Bookshop stocks a wide
range of recent books on
architecture, including all titles
published by the AA. The
bookshop is able to supply
recommended course books
and any title that is in print.
BAR & RESTAURANT
www.aaschool.ac.uk/restaurant
The bar and restaurant are open in
term time to students, members,
staff, friends and guests from
Monday to Friday. Coffee, tea,
pastries, sandwiches, snacks and
drinks are served in the bar on the
first floor from 9.15am until 9.00pm
Monday to Friday during term time.
Lunch is served from 12.15pm to
2.15pm Monday to Friday and
10am to 4.30pm on Saturday
during term time in the dining
room in the basement.
INFORMATION
UNDERGRADUATE ADMISSIONS
LEA and EU Awards
The following information applies
to undergraduate students on the
five-year RIBA/ARB undergraduate
course only and is subject to
current govern­ment legislation.
TUITION FEE LOAN
New AA students (2010/11
onwards) from the UK and EU
are eligible for a Tuition Fee Loan
(non-income assessed). For
184
further up-to-date information
students should go to the student
finance section of the website
www.direct.gov.uk bearing in mind
that the AA is a private institution
and so not all this information
applies. New students who have
been offered a place should apply
to their LEA/SLC. Those trans-
ferring from other British schools
must inform their LEA/SLC.
STUDENT LOANS
Student loans are available to
home students, or those who have
lived in the UK for three years prior
to embarking on higher education,
for living expenses. The SLC
website is www.slc.co.uk
At the present time EU students
are not eligible for student loans
for living expenses, unless they
have been resident in the UK for
three years prior to embarking on
higher education.
UNDERGRADUATE ENTRY
REQUIREMENTS
All applicants are expected to
submit a bound portfolio of art/
design work (no larger than A3
and between 10 and 30 pages)
accompanied by a CD/DVD of
additional material if so desired.
Upon signature of the appli­c ation
form applicants certify that the
work submitted is entirely their
own. Plagiarism is unacceptable in
the academic setting. Students are
subject to penalties including
dismissal from the programme if
they commit an act of plagiarism.
Applications and portfolios will
be assessed by the admissions
panel, and applicants will be
informed if they are invited to an
interview at the AA. The interview
takes the form of a discussion
around the applicant’s range of
interests and focuses on the
portfolio of work in architecture,
the arts or related areas. Students
are strongly encouraged to visit
the AA before applying.
Students are admitted into the
Undergraduate programme at
any level except the Fifth Year.
Both school-leavers and mature
applicants with previous
experience are encouraged to take
advantage of the wide range of
possibilities offered within the
school. Scholarships are available
for new First, Second and Fourth
Year applicants who demonstrate
both outstanding merit in their
portfolio and financial need. For
further information see:
www.aaschool.ac.uk/admissions
The minimum academic
requirements for students entering
the First Year of the course are
two passes (grade C or above) at
A level with at least five passes
(grade C or above) in other
subjects at GCSE. If one A level is
in an art/design subject, it must be
accompanied by at least one non-
art/design subject. Maths and a
Science subject, together with
English Language, are compulsory
at least at GCSE level. The AA
Foundation course is recognised
by the RIBA as the equivalent of an
Art A level. Therefore the minimum
entry requirements for students
entering the Foundation course are
as above for GCSE level, but only
one A level pass (grade C or above)
in a non-art/design subject is
required, although two A level
passes are preferred. Foundations
in art and design must be
accompanied by one A level (or
equivalent) in a non art/design
subject.
Applicants for Fourth Year who
have studied for Part 1 in the UK
(or other countries using the same
grading system) must have gained
at least a 2:2 in their degree.
Overseas applicants are required
to have the recognised equivalent
to the above examinations, such as
the International Baccalaureate,
Abitur, etc, plus the required
English language qualification.
Applicants without conventional
entry qualifications are also
considered, provided they are able
to provide acceptable alternatives.
ENGLISH LANGUAGE
Qualifications accepted: IELTS 6.5
(academic), O level, GCSE, IGCSE,
Cambridge Certificate of Advanced
English Grade C, SL IB English
and SAT reading 550. Please note
we do not accept TOEFL.
For applicants to Diploma School
we can accept three years
of study in a UK university instead
of an English language
qualification, subject to conditions
below. The AA reserves the right to
ask you to gain an appropriate
level of English before you apply or
are interviewed. The AA reserves
the right to make a place in the
school conditional on gaining a
further English language
qualification if deemed necessary.
A recognised English language
qualification is required by 6 May
prior to entry to the school.
PORTFOLIO GUIDELINES
Suggestions on preparing your
portfolio can be found online at:
www.aaschool.ac.uk/
portfolioguidelines
ENTRY TO FIRST YEAR
Students applying for First Year are
not necessarily expected to submit
an ‘architectural’ portfolio. The
panel particularly likes to see
evidence of current interests and
activities in the form of freehand
sketches, drawings, essays or
photographs.
ENTRY TO SECOND OR THIRD YEAR
(INTERMEDIATE SCHOOL)
Students with previous design or
architectural experience may apply
to enter the Intermediate School.
They will be expected to submit
a portfolio of their work to date,
including not only finished
drawings but also sketches, photo-
graphs and independent interests.
Evidence of full-time architectural
study is essential. Students
entering the Third Year must be
registered for a period of one
academic year (three terms) to
be eligible to submit for the
AA Intermediate Examination
(RIBA/ARB Part 1, the professional
qualification) through the school.
ENTRY TO FOURTH YEAR
Many students apply to enter the
Fourth Year from other schools
after completing Part I. Applicants
wishing to enter the Diploma
School to gain the AA Final
Examination (RIBA/ARB Part 2,
the professional qualification),
must have the AA Intermediate
Examination (RIBA/ARB Part 1)
or have gained exemption from
RIBA/ARB Part 1. This can be
gained either by successful
completion of Third Year at the AA
for a period of one academic year
(three terms) as a full-time student,
or by applying directly to the ARB
for Part 1 exemption. Part 1 must
be gained by 15 July prior to entry
to the school.
185
In order to be eligible for the
AA Diploma and the AA Final
Examination (RIBA/ARB Part 2), the
Fourth and Fifth Years (minimum
six terms) must be successfully
completed.
ENTRY TO FOUNDATION
It is hoped that all applicants will
include in their portfolios a good
selection of work that reveals
their individual interests and
skills. Essays, photographs, video,
photos of 3D objects or self-
generated projects can all be
included. Offers of admission are
based on evidence of motivation
as well as intellectual and practical
creative ability.
ACCEPTANCE OF PLACES
To accept a place, a completed
signed admission form and a one
term non-refundable deposit must
be received by the Registrar’s
Office by the due date stated on
the admission form.
OPEN DAYS
Foundation/First Year:
Monday 8 November 2010
Fourth Year: Monday 6 December
2010, Monday 7 February 2011
Further details will be available
on the AA website closer to the
dates. Individual or group visits for
those interested in applying can
also be arranged with advance
notice. For further details please
contact the Undergraduate
Admissions Coordinator
(see below).
APPLICATIONS
The AA does not belong to UCAS,
and all applicants must complete
an AA application form. These
forms can be downloaded from the
website or are available from the
Registrar’s Office. The closing date
for applications is 14 January 2011
(application fee £40); late
applications will be accepted up
to 11 March 2011 (fee £65).
Applications made after this date
will be accepted at the discretion
of the AA School. Enquiries to:
Undergraduate Admissions,
Registrar’s Office
undergraduateadmissions@
aaschool.ac.uk
T +44 (0)20 7887 4051
F +44 (0)20 7414 0779
INFORMATION
GRADUATE ADMISSIONS
Application Procedure:
Mandatory Requirements
All applicants are required to
complete an application form,
accompanied by the appropriate
registration fee and original
evidence of qualifications and the
standard attained (copies will not
be accepted). Academic and/or
work references should also
be provided. With the exception
of Histories & Theories, and in
addition to the previous
requirements, applicants to all
programmes are required to
submit a portfolio of design work
(no larger than A4 format) showing
a combination of both academic
and professional work (if
applicable). All applicants are
encouraged to attend a personal
interview. All documentation is to
be provided in English. Upon
signature of the application form
applicants certify that the work
submitted is entirely their own.
Plagiarism is unacceptable in the
academic setting. Students are
subject to penalties including
dismissal from the programme if
they commit an act of plagiarism.
ENGLISH LANGUAGE
Overseas students from non-
English-speaking countries will be
asked to demonstrate their fluency
in written and spoken English,
and will be required to pass the
IELTS academic examination with
a grade of not less than 6.5,
Cambridge Certificate of Advanced
English Grade C or three years’
study in a UK university instead of
an English-language qualification,
subject to the conditions below.
TOEFL is not accepted. The AA
reserves the right to make a place
in the school conditional on
gaining a further English language
qualification if deemed necessary.
Any student without the required
IELTS grade (6.5 or above) must
register in an English-language
school, and book and pass the
examination before 6 May 2011
prior to entry in the Autumn Term.
FEES
Fees are reviewed annually.
For the academic year 2010/11
they are as follows:
Undergraduate School
Foundation: £14,595
Five-year undergraduate
programme: £16,173
Graduate School
12-month MA and MSc: £18,960
16-month MArch: £25,305
PhD: £15,747
Graduate Building Conservation
Diploma (day-release course):
£5,475
AAIS £14,595 full time, £5,838 part
time (2 days per week)
MArch 16-month Design & Make
£18,960 (for 2010/11 intake only)
MPhil 24-month Projective Cities
£22,650 (for 2010/11 intake only)
Visiting School
Spring Semester Programme:
£7,990
One year at the AA: £16,173
dLab: £1,750
Summer School: £1,545
Global programmes: see AA
website for individual programme
fee updates
There is an additional £50 member­
ship fee and £35 student forum fee
per year.
AA ASSISTANTSHIPS
A limited number of assistantships
are offered to full-time registered
students who are experiencing
financial hardship. Students work
between seven and ten hours
per week, providing administrative
or secretarial assistance in return
for an agreed remission of part of
their fees. New students wishing
to apply will be told the procedure
when they register at the
beginning of the academic year.
186
SCHOLARSHIPS AND BURSARIES
The AA is committed to giving as
many talented students as possible
the opportunity to study at its
school in London. Around one in
six AA students receive financial
assistance from the Scholarship,
Bursary and Assistantship
programme.
WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A
SCHOLARSHIP AND A BURSARY?
Scholarships are offered to new
First, Second and Fourth Year
applicants who demonstrate
academic excellence and financial
need. They are available for two or
three years, subject to continuing
progress. Bursaries are offered to
existing AA students and new
Graduate students, and must be
applied for on a yearly basis.
HOW TO APPLY FOR A SCHOLARSHIP
Undergraduate applicants must
complete the main application
form no later than 14 January 2011,
stating their interest in an AA
Scholarship in the ‘Scholarships
and Awards’ section. Students
whose work is considered to be of
scholarship standard will be asked,
after an entry interview, to
complete a scholarship application
form, provide financial information
and prepare a portfolio for the
scholarship committee.
For further information contact:
T +44 (0)20 7887 4051
undergraduateadmissions@
aaschool.ac.uk
HOW TO APPLY FOR A BURSARY FOR
UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS
Bursary application forms are
available from the Registrar’s
Office from the end of March and
should be returned by mid-May.
The Under­graduate Bursary
Committee, which meets in June/
July to distribute the awards,
bases its decisions on academic
performance, recommendation
from the tutor and financial need.
Named Scholarship and Bursary
Awards, with their 2010/11
recipients, are listed below.
See also:
www.aaschool.ac.uk/admissions
HOW TO APPLY FOR A BURSARY FOR
GRADUATE SCHOOL STUDENTS
Bursary application forms are
available from the Registrar’s
Office upon an official offer of a
place. Completed bursary forms to
be returned by beginning of March.
The Graduate Bursary Committee,
which meets in March/April to
distribute the awards, bases its
decisions on academic
performance, tutor recommend-
ations and financial need. (Bursary
awards range from one to one and
a half terms, covering a proportion
of student fees per year.)
David Allford Scholarship
Adam Holloway
This full-fee (three-term)
scholarship has been set up
to honour the memory of David
Allford, a partner of YRM
Architects and trustee of the AA
Foundation. It is funded by David
Allford’s friends and family and is
awarded to a British student who
demonstrates excellence and a
need for financial aid.
Baylight Scholarships
Dessislava Lyutakova, John Ng,
Emily Thurlow
Thanks to the generosity of the
Baylight Foundation, headed by
AA Past President Crispin Kelly,
a number of full-fee scholarships
are available to British students
entering the Diploma School.
Candidates need to demonstrate
both outstanding merit and
financial need.
Alvin Boyarsky Scholarship
Sayaka Namba
As AA Chairman from 1971 to 1990,
Alvin Boyarsky transformed the
AA into an internationally
respected school and a forum for
architectural experiment and
debate. The scholarship is for one
term’s fees.
Martin Caroe Memorial Scholarship
Established in memory of Martin
Bragg Caroe, whose collaboration
with the AA was instrumental in
establishing the postgraduate
course in Conservation of Historic
Buildings. Made possible through
the support of Martin Caroe’s
practice, Caroe & Partners, the
scholarship is awarded to a second
year student of the Conservation
of Historic Buildings course based
on an assessment of merit and
financial need.
Stephen Lawrence Scholarship
This award, in memory of the
young man who was murdered in
a racist attack on 22 April 1993, has
been established with the support
of Stephen Lawrence’s family,
the Stephen Lawrence Trust and
a number of generous private
donations. Appli­c ations are
particularly welcome from
members of ethnic minorities
entering the First Year. Applicants
must demonstrate both merit and
the need for financial aid.
Eileen Gray Fund
The Eileen Gray Fund for AA
students was established in 1980
by the distinguished architect and
furniture-designer’s niece Prunella
Clough-Taylor. A bequest received
from Ms Clough-Taylor in 2000
has expanded the scope of this
fund, which now awards a series
of bursaries and scholarships
every year to talented students
in need of financial assistance.
Marjorie Morrison Bursary
Umberto Bellardi Ricci
Marjorie Morrison MBE, AA Slide
Librarian from 1935 to 1975 and
researcher until 1985, bequeathed
a generous sum to the AA
Foundation. The sum was
increased by donations from
among Marjorie’s friends.
Enid Caldicott Bursary
A bursary was established in 1978
in memory of Enid Caldicott, who
was involved with the AA first as
a student and then as a member
of staff, working for 35 years in the
library. It is awarded annually to
British students.
Max Lock Bursary
Max Lock studied at the AA from
1926 to 1931 and taught at the
school during the late 1930s. The
bursary is funded by his generous
bequest to the AA Foundation.
Elizabeth Chesterton Bursary Fund
AA alumna and former Councillor
Dame Elizabeth Chesterton OBE
left a generous bequest in support
of bur­saries for British students
at the AA.
Anne Gregory Bursary
Charlotte Moe
A bursary is offered each year in
187
memory of Anne Gregory, who
died while in her first year of
studies.
R D Hammett Bursary
Rebecca Crabtree
This bursary is funded by the
generous bequest of graduate
R D Hammett.
Nicholas Boas Travel Award
Akhil Bakhda, Wiklor Kidziak,
Jerome Tsui
A travel award open to AA
students who wish to study Roman
architecture and urbanism has
been established in memory of
AA graduate Nicholas Boas (1975–
1998). It provides funds for a one-
month study visit based at the
British School in Rome.
A V Custerson Award
Anthony Custerson was passionate
about Hooke Park and the use of
indigenous and sustainable
sources of timber, and he left a
generous legacy to support
students working in this area.
Open to all AA students, the annual
award of £7,500 provides funding
to carry out projects at Hooke Park.
Anthony Pott Memorial Award
As trustees of this fund, the AA
offers an award to assist a study
project related to architecture
and design. The award is intended
to fund original study or the
publication of completed work.
Further details available from the
AA Secretary’s Office.
Michael Ventris Memorial Fund
This award is open to candidates
of at least RIBA/ARB Intermediate
status or equivalent. The fund
was established in 1957 in memory
of Michael Ventris and in
appreciation of his work in the
fields of Mycenaean civilisation
and architecture. It is intended to
promote study in those areas and
is available to support a
specifically defined and achievable
project. The closing date for
applications is 31 October 2009.
Further details are available from
the AA Secretary’s Office.
Mike Davies Bursary Fund
Thomas Fox, Nathaniel Mosley
This bursary fund, established in
2008 in support of British or UK-
INFORMATION
based students within the AA’s
five-year architecture programme,
will reward innovative thinking
and application in design. It is
generously supported by AA
alumnus Mike Davies CBE,
founding partner of Richard Rogers
& Partners (now Rogers Stirk
Harbour & Partners) and current
AA council member.
Fletcher Priest Foundation Bursary
Jack Self
The Fletcher Priest Foundation,
established by AA alumni Keith
Priest and Michael Fletcher, has
initiated a generous commitment
to the AA Foundation to support
over the coming years a number of
bursaries for deserving AA
undergraduate students in need of
financial assistance.
Henry Florence Studentship
Zachary Fluker
Established in 1916 in the name of
AA President (1878–1879)
Alex Stanhope Forbes Prize
Lara Lesmes
For work in the field of colour
AA Travel Studentship
James Kwong-ho Chung
To travel in the UK or abroad
Howard Colls Studentship
Alma Ying Yi Wang
For best drawings at the end of
4th year
Alexander Memorial Travel Fund
Max Hacke
Henry Saxon Snell Scholarship
Amber Wood
To encourage design, construction
of hospitals, convalescent homes
and asylums
William Glover Bequest
Huida Xia
Established in 1913
Ralph Knott Memorial Fund
Yheu-Shen Chen
For necessitous students with
promise
AA Prize
Camille Steyaert
For significant contributions to
the AA
Holloway Trust
James Rai, Erlend Skjeseth, Elliot
Krause
Traditionally awarded for work
related to the building and
construction industry
Julia Wood Foundation Prize
Albane Duvillier
Foster + Partners Prize
Aimee O’Carroll
For infrastructure and
sustainability
Nicolas Pozner Prize Award
Frederik Hellberg
For best single drawing
Dennis Sharp Prize
Simon Whittle
For outstanding writing
REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS
MA 12-month courses in
Histories & Theories
Housing & Urbanism
Second Class or above Honours
degree in architecture or a related
discipline from a British university,
or an overseas qualification of
equivalent standard (from a course
lasting not less than three years in
a university or educational
institution of university rank).
MA 12-month course in
Landscape Urbanism
Professional degree or diploma
in architecture/ landscape
architecture or urbanism.
MSc 12-month course in
Sustainable Environmental Design
Professional degree or diploma in
architecture, engineering or other
relevant disciplines.
MSc 12-month course in
Emergent Technologies & Design
Professional degree or diploma in
architecture, engineering,
industrial/ product design or other
relevant disciplines.
MArch 16-month course in
Architecture and Urbanism
(Design Research Laboratory)
Five-year professional architecture
degree (BArch/Diploma
equivalent).
188
MArch 16-month course in
Emergent Technologies & Design
Five-year professional degree or
diploma in architecture,
engineering, industrial/product
design or other relevant disciplines
(BArch/Diploma equivalent).
MArch 16-month course in
Sustainable Environmental Design
Five-year professional architecture
degree (BArch/Diploma
equivalent).
MArch 16-month course in
Housing & Urbanism
Five-year professional architecture
degree (BArch/Diploma equivalent)
or other related discipline.
MArch 16-month course in
Design & Make
Five-year professional degree
(BArch/Diploma equivalent).
MPhil 24-month course in
Projective Cities
Five-year professional architecture
degree (BArch/Diploma
equivalent).
AA Graduate Diploma in AA
Interprofessional Studies
12 months full-time
12 months part-time (2 days per
week). Applications assessed
individually upon receipt if a CV,
a short statement and original
evidence of qualification.
AA Graduate Diploma in
Conservation of Historic Buildings
This two-year part-time (day
release) course is open to students
or professionals with Part 2 (RIBA/
ARB) or equivalent recognised
qualifications. Suitably qualified
members of other disciplines (eg,
surveyors) may be considered.
MPhil/PhD
Candidates for MPhil/PhD research
degrees are expected to have
reached a level equivalent to that
of an MA/MSc or MArch and must
show evidence of previous
experience in their proposed areas
of research.
APPLICATION DATE
Students are asked to apply by
14 January 2011 (application fee
£40). Late applications will be
accepted up until 11 March 2011
(late fee £65). Applications made
after this date will be accepted at
the discretion of the school.
Enquiries to:
Graduate School Admissions
Registrar’s Office
T +44 (0)20 7887 4067
F +44 (0)20 7414 0779
graduateadmissions@
aaschool.ac.uk
OPEN DAY
Friday 21 January 2011
Further details will be made
available through the AA’s website
nearer the date. Individual or group
visits can also be arranged with
advance notice. For further details
please contact:
Graduate School Admissions
Registrar’s Office
T +44 (0)20 7887 4067
F +44 (0)20 7414 0779
GRADUATE AND UNDERGRADUATE
ASSESSMENT
Full information will be given in the
Student Handbook 2010/11.
EQUALITY
The AA aims to create conditions
to ensure that students are treated
solely on the basis of their merits,
abilities and potential, regardless
of their gender, colour, religious/
political beliefs, ethnic or national
origin, disability, family
background, age, sexual
orientation or other irrelevant
distinction.
DISABILITY AND LEARNING
DIFFICULTIES
The Architectural Association
School of Architecture aims to
provide a high-quality
personalised service tailored to the
individual student’s needs.
Support and information is
provided at every opportunity to
encourage students to disclose
their circumstances and thereby
access the most appropriate
support for their needs.
Prospective students are
encouraged to contact or visit the
Registrar’s Office to discuss their
needs and to assess what support
is available prior to starting the
course. Students who are
registered at the AA School are CONTACTS
also encouraged to contact the Foundation
Registrar’s Office and/or their undergraduateadmissions@
Programme Director, Unit Master/ aaschool.ac.uk
Tutor or Complementary Studies
Course Master to assess what Undergraduate School Admissions
support would be available. This is undergraduateadmissions@
an ongoing process throughout the aaschool.ac.uk
academic year, to ensure that if a
student omits to declare a Graduate School Admissions
disability/learning difficulty prior graduateadmissions@
to or during registration, or aaschool.ac.uk
becomes disabled during the
course, appropriate support is put Visiting School
in place so that the student can visitingschool@aaschool.ac.uk
achieve maximum success in their
studies. Spring Semester Programme
visitingschool@aaschool.ac.uk
DATA PROTECTION
Upon registration in the school One Year at the AA
students will be required to sign a undergraduateadmissions@
statement consenting to the aaschool.ac.uk
processing of personal information
by AA Inc in compliance with the Professional Studies
requirements of the Data (Year Out & Part 3)
Protection Act 1998. Data will only psco@aaschool.ac.uk
be disclosed internally to members
of the AA staff who need to know; Interprofessional Studio
and when required, to third parties aais@aaschool.ac.uk
outside the AA in accordance with
the Act. Data will not be provided
to third parties for direct marketing
purposes.
PLAGIARISM
Plagiarism is treated as a serious
offence and the AA may impose all
or any of the following penalties on
a student found guilty of it:
• expulsion from the school
• suspension from registration
at the school or from particular
courses for such period as it
thinks fit
• denial of credit or partial credit
in any course or courses
• an official warning
DOOR SECURITY POLICY
From time to time it may be
necessary to amend the AA’s
normal open-door policy for
Bedford Square. Entry may be
gained at these times by using the
AA Membership swipe card or the
entry buzzer.
189
 STAFF LIST STAFF LIST

DIRECTOR’S OFFICE Unit 3 Unit 10 Studio Tutors Programme Staff Consultants Simos Yannas Wood and Exhibitions DRAWING
Director Nanette Jackowski Carlos Villanueva Suryansh Chandra Piers Taylor Pier Vittorio Aureli Mohsen Zikri Metal Workshop Coordinator MATERIALS SHOP
Brett Steele Ricardo de Ostos Brandt Evan L Greenberg Kate Darby Mark Campbell Architectural Supervisor Luke Currall Manager
Personal Assistant Unit 4 Unit 11 History and Projective Cities Paul Davies Practice Will Fausset Maria Cox
Roberta Jenkins Nathalie Shin Egashira Critical Thinking Programme Oliver Domeisen Professional Technician LIBRARY
Academic Head Rozencwajg Unit 12 Director Directors Francesca Hughes Studies Advisor Robert Busher Librarian FACILITIES
Charles Tashima Michel da Costa On Sabbatical Marina Lathouri Christopher John Palmesino Alastair Robertson Head of Digital Hinda Sklar Manager
Deputy Gonçalves Unit 13 Programme Staff C M Lee Yael Reisner Professional Prototyping Deputy Librarian Anita Pfauntsch
Academic Head Unit 5 Oliver Domeisen Mark Cousins Sam Jacoby Patrick Wright Studies Coordinator Jeroen van Aileen Smith Assistant Manager
Barbara Stefano Rabolli Unit 14 Francisco González PhD Programme Teaching Assistants Rob Sparrow Ameijde Archivist Peter Keiff
Campbell-Lange Pansera Pier Vittorio Aureli de Canales Programme Staff Daniel Ayat Part 1 Prototyping Lab Edward Bottoms Maintenance
Roz Barr Barbara John Palmesino Lawrence Barth Shumi Bose Javier Castañón Technician Cataloguer & Security
REGISTRAR’S OFFICE Unit 6 Campbell-Lange Thomas Weaver Paula Cadima Alejandra Celedon Part 2 Kar Leung Wai Beatriz Flora Matthew Hanrahan
Registrar Jeroen van Fenella Collingridge Housing & Mark Cousins Braden Engel Hugo Hinsley Hooke Park Serials/Library Web Lea Ketsawang
Marilyn Dyer Ameijde Unit 15 Urbanism Jorge Fiori Marlie Mul Bruce Hunter-Inglis Developer James McColgan
Assistant Registrar Olivier Ottevaere On Sabbatical Directors Hugo Hinsley Ivonne Santoyo VISITING SCHOOL Charles Corry Simine Marine Adam Okuniewski
Belinda Flaherty Unit 7 Unit 16 Jorge Fiori George Jeronimidis Emanuel de Sousa Director Wright Colin Prendergast
Registrar’s Office/ Maria Fedorchenko Jonas Lundberg Hugo Hinsley Toni Kotnik Media Studies Chris Pierce Chris Sadd PRINT STUDIO Leszak Skrzypiec
External Students Unit 8 Andrew Yau Programme Staff Marina Lathouri Head Coordinator Admin Coordinator Print Studio Mariusz Stawiarski
Administrative Francisco González Tom Tong Lawrence Barth Rosa Schiano-Phan Eugene Han Sandra Sanna Merry Hinsley Manager/Editor Bogdan Swidzinski
Coordinator de Canales Unit 17 Nicholas Bullock Patrik Schumacher Programme Staff AA Files Sebastian Wyatt
Sabrina Blakstad Nuria Alvarez Theo Sarantoglou Kathryn Firth Thomas Weaver Sue Barr MEDIA SERVICES ASSOCIATION Thomas Weaver
Admissions Lombardero Lalis Dominic Papa Michael Weinstock Shany Barath Audiovisual Secretary Publications Editor FRONT OF HOUSE
(Undergraduate) Unit 9 Dora Sweijd Elena Pascolo Simos Yannas Valentin Bontjes Manager Kathleen Formosa Pamela Johnston Reception &
Coordinator Christopher Pierce Unit 18 Alex Warnock-Smith Interprofessional van Beek Joel Newman Secretary’s Office Editor, Events List Switchboard
Meneesha Kellay Christopher Enrique Ruiz-Geli Landscape Studio Monia De Marchi Audiovisual Personal Assistant Rosa Ainley Mary Lee
Admissions Matthews Edouard Cabay Urbanism Programme Staff Shin Egashira Technician Cristian Sanchez Editorial Assistant Hiroe Shin
(Graduate) Unit 10 Nora Graw Director Theo Lorenz Trevor Flynn Nick Wayne Gonzalez Clare Barrett Shigemitsu
Coordinators Claudia Pasquero Unit 19 Eva Castro Tanja Siems Adam Furman Head of Computing Head of Art Director Public Programme/
Claire Perry Marco Poletto Martin Self Studio Masters Independents Marco Ginex Julia Frazer Membership Zak Kyes Graduation
Imogen Evans Unit 12 Piers Taylor Alfredo Ramirez Group Matej Hosek Assistant Head Alex Lorente Senior Graphic Administrator/
Undergraduate Sam Jacob Kate Darby Eduardo Rico Studio Director Max Kahlen of Computing Membership Designer Outside Events
School Tomas Klassnik Programme Staff Alan Dempsey Alex Kaiser Mathew Bielecki Coordinator Wayne Daly Philip Hartstein
Administrative Unit 13 GRADUATE SCHOOL Douglas Spencer Research Clusters Tobias Klein Computer Jenny Keiff Graphic Designers
Coordinator Miraj Ahmed Administrative Tom Smith Coordinator Heather Lyons Engineers Claire McManus CATERING/BAR
Victoria Bahia Martin Jameson Coordinators Workshop Tutors Charles Tashima Antoni Malinowski Amos Deane DEVELOPMENT Phill Clatworthy Manager/Chef
Clement Chung Clara Oloriz Cluster Curators Marlie Mul Andrew Ennis OFFICE Pascal Babeau
FOUNDATION DIPLOMA SCHOOL Jenny Devine Enriqueta Llabres Stefano Rabolli Joel Newman David Hopkins Head of AA PUBLICATIONS Deputy Manager/
Course Director Unit 1 DRL Nicola Saladino Pansera Goswin Syed Qadri Development Marketing & Barman
Saskia Lewis On Sabbatical Director Teruyuki Nomura Marianne Mueller Schwendinger Kevin Seddon Esther McLaughlin Distribution Darko Calina
Studio Staff Unit 2 Theodore Sustainable Olaf Kneer Technical Studies Computing Course Research Kirsten Morphet Catering Assistants
Matthew Butcher On Sabbatical Spyropoulos Environmental Marina Lathouri Administrative Coordinator and Proposal Marilyn Sparrow Brigitte Ayoro
Takako Hasegawa Unit 3 Founder Design Jorge Fiori Coordinator Eugene Han Development Daniel Swidzinski
Flora McLean Peter Karl Becher Patrik Schumacher Director Elena Pascolo Belinda Flaherty Digital Photo Studio Manager BEDFORD PRESS Miodrag Ristic
Matthew Programme Tutors Simos Yannas Alex Warnock-Smith Diploma Master Sue Barr Nicola Quinn Directors Marie Abdou
FIRST YEAR Barnett Howland Alisa Andrasek Programme Staff Javier Castanón Zak Kyes
Studio Staff Unit 4 Yota Adilenidou Klaus Bode COMPLEMENTARY Intermediate DIGITAL PLATFORMS AA FOUNDATION Wayne Daly HUMAN
Valentin Bontjes John Palmesino Shajay Bhooshan Gustavo Brunelli STUDIES Master Head of Digital Secretary Print Technicians RESOURCES
van Beek Ann-Sofi Rönnskog Lawrence Friesen Paula Cadima History & Theory Wolfgang Frese Platorms/ Marilyn Dyer Phill Clatworthy Head of Human
David Greene Unit 5 Hanif Kara Joana Carla Studies Programme Staff Web Designer Administrator Claire McManus Resources
Samantha Cristina Díaz Riccardo Merello Soares Gonçalves Administrative Dancho Azagra Frank Owen Alex Lorente Tehmina Mahmood
Hardingham Moreno Yusuke Obuchi Jorge Rodriguez Coordinator Giles Bruce Web Designer/ PHOTO LIBRARY
Tobias Klein Efrén García Grinda Christos Passas Alvarez Belinda Flaherty Phil Cooper Developer AACP Librarian AA BOOKSHOP
Sarah Entwistle Tyen Masten Robert Rosa Schiano-Phan Director Kenneth Fraser Zeynep Görgülü Shumon Basar Valerie Bennett Bookshop Manager
Ingrid Shröder Unit 6 Stuart-Smith Conservation of Mark Cousins Martin Hagemann Content Editor Staff Charlotte Newman
Liam Young Mollie Claypool Historic Buildings Course Lecturers Paul Loh Rosa Ainley Francisco González ACCOUNTS OFFICE Bookshop Assistant
INTERMEDIATE Kate Davies Ryan Dillon Director Lara Belkind Anderson Inge Images & Videos de Canales Manager Luz Hincapie
SCHOOL Unit 7 Emergent Andrew Shepherd Mark Cousins John Noel Joel Newman Steve Livett
Unit 1 Simon Beames Technologies Programme Staff Christopher Pierce Fernando Perez EXHIBITIONS Assistants
Mark Campbell Kenneth Fraser Directors David Hills Brett Steele Manja van de Worp WORKSHOPS Head of Exhibitions Lauren Harcourt
Stewart Dodd Unit 8 Michael Weinstock David Heath Course Tutors Consultants Model Making Vanessa Norwood Linda Keiff
Unit 2 Eugene Han George Jeronimidis Design & Make Mollie Claypool Carolina Bartram Trystrem Smith Exhibitions Project Eve Livett
Takero Shimazaki Unit 9 Studio Masters Director Ryan Dillon Ben Godber Manager Fozia Munshi
Ana Araujo Natasha Sandmeier Christina Doumpioti Martin Self Programme Staff Marissa Kretsch Lee Regan
Toni Kotnik William Firebrace Emanuele Marfisi

190 191
 COLOPHON

The Prospectus is issued for guidance The Prospectus is produced through

only, and the AA reserves the right to the AA Print Studio
vary or omit all or any of the facilities,
tuition or activities described therein, Editor: Ryan Dillon
or amend in any substantial way any Editorial Assistant: Clare Barrett
of the facilities, tuition or activities for Art Director: Zak Kyes
which students may have enrolled. Design: Claire McManus, Wayne Daly
Students shall have no claim against
the AA regarding any alteration made Printed in England by Beacon Press
to the course.
Architectural Association
The School is part of the Architectural School of Architecture
Association (Inc.), which is a company 36 Bedford Square
limited by guarantee and a registered London WC1B 3ES
charity. Company no 171402. Charity T + 44 (0)20 7887 4000
no 311083. Registered Office as F + 44 (0)20 7414 0782
below. info@aascchool.ac.uk
www.aaschool.ac.uk
Reader Assistance Clause
AA Members wishing to request
a black and white and/or larger
print version of specific printed items
can do so by contacting Mary Lee
(reception@aaschool.ac.uk/
020 7887 4000), or by accessing the
AA website at www.aaschool.ac.uk.
For an audio recording of AA Events
List, please call 020 7887 4111.

192
 ACADEMIC YEAR 2010/11
KEY DATES

Autumn Term (12 weeks)

27 September – 17 December 2010
Introduction Week:
Monday 20 – Friday 24 September
Open Week: Monday 1 – Friday 5 November
Christmas Party: Friday 17 December

Winter Term (12 weeks)

10 January – 1 April 2011
Easter Party: Friday 1 April

Spring Term (10 weeks)

26 April – 17 June 2011
2nd Year End of Year Reviews:
Tuesday 31 May
4th Year End of Year Reviews:
Tuesday 31 May – Wednesday 1 June
Foundation End of Year Reviews:
Wednesday 1 June
1st Year End of Year Reviews:
Thursday 2 – Friday 3 June
Diploma Honours Presentations:
Friday 10 June
Graduation Ceremony & Projects Review
Opening: Friday 17 June
 2010/11

AASCHOOL.AC.UK
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