AArchitecture 22 by AA School

The AArchitecture Salon kicked off the new academic year with a kaleidoscope of different takes on paper, that ubiquitous material. As banknote, portfolio or passport, paper’s many contemporary roles are often as politically charged as they are diverse. It is already a tired cliché that a new digital age has arrived to replace this ancient fabric, but many of the articles in this, the 21st edition of AArchitecture, challenge this assumption. Arturo Revilla, for example, demonstrates that the paperless aspirations of four wellknown architects in the 1980s resulted in quite the opposite outcomes in their work. The work of Intermediate Unit 2’s Takero Shimazaki, on the other hand, embraces the fleeting qualities of extremely fine tissue paper, which holds onto his designs for only limited periods of time before it fades. Similarly, DRL student Mel Sfeir gives an account of his recent paper manipulation experiments whilst First Year’s Monia DeMarchi rejoices in the sense of possibility that a clean sheet of A4 holds. There are several new units to the AA this year in both Intermediate and Diploma schools. What better way for Dip 3, Inter 5 and Inter 12 to introduce themselves than with a speed-dating event with our very own editorial team in which they each express their unit as a sketch? In a similar sketching event, AA Foundation and PhD students compete in

News from the Architectural Association

AArchitecture

Please send your news items for the next issue to aarchitecture@aaschool.ac.uk

Student Editorial Team: Eleanor Dodman Ema Kacar Assaf Kimmel Costandis Kizis Radu Remus Macovei Buster Rönngren Roland Shaw Patricia Souza Leão Müller Jingming Wu Editorial Board: Zak Kyes, AA Art Director Alex Lorente, Membership Brett Steele, AA School Director Graphic Design: Claire Lyon AA Photography: Valerie Bennett and Sue Barr Printed by Blackmore, England Architectural Association (Inc) Registered Charity No 311083 Company limited by guarantee Registered in England No 171402 Registered office as above

Cover: ‘A knight’s tour’ of 11 Rue SimonCrubellier from Georges Perec’s Life: A User’s Manual. Perec devised the elevation of the fictional building as a 10 × 10 grid: 10 storeys high and 10 rooms across. Each room is assigned to a chapter, and the order of the chapters is given by the knight’s moves on the grid. Designed by Rosa Nussbaum, AA Print Studio

At a time when the interchange of ideas, products and world views between people is as intense as it is global, we have become strongly aware of the role language plays in communication. Under the pretext of conversation, your editors have scattered to the furthest corners of the AA to talk to a variety of students, tutors and staff about the way we communicate with each other. These conversations form the content of issue 22 of AArchitecture. Breaking the ice with one discomforting question – what do you think about pornography? – Inter 11’s Patricia de Souza triggers a variety of answers from an intellectualisation of the matter at hand to complete avoidance, while Intermediate 13’s James Mak provokes us with juxtapositions of the Cambodian vernacular and his humanitarian charity’s interpretation of these in children’s libraries and schools. As a review of the Maison Dom-ino symposium organised at the AA in February, Dip 14 unit master Pier Vittorio Aureli discusses how Le Corbusier’s perspectival representation has become the only way we see the project, and Inter 10 unit master Valentin Bontjes van Beek reports on the recent building of the Dom-ino drawing for this year’s Venice Architecture Biennale. Similarly focusing on one project, Inter 7’s Assaf Kimmel reviews Phyllis Lambert’s lecture which provided firsthand insight into the project management of

News from the Architectural Association

AArchitecture

Mies van der Rohe’s Seagram Building, including a detailed account of the (mis)communication between the architects, contractors and public authorities involved. Returning to the realm of the AA, Inter 12’s Brandon Whitwell Mak presents the communication system he set up to spread rumours – of a competition for a new AA logo, of a smoking ban on the terrace, of new 24/7 opening times for the school – while at the same time putting an end to these whispers. Whether imaginative, provocative or deep, language is meant to be playful and architects have taken full advantage of this freedom. Crit, autepoiesis, threshold – sound familiar? Specific not to the language of architecture, but to language in architecture, are those words that we as architects use on a daily basis – an inventory of which you can find in a thread that follows our conversations.

Student Editors: Eleanor Dodman – Diploma 9, 5th Year Ema Kacar – Intermediate 9, 2nd Year Assaf Kimmel – Intermediate 7, 2nd Year Costandis Kizis – PhD, 3rd Year Radu Remus Macovei – Intermediate 9, 3rd Year Buster Rönngren – Intermediate 2, 2nd Year Roland Shaw – Diploma 4, 5th Year Patricia Souza Leão Müller – Intermediate 11, 2nd Year Jingming Wu – PhD, 2nd Year

Contents 2 4 6 8 10 14 16

The Presumed Letter Letter of Response What Do You Think About Pornography? What Do You See? The Dom-ino Effect The Building of a Drawing Found in Translation

Digital Prototyping Lab

17 Letter Addressed to the Spirit of the Depths 18 Little Dreams and the Tropical Vernacular 20 Against Glue one Another 22 Shaping Seagram 24 AA Confidential 26 Anarchitectâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s WICKED WORD Disposal Cylinder 27 Recommended Reading 28 AA Publications 29 ebooks 30 David Gray 31 News

Next Issueâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Theme School Announcement Student Announcement

Various AA Members were presented with a given word and asked to respond with their first thought. The word and its associations run at the bottom of each page.

The Presumed Letter MA in History and Critical Thinking student Winston Hampel writes on a letter by Colin Rowe

Some time around late November 1965 a sloppily typed letter on thin reddish paper reached John and Pat Miller. Without further introduction the author set off in developing his argument, however this account appears to be no more linear than the typewritten lines themselves: it commences with the observation that the Al in Alan Colquhoun resembles the respective Arabic syllable – as in Alhambra or Alcazar. From this piece of ‘evidence’ a tracing of the etymological origins of the name is constructed that spans across countries and centuries, producing a narrative that is constituted by the rhetorical development of the argumentation itself and not the ‘substantiality’ of the actual argument. This Gedankenspiel is eventually concluded with the hypothesis that Colquhoun himself must thus emanate from a moorish tradition of knowledge. Then the letter closes, as abruptly as it began, with ‘Best love, Colin’. In 1947 Colin Rowe graduated from the Warburg Institute with a thesis on the ‘theoretical drawings of Inigo Jones’, which reconstructed a theoretical publication of the seventeenth-century architect (Rowe was seemingly blind to the fact that there was very little historic evidence that Jones had ever set out to write such a treatise in the first place). Focusing in on the ‘universal’ character of Jones’ drawings and their visual similarity to Palladio’s I quattro libri dell’architettura, Rowe concluded that Jones must have intended to use them for a similar publication. Rowe thus constructed his own narrative around them and used Inigo Jones (who himself had ‘reconstructed’ a hypothetical ‘classical’ Stonehenge) as the transmitter of his message. Whether or not his assumptions

were historically accurate was of minor importance. In the same year Rowe went on to publish an article in The Architectural Review that was, in a certain sense, no less speculative: in ‘The Mathematics of the Ideal Villa’ he famously established a relationship between Palladio’s Villa Malcontenta and Le Corbusier’s Villa Stein. Through a dialectic comparison of their respective partis he theorised that there were underlying, ahistoric rules of harmony and proportion to which both buildings adhered. Just as with Inigo Jones, it was not so much about factual evidence and scientific exactitude, but about the conclusions implied by its thesis: that there are universal principles of ‘beauty’ that could, and should, be employed ‘today’. This tendency to rather freely interpret, manipulate and play with a subject in order to develop his own argumentation becomes most explicit in Rowe’s contribution to the Roma Interrotta project in 1978. He and his team imagined an alternative development of and for the urban layout of Rome (based on the plan drawn 230 years earlier by Nolli and Piranesi) and supported the collage-esque proposal for their sector with a pseudo-historic essay – ratified by completely fabricated footnotes. In Rowe’s own words: ‘Presuming that the idea of Rome Interrupted required a fake history of Rome to explain our developments, I wrote such a history; and I am amused to say that I still receive letters from such persons who assume that at least my footnotes must be genuine.’ Colin Rowe’s letter to the Millers does not have any footnotes, but there is a single word that is underlined with a thick red marker: presume. What was his intention

Architecture: Building / Bulldozer / Life / Work

For more information on the History and Critical Thinking MA, visit www.aaschool.ac.uk/hct

Letter to Pat and John Miller from Colin Rowe, c 1965. Courtesy John Miller

in highlighting just this one word? Was it a parenthetic confession? An act of casual disclosure? Or was it merely intended to stress the relevance of his presumptions? Whatever the specific reasons, there can be no doubt that presumption was central to Rowe’s approach – in just about every sense of the word, but foremost in his reliance on speculation to develop an argument. And it is in this sense that the word presume could well be added to the title of his most seminal texts: ‘The Presumed Theoretical Drawings of Inigo Jones’, ‘The Presumed Mathematics

of the Ideal Villa’ or even ‘Presumed La Tourette’. But Rowe – who described himself as an architect manqué – never made a secret of this speculative approach anyway, and his critiques should probably be regarded as projects – projecting into the future – rather than as strictly historic analyses. Which is why one can presume that what was central to Colin Rowe’s approach was not the validity of history, but the validity of his stories. And, after all, these very stories went on to shape the future history of architecture.

Threshold: Door / Raw / Grit / Door

Letter of Response In response to Barbara-Ann Campbell-Lange’s article about AA honours published in ‘AArchitecture 20: Time’, Peter Rich wrote the following letter about his own experience with honours in 1961/62.

2 October 2013

Your piece on Hons touched my heart. I have not heard or seen such a thoughtful and comprehensive analysis of the subject for many years. You were correct to point out that although language, ideas and methods have changed at the AA, basic educational aims (as opposed to training aims) and assessment criteria have remained constant. Some proof about the AA’s flexibility and risk: In 1961/62 Birkin Howard and I did a joint graduation project. This was allowed because of our previous individual and joint projects had demonstrated clearly that our abilities were complementary and that we had the potential to produce a worthwhile investigation into a hotly debated subject of the late 50s and early 60s (we were against family life in the type of tall blocks being built at the time. Our thesis was based on high density low rise courtyard housing.) The AA took the risk. We were successful (as were our year mates M Hopkins, J Dixon, Ed Jones, etc). Upon graduation the Head of School, Bill Allen, asked Birkin and I to join his practice and design a 500-house project in Harlow New Town based on the principles we had developed in our thesis. I was the job architect because I was a ‘mature student’ – I had left school at 14 and worked as a draughtsman/ architectural technician for 13 years before joining the first year at the AA. I had failed my 11+, had no O or A levels but had an HNC in building. I was accepted into the AA based on ‘life experience’ from working in Canada and America. My portfolio was a roll of drawings produced at SOM in New York and a suitcase of pottery produced at the YMCA in Montreal – another AA risk! Of course our joint thesis produced an interesting debate about what ‘Hons’ means, what does it measure? You have explained it exactly. Birkin and I have demonstrated it – I like to think. Yours sincerely, Peter Rich

Form: Function / Function / Versus Function / Function

To see work by Peter Rich visit the AA Archive

Dear Barbara-Ann,

Diploma crit 1962. Photo Peter Rich

Opening: Door / Eye / Spaces / Window

What Do You Think About Pornography? While discussing the strangest things the AArchitecture editorial team had heard in a jury, it was decided that ‘What do you think about pornography?’ was the winner. By posing this question to a few AA members, we have collected thoughts regarding how the changes in pornography reflect communication among us today. ‘It’s a concept that reveals an awful lot about other things in the world. Always has and always will because of its changing status, so it’s a way of actually registering how the world changes. But I supposed from the fact that it’s always the thing that drives technological invention, that and a few other things. Of course, that’s where Betamax, that’s where the Internet comes from!’ ‘It taps into something which is very raw that we might be ashamed of, and that it is very self-indulgent. This whole idea of the selfie is very pornographic.’ ‘Once you had to search for pornography. It wasn’t easy like now: pornography is almost like a common base. I find it really nice!’ ‘I remember once my brother was using my computer. Afterwards, I pressed “p” and saw porn this, porn that.’ ‘The beauty of pornography is that it creates a series of emotions for the mass culture.’ ‘You know, there was a really funny objection to Seattle Public Library 10 years ago at OMA. The city of Seattle received a dossier rejecting the building because there was too much pornography in S, M, L, XL: “No one like him can be in charge of a civic building!”’ ‘They were renting the Ennis House to shoot a porn film and I remember really bright, pink underwear everywhere in the bathroom. Actually, they do use these amazingly beautiful houses to make porn films.’ ‘Architecture addressing the porn industry is the same as architecture addressing the advertising industry; there’s no difference it’s just an industry and it shocks more.’

Condition: Shampoo / Hysteria / Of the wall / Too much

For more information on pornography, feel free to Google

Waiting for her in Mies’ Barcelona Pavillion on Second Life

‘It’s not politically correct to talk about this but the quality of the stuff there is really like, boring. The quality of this stuff is really low and it’s not even that fun anymore. The stuff that you find on YouPorn is not even laughable – it’s just really boring because they aren’t even excited themselves. Boring!’ ‘Now you are much more afraid to get caught seeing pornography. It’s not used to shock its something to use.’ ‘Also everyone famous has a sex tape now to kind of promote themselves. “Hey, did I see you on…”’ ‘What is a sex tape? Its saying with a smile “Oh hey darling let’s put a camera here while we are in bed!”’ ‘The fact that you can make your own sex tape now – it was not something that you thought of.’ ‘Do you know how many porn actors have lost their jobs?’ ‘It’s probably more interesting to see. Once you weren’t thinking you could become the subject of pornography. It was difficult to find but it’s not like you were like “OK, then I will do one by myself!” That’s what I like about it though.’ ‘The last series of Big Brother – it was the first time that a couple had sex in real time. That’s pornography, no?’ ‘As Roman Polanski once said, “Eroticism uses a feather, pornography uses the whole chicken”.’

Hybrid: Lowbred / Vampire / Solution / Multiple

What Do You See?

34 Bedford Square, photo Valerie Bennett

Gloria Pâ&#x20AC;&#x2030;W Lei, Diploma 7 student, discuses how language can sometimes make us stop thinking.

Language: English / Tongue / Understanding / Swedish

To see more work by Gloria visit http://pr2013.aaschool.ac.uk/dip-01/pou-wai-lei

9 At first glance, you probably will say, ‘It is a door’. Some of you may put in a few details and say, ‘It is a black door’, or ‘It is a front door’, or ‘It is an exterior door’ (if you have more architectural knowledge). Indeed, most of the people will give similar answers in one form or another. Objectively speaking, you have gotten the ‘standard’ answer. But let us consider the question again. What I asked is ‘What do you see?’, not ‘What do you call that object?’ One may ask what the difference is. The difference is in ‘you’, the person who answers the question. The word ‘door’ (in both verbal and written form) is a linguistic label. The acts of naming things and calling things by their names presuppose the existence a set of so-called universal or objective truth and facts that can be clarified and conveyed. Such presumption further presupposes a set of symbols that can act as ‘pointers’ towards those higher ‘universal’ or ‘objective’ meanings existing in one’s mind. For example, a stop sign is used to initiate a universal reaction, which is to stop moving, regardless of its ‘user’. In this sense, urban transportation is formed by an interconnected network of universal symbols. This example shows how the language approaches when we try to understand our perception. Every day we go around the city, interacting with people based on these ‘universal’ linguistic symbols called names. But does such universality really exist? When you see the image of door, am ‘I’, or ‘he’, or ‘she’, seeing the same ‘door’ as ‘you’? Returning to the question, what I am asking is not about the object in the image, nor its name, but simply, what do ‘you’ actually see beyond the name? In other words, what are you actually looking at when you see the door? Now, you may take another look at the door and tell me again about the colour, the door number, the shape of the glazing, the number of steps, or the decoration on the keystone above the door, etc. When we attempt to replace its name, the next

intuitive answer to our question would be a description on the physical quality of the door. If I keep asking for more descriptions, you may even begin to tell me about the possible ways of experiencing the door. For example, I may give you the following description: ‘To get to the door, one will have to walk up three steps, since the door is actually away from the pedestrian path and connected by a platform that bridges over the gap. You have to walk up, then, cross the gap before you enter the door; and not to mention the floor inside is not the same level as the bridging platform, as made obvious by the extra concrete step that the door is sitting on.’ The description can go on and on. Upon the initial observation of the door’s physical qualities, we can discern composition, directionality, relative positions, narratives and trajectories. In other words, on top of its linguistic label of a ‘door’, you see spatiality. If this is the door through which you enter your house every day; then, this spatiality, instead of being ‘seen’, will be ‘experienced’. By taking the linguistic proposition that supposes our daily activity as functioning upon the universal symbols and the order of our city as structured by the objective boundaries of our linguistic language, I further propose a spatial approach to our perception. The proposition is namely this: the order of our mind and our subjectivity is structured by the repetitive experience of the spatial logic embedded within the actual objects and places of our immediate surroundings. So I urge you to reconsider the importance of the curvatures of the corners, the lines of the trimmings and the trajectories of the door steps around you, as they are all part of what is structuring the behaviours, the sensations, and the thoughts you are having at this very moment. So beware, when they are staring at you in the face at all times.

Representation: Drawing / Dinner-party / Architect / Drawing

The Dom-ino Effect Pier Vittorio Aureli, Diploma 14 Unit Master, and Eleanor Dodman discuss the legacy of the Maison Dom-ino, soon to be built 1:1 in Bedford Square.

Eleanor Dodman: Thank you for organising the Dom-ino Symposium. I was interested in how the representation of this drawing is the only thing that we see when we think about the Maison. Pier Vittorio Aureli: Thomas Weaver and I organised the symposium to go beyond this image and to reveal not only the process that produced the Dom-ino, but also the concept, which, in Le Corbusier’s words, was a ‘paradigm for modern housing’. In the morning you had the Corb scholars who delved into this story and showed us what the project was about. It was a project that Le Corbusier did when he was very young. I had this idea to show, especially to students, what it means to be a young architect – to start with an idea that might not be technically resolved, but at the same time is a driving force in your work’s conception. In a way the Dom-ino is about that: an idea that is technically not yet resolved, but is conceptually very powerful to the point that we are still using that drawing to describe something that is even more contemporary than what was when Le Corbusier did that project. It was interesting how he actually worked through the project again and again, which is actually different to the way we work as students. In a way, if you don’t put enough time in something it will not be interesting. Le Corbusier really wanted to practice in what today we would call a research-orientated way to the point of self-initiating these projects that very few people would really take seriously. I mean Max Dubois, the engineer that was helping, was reluctant to support this idea which he thought was banal. The Maison was, in fact, not very original or special because the use of concrete was already happening. What was actually new was the conceptual aspect – the idea that we would conceive dwellings in those radical terms. Kipnis starts his lectures by showing drawings of the Dom-ino no one really sees and he says, ‘This is the most important project in the world and none of you know it.’ Yes. At the same time I wanted to use the Dom-ino to open up a conversation on self-building which now is a huge obsession for architects, especially after the last 10 years with the economic crisis. More and more people are trying to push this romantic idea of housing as a kind of self-customised place. Le Corbusier proposed something that would really confine people to this small single family

Unit: Four / Twelve / In a Relationship / 2D

Right and overleaf: Plan and evolving perspective drawings of Le Corbusier’s Maison Dom-ino, 1914, © FLC/ ADAGP, Paris and DACS, London 2014

Jury: People / Court / DOA / Crit

Master: Want One / Margarita / Flex / Plan

13 house. So it’s not at all a revolutionary project; it’s actually a very conservative one. By referring to Dom-ino, one can also criticize self-construction, self-organisation and the way the romantic ideas of capitalism are passing on this burden to survive. Yes, especially in London. In the past 10 years with the housing crisis, the amount of housing the government has built sums up to nothing. The scenario that romanticises self-building is kind of dangerous because you can say, ‘OK – we can simply do it ourselves’, but actually we cannot. That’s why I wanted to use the Dom-ino as an appealing version of this process, as an excuse to cast some critical light. Although there is something admirable in architects proposing projects for poor people – for sure much more than in Zaha Hadid’s latest pavilion showing Prada shoes – there is also a dark side in that kind of ‘good intention’ approach and I think Le Corbusier is a great example in that he was very ambivalent; his efforts were politically not so clean in a way. Young people now are definitely more historically aware than students 10 years ago who were more technically aware. It’s interesting that at the AA, which was once a place of the DRL and advanced technologies and the digital, the Dom-ino represents this idea of a very simple structure that is technologically very poor, but still very powerful. I mean it’s been 100 years, and from Brazil to Turkey you see this kind of model.

Please follow the link to listen to the lectures of the Maison Dom-ino Symposium: www.aaschool.ac.uk/video/lecture.php?id=2395

It will be interesting to see it on the Square because the last thing that was there was parametric. Yes, I mean Patrick [Schumacher] is in this kind of paranoia thinking everything that is done here is against him and so he is now thinking that the Dom-ino is a kind of triumph to reintroduce orthogonal architecture in the School.

Context: Concept / Site / All / Buildings

The Building of a Drawing

2014 is the centenary of Le Corbusier’s Maison Dom-ino drawing, which he produced as a housing system in the early months of the First World War, largely in response to the devastation German artillery was wrecking on the existing building stock of France’s northern towns and villages. Of course, the design itself never came to fruition in physical form, but it has long held a central place within the histories and mythologies of modern architecture. Promoted under the thematic, ‘Fundamentals’, much of this history is being celebrated in the forthcoming Venice Architecture Biennale, directed by Rem Koolhaas, and so with Brett Steele and Thomas Weaver, we decided to mark both this centenary and the return to architecture’s core principles by building the drawing of the Maison Dom-ino. Like the Somme in 1914, building anything in Venice is like operating in a war zone, in the sense that we were working with a tabula rasa (right in front of the Italia Pavilion) and all materials and equipment had to be shipped in. The panic and terror induced by 30 different national pavilions working consecutive all-nighters close to the opening of the biennale was also something we wanted to avoid, and so we worked on the construction over the Easter break, when the Giardini was blissfully deserted, but for the German Pavilion, which had been finished even before we arrived. Assisting me were AA students Josh Penk, who worked on the design right from the start, and Rory Sherlock, together

Site: Location / Specific / Plan / Trees

with the amazing AA Exhibitions team – Vanessa Norwood, Lee Regan, Tim Eve and Jai Brodie. While the original design imagined a concrete construction – which would have taken time to cure – and heavy steel I-beams, we decided to deliver a contemporary interpretation of the Dom-ino, using much lighter engineered timber and prefabricated components, and even developed our own system of timber foundations, employing wooden stakes from a sheep-fencing system. And while sticking as close as we could to the original, it was the structural properties of this material and the ambition to have as minimal cut-offs as possible from a standard ply cladding sheet that determined the structure’s proportions, which resulted in a pavilion just 45cm short of Le Corbusier’s 10.8m x 6.6m plan. The completed structure looks wonderful, and standing within it really is strangely familiar, like occupying not a building but a drawing. And perhaps like the original drawing’s foxing, our own pavilion should also weather, losing the pale yellow of the fresh ply over the six months of the biennale’s duration and turn a little greyer. The idea then is for the structure to be disassembled and rebuilt again, hopefully first in front of Le Corbusier’s National Museum of Western Art in Tokyo, and then back in Bedford Square in May, so that the AA’s 2015 graduating class can be framed by perhaps the most famous frame of all.

See School Annoucement on page 34 for details of an AA Members’ trip to Venice Architecture Biennale.

Valentin Bontjes van Beek, Intermediate 10 Unit Master, builds a 1:1 version of Le Corbusier’s Maison Dom-ino in Venice’s Giardini, in anticipation of this year’s biennale.

Construction of the 1:1 Dom-ino at the Venice Biennale, and a detail of a ceiling panel, finished in 18mm birch plywood

Layering: Aggregation / Textures / Complexity / Staggered

Found in Translation

How does the AA cherish and embrace manipulation? As an association hidden in Georgian houses addressing the already colourful architectural discipline. The AA is expected to be an unconventional architectural school. Nevertheless, communication amongst students and teachers comes with a fat baggage of implications emerging from the architectural language in both paper and spoken word. Such words of justification, eccentricity, morality, intellect, you name it, elicit ideas to validate the architect and architecture. Through a series of definition and microscopic redefinition, Found in Translation addresses these little cultural realms of ideas put forward by the public meaning and private intention of words used in architecure today.

Sexy adj. The cliché term used to describe the elusive quality of aesthetics enabled by obsessive precision and detail in orchestration. Realising the crucial importance of the mating of the visual and conceptual through the quasi-sexual attraction of architectural works. Realising the power to portray individuality through graphics. Tutor usage: I want to see sexy line weights. Jury n. A ritualistic set of minutes of exclusive un/divided attention from tutors and students to explain a project that has taken weeks to develop only to watch the dismantling of said project; an event that has no value in academic records yet plays host to minds foreign to your project with no commitment or previous contact with your work who will question the essence of the project and force you to question yourself.

The City: Site / Sex / Loud / Lots of Buildings

To see more of Patricia de Souza Leão Müller’s work please visit http://pr2013.aaschool.ac.uk/first-year/ de-souza-leao-muller

Worklife n. A lifestyle to which tutors submit students wherein the irreconcilability of architectural production and living a life causes the former to be dominant. Outcome: a large amount of work produced in a short amount of time. Results: Time restraints force the unearthing of instinctive methods of decision making and interests.

Cover of Found in Translation

Patricia de Souza Leão Müller, Intermediate 11 student, explores the fantastic and often comical double meanings in architectural speech.

Digital Prototyping Lab

The Digital Prototyping Lab at the AA School is a growing learning resource using the latest design and fabrication technologies. These technologies are transforming architectural culture. As the demand for existing and additional technologies grows, the Digital Prototyping Lab must continue to expand and modernise to keep the AA at the forefront of developments. The Lab collaborates with all AA students and staff across the entire school. Projects produced in the Lab have been featured in the AA Public Programme as well as in prestigious international institutions such as the Royal Academy in London, Centre Pompidou and the Venice Biennale.

For more information on the Digital Prototyping Lab visit www.digitalfabrication.net

Photo Valerie Bennett

Letter Addressed to the Spirit of the Depths

For other, more or less, contemporary work please visit www.aaschool.ac.uk/inter2

Intermediate 2 student Alexandra Savtchenko-Belskaia replies to Fabrizio Ballabio on the question: ‘What is the contemporary?’ in a discussion over the First Year brief ‘Architecture and Time’

A word comes to mind before it emerges on the page. From where does it come? Sometimes it comes before you know what it means. And then, you know it means exactly what you want it to mean. In such moments, the whole of language seems to bend to the precise intention of the speaker in pure abstraction and infinite specificity; in such moments it almost seems as if the whole of language speaks through the individual. In linguistics, there is a notion denoting a kind of total language, whereby a native speaker might have access to, but not be immediately aware of its fullness. One’s lexicon is doubtless limited, however to speak, to exercise a language, one feels it through and through, as though residing on the inside of it. Once this state is attained, one will physically and intuitively feels more than one can formulaically know. Then, the speaker turns to the page in order to fix words in material form and make language solid. The writer selects words, but these words are not one’s own. Here is one such instance:

Picture the sun. A surface in motion, glimmering flashes on the deep blue. Between the surface and the depth, the infinitely average mingles with the perceptual void of the present moment. But (even more absurdly), if in spatial terms, the surface and the depth was split into components, with tangible water and ice separating the political, rather than poetical, notions, a more complicated and even more preposterous discrepancy would arise in regard to time. A gap of up to a hundred years one way or another existed between the two extremes, a gap marked by bizarre confusion of directional signs at the cross roads of passing time with not all the no-longers of one world corresponding to the not-yets of the other. It was owing, among other things, to this ‘scientifically ungraspable’ concourse of divergences that minds bien ranges (not apt to unhobble hobgoblins)’ rejected the spirit as a fad or a fantom, and deranged minds (ready to plunge into an abyss) accepted it in support and token of their own irrationality. The good swimmer knows to manipulate the tide by swimming over and under the current. Face down in the water, opening the eyes, at first a blurry and distant otherness, and then sharp, stinging, and infinitely close. Letting it in, multi-directional, completely open. – Vladimir Nabokov, Ada or Ardour: A Family Chronicle (London: Penguin Books, 1969), p 17

Urbanisation: Bullshit / Dystopia / Bullshit / Even More Buildings

Little Dreams and the Tropical Vernacular

The tropical vernacular now

James Charles Mak, Intermediate 13 student, presents a visual account of his charityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s work in Cambodia

Project Little Dream designs, builds, and runs schools in Takeo, Cambodia. Today, 600 Cambodian children are studying English in the four schools built by Project Little Dream in Prey Run, Khâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;na Rong, Thon Mun and Thnouh Village in Takeo. After founding Project Little Dream in 2008, our work led me to pursue architecture at the AA. While some would say that the practice of architecture in a vernacular context is a form of critical

DRL: Funky / Underground / Bass / DLR

regionalistic endeavour, it can also be understood as a thesaurus of spaces devised through humanitarian work in a foreign country. On the left are Khmer found scenes, and on the right, our synonyms. Just as in architecture, the meaning of these words constantly fluctuates between benign acts and reckless intrusions. It is only vital that we are still learning and seeking a balance.

To find out more about the charity work of Project Little Dream, please visit www.littledream.org Top: Alphabets; middle: Element; bottom: View

DLR: Tube / Overground / Faraway / DRL

Against Glue One Another

Dear Mentor, Looking back on our correspondence, so far, we have passed judgment on two critical issues: time and paper. In agreement with the propositions and statements after they have already been seconded, this letter will pass sentence upon the contemporary in terms of its language. Given the student work on typology presented in your last letter, one could draw a line at the following: the contemporary leaves traces. Within a visual language, in this case, words and buildings turn into remarks, and we are faced with that which escapes us but that cannot be escaped. In these examples, the main parts of a plan, text or perspectival view, have been blanked out in order to read certain points, once remote, for a moment in resonance. Against an architecture, the relevance of a full document is so forth overwhelmed by the irrelevance of an echo. Perhaps, the operation of ‘leaving traces’ could be understood as to ‘unfinish’ a reality that is entire. The contemporary makes a choice, to be found by chance. I am moved. To the extent which one can read, I will add. On that occasion, a problematic corner takes place, of how to answer the contemporary. For even an unforeseen language has addressed a subject. This is evident in the truism that a typo goes back on one’s word. Or, as stated in your previous letter, the contemporary cites history ‘according to a necessity that does

Pin-up: Jury /Magazine / Easy / Jury

not arise in any way from his will, but from an exigency to which he cannot respond’. To answer the contemporary, is likewise, to pronounce at the risk of being unheard of. Our position is ruled by the types of precise errors, actual attempts to establish a historical present, in language or elsewhere, notwithstanding if two ends will ever meet. With regret, there is no description of the contemporary item itself. The reason being that we have submitted to a language where this term holds the function of an adjective, to describe something else. Conventionally, it is in its plural form that the contemporary works as a noun. However, this takes us the certain direction of a standstill. Although, one could not declare to be located in the present while being, as time moves on – at any given point, we could announce our occupation of the same time as one another. To be contemporaries. To be continued. /Buster PS In a redacted document the phrase ‘down to the last and simplest of things’, conforms: down to the last and simplest of things.

For a recollection of this conversation, please visit conversations.aaschool.ac.uk/buster-ronngren, and conversations.aaschool.ac.uk/fabrizio-ballabio

Buster Rönngren, Intermediate 2 student, writes a second reply to tutor Fabrizio Ballabio on the question ‘What is the contemporary?’ In a discussion of the First Year brief ‘Architecture and Time’.

Crit: Jury / Grasshopper / Not so Easy / Agony

Shaping Seagram

Phyllis Lambert lecture at the AA. Photo Alexander Furunes

In her recent lecture at the AA, architect Phyllis Lambert provided her personal history in managing the design of the Seagram Building, and described her client relationship with Mies van der Rohe and Philip Johnson.

Unbuilt: Rebuilt / Unknown / Empire / Paper

To view Phyllis Lambert’s full lecture please visit www.aaschool.ac.uk/video/lecture.php?id=2387

23 Phyllis Lambert was only 27 years old when she took over the search for the architect who would build the new Seagram Building in New York City. Commissioned by her father, Samuel Bronfman, founder of the Canadian distillery dynasty, Seagram, she embarked on a six-week tour to architectural practices to find the right architect to make a statement on Park Avenue. ‘There were those who could but shouldn’t,’ she explained. ‘There were those who should but couldn’t, and there were those who could and should: Le Corbusier and Mies van der Rohe.’ This exploration finally led Lambert to commission Mies for the design, along with Philip Johnson. In 1959, the elegant, deceptively simple 38-storey tower finally rose in Midtown Manhattan, with its famous seatback from the avenue. Speaking at the AA as part of this winter’s public programme, Lambert provided an unprecedented personal history of her experience in managing the Seagram Building design and construction, and told of her working relationship with Mies and Johnson. This lecture coincided with her recent publication, Building Seagram (Yale University Press, 2013), which tells the biography not just of this important building, but of the culture of postwar design, including the significant role corporate patronage played in the era’s real estate development, and of the project’s substantial role in shaping landmark legislation and zoning laws in New York City. Lambert, still unyielding at 87, is founding director of the Canadian Centre for architecture in Montreal. She is an architect, preservationist, lecturer, historian, scholar, curator, patron, citizen activist and critic of architecture and urbanism. For the Seagram project, she was director of planning and therefore in charge of the liaison between the architects, the engineers and the construction company. Lambert explains that her ambition as a client managing all these different forces was ‘to allow Mies to build the building he wanted to build’.

The conception of this building, as described by Lambert, shows the extent to which a client can help shape a project when architects learn to see beyond the imagination of their own minds. As both the director of planning and daughter of the client (in a way the client herself), Lambert had an active role, from participating in decision-making regarding the site and the plaza in front of it, to meeting with Mark Rothko and Picasso in an attempt to commission works for the project. Looking back at this period of time, Lambert feels that building in New York in the decade after the Second World War belongs to a simpler and more forwardthinking time. ‘There was a boundless conviction that we would make a better world’, she recalled. ‘We felt that we could do whatever we wanted to do, the optimism was enormous.’ This is evident in a letter Lambert wrote at the time to her father: ‘You must put up a building which expresses the best of the society in which you live, and at the same time your hopes for the betterment of this society.’

Narrative: Story / Environment / Context / Architecture

AA Confidential Brandon Whitwell Mak, Intermediate 12 student, discloses the rumours he spread across the AA to AArchitecture student editor and Intermediate 9 student Radu Remus Macovei

‘A sharing of information that expresses the needs of the community to fill a knowledge gap’ Radu: Where did the rumours start? Brandon: In my project I’m looking at how to create an infrastructure to support the event of rumour-spreading within Istanbul. My project aims to prevent a ‘knowledge gap’ within the city by creating a series of spaces that support the rumour event. When I had the chance to test our events at 1:1, it gave me the opportunity to investigate the creation and the dissemination process of information within the AA community. What were the rumours? Can we disclose them? Yes, there were a couple. Some were successful and others failed. In fact, this conversation helps me end the rumours because I soon found out that it was quick to start the dissemination of the information but I had not thought about ending them. Did the rumours create tension in the School? They did, yes. The rumours didn’t aim to affect anyone’s routine but I did get a few strong responses from First Year and Student Forum. I kind of expected the strong reaction though, because I used the existing school networks to spread the information, such as the Student Forum email to distribute the AA being open 24 hours. Also, some failed: no one really believed that smoking was forbidden on the terrace due to AA Maintenance works. Belinda saw the poster, but she knew AA Maintenance isn’t officially called AA Maintenance, so she was the first person to smoke on the terrace and everyone followed. For the AA logo I got a response from Frank Owen, who heads Digital Platforms. He believed it and wanted to come to the jury for it. I played along and said there would be a jury, so there might actually be an exhibition in the end. R: In a way, some rumours became fact. That wasn’t the purpose at all, but it happened with a couple. It was one of the outcomes that I had not anticipated. Another effect of the rumour that I hadn’t planned for was that I didn’t know how to stop the rumour once it was out. Also, I didn’t know that it was actually difficult to copy the system from the school – to use the same visual language and

Procession: Pilgrimage / Religious / Ritualistic / Stockholm Library

To see all the AA logo entries, please go to http://aalogo.tumblr.com

Entries for the Rumour of the New AA Logo

discreetly set up the posters. Another difficult thing was using the AA addresses, especially finding someone from Student Forum to send the email for me without other people knowing. It eventually got out. In physical space I was putting up posters which was problematic because a couple of people saw me, and that’s how it got out that I had created these rumours. But at some point fiction became truth. For instance, the AA logo competition was taken seriously by many students and staff, and although it was ‘official’ it did raise awareness of the branding of the school and how it should be represented today. Also, there were rumours that created other rumours, like the fact that some people thought I hacked the email address of Student Forum. What are the strategies for rumour spreading based on? I set out to test different methods of information distribution. These were via poster propaganda, public and private online networks and live rumours which use spaces as their ‘channels’. These were inspired from a rumour manual created during the Second Word War by the British Office of Secret Service, which explains how to create and spread rumours as part of psychological warfare techniques. They often aimed to spread real information within fictional stories to create fear, anxiety and hope in foreign countries. Is this a rumour too? Could be. Did you generate fear, anxiety and hope in AA? I probably generated a bit of anger.

Parametricism: Wire Mesh / Autopoesis / In Your Face / Patrick

Built: Unbuilt / Form / Space / Form

To see more of Robin Evans’ work, visit the AA Archive

Image from the AA Archives from one of Robin Evans’ 5th Year thesis, 1969: ‘Towards Anarchitecture: Artefact Systems with Respect To Human Freedom’

‘Though unfortunately most of them are mass produced and will presumably be seen around for some time...’

Anarchitect’s WICKED WORD Disposal Cylinder

Recommended Reading

Order these titles online at aabookshop.net where a selection of new books, special offers and some backlist titles are available

Book from the Ground: From Point to Point Xu Bing 128pp, 220 x 150mm Hardback Cambridge, MA, 2014 £17.95 Xu Bing spent seven years gathering materials, experimenting, revising, and arranging thousands of pictograms to construct the Book from the Ground. The result is a readable story without words, an account of 24 hours in the life of Mr Black, a typical urban white-collar worker whose day is recounted with meticulous and intimate detail. The narrative, which uses an exclusively visual language, could be published anywhere, without translation or explication. Anyone with experience in contemporary life who has internalised the icons and logos of modernity, from smiley faces to transit maps to menus, can understand it.

A Pattern Language Christopher Alexander 1216pp, 200 x 150mm Col and b&w ills. throughout Hardback London, 2012 £12 You can use this book to design a house for yourself with your family; you can use it to design an office, a workshop or a public building. And you can use it as a guide you in the actual process of construction. At its core is the acknowledgement that in designing their environments people always rely on certain ‘languages’, which, like the languages we speak, allow them to articulate and communicate an infinite variety of designs within a system that gives them coherence. A Pattern Language provides a language of this kind, enabling a person to design for almost any kind of building or any part of the built environment.

Vernacular: Quaint / Door / Base / Hut

Panel Pedro Ignacio Alonso and Hugo Palmarola 262 pages, 279 x 240 mm Extensive col & b/w ills, paperback June 2014 978-1-907896-49-1 c £30

AA Book 2014 Two vols (c 304 pp and 1128 pp) 249 x 170 mm Extensive col & b/w ills, paperback June 2014 978-1-907896-31-6 £25

Although marginal to histories of modern architecture, the development of concrete panel systems was central to debates about architecture’s industrialisation. Adapted to numerous different contexts, these systems went beyond borders in producing over 170 million apartments worldwide. This book focuses on a particular aspect of this history – systems exported from Russia into Cuba and then on to Chile in the 1960s and 1970s. Written from the point of view of the worker as much as the architect, and containing an incredible panoply of archival material, the book offers a portrait of an architectural and political history whose symbolic and physical register all along is a concrete panel.

AA Book 2014 provides an overview of the AA’s 2013/14 academic year. Released to coincide with Projects Review, the school’s end-of-year show, the book includes hundreds of works – drawings, models, installations, photographs and other materials – as it documents the most international and experimental school of architecture.

Undergraduate: Dip 9, Inter 9 / Intermediate / School /Experiment

For further information on AA Publications or to order, visit: www.aaschool.ac.uk/publications

AA Publications

ebooks Architecture Words 1 Supercritical Peter Eisenman, Rem Koolhaas, Jeffrey Kipnis and Robert Somol Architecture Words 2 Anti-Object: The Dissolution and Disintegration of Architecture Kengo Kuma Architecture Words 3 The Poetics of a Wall Projection Jan Turnovský Architecture Words 4 Having Words Denise Scott Brown

Bedford Press is an imprint of AA Publications. For further information visit: www.bedfordpress.org

Architecture Words 5 Form, Function, Beauty = Gestalt Max Bill The AA’s Architecture Words was established in 2008 as a series of small, accessible books that counter the dominance of images in architecture by promoting the written word, in the form of texts, essays, conversations, interviews, manifestos and other forms of writing by architects, historians and critics. Since its launch the series has proved to be very successful. In response to this success, and in an effort to further disseminate these particular Words, AA Publications is producing ebook versions of all titles in the series, available from autumn 2013. In the future, as the series continues to expand, the launch of each specific physical book will be mirrored by its ebook launch. Available worldwide on Apple iBookstore and Amazon Kindle. Download the free Kindle reading app to read Kindle books on iOS and other mobile and tablet devices. Search ‘Architecture Words’ From £7.72

Architecture Words 6 Projectiles Bernard Cache Architecture Words 7 Modernity Unbound Detlef Mertins Architecture Words 8 Tarzans in the Media Forest Toyo Ito Architecture Words 9 Tectonic Acts of Desire and Doubt Mark Rakatansky Architecture Words 11 The House of Light and Entropy Alessandra Ponte Architecture Words 12 Stones Against Diamonds Lina Bo Bardi

Map: Journey / Nolli / Nolli / Matt

Remembering David Gray

David’s relationship with the AA spanned more than 45 years. That period saw him pass from the white-shirted environment of the drawing office as a student between 1950–55, to become a member of the so-called ‘Gang of Four’ who led the AA during the interregnum year following Alvin Boyarsky’s death in 1990. David undertook virtually every role in the AA: within the School he will be particularly remembered as a Unit Master in both Intermediate and Diploma Schools. David came to the AA after completing his National Service. Postwar Britain was a heady place for students and young assistants. Neave Brown, his contemporary and closest friend, writes of those destined to become architects ‘coming from the schools committed to the idea that British architecture, generally sad and provincial, needed a dose of vigour and a theoretical basis for work.’ The idea of strong strategies for design that formulated detail stayed with David throughout his career as practitioner and teacher. What he taught was what he believed in and what underpinned his architecture. His student cohort included Kenneth Frampton, Neave Brown, Patrick Hodgkinson and Adrian Gale. Some fellow students were to meet again in the practice of Lyons Israel & Ellis which David joined in 1957, becoming a partner in 1970, and remaining there until the practice closed in 1984. With the appointment of Alvin Boyarsky in 1972 and the development of the unit system, David started to teach with David Shalev. The ‘two Davids’,

Section: Plan / Cut / Boullée / Exotic

as they were known, taught what they practised: forms of modernism. David went on to teach with Neave Brown and later with Kisa Kawakami. Their prospectus was always site specific, detailed and precise, relating mainly to shoreline sites and often post-industrial in character. Looking back at Projects Review for 1987–88, it seems that the students in his unit were largely divided between those who went on to teach and those who became his friends, though the two roles were not mutually exclusive. It was at the end of year Diploma Committee tables that I first met him. In a scene sometimes tantamount to gladiatorial combat, David was always completely fair, generous and mild mannered. Alvin Boyarsky recognised David’s measured response to the student portfolio and appointed him tutor in charge of external students, as successor to Ron Herron and David Greene. The students in his care were often in need of more time to complete their work: David was careful that they had the opportunity to develop their talent and ideas. In recognition of his continued support for the School over so many years, David was awarded an Honorary Membership of the AA on 5 March 2013, coming out of hospital to receive the award.

A celebration of David’s life and long association with the AA will be held on Saturday 27 September 2014 at the AA. For more details please check memberevents.aaschool.ac.uk

Written by Peter Salter, former AA Unit Master & AA Dipl (Hons) 1980.

AA News Council The results of this year’s Election of Officers for the 2014/15 session are as follows: President Sadie Morgan (former AA tutor) * Vice President Frank Duffy CBE (AADipl(Hons) 1964) * Vice President Hugh Pearman * Hon Secretary Yasmin Shariff (former AA student) * Hon Treasurer Paul Warner * Past President Keith Priest (AADipl 1975) Ordinary Members John Andrews (AADipl 1976 and former AA Tutor)* Joanna Chambers * Oliver Domeisen (AADipl 1996 and former AA Tutor) Lady Patricia Hopkins (AADipl 1968) * Sho Ito (AA Student on Year Out) * David Jenkins (former AA Vice President) Aram Mooradian (AADipl 2011) David Porter * Richard Patterson (AADipl 1976) * Rory Sherlock (AA 3rd Year Student) Rebecca Spencer (AADipl 2013) Jane Wernick (former AA Tutor) * Elected on the 2014/15 ballot.

Published & Exhibited Farah Naz’s (AA SED MArch 2007) work with fashion brands and the International Labour Organization to improve the working conditions of factories in Bangladesh was featured in the March 2014 edition of the CibseJournal. This follows on from her AA dissertation ‘Energy Efficient Garment Factories’ and in reaction to the Rana Plaza incident last year in Bangladesh which killed more than 1000 people. Farah also works as Senior Sustainability Engineer at Ramboll UK. portfolio.cpl.co.uk/cibse/201403/ factory-conditions-bangladesh

Adam Nathaniel Furman (AADipl(Hons) 2008 and AAIS GradDipl 2009) will exhibit in ‘Space Craft’, organised by the Crafts Council and Habitat. The exhibition took place at Habitat on the Kings Road and coincided with the international art fair for contemporary objects Collect, that took place nearby at the Saatchi Gallery from 9–12 May. Tommy Hui (AA 5th Year Student) created interactive graphics for Vienna dance group An Kaler. Tommy used processing with a set of light algorithms to produce animations parallel to the dance movements for a performance at the Leopold Museum, Vienna on 3 May. www.tommyhuihk.com www.tqw.at/en/node/9699 rat[LAB], the practice of Sushant Verma and Pradeep Devadass’ (both AA EmTech MArch 2013) project adaptive[skins]_V4.0 was selected to be exhibited at Maker Faire 2014 in Bay Area, California, USA in May 2014. www.rat-lab.org/#!news/c14kg www.theresident.co.uk/arts/art/habitat_ and_the_crafts_council_join_forces_in_ exhibition_1_3462001 Stefan Jovanovic (AA 3rd Year Student) was part of the group of artists in residence at the What Now Festival 2014. The festival ran at the at Siobhan Davies studio from 10–13 April 2014 . www.independentdance.co.uk/ programmepage/activities/what-festival Takako Hasegawa (AA Foundation Studio Master) presented at the multidisciplinary symposium Sensing Architecture at the Royal Academy of Arts held in conjunction with their exhibition Sensing Spaces: Architecture Reimagined on Saturday 29 March. www.royalacademy.org.uk/event/81 The School of Architecture for All (SARCHA) initiated by Maria Theodorou (AAPhD (H&T) 1998) featured in Blueprint magazine, issue 332 January/February 2014. www.sarcha-architecture.blogspot.co.uk/ 2014/03/sarcha-in-blueprintarchitect-is-no.html Ricardo de Ostos (AA Inter 3 Unit Master) gave a lecture at the American University of Beirut, Lebanon. Entitled ‘The Nature of the City’ the

lecture was held by the Department of Architecture and Design on 17 February. de Ostos also was keynote speaker along with fellow AA Unit Master Nannette Jackowski at MATERIART 2014 in Ankara, Turkey www.aub.edu.lb/events/pages/ eventdetails.aspx?itemid=480 materiart.org/events/materiart-2014/ A new drawing workshop, Drawing the City, ran by Michael Kloihofer (AADipl 2010) and Patricia MatoMora (former AA Student) was held in April 2014 in the city of Palma, aimed at encouraging culture-led tourism on the island of Majorca. www.drawingthecity.net AA DRL Director Theo Spyropoulous spoke at the Romanian Cultural Institute on the subject of ‘Rethinking London’ on 27 February. Spyropoulous headed a research team of 12 DRL students who presented an alternative vision of the capital’s future, exploring possible solutions to problems such as food supply and the import dependence. www.icr-london.co.uk/article/rethinkinglondon-639.html Kostas Grigoriadis (AA Dip 2 Unit Master) will be presenting research papers on material continuity and t he simulation of material properties at the ESARQ conference at the Universitat Internacional de Catalunya (4–6 June) and at the eCaade2014 FUSION conference at Northumbria University (10–12 September). www.biodigitalarchitecture.com/schedule. html www.northumbria.ac.uk/sd/academic/ ee/work/research/architecture/virtual_ reality_visualisation/ecaade Liam Young (AA Dip 6 Unit Master) hosted the Data Drama conference at Princeton University School of Architecture 4–5 April. Discussion and workshops were based around the spatial possibilities and consequences of big data and the network. The event was also live streamed. Liam Young also spoke at the FutureEverything Festival in Manchester, 31 March – 1 April 2014. Alex Warnock-Smith (AADipl 2006 and AA H&U Course Master), Carlos Nunez Davila (AA H&U MA 2012), Juliana Muniz Westcott and Jorge Sanchez Herrera (both AA H&U

Figure Ground: Tabala Rasa / Emptiness / Black and White / Megalith

32 MArch 2013) hosted the Productive Territories networking session at the UN World Urban Forum in Medellin on 10 April 2014. The networking session discussed the role of urbanism as a tool for promoting social mobility and equity. www.productiveterritories.org

Careers & Prizes Elena Palacios Carral (AADipl 2012) and Manijeh Verghese (AADipl(Hons) 2012 and AA Inter 11 Tutor) have been shortlisted as finalists in the Competition of Competitions. Under the name Form Fiction Format, their entry ‘The City & The Room’ was exhibited at the Storefront for Art and Architecture in New York from 29 April 2014. www.storefrontnews.org/programming/ competitions?c=&p=&e=602 Project Little Dream, a student-run volunteer organization and registered charity that furthers education for underprivileged children in rural Cambodia, headed by James Charles Mak (AA 3rd Year Student) won the Trophy in Architecture (Student Category) and Best of the Best Award at the Perspective Awards 2013 Hong Kong. His achievements also earned him a Citation at the American Institute of Architecture Hong Kong Chapter. Julia King (AADipl 2007 & former AA Councillor) was named AJ Emerging Woman Architect of the Year by Architects Journal in February. King was praised for her urban development work in New Delhi and was described by the judges as ‘truly inspiring’. www.architectsjournal.co.uk/home/ women-in-architecture/julia-kingnamed-emerging-woman-architect-ofthe-year/8658540.article Sebastian Fry (AAGradDiplCons 2013) has won the IHBC Student Award 2013 for his AA Building Conservation thesis. Described by the judges as ‘an impressively wide-ranging study’, the thesis investigates influences upon the architecture of Knights Hospitaller commanderies and associated parish churches. www.buildingconservation.aaschool.ac.uk/ function-tradition-ideology-or-patron

Natassa Lianou and Ermis Chalvatzis (both AA DRL MArch 2011) have been awarded an honourable mention in the NEXT STOP-Designing Chicago BRT Stations competition with their project KINESIS. The competition was organised by the Chicago Architectural Club and Chicago Architecture Foundation. The two architects gave an interview to The Tovima newspaper and they were also featured in ‘The generation of 2020’ issue of BHMagazino. www.lianou-chalvatzis.com Luca Peralta (AA DRL MArch 2000) won the 2014 MIPIM Architectural Review Future Project Awards category ‘Old and New’. Luca Peralta Studio’s project ‘Transforming Social Houses into Sociable Homes’ was recognised for its visionary solution for the regeneration of the abandoned social housing project, Torre Tintoretto in San Polo, Brescia, Italy. www.mipimarfutureprojects.com/ winners-projects Jorge Gomendio Kindelan (AADipl 1991) won the Interior Innovation Award at the Rat für Formgebung (German Design Council) awards for a clothes valet designed at the AA in 1993. His design ‘Galán’ was also chosen to form part of the ‘Confession of Design’ exhibition organized by Aussenwirtschaft Austria (Advantage Austria), which was held at the Rotonda della Besana in Milan. www.confession-of design.com/exhibition www.gomendiokindelan.com/en/ industrial-design

Obituaries Giampietro Parboni Arquati SIA OTIA REGA (AADipl 1982) died in Davos, Switzerland, on 3 January 2014 of a brain tumour. Giampietro joined the AA in 1977, having completed a first year at Rome University. He joined Mike Davies and Alan Stanton’s Unit, who had just returned to London following work on the Centre Georges Pompidou. Giampietro had learned English during the preceding summer in Cambridge, where he met his wife Silvia. The unit system was a true culture shock but one which he took on with typical commitment and dedication, joining Zaha Hadid’s Unit in his final year and graduating in 1982.

The Grid: Overrated / Cartesian / Lines / New York

After a brief spell working for Greenhill Jenner Architects in London, he chose to make his own way in Switzerland. He married Silvia and headed for Locarno to join the studio of Livio Vacchini. Very happy and professionally fulfilling times followed, as he set up his own practice in Locarno in 1985. Moving to Lugano in 1990, he completed numerous projects including private houses, apartment buildings and competition entries. From 2002 to 2008 he was responsible for projects in Astana, Kazakstan, including a hospital and the headquarters of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In 2009 he worked on a large project near Caracas, a riverfront mixed-use complex for a hotel and apartment buildings. Giampietro’s illness was first diagnosed in January 2010 and he made an almost full recovery returning to work a year later. In 2012 he sought a quieter life and with Silvia decided to move to the ski resort of Davos. They settled in Davos for less than a month when Giampietro was commissioned what was to be his last project, the refurbishment of an important local hotel. Although he was still convalescing he took on the challenge with great enthusiasm and ensured that the complex renovation was completed on time. Unfortunately the tumour returned in 2013 and he spent many months in and out in hospital. He passed away shortly after the New Year. All that knew him will remember and miss his fine humour, his smile, his welcoming and outgoing character always interested in hearing one’s news. He addressed his illness with great optimism, never ceasing to enjoy and embrace life. Shortly before he died he said: I would do it all again exactly in the same way! Obituary written by Luigi Beltrandi (AADipl 1983) Lord Alistair McAlpine, who served as Chairman of the AA Foundation Trustees from 1989 to 1994 died on 17 January 2014 aged 71. For a glimpse of the colourful life of this truly eccentric English gentleman, read his obituary on www.theguardian. com/politics/2014/jan/19/lord-mcalpineof-west-green. The AA also learnt of the recent deaths of Bradley Knowles (AADipl 1968) and Bryan Russell Archer (AADipl 1954).

Next Issueâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Theme

Health and Safety

Contributions to aarchitecture@aaschool.ac.uk

School Announcement

Members’ Trip to Venice Architecture Biennale and Giorgio Cini Foundation Friday 4 – Sunday 6 July 2014

Includes: —— Private Talks held at the Giorgio Cini Foundation —— 2014 Venice Architecture Biennale Pass (including special tours) —— Tour of Palazzo Cini Gallery: Tuscan and Ferrarese Masterpieces —— 2 nights stay at the Vittore Branca Centre, San Giorgio Maggiore Island —— One 3-course meal with the group —— 72hr Venice travel pass (Flights not included)

£325pp for AA Students/AA Staff £365pp for AA Members

Student Announcement

AAIR Re-Launch AArchitecture would like to welcome the return of AAIR, the AA’s web-run radio station.

We are pleased to announce the return of the AA Independent Radio (AAIR). AAIR is a student-run web radio for the AA community for sharing audio materials.Broadcasting music, lectures, interviews, events, poetry, crises, plays, inspiration, city guides, wild flowers, satire, chance encounters, answering machines, love letters, travel stories, disillusionment, silence…

We would like to invite you to participate in these two upcoming programmes:

This is an AA student-run station. Broadcasts are contributed by current and former AA students and staff, along with anyone interested in the pleasures of radio. We encourage you to send in your own radio shows. We like imagination. The voice. Listening. Feeling. Thinking. Laughing. Relaxing and polishing our shoes.

Listening to the AA – Sounds around school An aural map of the Architectural Association. Contribute a sound clip of any length and please state the location, event and time.

Words to buildings (Entirely up to your interpretation) Do you have a favourite piece of text (in song, poetry, film, interview) that describes or addresses a built space? Please send an audio file or join us at upcoming recording sessions to be announced on the site.

radio@aaschool.ac.uk www.radio.aaschool.ac.uk