Channel Title: AA School of Architecture Channel Description: Architectural Association School of Architecture The flexible, self-directed curricula on offer at the school, combined with the global nature of the institution, afford the Architectural Association (AA) a rare degree of awareness in acknowledging and confronting the social, technological and cultural challenges of today. With around 800 full-time students, over 7000 members, 250 tutors, and 100 administrative staff, the AA occupies eight Georgian houses in central London and a 350-acre woodland site at Hooke Park, Dorset. The AA seeks students who demonstrate initiative in engaging in public presentations, discussions, and debates within the School, the architectural community, and beyond. We look for students with the curiosity and ambition to carve out a unique path through our diverse pedagogical methods and agendas. For more information, visit: https://www.aaschool.ac.uk/admissions <video> Senses & Sense Making / Tim Ingold and Michaela Büsse Description: Field Forum is a series curated by Jingru (Cyan) Cheng and Chen Zhan that centres the interconnectedness embedded in the built environment, attuning our senses to material flows, planetary scales, intergenerational times and all the life entangled in these processes. Anthropologist Tim Ingold and artist researcher Michaela Büsse will speak as part of an evening centred around what it means to 'turn the ground' and resist reclaimed land. Following a short talk from each guest, a conversation with the audience will be chaired by Cyan and Chen. A short film White Elephant (2022) will be on loop from 6.10pm, and the talk and conversation will start from 6.30pm. It will be a floor-based gathering with rugs, cushions and mats and seating for those who prefer it. You are welcome to come from 6.10pm to enjoy the short film with drinks ahead of the conversation. The Turn of the Ground in an Earth-Sky World Tim Ingold If the air is up above, and the earth down below, what lies in between? The answer is the ground. But how, then, should we describe it? Is it an interface, like a pavement, which separates the earth from the sky, keeping each to its respective domain, or is it a zone in which earth and sky interpenetrate, allowing soil and moisture to combine with atmospheric air in the production of life? Focusing on what it means to turn the ground, in the practices of both cultivation and burial, we argue that it is alternately both. As generations come and go, the earth alternately opens to the sky and turns against it. Granular Configurations: Land Reclamation and Resistance Michaela Büsse From the high-rises that define urban skylines to the silicon chips that drive digital technologies, sand is deeply embedded in the fabric of contemporary life. The consequences of its extraction exemplify broader environmental degradations occurring on our planet. The destabilization of riverbanks, erosion of beaches, and sedimentation of aquatic habitats are more than just ecological issues—they reflect the extractive logics underpinning urban development. At the same time, sand’s granular nature—its complex and shifting qualities— challenges and complicates efforts to control it. This presentation weaves together fieldwork from land reclamation projects in the Netherlands, Singapore, and Malaysia, tracing sand's journey from a natural material to an engineered urban landscape. Using the physics of sand—fluid at times, solid at others—I demonstrate how attempts to accumulate and transform shorelines often collide with the material’s tendency to erode, leading to unexpected patterns of sedimentation that open the way for alternative futures. White Elephant (2022) By Michaela Büsse, with additional camera and editing by Konstantin Mitrokhov and sound by Andreas Kühne White Elephant portrays the desolate state of an abandoned land and real estate development project along the coast of Malacca in Malaysia. This two-channel video installation explores the gap between visionary architectural models, polished digital renderings, and the stark reality of an unfinished reclamation site. Tim Ingold is Professor Emeritus of Social Anthropology at the University of Aberdeen. He has carried out fieldwork among Saami and Finnish people in Lapland, and has written on environment, technology and social organisation in the circumpolar North, on animals in human society, and on human ecology and evolutionary theory. His more recent work explores environmental perception and skilled practice. Ingold’s current interests lie on the interface between anthropology, archaeology, art and architecture. His recent books include The Perception of the Environment (2000), Lines (2007), Being Alive (2011), Making (2013), The Life of Lines (2015), Anthropology and/as Education (2018), Anthropology: Why it Matters (2018), Correspondences (2020), Imagining for Real (2022) and The Rise and Fall of Generation Now (2023). Ingold is a Fellow of the British Academy and the Royal Society of Edinburgh. In 2022 he was made a CBE for services to Anthropology. Michaela Büsse is an interdisciplinary researcher and artist based in Berlin. She is currently a postdoctoral fellow at the Technische Universität Dresden and the Research Institute for Sustainability Helmholtz Centre Potsdam, as well as an Associated Investigator at the Cluster of Excellence "Matters of Activity. Image Space Material" at the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. Her research focuses on spatial and material transformations in the context of speculative urbanism, climate change mitigation, and energy transitions. Drawing on environmental humanities and feminist science and technology studies, she examines how design practices and technologies govern environments and define who and what is rendered inhuman. </video> <video> Reuse Relationships - Organised by Aude-Line Duliere and James Westcott Description: Organised by Diploma 18 at the Architectural Association as part of Circular Economy Week London 2024, this event is triggered by two developments. Firstly, the fact that more and more real-world architectural projects are involving material reuse, and secondly, the fact that a new type of relationship is being forged: between architects and… let’s call them “material facilitators”. In other words, the experts – who have been around long before circularity became a thing – who can actually find and supply used materials and help incorporate them in new contexts. Abstract consultancy reports aren’t enough. To facilitate more reuse, what we need is direct relationships that deepen the expertise of both parties and open up the possibility of reuse at the mid-scale, beyond signature boutique projects. Reuse in the UK is at a hinge point. Common sense, BREEAM credits or strategic communication might be the initial forces steering reuse ambitions. But without supporting policies or obligatory measures in place, success with reuse operations is often down to a client’s vision and risk appetite, and the quality of these reuse relationships. This roundtable aims to be a microphone to support practices pushing reuse forward in the UK. It is also a platform to celebrate design talent with reused material, which needs to become an intrinsic part of the architect’s repertoire. We will hear from the following duos of architects and material facilitators working together on live or completed projects, sharing their big struggles and small successes: Dylan Radcliffe-Brown on Cowan Court, Cambridge (6A architects x BCA Matériaux Anciens) Maria-Chiara Piccinelli + Robert Greer on LSE Firoz Lalji Global Hub, London (David Chipperfield Architects x PAYE Stonework and Restoration) Claire Dale-Lace on the Museum of London (Stanton Williams) Emily Wickham on Bramcote Park, Bermondsey (Assemble x Local Works) </video> <video> Architecture of Nature: An experimental approach for architectural practice Description: In this lecture, Zhu Pei will present his design philosophy, the Architecture of Nature, which will reveal the simplicity and authenticity of architecture’s originality. By focusing on his recent works, he will present how his philosophy can be translated across different tectonic terrains. ZHU PEI founded Studio Zhu Pei in Beijing. From there, he has produced an extraordinary body of cultural works that have made him one of the leading figures of his generation. Marked by his American experience, which includes teaching as a visiting professor at Yale, Harvard and Columbia Universities, he is the current dean and professor at the School of Architecture at the Central Academy of Fine Arts (CAFA). He was recognized as an Honorary Fellow of the American Institute of Architects (AIA) for his contribution to architecture and he was a jury member for the Mies van der Rohe Awards. </video> <video> Road Work: Andrew Holmes Description: Accompanied by a series of intense images and visual effects, Andrew Holmes uses the subject of the talk, Road Work, to trace his extraordinary career from a young student of architecture in the analogue days of the 1960s to an internationally recognised artist in the present era of the digital image. He maps the theme of drawing onto the people that have influenced his life; growing up in Bromsgrove, a Midlands town with a unique engineering legacy; his first nationally exhibited watercolour painting aged four; joining the Architectural Association in 1966 with its emphasis on line drawing; travelling to the altogether tougher New York where he was exposed to the disciplines of minimalism; making journeys over many years across the States to California where its natural light generated developments in the use of photography and film. The lecture also explores themes of music and popular culture and their connections to the brilliant individuals who construct the custom cars, motorcycles and in particular the semi-trailer trucks, which are ever-present in his work. Andrew Holmes was born in 1947 in Bromsgrove, Worcestershire, moved to London in 1966 and studied at the Architectural Association. Andrew is an internationally recognised photorealist artist who has made a lifelong contribution to contemporary art. He is best known for a series of 150 realistic pencil drawings exploring the apparently anonymous mobile infrastructure of cities. In addition, his work encompasses printmaking, photography, film, design and radio. The work offers not only the unique quality of handicraft, but the elements of three traditions: that art is evidence of an ability to select significant objects from experience; that art is the residue of engaging existing systems with particular mechanical techniques and processes; that art provides the possibility of fabricating new versions of reality. The work in all its forms has been exhibited and published widely for sixty years. Andrew was invited to be Visiting Scholar and artist in residence (2007) at The Getty Center, Los Angles, and to contribute to Pacific Standard Time: Art in LA 1945-1980, shown in over 60 cultural institutions throughout Southern California. He is Professor Emeritus of Architecture at Oxford Brookes University, and Guest Professor at the Technische Universitaat, Berlin. He was an innovative and inspirational Unit Master of the famous Diploma Unit 9 from 1978 to 1996. The work of his students is archived in four books housed in the AA library. </video> <video> This Land is Your Land: Land As Medium - Alain Pottage Description: The This Land is Your Land lecture series critically investigates one of the most influential systems of Land formation; property relationships and negotiation of rights. According to the occidental understanding, law is attached to land through foundational acts of acquisition. Since the early twentieth century, technologies of control and information have been transforming this sense of property and territory, generating a new understanding of land as a medium. What becomes of property in this epoch? Alain Pottage is Professor of Law at Sciences Po, Paris. His work focuses on theories of property, media theories of law, and Earth jurisprudences. Image: Atlantropa, Exhibition poster, Hermal Sörgel, 1932. Deutsches Museum, Muchen (Archiv CD 78659) This event is part of the This Land is Your Land series organised by Georgia Hablutzel, Hamed Khosravi and Platon Issaias. The series will explore the legacies of land commodification through visual, textual, and theoretical practices. Moving through disciplines of architecture, visual art, and law these lenses will provide a field to examine the legacies of power embedded in how land is recorded, possessed, and weaponised. It will navigate various geographic contexts, from Europe and the Middle East to the Caribbean, in order to study the forms of historical and contemporary influence of Property on the formation of Land. Through practitioners' work This Land is Your Land seeks to unveil legal, social, economic, spatial, and political relations. Often overlooked in contemporary discussions around architecture and spatial production, the series wishes to illuminate how Property is used as a method to mediate the dispute of historic sovereign powers. The lectures seek to reveal how jurisdiction, representation, indignity could serve as productive forces in imagining new relationships towards property and rights. </video> <video> Entangled Families / Rosalind Nashashibi Description: The This Land is Your Land lecture series critically investigates one of the most influential systems of Land formation; property relationships and negotiation of rights. The third lecture in the This Land is Your Land lecture series brings artist Rosalind Nashashibi to the AA, to discuss Entangled Families. Rosalind Nashashibi A Palestinian family home in Nazareth Hreash House is a short film made in 2003-4 of a Palestinian family living in a multi-story concrete building of their own construction. We see 24 hours of family life during Ramadan in 2003, the Hreash family extend to a small community in one building, sharing resources and responsibilities. Rosalind Nashashibi will present her film and talk about the weeks she spent with Hreash family in this traditional, collective, compound home. Rosalind Nashashibi is a London based artist of Northern Irish and Palestinian descent. She received her BA in Painting from Sheffield Hallam University, Sheffield and her MFA at Glasgow School of Art, Glasgow. In 2020, Nashashibi was artist in residence at the National Gallery in London. She was a Turner Prize nominee in 2017, and represented Scotland in the 52nd Venice Biennale. Her work has been included in Documenta 14, The 14th Shanghai Biennale, Manifesta 7, The Nordic Triennial, and Sharjah 10. Nashashibi received a Paul Hamlyn Award in 2014 and Becks Futures Award in 2003. Her solo exhibitions include; Nottingham Contemporary (UK); Musée Art Contemporain Carré d’Art, Nîmes (FR), Radvila Palace Museum of Art for CAC, Vilnius (LT), Vienna Secession, (A), Kunstinstituut Melly, Rotterdam, (NL), The High Line, New York, (US); The Art Institute of Chicago, (US); and ICA, London (UK). She is currently nominated for the Derek Jarman Award. This event is part of the This Land is Your Land series organised by Georgia Hablutzel, Hamed Khosravi and Platon Issaias. The series will explore the legacies of land commodification through visual, textual, and theoretical practices. Moving through disciplines of architecture, visual art, and law these lenses will provide a field to examine the legacies of power embedded in how land is recorded, possessed, and weaponised. It will navigate various geographic contexts, from Europe and the Middle East to the Caribbean, in order to study the forms of historical and contemporary influence of Property on the formation of Land. Through practitioners' work This Land is Your Land seeks to unveil legal, social, economic, spatial, and political relations. Often overlooked in contemporary discussions around architecture and spatial production, the series wishes to illuminate how Property is used as a method to mediate the dispute of historic sovereign powers. The lectures seek to reveal how jurisdiction, representation, indignity could serve as productive forces in imagining new relationships towards property and rights. </video> <video> Climate Week Day 5 / EmTech / The P2 Tower Re Neighbouring the Vertical City Description: </video> <video> Climate Week Day 3 / Student Forum – Student Projects Description: </video> <video> Hélène Binet / In conversation with Marco Iuliano and Ingrid Schroder Description: Over a period of forty years, Hélène Binet has photographed both contemporary and historical architecture. A comprehensive selection of her work has been recently published by Lund Humphries, with two critical essays. In the book Marco Iuliano details Hélène Binet’s background, from her childhood in the Italian fishing village of Sperlonga and in Rome, through her early ‘discovery’ of architectural photographer Lucien Hervé, to other significant influences, like the collaborations with Daniel Libeskind, John Hejduk, Peter Zumthor and the connections at the AA where she met Zaha Hadid. Martino Stierli sets Binet’s work within the conceptual framework of architectural photography, discussing whether an architectural photograph is an inventory of a building or space, a translation into a two-dimensional image or, rather, an image in its own right; an artifact that loosely relates to the original object or phenomenon. The event will be the opportunity to listen to Binet talking about her most recent works, her connection with the AA and, in conversation with Marco Iuliano and AA Director Ingrid Schroder, to explore the challenges of the book in the making. Hélène Binet (b. 1959) is a Swiss and French photographer based in London. A fervent advocate of analogue photography, she is an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects (2007). In 2015 Hélène was the recipient of the Julius Shulman Institute Excellence in Photography Award. She was also the recipient of the 2019 Ada Louise Huxtable Prize, awarded to a woman who has made a major contribution to architecture, and is one of the Royal Photographic Society’s Hundred Heroines. Marco Iuliano (b. 1973) is an Italian architect who teaches at the University of Liverpool School of Architecture (LSA), where he is the programme director of the Master of Architecture (MArch) and has devised the competition for the new LSA, now under construction; he is also a Faculty member at the British School at Rome. Marco has published extensively on architectural photography, contemporary architecture and urban cartography. For Lund Humphries he is the ‘Architectural Photographers’ series editor. </video> <video> Climate Week Day 5 / Diploma 4 / Anti Ditch Description: </video> <video> Climate week Day 5 / Diploma 6 Description: </video> <video> Climate Week Day 5 / Diploma 10 Description: </video> <video> Climate Week Day 5 / Landscape Urbanism / Cultivating Commons Description: </video> <video> Chrysalis: Experiments in Architecture, Los Angeles, 1968-1972 Description: Mike Davies and Alan Stanton in conversation. In the late 1960s, after studying at the AA, Alan Stanton, Chris Dawson and Mike Davies moved to Los Angeles and formed the group Chrysalis with a number of other artists. Born out of the West Coast counterculture, Chrysalis was dedicated to building in the real world the kinds of experimental projects that radical groups like Archigram had envisioned. These included air structures and responsive environments, culminating in the mirrored dome for Expo '70 in Osaka, Japan. In conversation with AA Director Ingrid Schroder and critic and historian Irenée Scalbert, Alan and Mike will tell the story of Chrysalis and how their experiments in California informed not only their work on the Centre Pompidou in Paris, which they were instrumental in designing, but also their roles as founding partners of Stanton Williams and Richard Rogers Partnership respectively. After studying at the AA and at UCLA in California, during which time he cofounded Chrysalis, Alan Stanton worked on the Centre Pompidou in Paris before forming the partnership Stanton Williams with Paul Williams in 1985. The practice was awarded the Stirling Prize for its Sainsbury Laboratory, Cambridge and has designed many notable projects, including the University of the Arts campus at King’s Cross; the Millennium Seedbank at Wakehurst; and most recently a new campus building for UCL on their Olympic Park site. Alan was elected a Royal Designer for Industry (RDI) in 2005 and a Royal Academician in 2009, before being awarded the OBE for services to architecture in 2014. After cofounding Chrysalis, Mike Davies worked on the Centre Pompidou in Paris before becoming one of the founding partners of Richard Rogers Partnership (RRP), along with Richard Rogers, John Young and Marco Goldschmied. Mike developed the practice’s urban design and masterplanning expertise with strategic masterplans for the Royal Docks, Leamouth. Wood Wharf, and the Greenwich Peninsula in London and the City of Dunkirk in France. He was also the project director for Grand Paris, a masterplan for Greater Paris 2025. Mike was the partner in RSHP responsible for the Millennium Dome and for Terminal 5 at London’s Heathrow. He was awarded a CBE in 2000 for services to architecture and was made a Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur in 2010. </video> <video> Climate Week Day 5 / Intermediate 12 / On Carson's Realms of Soil Description: </video>

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Description

Architectural Association School of Architecture

The flexible, self-directed curricula on offer at the school, combined with the global nature of the institution, afford the Architectural Association (AA) a rare degree of awareness in acknowledging and confronting the social, technological and cultural challenges of today. With around 800 full-time students, over 7000 members, 250 tutors, and 100 administrative staff, the AA occupies eight Georgian houses in central London and a 350-acre woodland site at Hooke Park, Dorset.

The AA seeks students who demonstrate initiative in engaging in public presentations, discussions, and debates within the School, the architectural community, and beyond. We look for students with the curiosity and ambition to carve out a unique path through our diverse pedagogical methods and agendas.

For more information, visit: https://www.aaschool.ac.uk/admissions

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