AA Visiting School Ivrea: ‘Factory Futures II Architecture Without Humans’

In July 2012, the AA, in partnership with the Adriano Olivetti Foundation and Gehry Technologies, launched Factory Futures: A three year research program aimed at exploring innovative architectural responses for the productive landscape of the future. The mission of Factory Futures is to connect the realms of contemporary urban theory with computational design techniques for the affirmative re-empowerment of the architectural practice within contemporary conditions of production. This year, the Ivrea Visiting School will develop design tools and research concepts to confront this phenomenon, which is challenging the conventions of both architectural design and urban theory during their workshop which takes place July 1-12. More information after the break.
AA Istanbul Visiting School 2013: Vertical Interventions

In its third year, the AA Istanbul Visiting School, Vertical Interventions, in collaboration with Istanbul Technical University, will continue to rediscover verticality through novel generative design techniques and large-scale physical prototypes. Abstracted as a fusion of various sub-systems, each subsystem of the tower will be investigated in relation to their various performance criteria. The correlations between the separate sets of performance criteria and evaluation methods will be analyzed, leading to the generation of unified design alternatives for a vertical system typology. In addition to the custom-made digital design and evaluation tools supporting the core methodology, Vertical Interventions will also highlight the fabrication and assembly of a large scale working prototype integrating the performative characteristics of each system in examination.
As in 2012, the design agendas of AA Athens and AA Istanbul Visiting Schools will directly create feedback on one another, allowing participation in either one or both Programmes.
AA Athens Visiting School 2013: CIPHER CITY – Recharged

Following the initial challenge of amplifying connectivity, adjustability and interaction for its Correlations cycle, AA Athens Visiting School scales up its design intentions in order to investigate links among discrete individual architectural systems in its 2013 version, Recharged.
Recharged with interconnectivity on different levels, the theme of investigation will revolve around the design of semi-independent design prototypes acting together to form elaborate unified results. The driving force in Cipher City: Recharged is the synergistic effect behind complex form-making systems where interactive design patterns arise out of a multiplicity of relatively simple rules.
AA Muscat Visiting School

Taking place September 4-15, the AA Muscat Visiting School, held by Kamvari Architects, will generate new architectural and urban solutions based on an investigation of patterns – which are seen as a means to translate the performance or appearance of historical structures into new concepts. Proposals will also take into account issues such as manufacturing, assembly and constructability. The aim is to apply these solutions to various scales, from facades and buildings to cities and regions. The workshop, taught in collaboration with professor Nikolaus Knebel of the German University of Technology, will end with a public exhibition of projects which will enable the students to present their ideas in a public forum and to discuss their views on the future direction of architecture in Oman. More images and workshop information after the break.
‘Fallen Star’ Installation at AA DLAB Visiting School

The ‘Fallen Star’ installation is the final working prototype of the Architectural Association (AA) DLAB Visiting School, which took place in AA London and AA Hooke Park during July 23-August 5. The installation is a set between biomimetics, interaction, and perception that represents the dimension of interaction which animates the architectural piece simply according to user feedback and the potential of creating dynamic spatial experiences challenging perception and temporality. More images, including a video, and their description after the break.
AASH11 Workshop – “City on the Sea”

70.8% of the earth’s surface is water and Shanghai is approaching a point of overflow. Future development will require the inhabitation of this surface area. In addition to a fascinating physical property caused by the surface tension of water, the meniscus is a strikingly relevant metaphor for the urban predicament of contemporary. As an urban metaphor, the meniscus is associated with periphery, threshold, development, and tension.
Architectural Association’s Foster + Partners Prize 2012 Goes to Yi Yvonne Weng

The Architectural Association and Foster + Partners have announced AA diploma student Yi Yvonne Weng as winner of the 2012 Foster + Partners Prize for her project, ‘The 6th Layer – Expolorative Canopy Trail’. The prize is awarded annually to the AA Diploma student whose portfolio best addresses the themes of sustainability and infrastructure.
Yvonne Weng stated: “Programmatically, the project is centred on scientific exploration and harvesting medicinal plants, which provides an alternative use of the forest without destroying it. At the same time, the positive occupation of the territory it enables could provide a level of surveillance that helps to protect both the endangered environment and the indigenous population.”
Continue after the break to learn more.
AA Projects Review Exhibition 2012

From next Friday 22nd will take place the AA Projects Review Exhibition. The place of the event is located in the Architectural Association’s main building at 36 Bedford Square, London WC1B3ES.
Projects Review offers an overview of the AA’s 2011/12 acadamic year. On display are hundreds of drawings, models, installations, phogographs and other materials documenting the diversity and experimental nature of the AA School.
‘At the AA architecture is pursued as a form of cultural knowledge, across year-long design projects and portfolios. We believe that truly great schools don’t just nurture and support architectural talent: they build audiences for experimentation, out of which new architectural ideas, visions and projects emerge. Please join us as part of this audience, which the AA remains committed to promoting at the cutting edge of architectural cuture, practice and learning.’
The access to this Friday event required invitation but will be free the rest of the days until 14th July.
More images after the break
“Processing Environments” Symposium
The Processing Environments symposium is organized by the Architectural Association in collaboration with the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao and sponsored by the Bilbao Municipality and the Institut Français in Bilbao. It will take place next 19th June at the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao.
The symposium is directed by Maider Llaguno and Clara Olóriz and some of the invited speakers are Alejandro Zaera-Polo (ex FOA, currently AZPA), Juan Herreros, Iñaki Begisitain, Eva Castro & Alfredo Ramirez (Groundlab), Philippe Rahm, and Efrén García Grinda & Cristina Díaz Moreno.
The admission is free.
More information and the complete program after the break
Book Launch: “Resilience” Pamphlet Architecture Number 32 by James A Craig and Matt Ozga-Lawn
This next Wednesday 16th, the book “Resilience”, number 32 from the Pamphlet Architecture series will be launch at the Architectural Association Bookshop.
The competition for Pamphlet Architecture 32 centred on the theme of resilience. By addressing the capacity to cope, the ability to bounce back, and the mitigation and management of risk, participants were asked to showcase a fresh understanding of the architectural opportunities found in resilience. James A Craig and Matt Ozga-Lawn’s winning entry successfully takes on the topic through an investigation of the ravaged city of Warsaw. By identifying, interrogating and ultimately reinforcing both the physical and immaterial conditions of the landscape, the project allows the space to become something new and yet hold on to what it is, truly exhibiting resilience.
DLAB | Green 02 workshop at the Architectural Association

AA DLab experiments thoroughly on the possibilities of digital design tools and rapid prototyping techniques as highly integrated systems of design development. It is an intensive computation and fabrication oriented workshop that is structured around a general theme in each consecutive edition.
Starting from 2012, DLab will be launched as a series where one of the most potent vehicles for emphasis in architecture, color, will take a twist and exist beyond the field of visual compositions and sensations, becoming the common denominator for the generation of diverse computational proposals. In 2012, DLab takes on the color of Green as the shade of meaning and the design vessel for a number of rigorous experiments carried out using algorithmic design methodologies and digital fabrication techniques. Associated with the concepts of regeneration, emergence, and growth through its broad existence in nature, Green will serve as the inspiration for observing natural and biological structures of differing scales, followed by their abstraction and interpretation into elaborated design proposals. In this setup, Green surpasses being a representational/graphic instrument and stimulates creative processes of meaning, interpretation, and realization.
‘Translate the Intangible’ Symposium

Taking place at the Architectural Association (AA) on May 11, the ‘Translate the Intangible’ symposium addresses the challenges of communicating dynamic aspects of contemporary design methodologies through static mediums such as text and images. As current design-oriented fields have amplified the implementation of computational and generative tools for various motives, the process of documentation and representation of the design process has become more difficult to express.
As such, Translate the Intangible will bring together a multi-disciplinary group of leading practitioners from different fields to discuss the challenges involved in expressing the process involved in their work and propose new perspectives addressing this issue. Organized by the AA PhD in Architectural Design students as part of the AA Public Programme, the event will serve as a platform for the PhD in Architectural Design students to present and discuss their individual research. For more information on the event, please visit here.
AA Visiting School: Marking the Forest

Taking place at the University of Oregon from August 11-20, the ‘Marking the Forest’ design workshop will be run by Satellite Architects for the Architectural Association as they will explore the inner workings of the forest, investigating the biodiversity of the woodland and the commodification of the tree. They will skim the surface of the politics of the forest and conceptualize this information into a design that will be realized in the forest. The workshop will be divided into research (studio and woodland lectures), experience (raft trip and mill visits), design (studio design and crits with prototype building in the workshop) and assembly (assembly in the woodland). The project will also be documented and presented as a book from AA Publications. The deadline for applications is July 28, 2012. More information after the break.
Pavilion / EmTech (AA) + ETH

Out of a collaboration between the Emergent Technologies and Design program (EmTech) of the Architectural Association (AA), London, and the Chair of Structural Design at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH), Zurich, a temporary light timber construction has been designed that functions as sun shading for parts of the grand stairs in front of the architecture department of the ETH. Based on bending behavior under the self-weight of over-sized sheets of plywood of up to 11 x 2.5 m, the design activates the material properties as the defining element in the transfer of forces. More images and architects’ description after the break.
ARCHIZINES Exhibition

From photo-copied and print-on-demand newsletters such as Another Pamphlet, Scapegoat and Preston is My Paris, to magazines such as Mark, Spam and PIN-UP – ARCHIZINES is a new exhibition curated by Elias Redstone for the Architectural Association School of Architecture that celebrates and promotes the recent resurgence of alternative and independent architectural publishing from around the world. The exhibition runs until 14 December 2011 at the AA School, 36 Bedford Square, London, WC1B 3ES. More information on the exhibition after the break.
AA Visiting School in Muscat

The Architectural Association (AA) Visiting School, which provides an opportunity for visiting students, young architects, recent graduates and other creative individuals to participate in a form that emulates the school’s famed ‘unit system’ – that is, through a highly-focused short course pursuing a shared agenda of collaborative design, study, research and performance, will be holding an event at the German University of Technology, Muscat from September 10-22.
In order to develop theoretical, as well as practical, contributions to their discourse, the workshop will have as its methodological focus the form and idea of the pattern – patterns are seen as a means of translating the performance, as well as the appearance of historical structures into new concepts. More information on the event after the break.
AA Visiting School Paris

AA (Architectural Association) Visiting School Paris, currently led by Jorge Ayala, Principal of [Ay]A Studio, will be held from October 31st to November 10th.
The Visiting School Paris has started to acquire some recognition among emerging units at the AA due to its novel agenda aiming to bridge the spectrum of Architecture to the realm of Fashion.
AA School Paris has been established based on a series of partnerships that have been of a great value and support for the AA School London. Among them we currently have printed magazines, venues and institutions supporting us like : L’Architecture d’Aujourd’hui, La Mairie de Paris, Musées des Arts Décoratis, among others. More information on the event after the break.
Fibre Composite Adaptive Systems / Architectural Association

Fibre Composite Adaptive Systems is a thesis project as part of the master program, Emergent Technologies and Design, at the Architectural Association in London by Maria Mingallon, Sakthivel Ramaswamy and Konstantinos Karatzas. The thesis developed a material system capable of emulating self-organization which is then extended into an architectural application. More images and project description after the break.
10-Day Architectural Workshop in Dubrovnik, AA Visiting School Mittelmeerland

The Architectural Association (AA) visiting school Mittelmeerland, a program of AA’s School of Architecture, is seeking architecture students and young professionals to participate in the 10-day architectural research workshop in Dubrovnik, Croatia from January 31st – February 10th. Mittelmeerland will investigate the future of the Mediterranean as a territory and sustainable waterfronts.
The deadline for application is January 10th 2011.
More information after the break.



