ONE THING LEADS TO ANOTHER: AA Paris Visiting School

As a former participant in the AA Paris Visiting School, Ruth Oldham describes her experience of Architecture & Ecriture and how the workshop itself takes the form of the fragmentary essay.

COMMUNITIES BEYOND TWO HAVANAS: Intermediate Unit 8 in Cuba

AA 3rd Year student Mira Oktay writes about the Intermediate Unit 8’s research and analysis of Havana, from their recent unit trip to Cuba, with unit tutors Francisco González de Canales and Nuria Álvarez Lombardero.

ROBOTIC MEDIATIONS: AA Istanbul Visiting School 2018

Programme Head of the Istanbul AA Visiting School Elif Erdine describes the 2018 course that explored the architectural possibilities of using concrete in an unconventional way.

MOULDING MATTERS – Naples AA Visiting School 2018

The Naples AA Visiting School team describe Moulding Matters, a research project that aims to study and reinvigorate this ubiquitous and perennial architectural language in its diverse contexts, functions and materials.

CULTURAL ASSEMBLING

Mauricio Jumpa, a student of the AA Visiting School El Alto 2018 discusses the new Visiting School in Bolivia led by AA graduates Sabrina Morreale and Lorenzo Perri that looks at Cultural Assembling as a means to generate new forms of architecture.

LETTER FROM LONDON

Alexandros Kallegias presents at the conference ‘Letter from London’ about the work of the different AA Visiting Schools that he directs in collaboration with a series of Greek universities.

MAEDA VISITING SCHOOL 2017: Furnishing the Landscape

AA 2nd Year Sean Gwee takes us along for the journey of refurbishing a wooden platform at the entrance to Hooke Park, the AA’s campus in Dorset, as part of the 2017 Maeda Visiting School.

HTS WRITING PRIZES 2017: What is excellence in writing?

HTS Tutor and organiser of the 2017 Writing Prizes Silvana Taher questions what defines excellence in writing – is it “a thorough survey of the past, a personal self study, a true and genuine understanding of our current standing in the world?” No, she says, it is simply the students.

SYMMETRY SENTIENCE :: ZnO: The Athens AA Visiting School 2016

Athens AA Visiting School Director Alexandros Kallegias describes the FIBROUS family of architectural prototypes developed in their 2016 experimental research that they intend to continue into 2017’s agenda

WEAVE.X: AA SUMMER DLAB 2016

AA Summer DLAB directors Elif Erdine and Alexandros Kallegias give an intricate review of the pioneering research of AA Summer DLAB, whose prototype ‘Weave.X’  has pushed technological boundaries.

UNKNOWN FIELDS: THE DARK SIDE OF THE CITY

A review of the powerful Term 1 lecture by Unknown Fields Division founders Kate Davies and Liam Young which explored their vast global investigations into ‘The Dark Side of the City’.

THE (DIS)ENCHANTED SUBJECT OF ARCHITECTURE: BETWEEN NEOLIBERALISM AND NEOBAROQUE

History & Critical Thinking MA student Lennart Wolff reviews the Term 1 symposium in which a group of theorists discussed the possibility of a critical architecture, and going beyond, to critique the very notions of critique itself.

A BREATHING CYBORG!

Following on from the article where a group of four First-Year students described the invention of a new drawing machine – the Coligopulmogram – here, History and Critical Thinking MA student Chris Doray continues this conversation, reviewing the device as a breathing cyborg.

ONCE UPON A TIME…IN THE AGE OF METABOLISM

MA History & Critical Thinking student Chris Doray details the Term 1 Art & Architecture lecture at the AA by Pierre-Jean Giloux on Machinami, Japanese Urban Landscapes, which contemplated the notion of superimposing history and ruins.

BOOK LAUNCH: ARCHIPELAGO OF PROTOCOLS

MA History & Critical Thinking student Gili Merin describes the conversations between Archipelago of Protocols author Aristide Antonas, collaborator Thanos Zartaloudis, and Pier Vittorio Aureli, among others, at the book’s launch at the AA Bookshop.

CLIENT STYLE: PIERRE D’AVOINE & COLETTE SHEDDICK LECTURE AT THE AA

Katerina Zacharopoulou, an MA History & Critical Thinking student, describes the lecture by architects Pierre D’Avoine and Colette Sheddick in which the pair question the idea of authorship in architecture from the client’s perspective.

HISTORY AND CRITICAL THINKING: FIELD TRIP TO PARIS

MA History & Critical Thinking student Gili Merin walks us through the vast explorations their group undertook across Paris, discovering the many villas and maisons designed by Le Corbusier.

COUPLE FORMAT: The Identity Between Love and Work

AA Conversations publishes an excerpt from Shumon Basar’s review of his FORMAT lecture series from Summer 2016 for the online journal e-flux architecture.

CURRENT PREOCCUPATIONS: ROTOR lectures at the AA

MA History & Critical Thinking student Carolina Bettarello reviews the recent lecture by Rotor, a collective whose recent expansion to include a deconstruction unit explores the possibilities of material reuse within architecture.

FOOD GLORIOUS FOOD- Intermediate 9 Unit Trip

Third year student Jake Parkin takes us through the many food explorations he encountered on his unit trip to Oslo and Lyngør,  Norway, with Intermediate 9.

THESSALONIKI: FOLDED FORCE: REVELATIONS: The 2015 Greece AA Visiting School

AA Greece Visiting School Director Alexandros Kallegias describes the 2015 programme in Thessaloniki and their installation ‘Eos’, ahead of this year’s school in Chania.

IN WHICH ANNIE GIVES IT THOSE ONES

Last year, AA Member and architect Gaurav Sharma organised a Members screening of the rarely seen ‘In Which Annie Gives It Those Ones’, a film, set in New Delhi, about a group of architecture students in their final year of college.

THE CURURÚ TOAD & THE ADVENT OF ELECTRICITY – The 2015 Amazon Visiting School

AAVS Amazon Director Nacho Marti describes the strange relationship between the arrival of electricity in the rainforest and the Cururú Toad’s eating habits, encouraging applications for this year’s agenda: Digital Vernacular.

REPORTING FROM THE FRONT: THE AA AT THE 15TH VENICE ARCHITECTURE BIENNALE

Vanessa Norwood, Head of AA Exhibitions, takes us through the AA-related contributions to Alejandro Aravena’s 2016 Architecture Biennale, detailing the ideas and involvement behind the British and Slovenian Pavilions.

HTS WRITING PRIZES 2016

AA History and Theory tutor Sylvie Taher tells us more about this year’s HTS and Dennis Sharp Writing Prize winners, and questions the architect’s desire to express themselves through writing.