Architectural Association School of Architecture Foundation and Experimental Programme Prospectus 2021-22
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Architectural Association School of Architecture Foundation and Experimental Programme Prospectus 2021–22
Contents 10 Introduction 14 Foundation Course 20 Experimental Programme Introduction 26 Unit Briefs 62 Core Studies and Electives 92 Timetable 94 How to Apply
4 “My entire understanding of physical space has been transformed! 5
Three-dimensional Euclidean geometry has been torn up, thrown in the
air and snogged to death! My grasp of the universal constants of physical
reality has been changed forever.”
– Doctor Who, ‘The Husbands of River Song’ by Steven Moffat, 2015
As we return to premises after many months away, we find the Architectural
Association Mary Celeste-like; some forgotten things found where we
left them in March 2020. Reference to the mysterious abandoned ship has
been commonplace amongst those that have visited Bedford Square in
the meantime. The discovery of the merchant brigantine Mary Celeste off
the Azores in 1872 was the subject of dramatic newspaper descriptions:
‘Every sail was set, the tiller was lashed fast, not a rope was out of place.
The fire was burning in the galley. The dinner was standing untasted and
scarcely cold… the log written up to the hour of her discovery.’ The Mary
Welcome
Celeste has become a shorthand metaphor to describe the eerie feeling
associated with discovering an empty place, seeming hastily vacated and
replete with signs of occupation.
In the months leading up to our long-anticipated homecoming, a
space audit was commissioned to help in planning for 2021–22. This report
covered, in minute detail, the remarkable density of our occupation and
the many-layered uses we have wedged into a line of eight Georgian
terraced houses. From Foundation to PhD, the AA School houses a dozen
distinct academic programmes, not counting the one in Hooke Park. The
shared spaces that support these – the Bar, Library, shops, labs, Archives,
as well as bookable rooms – are packed in together cheek-by-jowl.
Standing in the square, one would never guess the hive of activity that
the AA embraces or how much diversity of teaching and learning, ideas
and work lingers behind those brown brick walls. This quality, not to
mention the sci-fi-tinged phrase ‘space audit’, brings to mind another
sort of ship: a spaceship. The TARDIS (Time And Relative Dimension In
Space), Doctor Who’s time-travelling machine, is famously ‘bigger on the
inside’. Thanks to its ‘chameleon circuit’, the vast ship appears, on the
outside, as a police callbox.
6 The TARDIS travels by time vortex, allowing the Doctor and their 7
companions to be here, there and everywhere; to go back in time (March
2020, perhaps), flit forward to today, even journey to the future. This,
and not the Mary Celeste, is the ship that the AA means to be. Importantly,
the TARDIS is more than a vessel carrying individuals; it is a bioship with
its own intelligence. The fifth Doctor in the series asserts: “The TARDIS
is more than a machine, it’s like a person; it needs coaxing, persuading,
encouraging.” The ninth Doctor claims, “It’s not just any old power
source, it’s the TARDIS, the best ship in the universe. This ship is alive,
you’ve opened its soul.” The TARDIS can redesign and heal itself using its
Architectural Reconfiguration System. It can also translate all languages.
Architects might appreciate the fact that the AA’s spatial arrangement
influences its intellectual life. Units partly evolved out of the rooms that
contained them. Happenstance meetings on the stairwell have led to
lasting relationships. Something in the gallery or someone on the terrace
can change your brain. The proximity of one programme to another has
prompted intriguing collaborations. After so long apart, proximity and
collaboration are what we all crave. This academic year will be like no
other, and the spaces we occupy and the people we interact with shall
be appreciated as never before. Sammy’s coffee will taste like the best
coffee ever made.
Last year, we all kept the ship sailing through rough seas. This year, we
look to fairer weather and taking the AA to a whole other dimension.
Mark Morris,
Head of Teaching and Learning
8 9
Laura Hepp, MycoFlux, EXP3, 2021. Hilla Laufer, photograph of Masada National Park, Israel, EXP14, 2021 .
10 The Architectural Association (AA) is the oldest independent school of 11
architecture in the UK. The school was founded in 1847 as a student-cen-
tred collective that aspired to radically transform architectural education.
The outcome of this is an environment that encourages students to spec-
ulate without limitations, to take risks with confidence and to cultivate
individual, radical research agendas that will shape the future of the
architectural discipline. We are a school that is constantly on the move,
progressively redefining the nature of architecture both in academia and
in practice worldwide. As a participatory democracy, this endeavour
relies on the students to continuously contribute to the identity of the
school and to critically engage with the broader cultural discourse in
London and beyond.
Today, the school comprises over 900 full-time students, approxi-
mately 7,500 members, 250 tutors and 125 administrative staff from
across the globe. It occupies eight Georgian houses in the centre of
Introduction
London, as well as a 350-acre woodland site at Hooke Park in Dorset, and
an ever-expanding number of digital spaces. Quite unlike any other insti-
tution operating today, the school offers a broad range of flexible,
self-directed programmes, courses and curricula that empower students
and staff to challenge the accepted methods within contemporary archi-
tectural education and professional practice.
Prospective students are now able to apply for the Foundation Course
(AA Foundation Award in Architecture), the Experimental Programme
(years one–three of the five-year course in architecture) leading to the
award of BA(Hons) (ARB/RIBA Part 1), the Diploma Programme (years four
and five of the five-year course in architecture) leading to the award of
MArch, the AA Diploma (ARB/RIBA Part 2), and nine Taught Postgraduate
Programmes leading to MA, MSc, PG MArch, MFA and MPhil awards, as
well as the PhD Programme.
Additionally, applications are taken throughout the year for two RIBA
Part 3 courses and a range of Visiting Schools that take place around the
world, as well as the Summer School, which operates each July. With the
establishment of the AA Residence in 2019, research is also possible
outside of the diverse array of academic programmes that the institution
12 offers. The collection of courses, programmes and initiatives aim to
achieve a plurality of topics and agendas, allowing students from different
backgrounds with varied interests and ambitions to find their own indi-
vidual and unique path through the school.
The AA curriculum is enhanced by the Public Programme, which
focuses on the unique opportunities and challenges of the present
through a series of lectures, exhibitions, studio visits, symposia and book
launches, and by the Communications Studio, a media, publishing and
graphic design studio. This year’s events, which welcome all staff and
students as well as the general public, will include lectures on New Models
that disrupt existing structural inequalities and socio-economic and
political forces, a pavilion on the corner of Bedford Square using recycled
timber and a memorial symposium to celebrate the career and legacy of
Mark Cousins. Dedicated to disseminating and communicating architec-
tural writing and digital content, the AA engages with a number of
editorial and academic publishing initiatives, including: new publications
and series in book and ebook formats; AA Files, the school’s journal of
record; the student-led AArchitecture pamphlet; and AirAA, a podcast
and media platform launching during the 2021–22 academic year.
Collectively, the courses, programmes, public events and publica-
tions exist alongside spontaneous discussions, unexpected encounters
and vibrant exchanges that take place throughout the academic year.
This confluence of activity keeps the AA in a constant flux of transfor-
mation that does not allow the status quo a moment to ingrain itself into
the walls, floors, stairwells and digital worlds of the school or the
projects, ideas and ambitions of the students. The AA invites anyone to
join our school as an active participant in this perpetual motion of archi-
tectural thought, design and dialogue in which the word convention
does not exist.
14 Foundation Course 15
The Foundation Course (AA Foundation Award in Architecture) is a one-year
introduction to an art and design education. Students are encouraged to
develop their conceptual ideas through experiments with a wide range of
media in an intimate, studio-based environment. Through being exposed
to the wealth of academic offerings and intellectual resources at the AA,
from the first year of the Experimental Programme to the PhD Programme,
Foundation Course students are given access to the tools, strategies and
methodologies that are developed within the school at large. Drawing on
a number of different educational practices, in tandem with the knowledge
and experience of numerous highly experienced tutors and visiting consult-
ants, the course offers dynamic, cross-disciplinary teaching within the
context of a specialist architectural school. Over the course of the academic
Foundation year, students explore ideas and techniques such as observation, documen-
tation, survey, inventory, scale, materiality, interpretation, representation,
site, scenario and inhabited structures.
Course
16 Foundation 17
What Now? Listen, then take a position…
‘…play is very important. Play and creativity, or creative play.’
– Samson Kambalu
The AA Foundation course is a one-year intro- and will apply critical thinking to this self-initiated
duction to an art- and design-based education research. Tutorials and workshops will introduce
using architectural language as its vehicle. techniques and encourage translation from
Students develop their conceptual ideas through observation to material interpretation.
experimenting with a wide range of media and Term 2 focuses more substantially on work
creative disciplines in an intimate, studio-based that will clarify a territory of specific interest for
environment. The course seeks to develop the each student. A short experimental film will
intellectual and process-based abilities of each describe a vignette from a personal perspective,
participant, while simultaneously introducing introducing ideas that will then be developed
each individual to themselves; to their own inter- through examination of the corporeal body,
ests, passions, aspirations and inspirations. image veneer, dynamics, renegotiated intimacy,
Once confident and articulate about a particular the collective, collected hinterland, habits and
approach, students can readily galvanise their tempo relating to site, place, space, material
own self-critique, drive and skills to more assemblage, appropriation, extension and occu-
successfully pursue education in various creative pation of built form. Practice will move from
disciplines. Drawing on a number of pedagogical survey through ‘thinking through making’ tests
practices, experienced tutors and visiting practi- and experiments to proposals. Students will work
tioners, the Foundation course offers a unique individually and in groups to create conversations
cross-disciplinary education within the context between people and places, leading to a series
of an architectural school. of drawn and filmic experiences and experiments.
Term 1 focuses on the development of skills, Term 3 allows for each student to produce
observation and conversation though the an in-depth, final iteration of their earlier studio
forensic examination of familiar spaces; a room, work. Subsequently, they will each compile a
its contents, complex junctions, interconnecting portfolio of work created over the academic year
volumes, thresholds, sectional excavations, the to best represent their individual journey and
street, landmarks and popular hang-outs. In interests. Finally, the cohort and faculty will
parallel with studio practice, students will identify collectively design and build the Foundation exhi-
and compile a series of contextual references, bition for AA Projects Review end-of-year show.
COURSE STAFF
HE AD OF FOUNDATION Yoni Bentovim, Chiyan Ho, Michael Ho, Sabrina Morreale,
Saskia Lewis Claire Potter, Álvaro Velasco Pérez Mohammed Jivanjee, Intervention Interacting with Wind, Foundation, 2021.
18 Yoni Bentovim is a film director. His films span documentary
and fiction, have received multiple awards and have been
Sabrina Morreale is cofounder of Lemonot, a design platform
that operates in between architecture and performative arts.
19
programmed worldwide at festivals and for television Their projects have been exhibited worldwide, including at the
broadcast, including on Channel 4, France 3, SBS, RTP and The 14th Venice Biennale, the Young Talent Architecture Awards,
Guardian online and at the V&A, Barbican, ICA and the ATT19 Gallery in Bangkok, the RIBA Live Drawing Marathon and at
Visionary Art Museum. Mextropoli 2020. She also leads the AA Visiting School El Alto.
Michael and Chiyan Ho both graduated from the AA and have Claire Potter is author of three books of poetry: Swallow, In
since collaborated as an artist duo. Their creative approach is Front of a Comma and N’ombre. She received a Young
one of constant dialogue, responding to notions of cultural Australian Poets Fellowship from the Poets Union and her
mismatch and subsequent cultural (re)discovery. Their work is poems have appeared in the London Review of Books, New
often narrative-driven, and borrows from everyday moments Statesman, Poetry Ireland Review, Poetry Chicago and the New
in order to comment on current political and social conditions. York Review of Books.
Saskia Lewis joined the AA in 2001 and has served as Head of Álvaro Velasco Pérez is an architect. He holds a PhD from the
Foundation since 2009. She has taught at the Bartlett School of AA, and is a graduate of the school’s History and Critical
Architecture, Central St Martins (UAL), Chelsea College of Art Thinking in Architecture programme. He has taught at the AA,
(UAL), Westminster University and London Metropolitan the University of Hertfordshire, the AA Summer School, Leeds
University, and serves as an External Examiner at Oxford Beckett and the University of Navarra.
Brookes University. She is co-author of Architectural Voices,
and her research into teaching methodologies focuses on how
early-year students can be supported through lateral,
cross-fertilised dialogues and processes to identify, outline
and develop their own design agendas and territories.
Yujie Cai, Destructive Remembrance, Foundation, 2021.20 Experimental Programme 21
The Experimental Programme BA(Hons) (ARB/RIBA Part 1) is a three-year,
full-time course. The First Year is characterised by its shared, open studio,
and is defined by a learning-through making approach that gives students
the academic and technical tools that are essential to fostering an explor-
atory and intellectual interest in architecture. Young architects are
encouraged to focus on the challenges of the 21st century, while learning
about and interrogating the foundational principles of architecture.
Students work to develop an end-of-year portfolio composed of a range
of media and informed by various modes of argumentation and representa-
tion; when successfully completed, this forms the basis of each student’s
progress into the second year of study.
Years two and three introduce Experimental Programme participants to
Experimental the AA unit system, within which they join small year-long design studios
(12–14 participants) comprising both second- and third-year students.
Innovative approaches to the study of architectural form, typology,
Programme
programme, site and fabrication sit side-by-side with the analysis of critical
theory, environmental issues, structural design and different modes of
professional practice. Overall, the Experimental Programme empowers
inquisitive students to question how architecture is physically manifested
in the world, to holistically consider how we design our cities and to imagine
a better future together.22 First Year 23
? Inquiring Through Testing with Iteration
The First Year of the Experimental Programme at Characterised by a studio-based environment
the AA is an initial exposure to the study of archi- and defined by an approach of learning-by-doing,
tecture. It focuses on how to inquire and identify the year is planned around a series of briefs –
theories, projects and built work in relation to exercises with emphasis on specific questions
external forces, and how to master skills and which will unfold actively through testing. Our
tools with the intention of testing, discovering aim is to learn how to question through the active
and questioning through making. Makers have the use of tools and mediums: this connection is
ability to question and see beyond what exists; essential for mastering effective explorative
they possess a distinct form of visual thinking, processes. We will momentarily suspend our
translating complex synergies into something new. attention toward works that are depictions of a
During the First Year, we will constantly refine theory or commentaries of a phenomena, and
and refresh this mode of questioning. instead learn techniques that can shake our
This year, we will explore questioning through assumptions and open up unexpected territories
testing, by eluding the singular proposition and through making.
instead considering how to rework ideas, prac- Outlined below are some of the exercises
tices and projects in a variety of contexts. How that we will explore throughout the year.
do we relate to past work and to the architecture Exposure to multiple modes of questioning can
discipline? How can architects re-engage with strengthen the imagined possibilities of
previous works? What are the differences architecture. Each student will capture their
between studies, exercises, projects and build- endeavours in an individual year-long portfolio,
ings? We will continue to engage with architecture which will disclose a personal approach to inquiry
as a way of thinking that both affects and is and act as an open collection, synthesising their
affected by its wider context, as we consider processes and discoveries.
these methodologies of reworking.
STUDIO MASTERS
Pol Esteve Castelló, Sho Ito, Nacho Martí, Patricia Mato Mora,
Anna Muzychak, John Ng, Erika Suzuki, Alexandra Vougia
HE AD OF FIRST YE AR STUDIO TUTORS
Monia De Marchi Michela Falcone, Giulia Furlan, Sara Saleh Rooftops of the AA School. Photograph by Monia De Marchi.24 Rework Negotiations Monia De Marchi is an architect. She graduated from the Istituto
Universitario di Architettura di Venezia and from the
Patricia Mato-Mora studied architecture at the AA and
materials at the Royal College of Art. She teaches at the AA on
25
How do we engage with past work? How are ideas What forms of negotiation might be used when
Architecture and Urbanism (DRL) programme at the AA. Since the Environmental and Technical Studies and Communication
and projects re-explored? How do we engage making a design decision? How do we negotiate 2005, she has been involved in teaching and in architectural and Media Studies programmes, heads the AA Visiting School
with the architecture discipline? How do we intentions within a given context? What defines practice, both with her own office and at Zaha Hadid Architects, in the Sonora desert, and works alongside artists and
and has collaborated with a number of architectural institutions. architects to realise large-scale projects employing various
re-brief past work? a context? craftsmanship methods.
Pol Esteve Castelló is an architect, researcher and teacher.
Direct Engagement Attitude They graduated from the ETSA Barcelona and from the AA’s Anna Muzychak is an AA graduate. She has previously been
History and Critical Thinking programme, and have taught at co-lead of a vertical studio at Cardiff University, and has taught
What is the difference between directly seeing a When do we design and when do we not? How do the AA, the Royal College of Art and Central Saint Martins at the AA Summer School and in the Experimental and Diploma
work (a drawing or a building) versus seeing a we embrace the present and pay attention to (UAL). They are a PhD thesis candidate at the Bartlett School of programmes. Her work focuses on the intersections between
representation of it in books? what is yet to come? Do we know how to capture Architecture, and a cofounder of the architecture office GOIG. material systems, construction technology and the role of
colour in architecture.
the future? Michela Falcone is an architect and educator. She has worked at
To continue practices including Shigeru Ban, UN Studio and Zaha Hadid John Ng studied architecture at the University of Bath and the
Architects. She is Course Leader on the Spatial Design course AA, where he has taught since 2011. He is also a visiting lecturer
What matters when taking a past work or theory Landing or Shifting
at Buckinghamshire University and curates the web platform at the Royal College of Art. He founded ELSEWHERE, and
and continuing to work on it? Who redefines How do we occupy a territory? Nomadic exist- Experimental Architecture. In 2017, the Lyon Biennale featured practises architecture in London. His work has won a number
constraints? How do we reset new criteria and ence or established settlement? What does her competition-winning pavilion encompassing an ecological of international competitions.
hydroponic structure.
limits when making? temporality of occupation mean?
Sara Saleh studied at the American University of Sharjah and on
Giulia Furlan is a practicing architect. She studied architecture the Architecture and Urbanism (DRL) programme at the AA.
Testing Technologies at the Academy of Architecture of Mendrisio (AAM) and ETH She has previously worked for Zaha Hadid Architects on
Zürich, and cofounded the architectural firm Furlan Beeli et al. projects in the Middle East including Kapsarc in Saudi Arabia,
What is the role of iteration? What are processes? Are technologies enabling speculations on modes She has taught at the AAM, the London School of Architecture and on furniture and product collections.
How does testing reframe past work and make it of life, or are they just flattening differences and at Kingston University London.
relevant to current conditions? around the world? Erika Suzuki is an architect and the founding partner of Office
Sho Ito is an architect and founder of Studio ITO. He graduated Ten Architecture. She studied at Tokyo Metropolitan University
from the AA and has previously worked at architectural and at the Bartlett School of Architecture (UCL), and has
Fieldwork With practices across the commercial sector. He is a Technical designed and delivered a variety of projects including
What is the role of fieldwork? What is our How do we study and engage with work from Studies tutor in the AA Diploma programme and is a unit master residential, cultural and office buildings.
at the University of Westminster and the University of
perception of a space or a place? How do we thinkers outside architecture? How do we Cambridge. Alexandra Vougia studied architecture in Thessaloniki, Greece,
develop our own sensitivity toward the built communicate with and explore different holds an MS in Advanced Architectural Design from Columbia
Nacho Marti is a graduate of the Elisava School of Design in University (GSAPP) and a PhD from the AA. Since 2009,
environment? Why does direct experience and mediums estranged from architectural studies?
Barcelona and the AA. He founded his design studio in 2004, together with Platon Issaias and Theodossis Issaias, she has
engagement matter? and his projects have been exhibited, published and awarded worked at Fatura Collaborative, an architecture and research
Useless internationally. In addition to teaching in the First Year, he is a collective.
Environmental and Technical Studies tutor and head of the AA
What matters?
Visiting School Amazon.26 Experimental 1 27
I will do my utmost
The student has long been a figure upon whom the expectations, needs and perceptions of
experiments in architecture have been tested. students have and will continue to shift during
Their alleged flexibility to adapt to non-standard their kaleidoscopic tenure and over time. We
living habits has been amply seized upon, making therefore remain receptive to diverse conceptu-
student housing a laboratory of ideas for collective alisations of dwelling, from emergent, ancient
living. Such models are often predicated on two and non-standard sources as well as examining
prevailing assumptions: first, that student life is established conventions.
somehow at odds with the orderly life of cities and Life often gets in the way of our best-made
neighbourhoods; and second, that the student is plans. Buildings, spaces and structures usually
a fragile individual in need of an insulated environ- outlive their original functions, and the unit will
ment. As such, projects for student living are most continue an inclination toward designing archi-
often concerned with the making of interiorised tecture as both resilient and open-ended. We will
communities – of campuses, quads, halls of resi- search for architectural solutions that are precise
dence – set apart from their adjacencies. in their characteristics, yet able to withstand a
The very nature of the student is to plurality of readings and uses over time. We will
constantly adapt and survive within the context maintain a keen focus on the realities, practicali-
of highly unstable conditions of politics and ties and ethics of construction, working
pedagogy. Whilst there is much to be learnt from resourcefully and imaginatively with whatever
buildings that have focused on typological experi- might be at hand.
mentation for student living, we understand that
such disconnection may not be resolved inside a
building. EXP1 will use the student as a lens to
amplify and diagnose the nature of contemporary
dwelling, beginning by observing and under- Jon Lopez is an architect and director of OMMX, a practice based
in London that builds, draws and writes about architecture.
standing student accommodation. Subsequently,
projects will expand to mediate, register, hinder Francesco Zuddas is an architect, teacher and researcher. He is
or comment upon what is a transformative period cofounder of the design and research practice urbanaarchitettura.
His research focuses on the relations between architecture,
for so many young people. We also recognise that
education and the city. He is the author of The University as a
Settlement Principle: Territorialising Knowledge in Late 1960s
Italy, and of numerous articles and essays.
TUTORS
Jon Lopez Shumi Bose is a teacher, curator and editor. She is a senior
Francesco Zuddas lecturer in architecture at Central Saint Martins and a trustee
with Shumi Bose of the Architecture Foundation. Student Housing, Zürich, 2021 (Scheidegger Keller), Max Creasy.28 Experimental 2 29
Demonstration Neighbourhood
This year, EXP2 will explore urban care: advancing they are maintained; how they are racialised,
the conversation around care work to consider gendered and shaped by social violence and
cities as vessels for social value; questioning how exclusion; how they are imagined by civic actors,
the built environment can support social designers and planners; and how they might be
networks; and exploring social support systems. redesigned and reworked in order to transform
Together, this agenda represents a call for invest- urban life.
ment in social and physical infrastructure. During The unit will focus on the East London
the pandemic, it has become unavoidably clear Borough of Newham. We will work in two phases:
that urban life depends on care. We have all in the first phase, ‘What Is’, we will ask students
witnessed the everyday practices of support, aid, to take an expansive and critical position on a
repair and assistance without which city life piece of care infrastructure through mapping. In
would grind to a halt. However, care work is phase two, ‘What Could Be’, the studio will focus
complex – at once visible and invisible, paid and more closely on varied forms of intervention.
unpaid, socialised and commodified, individual
and communal, gendered, ubiquitous and highly
specialised. The infrastructure that supports
this work includes domestic facilities, informal Julia King is a Research Fellow at LSE Cities and a design
social spaces, essential public services, childcare practitioner. Trained as an architect, her research, design
practice and teaching focus on sanitation and housing in the
providers, medical clinics, community centres context of rapid urbanisation, inequitable infrastructure
and other crucial resources to support urban life, developments and urban micro-culture. She has won numerous
many of which are often taken for granted. awards for her work, including ‘Emerging Woman Architect
of the Year’ and has authored chapters in various journals,
In recent years, the infrastructures of care notably the The SAGE Handbook of the 21st Century City.
and health that maintain our communities have
come under immense strain, suffering from the Verity-Jane Keefe is a visual artist working predominantly in
the public realm to explore the complex relationship between
effects of precarity, austerity and the pandemic. people and place. She is interested in the role and potential
EXP2 will explore these crucial urban infrastruc- of the artist within urban regeneration, and her work spans
moving image, text, object and installation to explore possible
tures, considering how they are changing; how
taxonomies of everyday life.
Sophie Handler is an urban theorist working at the intersection
TUTORS of architectural theory, social policy and creative practice.
Verity-Jane Keefe She has spent the last ten years exploring the spatial and
Julia King representational politics of ageing through participative urban
with Sophie Handler actions, creative writing, research and policy development. Edges, Hackney to Newham, 2020. Photograph by Verity-Jane Keefe.30 Experimental 3 31
Creatures of the Future Forest +3
Over the next two decades, global temperatures 3D scanning, students will collect and document
are expected to rise by more than 1.5 ̊ Celsius their findings. Most importantly, they will interact
above pre-industrial levels. This puts the planet with characters and cultures through both
on the verge of an unprecedented tipping point. conventional and unconventional means,
Beyond it lies irreversible climactic collapse; an including interviews, sketches and the use of
ever-likelier spiral towards a +3 ̊ scenario. What diegetic objects. How could traditional culture
will happen to urban and natural ecologies if this influence the visions of a future forest?
occurs? What threats will their habitats face? Projects will speculate on how climate
And how can we imagine this future by taking the affected lands can be transformed based on their
forest as a site for environmental speculation? cultures, rituals and social narratives. Utilising our
Inspired by fictional storytelling and narra- collective capacity to make large-scale physical
tive-driven design, EXP3 will this year investigate models, speculative films and intricate narrative
the concept of the future forest in a world drawings, we will design bold architectures of
plunged into climate crisis. The future forest will wonder. We will forage through ancient wood-
constitute a hopeful catalyst through which lands, on moorland, over flood-planes and across
students can articulate the marriage between the bodies of water – confronting landscapes at the
born and the made – the biological and techno- very frontier of crisis, to propose spaces that
logical – by drawing from histories of ecological transcend ecological doom to discover new worlds
resilience and practices of coexistence that can in their future forests.
be found within.
To establish the foundations of a future
forest, we will walk, scavenge and learn across
endangered ecologies, green sanctuaries, collapsing
Ricardo de Ostos creates speculative fictions that envision
coasts, industrial wastelands and abandoned architectural projects in shifting environmental and cultural
towns. With the aid of audio-visual technologies contexts. He is the codirector of NaJa & deOstos studio and
co-author of The Hanging Cemetery of Baghdad, Ambiguous
and data-gathering techniques, from drones to
Spaces and Scavengers and Other Creatures in Promised Lands.
Nicholas Zembashi uses animation and architectural speculation
to design essays in space. After graduating from the AA he
TUTORS joined Forensic Architecture, where he worked on cases of
Ricardo de Ostos police brutality and state violence, and co-ordinated research
Nicholas Zembashi on the use of machine learning in investigative practice. Alexandria Peralta, An Agroforest Settlement, EXP3, 2021.32 Experimental 4 33
Who’s on What?
Institutional space is intimately entangled with an methods of reading their understandings of
image of the ‘collective body’. Whilst we predi- ‘institution’ on a chosen high street in one of four
cate universities, museums, offices and London boroughs: Hackney, Waltham Forest,
governments as obvious sites to radically disrupt, Tower Hamlets and Newham. They will then
these spaces simultaneously and surreptitiously develop these into dynamic architectural meth-
reconfigure themselves in our interpersonal rela- odologies and site-specific interventions,
tionships, societal norms, ethics and aesthetics. performances and objects that highlight and
Consequently, in architecture, the attempt to interrogate the institutions they have defined in
intervene in institutional space regularly miscon- their locales.
strues the transformation of social structures as Students will then scale up to develop spatial
the replacement of load-bearing ones. proposals that capture the complex socio
EXP4 challenges students to practice infra- historical entanglements of their chosen site and
structurally, as a radical alternative or appropriation its environs. By incorporating a range of qualita-
of the architectures of institutionalism. An infra- tive and quantitative research methods, their
structural practice is one that dissipates and proposals will work intimately with both human
decentralises resource, creating spaces in which and material resources on site. The resulting
‘access’ is perpetually a verb, not a noun, and in projects will challenge not only various institu-
which resilient communities of care are centred. tional behaviours, but also the very position
These types of practice, and the people who and assumption of architecture in reifying and
shape them, do not exist outside of institutional probing institutional space.
space per se, but rather exhibit nuanced, creative
and even whimsical topological relationships to
it; they are both inside and outside, marginal and
centred, within and without.
Akil Scafe-Smith and Seth Scafe-Smith are part of RESOLVE,
The unit will begin with cartography as a
an interdisciplinary design collective that combines architecture,
means of defining ‘institution’. Students will be engineering, technology and art to address social challenges.
encouraged to focus on mapping as a process, They have delivered numerous projects, workshops,
publications and talks in the UK and across Europe, and aim to
with each developing highly site-specific
realise just and equitable visions of change in our built
environment by designing with and for young people and
under-represented groups. They have led RESOLVE’s portfolio
of projects across the UK and Europe for the past five years,
TUTORS spearheading a work profile that ranges from architecture A scene from M1RROR, an installation by RESOLVE Collective in collaboration with Big Shop MK that explored Milton Keynes through
Akil Scafe-Smith and design projects to community support and engagement, its emotional connections and material economies, whilst platforming and celebrating the lived experiences and knowledge of local
Seth Scafe-Smith artist residencies and installations. people. Photograph by Chris Henley.34 Experimental 5 35
Dread-nought
On Tuesday 27 December 1917, a distinguished at the local scale whilst uncovering economic
looking creature with greyish follicle features and zones, environmental crises and infrastructural
striking metallic highlights strewn throughout systems at the global scale. We will learn how
its coat, darting reddish-orange eyes, a pot belly governments and institutions use time for the
and an ability to effortfully float through space exclusion of human and non-human species in
safely entered UK airspace, nearing the conclu- order to counteract this, and will explore how
sion of an exhausting journey from the war-torn cultures and inhabitants simultaneously exist within
European continent. As Dreadnought, a a series of decentralised nodes scattered across a
message-carrying RAF pigeon, reached the domestic landscape, thus exploding the concept
outskirts of London she was desperate to find of home into the multiple rather than singular.
somewhere – anywhere – to rest her three Those who choose to join the unit will be
weary anisodactyl toes, and zeroed in on a asked to construct an architectural brief and test
wooden structure set atop a converted LGOC it through material interventions. Working with
B-type (B2132) London double-decker bus, similar film, physical objects and drawings, a series of
to many such structures across Europe that she exercises will provide participants with the social,
had called home for the last year. She glided technological and time-based constraints for
through the upper deck window, landed on a each unit project which aims to challenge the
cushioned seat, tucked one foot under her feath- rules, codes and laws that govern our existence,
ered body, closed her eyes and fell into a deep, allowing EXP5 to warp the fourth, fifth or tenth
peaceful sleep. dimensions and to go ______ where?
In response to this, EXP5 will glide through
space and optimistically risk going everywhere.
We will infiltrate London along a series of lines
and rings such as the City of London, the
Congestion Charge zone, the M25 motorway and
the Greenwich Meridian, leading us to discover Ryan Dillon is the Head of Communications, a lecturer in the
History and Theory programme and has taught in the Design
how time affects architecture, material and space
Research Laboratory (DRL) at the AA. He has previously worked
at Moshe Safdie Architects.
David Greene moved to London and began a nervous and
TUTORS twitchy career; from big buildings for developers, to t-shirts
Ryan Dillon for Paul Smith, to conceptual speculation for Archigram, which Message carried by pigeon. The documentation is an example of the communications delivered by carrier pigeons
David Greene he founded with Peter Cook. during WWI with birds living in converted double-decker buses located across Europe. IWM Q 1221436 Experimental 6 37
Out of the Loop: Pitching for Alternatives
It is 2021. Starlink, SpaceX’s internet satellite As architecture begins to adopt methods and
constellation, is now visible as a peculiar array of tools often instrumentalised by commercial oper-
stars in the night sky. The United Arab Emirates’ ations and nation-building initiatives, EXP6 seeks
National Centre of Meteorology battles soaring to rethink, reframe and redraw spatial concerns
temperatures with ‘rain drones’ that send elec- beyond architecture, encouraging partnerships
tric shockwaves into clouds to stimulate rainfall. within multidisciplinary networks to propose
Glue, a tech start-up, develops remote collabora- alternative models of practice.
tion VR tools which have been rapidly adopted by The year will be organised around ‘The Deck’,
the defence and healthcare industries. The UK ‘The Patent Document’ and ‘The Pitch’. By
Department of Health has so far spent £1.5billion borrowing terms from – and critically disrupting
on Chinese-manufactured rapid Covid-19 testing – start-up work culture, Out of the Loop
kits, procured through US company Innova. projects will undertake a research and develop-
ment process consisting of in-depth investigation,
Are you feeling out of the loop? Chances are, you critical debates, multi-scalar mapping exercises
are far too deep within it. and the creation of computerg enerated images
and films.
EXP6 will investigate this present condition by
working with interdisciplinary methodologies
and emerging media tools, as a means to make
visible the vast systems and multi-scalar feedback
loops that control, organise and power the
world. Understanding that new technologies are
never neutral and often reinforce social and
spatial hierarchies, we will critically engage with
scenario planning, futuring and world-building Ana Nicolaescu works with image-making, game engine
to design, test and pitch real-world alternatives technologies and algorithmic processes to explore the
complexities of digital worlds as they feed back into reality.
that shift power back to us.
She is a cofounder of digital arts studio Cream Projects.
Ioana Man is a designer and researcher working between
architecture, strategic design and critical practice with a focus
TUTORS on urban biodiversity, biotechnology and biological equity.
Ioana Man She is design lead at Faber Futures and was Designer in Residence
Ana Nicolaescu for 2020–21 at the Design Museum London. Image credits, from top: Mark Garlick / SPL (Science Photo Library); The National News; Glue; Daisy Daisy / Shutterstock.38 Experimental 7 39
On the Beach
Maintaining that the experience of time passing is economic investment and consequentially result
fundamental to human existence, and therefore in urban expansion. Their impact is also felt indi-
inseparable from architecture, EXP7 aims to rectly, following decades of vastly-elevated
create clearly-defined spatial arrangements that carbon emissions, increased levels of coastal
have the capacity to enrich the practice of erosion and record weather events, all of which
everyday life. We are concerned with landscape have contributed to the precariousness – and, in
– not with shallow generalisms of ‘nature’, but some instances, danger – of living in this region
with the systems and processes that give rise to and others like it.
the organisation of an environment. Our main tool is the use of film; not as a
The Magnesian Limestone deposits on the system of representation but rather as a method
Durham coast overlie rich seams of coal that are to observe, draw and re-sequence space in time.
around 310 million years old. At Marsden Bay, Within the conceptual and literal edge condi-
these layers are revealed in coastal exposures tions of the Durham coast, we will extract poetic
that are at once effective sections of both the value from empirical observations and narrate
physical makeup of the surrounding landscape space to formulate a cinematic architecture of
and of time, showing the history of the develop- the landscape.
ment of the land. Getting down through the
limestone to the coal beneath is a task that has
come to define the social development of the
area, and the wider country, for the past 200
Marko Milovanovic is an architect, artist and journalist. He is
years. This process of extraction actively contrib- a founder of the educational, conversational platform Free
utes to the formation of the landscape today and School Of, and his artistic and design practice has developed
under the pseudonym ‘Mylo Mark’ since 2018. He has previously
promises to shape the future. Such interventions
worked on a number of healthcare, commercial and educational
are enacted by the human hand directly, where projects and written extensively for major Serbian newspapers
inland mining industries shift and rearrange vast of record.
swathes of the landscape, invite social and
Fearghus Raftery is an architect and curator. He is a founding
member of the OA.N, an arts organisation that commissions
and produces contemporary art, with an exhibition space in
Kent. He has previously worked at Hopkins Architects and for
TUTORS the artist trio Troika, where he developed pieces and exhibitions
Marko Milovanovic for institutions including the Daelim Museum, Art Basel, the
Fearghus Raftery Centre Pompidou and the Courtauld Gallery. Underground (1995) dir. Emir Kusturica. PANDORA / CIBY 2000 / 199540 Experimental 8 41
Forms for Collective Living: Artefacts for Block Disorder
In recent years, we have witnessed the decay of for sectors of the population that cannot access
compact and dense urban areas across the world. housing or property, in contraposition to the
This process began through the appropriation pressing market forces in the area. We will
and transformation of residential central areas consider supportive models such as co-opera-
towards the service economy by real estate spec- tives and social housing to boost affordable
ulation, and has been accelerated through the schemes and networks of mutual care among the
widespread urban exodus that the Covid-19 block’s inhabitants.
pandemic has provoked. Finally, the unit will investigate Mediterranean
This phenomenon compromises the livea- domestic cultures as essential for sustainable
bility of our cities by reconfiguring the collective inhabitation. Outdoor living, transi-
once-fundamental areas of social relation within tional and in-between spaces and the rituals they
which everyday life unfolds. The gridded area of generate will be considered in relation to environ-
Eixample in Barcelona epitomises this situation: mental strategies on light and material. Research
each inherited block configuration functions as a into local materials and traditional construction
collection of autonomous, unrelated lots, ready techniques will also be conducted within the
for private investment. The resulting develop- regional environmental conditions, alongside an
ment of these lots often takes place with no exploration of sustainable passive strategies to
consideration for the potential interactions promote ventilation and the filtering, screening
between residents and neighbours, and no provi- and modulation of light.
sion for the minutiae of collective living.
Under these circumstances, EXP8 proposes
to reinvent this existing city block by infiltrating
or inserting strategic artefacts of disorder. These Francisco González de Canales and Nuria Álvarez Lombardero
are cofounders of Canales & Lombardero and Politics of
artefacts will act as catalysts for collective rela- Fabrication. Canales studied at ETSA Seville, ETSA Barcelona
tions, while resignifying the block as the basic and Harvard University, and worked for Foster + Partners and
Rafael Moneo. His publications include Experiments with Life
unit through which to facilitate social engage-
Itself, Rafael Moneo: A Theoretical Reflection from the
ment at the city-scale. Addressing at least a third Professional Practice, Rafael Moneo: Building, Teaching and
of the overall volume of the block, these inter- Writing, Practice and Crisis and Mannerism Today. Lombardero
studied at ETSA Madrid and the AA, and worked for Machado &
ventions will introduce residential programmes
Silvetti Associates. She has taught at the University of
Cambridge, the Bartlett School of Architecture, TEC Monterrey
and the University of Seville. Her work on gender studies in
architecture and urban typologies has been widely published,
TUTORS and she is the author of Arquitectas: Redefining the Practice.
Francisco González de Canales Both hold a PhD, and are co-authors of Politics and Digital
Nuria Álvarez Lombardero Fabrication: An Ongoing Debate. Work by Diana Dulina, Ghita Zahid, Nikitas Papadopoulos, Daphne Esin, Anastasia Papaspyrou and Lucia Martinez-Botas, EXP8, 2021.42 Experimental 9 43
Messy Transition
‘[The workers] have learned by this time that Sir Edward Watkin and
his pals will stick to whatever swag they may filch out of Kentish
coal, which belongs to the people not to them, and will only yield to
the workers what they are compelled to yield.’
– William Morris, 1890
In 1880, construction work began on a tunnel to resilient forms of production. EXP9 will investigate
connect the English town of Dover to the town the role that architecture can play in this process
of Calais in northern France. Due to its strategic of transition – not only by facilitating the neces-
importance, the project was blighted by frequent sary changes, but also by exploring their impact on
delays. At one point the dormant workers of the the existing labour force.
Channel Tunnel Company drilled down into the Design projects will be sited inside a 20-mile
Kent landscape – an opportunist experiment triangle between the Kentish towns of Canterbury,
resulting in the discovery of coal. Deal and Dover, where students will be encour-
During the decades that followed, thousands aged to absorb the situated knowledge and
of families descended upon the ‘Garden of present-day cultures of the region. Projects will
England’ as part of a perilous coal industry that respond to contemporary social, economic and
was to last a century. In 1989, the last Kentish technical challenges, using architecture to
colliery closed, leaving a labour force without imagine industries, communities and practices
work, a community depleted of assets and a that see beyond the traditional dichotomy
heavily doctored landscape. This little-known between environment and jobs.
story captures some of the transience, exploita-
tion and myopic logic associated with industrial
extraction, allowing us to reflect on the socio
economic impacts of a transition away from a
fundamental resource such as coal.
Ryan Cook is a cofounder of Channel. He is an architectural
Present global crises require us to adopt more designer with experience in practices including David
conscientious modes of existence. Building will Chipperfield Architects. He is a graduate of the AA and the
University of Bath.
require knowledge of more circular, bio-based and
Samuel Little is a cofounder of Channel, an architecture practice
interested in resilience, constraint and planetary resources. He
has previously worked with Rotor, Caruso St John Architects,
TUTORS Casswell Bank Architects and Material Cultures. He studied at the
Ryan Cook Royal Drawing School and London Metropolitan University, and
Samuel Little is a graduate of the AA. Wolfgang Tillmans, end of land II, 2002 Wolfgang Tillmans, courtesy Maureen Paley, London.44 Experimental 10 45
Half
Two halves make a whole, or so it would seem.
‘Half’ is both a measure and a condition; a duration This year, EXP10 will use ‘half’ as a concep-
and a territory; an action and a result. It is a tual guideline to celebrate the blank spot of
simple subdivision or partition, and is also intrin- something incomplete. We will define our own
sically related to symmetry and proportion, acting position through a range of explorations, from
as a visual mirror axis whether in a Palladian villa the domestic object and the body to the infra-
or a London semi-detached house. This year, structural scale of the city. Observation,
EXP10 asks why and how the application of such surveying and naming remain at the heart of the
a ‘proto-proportion’ warrants a heightened sense unit’s agenda as a means to describe, learn from
of form, measure or even harmony? and reinvent a given scenario. These operations
The notion of ‘half’ fits well within the unit’s will culminate in the articulation of an architec-
ongoing inquiry into design as a process of addi- tural brief and consequently a project for
tion and subtraction. ‘Half’ does not always seem London. A good brief is half the proposition –
to abide by its own arithmetical rigour; the but then, how much was ‘half’ again? Before that,
proverbial glass is simultaneously half-full and however, the initial question is: are you half-in,
half-empty. Then again, if ‘half’ is a co-ordinate, or half-out?
a position or a slice, then it offers up a sense of
orientation. As a physical separation it has a
consequence, whether during the division of
Valentin Bontjes van Beek runs vbvb studio and is a professor at
cells or in the selection of a sports team. And yet
the Munich University of Applied Science (MUAS). He trained in
half is always only a part. It is not all, not full, Germany as a carpenter and worked as an architect in New York
not done, not really, not there (yet). It asks for with Bernard Tschumi and Raimund Abraham before returning
to London to practice and teach.
something else, or for something to come.
Winston Hampel is a cofounder of the design practice CPWH.
He studied architecture and design in Hamburg, Paris and
Stuttgart, and graduated from the History and Critical Thinking
TUTORS in Architecture programme at the AA. He has taught in
Valentin Bontjes van Beek different programmes at the AA, and at other universities in
Winston Hampel the UK and Germany. Lee Chung Pan. Half In, Half Out. Street View collage, EXP10, 2021.46 Experimental 11 47
It’s Not Easy Being Green
Welcome to the ‘Age of Being Green’. It is an age With the vast majority of the world’s human
brought on by too little done too late, and by population crowded into cities, we must find a
permitting the excesses of today at the expense way for these urban spheres to become leaders
of tomorrow. It is an age ushered in by the in environmental and climatic stability.
melting polar ice caps and soiled rivers of the Transforming concrete jungles into National Park
climate crisis. Amid daily reminders of our Cities may in fact be the way to achieve this –
impending planetary doom, the ‘Age of Being but what precisely does that designation imply,
Green’ offers a glimmer of hope. It represents and how might it be fulfilled? Would creating
a global awakening to the fact that the status quo more park-like spaces be adequate, or do our
is no longer acceptable, let alone good enough. very homes, streets and offices need to be
What was once the preoccupation of a marginal- rethought? This is the question that EXP11 will ask
ised group of scientists and activists is now the this year. Our instincts suggest that being green
primary concern of an entire generation. Being isn’t as easy as all that, and that the spaces and
green is the new normal. places of the National Park City of London have
In July 2019, London became the world’s first yet to be imagined.
National Park City. The aim of the National Park
City Foundation is to make cities ‘greener,
healthier and wilder’ – an intention that is
emblematic of our age. Yet being green has now
become a tradeable commodity, as industries
worldwide are well aware. The very same
Matilde Cassani works between architecture, installation and
captains of industry who brought us to the brink
event design. Her practice deals with spatial implications of
are now proclaiming their commitment to the cultural pluralism in the contemporary Western city. Her works
cause. Would it not be prudent to take a rather have been published in magazines including the Architectural
Review, Domus, Abitare, Flash Art, Arkitecktur and Arqa. She
cynical view?
has taught at the AA since 2018.
Silvana Taher is an architect and writer. She studied at UCL and
the Bartlett School of Architecture, and gained her AA Diploma
TUTORS in 2011. She has since been a design tutor and a History and
Matilde Cassani Theory lecturer at the AA. Her writing appears in AA Files,
Silvana Taher Blueprint, the Architectural Review and the Architects’ Journal. Photo by Jemal Countess/Getty Images for Capital Concerts48 Experimental 12 49
Low-Def Space
This year, EXP12 continues its ongoing inquiry into amendments at the elemental scale, and to
the interrelation between technology, ecology understand these changes’ immense social and
and economics within the architectural process, ecological consequences.
and the array of potential approaches to To explore and operate comfortably within
construction from optimisation to misuse. the globally-networked digital realm, the work of
The main focus of the unit this year will be the year will culminate in questioning the rele-
on the production of a catalogue of architectural vance of traditional notions of context and site.
forms through serialisation and variation. The A carefully-simulated environment will surround
purpose of this endeavour is to highlight archi- the projects, though the focus of these domains
tectural projects as a continuation or a variation will remain more factual than fictional. While
of a set of precedents, whether historical or embracing experimental topics and approaches,
personal; and to document the endless number EXP12 will continue to apply its tested method-
of deviations, cracks, misuses and even errors ology to collective work, rigorous research and
within them. Taking this approach to the impeccable representation.
extreme, students will produce a series of
building proposals within a self-defined system
which will address contemporary living and
working conditions. By refining their endless-
ly-growing shared library of architectural
Taneli Mansikkamäki is an architect and educator. He has taught
elements through an iterative process, they will in the Foundation Course and the Experimental Programme at
begin to master the craft of making minuscule the AA. Previously, he worked for Future Systems and Cecil
Balmond, and has served as a visiting critic at the SEU in
Shanghai, the University of Cambridge, AHO in Norway and the
Akademie der Bildenden Künste in Stuttgart.
TUTORS
Taneli Mansikkamäki Max Turnheim is an architect. He previously codirected École
Max Turnheim alongside Nicolas Simon, and now codirects the studio UHO
with Emma Voisin Isdahl with Federico Coricelli. Sofia Lekander, William Liu, Two places yet one framework, serving for gaming and drinking coffee, EXP12, 2021.You can also read
