Architectural Association | Tag (page 4)

AA Visiting School Singapore: 'Objectify' Workshop

July 27, 2013

Conducted by RARE directors on behalf of the Architectural Association in Singapore, the 'Objectify' workshop at Singapore Polytechnic's School of Design will sample starchitecture to suggest and respond to the city's idea of growth through image forging. Can architectural objects define a city? Singapore’s territorial enclave is punctuated with signature buildings designed by the worldwide architectural stardom. The exaggerated objectification of the architect’s status and designs is embedded in the city’s culture and apparent belief in their value. Taking place August 21-30, the workshop will explore these conditions, sampling icons to extract novel proposals. More information after the break.

2013 Foster + Partners Prize Awarded to John Naylor

June 25, 2013

The Architectural Association and Foster + Partners have announced John Naylor of Diploma Unit 16 as the 2013 Foster + Partners Prize recipient for his project ‘Bamboo Lakou’. Presented annually, the award is presented to an AA Diploma student whose portfolio best addresses the themes of sustainability and infrastructure.

Brett Steele, Director of the Architectural Association School of Architecture, said: “John Naylor’s project demonstrates the ways in which infrastructural ideas – and architectural imagination – might today expand beyond the clichés of Modernism to become life itself, literally breathing life into communities, cities and entire countries – today and long into the future.”

AA Bilbao Visiting School: "Computing topos II"

May 24, 2013

Architectural Association DLAB: Blue

May 23, 2013

The Architectural Association announces the 2013 edition of the DLAB, the intensive computation and fabrication oriented workshop. The workshop continues the experimentation of last year's edition, which resulted on the Fallen Star installation.

DLAB experiments with the integration of algorithmic and generative design methodologies as well as with large scale digital fabrication tools. Continuing its color based agenda DLAB will immerse in blue for its 2013 cycle as a way to investigate natural growth processes in relation to innovative concepts of architectural tectonics and fabrication. Blue will become the inspiration for diving into the depths of emergence, differentiation and complexity which are found at various scales in nature. We will carefully interweave these concepts with interaction and participatory design in order to create full-scale working prototypes. The programme will be formulated as a two-phase process. During the initial phase participants will benefit from the unique atmosphere and facilities of AA’s London home. The second phase will shift to AA Hooke Park campus and revolve around the fabrication and assembly of a full-scale architectural intervention which will unify the design goals of DLAB.

Some of the most prominent features which the participants will be exposed to during DLAB include:

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AA Visiting School Ivrea: 'Factory Futures II Architecture Without Humans'

April 13, 2013

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: Vertical Interventions

January 29, 2013

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: CIPHER CITY - Recharged

January 28, 2013

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.

Ceramica Cumella: Shaping Ideas

Subscriber Access | October 17, 2012

From September 29th to December 8th, the exhibition dedicated to the work of Toni Cumella will be open. His works in ceramic have been utilised by architects such as Enric Miralles, Alejandro Zaera-Polo, or Jean Nouvel. These collaborations made his material became part of the image of Barcelona, being part of the construction of La Sagrada Familia, and the restoration of Casa Batlló and Parc Güell.

Focusing on the 4 main fabrication processes in use at Ceramica Cumella – extruding, casting, pressing and revolving – Shaping Ideas presents the work of Toni Cumella and the application of his ceramics in some of contemporary architecture’s most significant projects.

AA Projects Review Exhibition 2012

Subscriber Access | June 21, 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

Subscriber Access | June 13, 2012

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

DLAB | Green 02 workshop at the Architectural Association

Subscriber Access | May 14, 2012

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

Subscriber Access | May 06, 2012

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.

ARCHIZINES Exhibition

Subscriber Access | December 03, 2011

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.

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