AA Book: Projects Review 2012

pr2012.aaschool.ac.uk

ISBN 978-1-907896-22-4

Architectural Association School of Architecture

Brett Steele, Director, AA School

AA Book

Projects Review 2012

Projects Review 2012

Projects Review offers an overview of the AA’s 2011/12 academic year. Accompanying the school’s end-of-year show, the book features hundreds of drawings, models, installations, photographs and other materials documenting the world’s most international and experimental school of architecture. The work of the AA’s 700 fulltime students ranges from small-scale studies and drawings to large 1:1 working prototypes, interactive media and built installations.

The book also includes selected projects originating from the AA’s Hooke Park campus in Dorset as well as from the immensely diverse design workshops and public events associated with the AA’s global Visiting School, undertaken in more than 30 cities since its launch in early 2008. Complementing these projects, this book also offers a snapshot of the AA’s vibrant public programme of lectures and exhibitions and its equally pioneering catalogue of publications and other printed media.

At the AA School architecture is pursued as a form of cultural knowledge, learning and enquiry, across year-long design projects and portfolios. At the AA we believe that truly great schools don’t just nurture and support architectural talent: they build audiences for genuinely experimental ideas, out of which new architectural ideas, visions and projects emerge. This book reveals the AA’s continuing commitment to building and debate at the forward edge of architectural culture, practice and learning.

AA Book

Architectural Association

Front cover, AA 2011/12 3D poster Design by Max Kahlen, www.dyvikkahlen.com Fabricated by AA Digital Prototyping Lab Photograph by Sue Barr

CONTENTS Director’s Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Foundation Course . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .10 First Year Studio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 Intermediate School . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33 Diploma School . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115 Complementary Studies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201 Graduate School . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 223 Hooke Park . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 296 Workshops . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 300 Research Clusters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 314 Visiting School . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 302 Digital Platforms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 318 Timeline 2012 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 329 AA Publications & Bedford Press . . . . . . . . . . . 351 Appendix . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 371

Brett Steele Director, AA School

Preface

Welcome to this year’s compendium of the AA School, made up of equal parts of architectural investigation, invention and imagination by the 700 students and 200 teachers and members of staff who fully embody the world’s most distinctive school of architecture.

Delivered in the printed, bound form you now hold in your hands at almost exactly the hour that the accompanying Projects Review exhibition opens, this book seeks to do far more than offer a cursory glimpse into the much bigger, deeper world of projects, discussions, debates and other academic activities that have shaped the 2011/12 academic year.

Above all else, what this book shows (in everything from its wonderful graphic design to its hard-edged editorial certainty and of course its unbelievable real-time production, alongside the very projects found on its pages) is the depth of our ongoing, unrelenting commitment to the making of intelligent architectural audiences – and not only brilliant and committed architects or other creative individuals. The AA makes audiences and not only architects, and this book is composed with studied attention to this ambition.

The intelligent staging of nearconstant interaction between critical minds is a primary commitment of our school. And this involves not just our teachers and students, but also wider groups of individuals. The near-daily, non-stop activities of student and visitor presentations, studio projects, seminars, visiting juries and reviews,

lectures, conferences, symposia, exhibitions and everything else that fills the spaces and rooms of our school can be seen in dozens and dozens of pages of this year’s Projects Review.

How to imagine how an architect might act, or what he or she may ultimately become in a world like ours, evolving with unprecedented speed, complexity and uncertainty, is of course the single, larger, core question you find in this book. To grasp this, what we ask of you as a reader is the same as we ask of our students: read between the lines, look across the projects, and through some of this book’s everyday language.

Since its founding more than a century ago, the AA School has thrived, like modern architecture itself, on the confrontation between the world as found and the world(s) not yet imagined. For the latest architectural advice on where that contrast may be taking us all (and not only architects), look carefully at the pages that follow. At least in the minds of our students, the future has never been clearer.

Brett Steele Director, AA School

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Foundation & First Year Studio The AA Foundation teaches students to think conceptually and creatively via the disciplines of art, film, architecture and craft in both group and individual projects.

Ideas and designs are explored through the process of models, sketches, drawings, films and performance.

Throughout the year students have explored individual design sensibilities and approaches, and had the opportunity 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 60 students working both individually and in groups in an open studio format under the guidance of six 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, technology and technical studies. Together these courses lead to a portfolio of the year’s work, the basis for entry into the Intermediate School.

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Foundation The Foundation course offers a one-year introduction to an art- and design-based education. It allows students to develop conceptual ideas by experimenting with a range of media and a variety of disciplines from fine art to architecture. Students work in an intimate studio environment both individual and group projects. Taught by experienced tutors and visiting practitioners, the course provides a unique cross-disciplinary education within the context of an architectural school.

Cooking Up A Storm ‘A patchwork of facts, connections, impressions and recollections, designed less to tell you exactly what to do than to provide the spark for your own recipe or adaptation’. Niki Segnit, The Flavour Thesaurus

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A Taste of Who You Are: we measured our experiences and distilled our qualities to create a self-portrait based on these essential ingredients, aromas and flavours.

Tools of the Trade: we trawled flea markets for objects that resonated with our narrative, examined their qualities, functions and histories, before dissecting, adapting, replicating and reproducing these objects.

Hunting and Gathering: we consumed movies set in Berlin, sought out locations and analysed various shots, in order to make a series of interpretive drawings, models, travelogues, forensic recordings, mappings, diagrams, ephemera, anecdotes, menus and recipes.

Dressing for dinner: we prepared for dinner by surveying our bodies and produced garments that restricted, augmented, subverted and dramatised our bodies, fomenting conversation and speaking of the delicate intimacy between the human body and its surroundings.

Take (Away) Two: we rewound and fast-forwarded through recent events to edit our experiences – setting them to rhythms, sounds and dialogues.

Gather Your Thoughts and Feast Your Eyes: we combined, experimented and explored various mixtures to reheat and reduce our works to serve our final feast – a meal that might be indigestible, or simply delicious.

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Foundation Director Saskia Lewis Studio Master Takako Hasegawa Tutors Leith Adjina Umberto Bellardi-Ricci Taneli Mansikkamäki Consultant Tutors and Critics Miraj Ahmed Sue Barr Pascale Bertier Charlie and Georgie Corry Wright Alison Crawshaw Albane Duvillier Rupert Hartley Romina K Clare McDonald Flora McLean Joel Newman Cher Potter Trys Smith Brett Steele Adrian Taylor Students Yassmina Abou Jaoude Liam Denhamer Shereen Doummar Isabelle Dupraz Mona Haidar Alice Housset Gina Hwang Berkin Islam Ema Kacar Ioannis Kanakas Prae Lamsam Hye-Rim Lee Kye-Sung Lee Vasilisa Lucic Alessandro Magliani Beatrice Melli Ali Mirzaei Ana Nicolaescu Andrea Nuccetelli Oscar Ortmans Zsuzsa Peter Alexandra Shatalova Andreea Vasilcin Andrew Yuen

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1 Zsuzsa Peter – walking through my hometown with a seven-metre-long hemp wig for shelter

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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.

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INTERMEDIATE 6 Intermediate 6 focused on critical investigations into integrated design and construction systems, using contextually realistic urban project scenarios to explore the architectural implications of technological innovations within rapidly growing cities.

Dividing the year into two interdependent phases, we started with the collaborative design and construction of 1:1 scale prototypes based on research into, and the updating of, existing fabrication methods. Focusing on systems that consist of a ‘kit of parts’ and take advantage of relevant digital tools, our students developed design-andbuild methods aimed at producing a range of structures adapted to their specific environmental and programmatic requirements. For a stackable housing unit students developed systems ranging from aluminium sheets, folded for structural rigidity and enclosure by a ‘folding machine’ (Wiktor, Yu, Yan), to variable space frames whose parts were produced by a computer-controlled node milling machine (Jenny, Katya, Hyunwoo). Other strategies included a ‘negotiation and adaptation’ living cluster with moveable floors and walls (Jazzy, Andrew, Heonwoo) and variable concrete building components produced through a single, adjustable casting machine (Lara, Suzan, Basil). Full-scale prototypes installed around the AA explored spatial articulation, organisational strategies, technical performance and geometrical arrangements.

In the second phase students worked individually and multiplied their housing units through dense, multi-level clustering strategies that tested issues of proximity, access and light. After visiting Shenzhen and Chongqing, two of China’s fastest growing megacities, we began designing strategies to accommodate programmatic and social diversities through a range of differentiated private and public spaces. We then revisited our fabrication strategies and speculated on machinic construction and growth allowing the projects to become open systems capable of adapting to the ever-changing requirements throughout their prolonged lives. These systems aim to become part of an actively networked, dynamic and vibrant urban environment, programmed to continuously grow and evolve over time.

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Unit Masters Jeroen van Ameijde Brendon Carlin Students Vasilis Argyropoulos Hyunwoo Chung Jenny Hill Andrew Jin Dar Hum Wiktor Kidziak Yueqi Li Ekaterina Obedkova Heonwoo Park Yan Qin Suzan Ucmaklioglu Lara Yegenoglu Yu Zheng With many thanks Laing O’Rourke The Corry Wright Family University of Chongqing Technical Support Riccardo Merello (ARUP) Critics Barbara Ann Campbell-Lange Mollie Claypool Alan Dempsey Ryan Dillon Shin Egashira Eva Eylers Wolfgang Frese Clive Fussell Lawrence Friesen Eugene Han Jethro Hon Xavier de Kestelier Tobias Klein James Leng Enriquetta Llabres Jonas Lundberg John Naylor Claudia Pasquero Christoper Pierce Marco Poletto Samuel Price Eduardo Rico Nathalie Rozencwajg Ingrid Schröder Martin Self Takero Shimazaki Theo Spyropoulos Brett Steele Piers Taylor Denis Vlieghe Thomas Weaver Melissa Woolford Andrew Yau

1 Wiktor Kidziak – living clusters composed of prefabricated metal and concrete units which are digitally generated to maintain light, ventilation and specific organisations in a high-density scenario in Chongqing

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INTERMEDIATE 7 Eastern Promises: Incubator Galleries Intermediate 7 is concerned with transfers between conflicted urban systems, relying on design infrastructures to align formal and programmatic strategies. This year, we exploited clashes between culture and commerce in the context of post-Soviet Moscow to define new hybrid typologies. We explored the convergence of museums and markets, salons and archives, expocities and pop-ups into catalytic ‘incubator galleries’.

To convert ruptures into associations, student projects advanced architectural mediations for the city’s paradoxes. Exploiting cycles of deconstruction and reconstruction, our mappings of urban layers and palimpsests defined generic scaffolds for specific cultural and commercial fragments. Engaging with dispersion and concentration, density models and figure-ground reversals generated compressed megastructures as filing and display mechanisms. Alternating between concealment and revelation, our collapsed images and intertwined circuits produced thick facade interfaces as accumulations of surfaces, atmospheres and events.

Projects traversed several methodological platforms that link city and architecture, analysis and projection, operation and appearance. Through diagrammatic diagnostics and graphic condensations, we extracted Moscow’s latent solutions and redeployed them in incubator ‘provocations’. These hubs relied on transplanted seed ‘elements’ – such as sorting walls, orientable facades and extendible cores. We incorporated diverse elements in synthetic ‘infrastructures’ as conceptual frameworks and material assemblages, while relating networks, fields and ecologies to space-frames, matbuildings and thick surfaces. Applying diagrams to prototypes, we opted for a ‘plastic’ fit between form and programme that drew on opposing case-studies. Generating sorting machines and atmospheric passages, buffering condensers and immersive pods, our ‘infrastructural formalism’ reconciled economy and excess, structure and cosmetics, efficiency and effect. Final catalogues and portfolios combined theoretical and practical outputs at the levels of the city, building and content.

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Unit Masters Maria Fedorchenko Tatiana von Preussen Students Gabriel Bollag Yonatan Buchhandler Fatemeh Ghasemi Marietta Kakkoura Angelina Kochkinova Young-Sang Lee Jin-Kyu Moon Reem Nasir Vidhya Pushpanathan Cliff Tan Guan Wong Thanks to Roz Barr Peter Karl Becher Carlos Villanueva Brandt Brendon Carlin Barbara Ann Campbell-Lange Monia De Marchi Ricardo de Ostos Sarah Entwistle Wolfgang Frese Kostas Grigoriadis Eugene Han Francesca Hughes Sam Jacob Max Kahlen Tomas Klassnik Dirk Lellau Melodie Leung Kathy O’Donnell John Palmesino Catherine Pease Damian Rogan Natasha Sandmeier Ingrid Schröder Eva Sopeoglou Brett Steele Charles Tashima Johan Voordouw Thomas Weaver All our guests and our exhibition sponsor ABC Imaging

1 Intermediate 7 Method and Process Sampler (in rows starting from top left): Yonatan Buchhandler, Young-Sang Lee, Vidhya Pushpanathan, Moscow Diagnostics / Provocations; Cliff Tan, Fatemeh Ghasemi, Gabriel Bollag, ‘Elements / Infrastructures’ –

Vidhya Pushpanathan, Fatemeh Ghasemi, ‘Form / Programme Prototypes’; Angelina Kochkinova, Gabriel Bollag, Angelina Kochkinova,‘Efficiency / Effect’

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interMeDiAte 13 The Void Nothingness and void have been the focus of the unit investigation into space and how we might contemplate the contemporary city. Void can be understood in terms of not only ‘lack’ but also of temporality, context and states of being. Intermediate 13 has been interested in the void in relation to human experience and habitation within the city – read as a reaction to issues of form for form’s sake – where emptiness can again be recognised as an essential ingredient in a world of multiplicity. Early observation and investigation of voids in painting and architecture revealed the use of emptiness, not just as a compositional and spatial device but also as a means of generating political, social and psychological effects.

Interim states and indeterminate urbanism are explored at Elephant and Castle through Clem’s perpetual development of the Heygate Estate and Fortuné’s proposition to transform the transport interchange into a plane of negotiated flow and possibility. The values of the City of London are challenged by Richard’s academic heterotopia, and Anouk’s process of erasure to reveal a lost river and Harshit’s step-well bathhouse. The void at the heart of Tottenham’s social turmoil is investigated in Alex’s community ‘forum’ while the sublime is explored in Rachel’s proposition for a vast retail box and Louise’s framed journey towards the horizon in the expansive Lea Valley reservoirs. The interpretation of void as space of potential, stillness and poche in King’s Cross is explored as an ‘empty space’ of theatre by Yiling in her re-appropriation of Camden Town Hall, a vessel of light in Elaine’s pavilion and Regina’s ‘wrapping’ of a proposed office building. The primal is explored in Philip’s proposition for an underworld promenade of darkness within a railway cutting – a place of visceral experience.

Unit Staff Miraj Ahmed Martin Jameson Students Anouk Ahlborn Clementine Blakemore Philip Doumler Rachel Khalil Richard Leung Shi Qi Ng Alexandra Paritzky Fortuné Penniman Harshit Kothari Singh Elaine Tsui Louise Underhill Yiling Zhang Special thanks To Assemble Adams Kara Taylor Jeroen van Ameijde Kelly Chorpening Kevin Cash Ryan Dillon Sarah Entwistle Adam Furman Teresa Hoskyns Ikuko Iwamoto Sam Jacob Tomas Klasnik Lefkos Kyriacou Amy Perkins Christopher Pierce Amanda Rushid Dingle Price Annette Robinson Greg Ross Natasha Sandmeier Ingrid Schröder Serie Architects (UK and India) Nikolay S Shahpazov Colette Sheddick Brett Steele Thomas Weaver Adam Willis

1 Richard Leung, City Think Tank – a heterotopia that challenges the existing values of the City of London

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DIPLOMA SCHOOL The Diploma School offers opportunities for architectural experimentation 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. Students begin to define their voices as designers and to articulate individual academic agendas that will carry them into their future professional careers.

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DIPLOMA 2 Building an Iceberg ‘The thing that matters is not what they show me but what they hide from me and, above all, what they do not suspect is in them.’ Robert Bresson As with an iceberg, what you see is not what you get.

Everything has a hidden aspect, an internal logic or system or mechanism that is richer than the outwardly projected image. The aim of the unit is to work on the notion of an iceberg and to identify latent agendas that will subsequently inform and allow for the development of spatial and tectonic propositions. Questioning the underlying ethical basis of formal architectural design intent based on assurances of amelioration and improvement, the scope of the year was to elicit the various subversive conditions that are inherent within architecture. Subversion was sought through analysing side effects, exploring the allegorical, augmenting the degenerate or speculating on future manifestations of the complexities of contemporary social and cultural conditions in the developed world.

The structure of the year was divided into two phases: research and production. In the first phase, students worked individually to build up their body of references and their personal definition of a design agenda. Among this corpus, the specific themes and subjects explored through the research included spatial explorations for the nuclear culture elderly, voyeurism in contemporary metropolises, degenerative relationships of mutual symbiosis and parasitism, the malignant aspects of exclusive tourism and issues of metabolism and resource scarcities. At the end of this phase students produced an ‘artefact’ – taking the form of a text, a film, an object, a performance or some other abstract design project – that expressed their full understanding of the iceberg as metaphor. In the second phase, students designed an architectural project using the preceding theory as a paradigm.

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Unit Staff Didier Faustino Kostas Grigoriadis Students Dimitri Chaava Suram Choi Artemis Doupa Saif Lassas Ryan Phanphesophon Anna Pipilis Kayvan Sarvi Natalia Sherchenkova Danecia Sibingo Marilia Spanou Wen Ying Teh Gustav Toftgård Kassymkhan Ulykbanov Thanks to Charles Arsène-Henry Peter Karl Becher Valentin Bontjes van Beek Roberto Bottazzi Edouard Cabay Javier Castañón Mollie Claypool Kate Davies Ryan Dillon Christina Doumpioti Shin Egashira Marie-Hélène Fabre Maria Fedorchenko Kenneth Fraser Pedro Gadanho Efrén García Grinda Evan Greenberg Karsten Huneck Rosario Hurtado Tobias Klein Theo Lalis Iain (Max) Maxwell Eduardo McIntosh Alexandra Midal Ricardo de Ostos Ann-Sofi Rönnskog Theodore Spyropoulos Brett Steele Naiara Vegara Carlos Villanueva Brandt Andrew Yau Liam Young

1 Wen Ying Teh, Fragile Brutality – view from below of the sunflower filtration canopy showing part of the radioactive root system

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DIPLOMA 8 Corporate Domain Diploma 8’s agenda hinges on the premise that the collective nature of the development of architectural form is self-referential, syntactical and best exemplified through prevalent structures within a given culture.

The unit has continued its line of development of architectural organisation as set out in recent years, returning to the matter of the Corporate Domain. Throughout the various renditions of the unit’s interests, a common denominator remains, that of the understanding and practice of Common Form. As such, this year’s brief on the Corporate Domain was as much focused on the evolution of architecture and corporate models as it was an acknowledgement that such models are currently the major characters producing the form of cities today.

The focus of Diploma 8 on the Corporate Domain is to be understood as no more than a contemporary looking glass into the much larger historical and more complex discussion of architecture and the city.

The conception of each student project was based on understanding architectural form as inherently ruledriven, beginning with the development of non-scalar frames as the structural basis of any organisational proposition. These frames were then conditioned against context as provided by each student’s personal project brief, demonstrating complexity through a series of primitive relationships of architectural elements. As the unit’s adoption of such a methodology is concerned with what form does rather than what it is, there is a strict insistence on formal propositions remaining comprehensive and legible throughout their development.

On the matter of the contextual argument, more than in previous years, research on corporate trends revealed further evidence of the dichotic relationship of our ever-evolving understanding of the corporation set within open, closed, opening and closing societies.

Extended its dissolution of the significance of the state to a dissolution of the urban, the Corporate Domain appears a suitable candidate for opening a discussion to the difficult position of the role of architecture today.

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Unit Master Eugene Han Students Aras Burak Yheu-Shen Chua Hussam Dakkak Lyn Hayek Rama Khalaf Kwan Kim Yong Taek Kwon Nora Nilsen Michalis Patsalosavis Adora Shahriman Eugene Tan Chien Bang Wong Jury Critics Peter Karl Becher Barbara-Ann Campbell-Lange Javier Castañón Monia De Marchi Oliver Domeisen Shin Egashira Maria Fedorchenko Francesca Hughes Kenneth Fraser Sam Jacoby Tobias Klein Juan Lagos Theo Sarantoglou Lalis Marina Lathouri John Palmesino Theodore Spyropoulos Thomas Weaver Andrew Yau

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2 1 Collection of models from the Diploma 8 Final Jury 2011-12 grid, allowing for a manufacturing-based alternative to current zoning patterns

2 Hussam Dakkak – corporate complex challenging the ambiguous relationship of public and private domains in Manhattan through a redefinition of the corporate plaza as the generator for the building scheme

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DIPLOMA 10 Direct Urbanism: Fixed or Flexible?

As we experience the city, we mediate physical and social structures that include ever-changing combinations of fixed and flexible variables. Using these variables, and working with direct action, video, physical models, computer models, working drawings, text, animations and primary evidence, Diploma 10 has proposed nine composite spaces that act as catalysts for change at the architectural and urban scales.

1. In UCL, the ‘Space of Spectacle’ blurs the distinction between interior and exterior space and exploits the university’s role as an urban catalyst.

2. ‘Reconfiguring Walthamstow High Street’ combines variables of control, crime, accessibility, management, ownership, traffic and exchange to create a controlled space of social interaction.

3. As a network, spanning contrasting London locations, ‘Courtyards’ proposes spatial and cultural interventions that will increase the civic role of redundant courtyards.

4. At London Bridge, the ‘Virtual Square’ proposes multiple image projections over the Thames that will be experienced from the redesigned embankments situated to the north and to the south.

5. Reactivating the Thames at Wapping, the ‘E1 Station’ reconfigures London’s logistics and combines the transfer of goods and citizens to create a new setting for the live realm.

6. ‘The Stories of the Canal’ uses different forms of spatial representation to create a series of narratives or live projects on the Regent’s Canal.

7. Spatial experiments in Aldgate’s ‘Crossing Boundaries’, re-order the current streetscape and propose flexible structures that enable the city’s inhabitants to reclaim the public realm.

8. By transforming the tensions that divide Arsenal and Tottenham, ‘Clubland’ proposes a fragmented but integrated structure of sport along Seven Sisters Road.

9. ‘The Secondary City’ proposes alternative configurations of public services that challenge the commercial developments adjacent to Paddington Station.

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Unit Staff Carlos Villanueva Brandt Students Edith Wunsch Eliska Pilna Eulalia Moran Frederik Bo Bojesen Harry Cliff-Roberts Jessica Pappalardo Kyunglim Park Lionel Eid Peter Sagar Workshops Jan Willem Peterson Alex Warnock-Smith Tom Heneghan Tamao Hashimoto Matthew Murphy

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1 Edith Wunsch, ‘Space of Spectacle’ – UCL 2 Dip 10, ‘Blossom Spectacle’ – Asakusa, Tokyo 3 Peter Sagar, ‘The Secondary City’ – Paddington

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Graduate School The AA Graduate School includes postgraduate programmes offering advanced studies in one of the world’s most dynamic learning environments. Full-time Master’s 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 an 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 urbanism. Housing & Urbanism (MA) rethinks urbanism as a spatial discipline through a combination of design projects and contemporary theory. History & Critical Thinking (MA) encourages an understanding of contemporary architecture and urban culture grounded in a knowledge of histories and forms of practice. Design & Make allows students to pursue a workshop-based design and imagine alternative rural architectures. Projective Cities is dedicated to research-and-design-based analysis of the emergent and contemporary city. AAIS researches and applies alternative forms of collaboration through spatial performance and design. The part-time Building Conservation course offers a two-year programme leading to an AA Graduate Diploma. 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 PhD by Design programme provides a setting for advanced research and learning for architects, designers and other qualified professionals.

The AA is an Approved Institution and Affiliated Research Centre of The Open University (OU), UK. All taught graduate courses at the AA are validated by the OU. The OU is the awarding body for research degrees at the AA. 223

drl This year the DRL concluded the second year of the three-year design research agenda Proto-Design, which investigated 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 DRL examines production processes as active agents in the development of architecture. Behavioural, parametric and generative methodologies of computational design are coupled with physical computing and analogue experiments to create dynamic and reflexive feedback processes. New forms of spatial organisation are explored not as type or context-dependent but by examining scenarios that evolve as ecologies and environments that seek adaptive and hyper-specific features.

This performance-driven approach aims to develop novel design proposals concerned with the everyday.

The iterative methodology of the design studio focuses on the investigation of spatial, structural and material organisations, engaging with contemporary discourses of architecture and urbanism. Five research studios run parallel to each other, exploring the possibilities of Proto-Design. Theodore Spyropoulos’ studio, Digital Materialism, investigates behaviour as the means to explore self-regulating and deployable soft systems within the field of scientific enquiry. Proto-Campus, led by Patrik Schumacher, focuses on the design of parametric prototypes that intelligently vary general topological schemata across a wide range of parametrically specifiable site-conditions as a campus. Alisa Andrasek’s studio, Protocols, looks at ecological infrastructural implants within the context of heterogeneous networks. Robert Stuart Smith’s studio, Behavioural Matter: Broadening Our View of Buildings, explores how non-linear design processes may be instrumentalised to generate a temporal architecture with a designed life-cycle.

Director Theodore Spyropoulos Founder Patrik Schumacher Course Masters Alisa Andrasek Robert Stuart-Smith Philippe Morel Course Tutors Pierandrea Angius Shajay Bhooshan Mollie Claypool Ryan Dillon Jose Sanchez Karsten Scmidt Technical Tutors Mehmet Akten Hanif Kara Riccardo Merello Software Tutors Torsten Broeder Mustafa El-Sayed Paul Jeffries Programme Coordinator Ryan Dillon

Students Phase 2 Adrian Aguirre Sebastian Andia Maya Bartur Marzieh Birjandian Jose Luis De Melo Cadilhe Daghan Cam Rodrigo Roberto Chain Rodriguez Nicholette Chan Kwanphil Cho Lisa Cumming Apostolos Despotidis Michail Desyllas Nassim Eshaghi Ulak Há Johanna Huang Thomas Jensen Justin Kelly Georgios Kontalonis Leonid Krykhtin Alexandre Kuroda Carlos Ernesto Luna Pimienta Karoly Markos Jorge Xavier MéndezCáceres Ralph Andrew Merkle Anais Mikaelian Leila Mohammadi Asl

Wandy Mulia Hyoun Hee Na Ganesh Sai Subba Rao Nimmala Kathleen O’Donnell Shilpa Pattar Jared Ramsdell Mu Ren Gilles Peter Felix Retsin Ekaterina Revyakina Paola Salcedo Bacigalupo Carlos Sarmiento Christos Sazos Laila Ahmed Selim Ashwin Shah Yue Shi Julia Silva Aaron Josephe Silver Boontida Songvisava Sharan Sundar Lukasz Szlachcic Sophia Hua Tang Nada Ahmed Omran Taryam Alshamsi Salih Topal Issac Yadegar Rana Zureikat

Students Phase 1 Akbar Ali Khan Melika Aljukic Sofia Amodio Preety Anand Vishu Bhooshan Armando Bussey Solleiro Grace Da Woon Chung Saman Dadgostar Margarita De Bruijn Di Ding Xuexin Duan Christian Erl Andre Felipe Escudero Cemil Ceyhan Gonen Foteini Kontoleon Vibha Kukreja Letian Li Edward Luckmann Vichayuth Meenaphant Dimitrije Miletic Maricruz Miranda Lopez Bridget Munro Chien-Shuo Pai Sreerag Palangat Veetil Junshen Pan Sofia Miranta Papageorgiou Giovanni Parodi Nishanth Peethala

Dimitar Pouchnikov Konstantinos Psomas Sobitha Ravichandran Sara Gemma Sabate Carles Sala Roig Alberto Andres Herrera Salas Itzhak-Balfur Samun Felipe Sepulveda Rojas Jie Shen Camille Sherrod Anusha Shreekar Tippa Ecehan Top Vineet Vora Ana Margarita WangZuniga Wei You Liyuan Zhang Kele Zhu Vahid Eshragi Liqun Zhao

Invited Critics Hernan Diaz Alonso Winka Dubbeldam Marta Male-Alemany Ludger Hovestadt Brett Steele Albert Taylor Skylar Tibbits

1 Space Oddity_rub-a-dub Tutor: Theodore Spyropoulos; Team: Sebastian Andia (Argentina), Rodrigo Roberto Chain Rodriguez (Colombia), Apostolos Despotidis (Greece), Thomas Jensen (Denmark)

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EMERGENT TECHNOLOGIES The Emergent Technologies and Design programme is focused on the concepts and convergent interdisciplinary effects of emergence on design and production technologies, as well as on developing these as creative inputs to new architectural design processes. The programme continues to evolve through the development of our research in the studio, the seminar coursework and the dissertations. We aim to produce new research each year, building from our interests and expertise in material organisation and the design and development of systems in a variety of scales. This continuation of work is focused on the interdisciplinary effects of emergence, biomimetics and evolutionary computation of design and production technologies.

The instruments of analysis and design in Emergent Technologies are computational processes. The seminar courses and core studio are designed to familiarise students with these instruments, their associated conceptual fields and their application to architectural design research. The courses are extensively crosslinked, thematically and instrumentally, with each other and with the core studio. In Core Studio 1 the focus is on the exploration of material systems and their development into differentiated surfaces and assemblies.

These assemblies demonstrate the potential for integrated structural and environmental performance to produce local microclimatic variations that define spatial arrangement. In Core Studio 2 we investigate a larger and more complex piece of the city, examining urban systems and generating new material, social and ecological organisations.

Directors Michael Weinstock Dr George Jeronimidis Studio Master Evan Greenberg

MArch Students 2010/2012 Riyad Al Joucka Darrick Borowski Pierluigi D’Acunto Jack Chandy Francis Norman Hack Zhenhang Hu

Jeroen Janssen Nicolas Leguina de Enterria Cesar Martinez Yasaman Mousavi Fatemeh Nasseri Sebastian Partowidjojo Camila Rock De Luigi

Mohammad Suleiman Ivan Ucros Polley Nicholas Villegas Giorgi Sherwood Wang Brett Watkins

Studio Tutors Wolf Mangelsdorf Mehran Gharleghi Visiting Tutors Achim Menges Fabian Scheurer Acknowledgements Janet Barlow, Reader in Urban Meteorology, University of Reading Joan Busquets, BAU and Harvard GSD Suryansh Chandra, Zaha Hadid Architects Alan Dempsey, NEX Cristina Diaz Moreno, AMID / Cero 9 Christina Doumpioti, Architectural Association Efren Garcia Grinda, AMID / Cero 9 Tyson Hosmer, Cecil Balmond Studio Jeroen Janssen, Architectural Association Toni Kotnik, ETH and University of Innsbruck Skylar Tibbits, MIT Jordi Truco, HYBRIDa and ELISAVA MSc Students 2010/2011 Rony Alghadban Jacob Bekermus Erin Colshan Shanyun Huang Sahil Jain Alkistis-Georgia Karakosta Mavra Lazari Dominik Lisik Ignacio Marti Gabriel Ivorra Morell Mohammad Ali Mirzaei Georgios Papadogeorgakis Jens Pedersen Nikoletta Poulimeni Shibo Ren Maria Tiliakos Andrew Van Mater Paula Velasco Ureta Pablo Zamorano

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2 1 Expandable Surface System: Geometrically pre-controlled structural plywood surfaces Students: Jacob Bek (MSc), Ignacio Marti (MSc), Pablo Zamorano (MSc)

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HOOKE PARK WORKSHOPS RESEARCH CLUSTERS VISITING SCHOOL DIGITAL PLATFORMS

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HOOKE PARK This has been the busiest year at Hooke Park since the AA took ownership of the woodland estate and campus in 2002. Alongside the constant stream of term-time visits by London-based units, students of the Design & Make course are resident in Dorset and there is a growing programme of visiting school short courses.

The opening of the Big Shed, the large new assembly workshop building for full-scale student prototyping and fabrication activities, physically marks an increasing AA presence at Hooke Park. The shed is the first building to be designed by Design & Make students (with Diploma 19 in 2010–11) and was constructed by a team of students, professional timber framers and volunteer participants on the SummerBuild programme through which young architects have the opportunity to engage in experimental construction. All of this activity brings a new population of local and regional timber practitioners and UK and international students to the woodland campus in Dorset, forming a substantial community at the AA’s Hooke Park for the first time.

The schedule of investment in buildings, education and the Design & Make programme has been made possible by the generous contribution of two major gifts: the Norah Garlick Bequest and the AV Custerson Legacy.

A short programme of public talks in conjunction with Design & Make’s ‘Agendas of Ruralism’ seminar series was held in the autumn, and in spring 2012 the estate opened for the Bluebell Watch visitors. Visiting programmes to Hooke Park include Makelab, with its focus on sensor-based generative design, the Summermake summer school and the ‘Furnishing the Landscape’ Maeda-sponsored workshops, led by Shin Egashira.

Georgie Corry Wright led a foraging workshop and is coordinating the new Permaculture programme established with the AA Community Cluster that hosted weekend work-party visits from London. As part of this he has built a new kitchen garden as the first step in generating a self-sustaining productive landscape at Hooke Park.

Director Martin Self Estate Manager Jez Ralph Administrators Bruce Hunter Inglis Merry Hinsley Workshop Manager Charlie Corry Wright Workshop Supervisor Edward Coe Forester Chris Sadd Cooks Georgie & Tia Corry Wright

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1 Timber preparation during the ‘Furnishing the Landscape’ Maeda workshop

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2 Photo by Thiago José Barros

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HOOKE PARK

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3 Georgie Corry Wright leading the foraging workshop, May 2012

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4 ‘Voyager3’ – designed and constructed by the SummerMake school, July 2011

5 Sophie Ramsbotham and Alex Furunes, Forest puppetry. Photo Valerie Bennett

6 Richard Burton and John Makepeace (centre) and other guests during the Bluebell Watch members visit lunch. Photo Valerie Bennett

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AA PublicAtionS bedford PreSS

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AA Publications was founded as a means of opening up the interests of the AA to wider debate. All of its titles are derived in some way from the activities of the school. Some are directly connected to public events – to exhibitions, conferences and other events – while others reflect more general concerns with developments in architecture and urbanism.

In addition to the annual Projects Review, Prospectus and twice-yearly AA Files, this year we have published a number of new titles including Manifest Destiny, an award-winning book of aphoristic writings and images on American suburban housing

by Jason Griffiths; an anthology of writings by the former AA editor Dennis Sharp titled Sharp Words; a monograph of the zany French architect and artist François Dallegret, GOD & CO, that accompanied a travelling AA exhibition; and Four Conversations on the Architecture of Discourse, a companion volume to last year’s book of Venice Biennale interviews.

All titles are produced in-house with our editorial and production teams who include Thomas Weaver (Editor of AA Files and Managing Editor), Pamela Johnston (Publications Editor), Zak Kyes (Art Director), Wayne Daly and Claire McManus (Graphic Designers) and Clare Barrett (Editorial Assistant). Marketing, distribution and promotion are handled by Marilyn Sparrow and Kirsten Morphet.

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Bedford Press is an imprint of AA Publications dedicated to creating a new typology of publications that explore architecture as seen through the lens of its allied disciplines. Titles encompassing art, exhibition-making, graphic design and theory build upon the AA’s renowned legacy of shortrun independent publications.

Bedford Press publications this year include Afterlives of Neoliberalism, the fourth instalment of the Civic City Cahier series edited by Jesko Fezer and Matthias Görlich and written by Neil Brenner, Jamie Peck and Nik Theodore; James Hoff and Danny Snelson’s Inventory Arousal, a quasi-transcript of a live editorial performance; Pugin’s Contrasts Rotated by James Langdon, a corrective gesture based on AWN Pugin’s 1836 book Contrasts; and Archizines, Elias Redstone’s survey of current alternative and independent architectural publishing, which accompanied an exhibition at the AA in November.

In September, Bedford Press staged Narrative Show Exposition, a week-long satellite exhibition travelling from Eastside Projects in Birmingham, which displayed a live and constantly changing selection of pages from the Narrative Show publication on a section of Adolf Krischanitz’s Mobile Wall System.

In March, an exhibition of BP publications took place at Apendicks, Istanbul, a space dedicated to presenting contemporary publishing practices.

Other events this year included Miss Read 2011 at KW Institute for Contemporary Art Berlin and Salon Light # 8, Paris.

DEVELOPMENT, PARTNERSHIPS AND SPONSORSHIP Since its founding in 1847, the AA has remained independent and selfsupporting. A pioneering UK higher educational charity, the AA School receives no statutory funding for either its internationally renowned teaching activities or its acclaimed and completely free public programme.

Supporting the Architectural Association The AA School’s leading position is greatly enhanced each year through the generous support, both financial and in-kind, provided by many individuals, institutions, trusts and foundations and corporate organisations throughout the world. The Development Office cultivates mutually beneficial relationships between the school and its many supporters The AA Foundation The Architectural Association Foundation is an independent charitable trust designed to particularly benefit the students of the AA. During 2011/12 it has made available more than £200,000 towards scholarships and bursaries for AA students. New awards commencing in 2012/13 include: the Andrew Szmidla bequest to support students from Eastern Europe; a bursary in memory of former AA Accountant Charlotte Coudrille; the Beverly Bernstein Prize in support of student work in housing and/or urbanism in the developing world; and the Jane Chu Travel Scholarship for students working in the field of sustainability.

For further information contact Alex Lorente, AA Foundation administrator, on +44 (0)20 7887 4074.

Support for Students and Special Projects 2011/12 has been another successful year in the AA School’s development of outside partnerships. The school extends its thanks to the dozens of sponsors and partners for backing projects, study visits and special events. In particular, the growth of the Visiting School and its increasing number of partners and supporters signals the global range of the AA. Further, this year has seen preparations for the Independents Group, an international research platform for interdisciplinary exchange and collaboration among five of the world’s leading independent architecture schools, advanced manufacturers and consultancy partners.

We have also continued the development of Hooke Park and our relationships in the region are of great importance to the care of the environment and the development of new facilities, buildings and forestry management. The Big Shed opened in April, and plans for the development of the caretaker’s house are underway. These projects have again, been supported by the generous gift from the Norah Garlick family through the Horace and Ellen Hannah Wakeford Bequest and the direct advice and involvement of Christine and David Price and in addition Tom Wakeford has been invaluable. We continue to involve the family with the Hooke Park 371

DEVELOPMENT, PARTNERSHIPS AND SPONSORSHIP Advisory Group and our thanks also go out to all its members.

The AA has embarked upon a series of modifications to studios and facilities and further plans are underway, all of which are critical to the best practice of the institution and the students and community.

It is a primary ambition to respond to our rapidly expanding audiences in London, the UK and the world. We are actively engaging our family and friends and those with an interest and enthusiasm, to assist us with this and the next exciting series of projects. We encourage and welcome you to contact us directly to discuss your potential involvement and ideas.

Individual thanks for this support can be found in the introductions to the units and programmes in this book.

Thanks to Matadero Madrid, KunstSalon and KunstSalon Foundation and the HfMT (Music Academy, Cologne) for their very generous support of the Interprofessional Studio, Post Graduate Diploma in Spatial Performance and Design. Continued thanks are also due to MusicTechnology Ltd and New Movement Collective, important partners for the last three years.

Maeda for their support of the Maeda Workshop.

The Graham Foundation for their support of the Architectural Dopplegängers Research Cluster and other projects.

Hewlett-Packard for their continued support of the AA. KPF for their continued 372

sponsorship of the AA Public Programme.

Mike Davies for continuing support of new student scholarships.

The Baylight Foundation for its continuing programme of Baylight scholarships for UK-resident students of outstanding merit and need.

The Fletcher Priest Trust for their continued support of new student scholarships.

Robert and Elizabeth Boas for the continuation of the Nicholas Boas Student Travel Award.

Liz and Anthony Pozner for their continuing support through the Nicholas Pozner Prize Fund.

The Andrew Szmidla Estate, Jane Chu, David Bernstein and Marian Keys for establishing the new awards.

Support Us – Enquiries for 2012/13 Organisation for the numerous activities, special projects and worldwide trips associated with the upcoming academic year are also underway.

As always, the AA welcomes enquiries and expressions of interest for support by AA members and other individuals and organisations whose generous assistance helps make possible our students’ future learning.

If you are interested in becoming a supporting partner in 2012/13, please contact Esther McLaughlin, Head of Development at: esther. mclaughlin@aaschool.ac.uk or on +44 (0)20 7887 4090. She will be pleased to meet with you to discuss how your support can be added to the growing international network of AA partners and sponsors.

SPONSORS 1:One ABC Imaging Adams Kara Taylor Arch Daily Area China Arkitera Arquine Arup Atec Consulting Engineers AU arquitetura e urbanismo Autodesk Blueprint magazine Buro Happold CCW Casa abierta al tiempo Cassochrome Cement and Concrete Institute Cobra CNC Cujae DS4 DSG Daiwa Anglo Japanese Foundation Design to Production Ds4 Embassy of Brazil in London Euro Channel FILE FRAME China Fondazione Adriano Olivetti Frener and Riefer GSA German University of Technology in Oman (GUtech)

Graham Foundation Guggenheim Bilbao Hochschule für Musik und Tanz Köln Hoehler + Partner Holcim Foundation IBERO Istanbul Technical University Jotun Paint KPF KamKav Construction Company KunstSalon Foundation Laing O’Rourke Les Art Decoratifs Lisbon Architecture Triennale MAEDA MARQ Matedero Madrid McNeel Rhino & McNeel Grasshopper NUTA Oficina del Historiador Cuidad de la Habana PG Bison Pase Usted Pimpolhos da Grande Rio Plot Regione Autonoma Della Sardegna Rhino Nest Shenkar College of Engineering and Design Singapore Polytechnic Sociedad Colombiana de Arquitectos Bogota D.C. y Cundinamarca

Storefront for Art and Architecture Strabag Oman LLC Studio Gang Architects Pro Helvetia TDM Solutions Tecnalia The Great Britain Sasakawa Foundation The University of Hong Kong, Shanghai Study Centre Think City Tier Time Travesia Tsinghua ADI Colour UDK UIC School of Architecture UPV UTS Universidad Anahuac Universidad Iberoamericana Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México University of Houston University of Leichenstein Urban Space Design V-Fund Villa Arson Nice Volume WIX World Architecture News ZHU Long Zahner Metals Zeit Stifung tomo

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