Issue 15 News from the Architectural Association AARCHITECTURE VERSO

AARCHITECTURE CONTRIBUTORS Architectural Association (Inc.) News from the Erandi de Silva Registered Charity No. 311083 Architectural Association [email protected] Company limited by guarantee Issue 15 / Summer 2011 Registered in England No. 171402 www.aaschool.ac.uk Eleanor Dodman Registered office as above [email protected] ©2011 All rights reserved Hugo Hinsley Published by the [email protected] Architectural Association 36 Bedford Square Emma Letizia Jones London WC1B 3ES [email protected]

Contact: Naoki Kotaka [email protected] [email protected] Nicola Quinn +44 (0)20 7887 4033 Paul McAneary Please send your news items for the next [email protected] issue to [email protected] Jan Nauta EDITORIAL BOARD [email protected] Alex Lorente, Membership Brett Steele, AA School Director Martin Self Zak Kyes, AA Art Director [email protected]

EDITORIAL TEAM Liam Young Nicola Quinn, Managing Editor [email protected] Claire McManus, Graphic Designer Scrap Marshall, Danielle Rago and Manijeh Verghese, Student Editors Cover image: The Looking Machine c 1983, Image courtesy of the Cedric ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Price Estate, London. Two articles Shumon Basar celebrating the life and work of Cedric Valerie Bennett Price appear in this issue on pages 4–7 Kathleen Formosa Roz Jackson Joanne McCluskey Esther McLaughlin Roger Mead Charlotte Newman Simon Whittle

Printed by Cassochrome, Belgium AARCHITECTURE Issue 15 2 Bedford Square Fundraising Update 3 Building Works Begin in Bedford Square 4 Wish We Were Here 6 The Archive as a Productive Space of Conflict 8 Writing as Architecture 10 Projects Review 2011 14 Magic Format 16 New Forms of Practice 18 The Autopoiesis of Architecture 21 Membership Events 24 AA Timeline 2010/11 28 Faceted House 1 30 Honours Students 2011 32 Foster + Partners Award 33 The Dennis Sharp Prize 34 New from AA Publications and Bedford Press 36 Photo Library: Call for Collections 38 Hooke Park Building Begins 40 Spring 2011 School Meetings 41 AA Tohoku Earthquake Action 42 News

1 News Bedford Square Fundraising Update

AA community relaxes on the terrace. Photo Valerie Bennett

Following last year’s summer announcement of locating the Library and Archive, building a Lecture the AA’s receipt of its largest-ever gift in the form Hall and transforming the Main Entrance, Display of the Norah Garlick bequest established to support and Exhibition Spaces of the School. the launch of our new rural campus being designed During the past year students and special and built by AA students in Hooke Park in Dorset, we projects attracted significant income. The future have for the second year running another important funding of existing Scholarships and Bursaries new gift to announce to the AA. continues to be an important focus. A new award will Thanks to the immense generosity of a be announced in the Autumn and a further legacy long-time and dear friend of the AA who wishes at announcement with regard to supporting students this point in to remain anonymous until final details later in the year. are arranged in the coming weeks, I am immensely All donations enrich the future of the AA pleased to announce the AA’s receipt of a pledge and a make a real difference not only to our students, for an enormous and extremely generous seven-figure but also to the architectural debate worldwide of donation that will help launch, in the most important which the AA seeks to be an essential part. No matter way imaginable the AA’s ambitious new series of how large or small the gift, your contribution is building projects in Bedford Square. highly valued. As we approach the School’s centenary of being based in Bedford Square we are in the planning Brett Steele, AA Director stages of a capital campaign. We seek to create better facilities, host the best tutors and revolutionise If you would like to find out more about the AA’s teaching methods in order to retain our reputation capital campaign and projects currently underway as a world leader in architectural education. where your donation could make a difference, please In January 2010, the London based architects use the contact details below. Wright & Wright delivered a ten-year masterplan that provides a framework to guide development in the Esther McLaughlin, Head of Development coming years. This includes rebuilding the workshops [email protected], and improving accessibility around the School’s +44 (0)20 7887 4090 buildings. From there, major projects include re- 2 News Building Works Begin in Bedford Square

Nos. 32–39 Bedford Square. Photo Valerie Bennett

Works have now begun on the first phase of the at basement level between Nos. 38 to 37 and from AA’s Masterplan. This initial phase is primarily related the old bookshop to the corridor adjacent to the to the workshops and third floor lateral openings, restaurant. Services diversion works commenced or connections between buildings. on Monday 1 August, to clear the areas in preparation Phase 1, known as The Essential Works for the structural works. phase has been further broken down into Phase 1A and Phase 1B. Phase 1B is the works to be undertaken from 19 Phase 1A is the works undertaken during the September 2011 to July 2012 and consists of the summer period from 18 July to 18 September 2011 following: and consists of the following: Nos. 39 to 37 16 Morwell Street Structural alteration works to the basements of Nos. Stripping out of finishes and services to the basement 39 to 37 to form the new Digital Prototyping area. of 16 Morwell Street, installation of new services, Forming of the new service duct from the basement of structural screed and partitions to form the new No. 39 to the roof, demolition of the rear extensions to Model Making area. New ventilation services are Nos. 38 and 37, replacing the structural floor slabs in being provided to serve a new paint spray booth. the basements of Nos. 39 and 37, upgrading the This requires a new service duct to be formed through pavement vault areas to serve as new plant rooms the existing floors from ground floor up to the roof. including new boilers serving Nos. 39 and 37 and the Data and services diversions are underway, together installation of services and finishes to complete Digital with the installation of temporary partitions at each Prototyping. level to screen off the work area. Cutting through Works to risers in all three buildings will the concrete floors, to form the new ducts commenced necessitate data and services works to all floor levels, on 1 August. which will be carried out in a phased approach to reduce the disruption to school operations Nos. 39 to 32 Bedford Square The existing yard area to the rear of Nos. 38 and 37, A new service riser will be formed through the roof once enlarged with the removal of the rear extensions, of No. 39, which will provide extraction services to will be excavated to increase the usable area. Digital Prototyping as part of Phase 1B works. Structural opening will be formed through party walls Building Works, AA, July 2011 – July 2012 of Nos. 39 to 38, 38 to 37, 34–36 to 33 and 33 to 32 at third floor level. Additionally openings will be formed 3 Events Wish We Were Here By Scrap Marshall and Jan Nauta

A wall of Cedric Price’s sketches with remakes of his furniture designs. Photo Sue Barr

‘I have a soft spot for human beings – Cedric Price’ (POA), the aforementioned badges, and last but by no read the text on the hundreds of badges given away means least... the first public tasting of the CPSavoury, free as part of the exhibition Wish We Were Here – a lamb and rosemary bun, devised by chef and friend The Mental Notes of Cedric Price. Occupying the Front of Cedric Price, Fergus Henderson, that ‘was inspired Members’ Room for the month of March, the badges by Cedric’s cheeks’. were but one of many fragments that were brought Rather than a formal showing of completed together to present the thoughts and ideas of architect, projects, the reproduced furniture displayed the work thinker and badge aficionado Cedric Price. and research as ongoing and incomplete; drawings, The exhibition assembled three bodies of films, excerpts of lectures and conversations, books current research: a project for publication entitled and an interactive portal, all in a fragmented manner. Cedric Price – Complete Works by Samantha With a thick black carpet, the Front Members’ Room Hardingham, Hans Ulrich Obrist’s Conversation became part study, part lounge – creating an informal Series archive and an interactive online project atmosphere to navigate leisurely through the varying conceived at the Department for Exhibition Design forms of the mental notes of Cedric Price. and Curatorial Practice at the Hochschule für Gestaltung Karlsruhe (HfG) by students Kilian Scrap Marshall is a Fourth Year AA Student Fabich and Stella-Sophie Seroglou, supervised by and Student Editor of AArchitecture. Wilfried Kühn, Armin Linke and Markus Miessen. In addition, newly commissioned for the Jan Nauta is a Fifth Year AA Student. exhibition was the remaking of a range of furniture designed by Cedric Price for the Robert Fraser Gallery, Wish We Were Here – The Mental Notes Duke Street, London (1961–66), selected pieces of of Cedric Price, Exhibition, 5–26 March 2011, ephemera retrieved from the AA Archive and the AA Front Members’ Room Cedric Price Estate by the Public Occasion Agency

4 Ephemera sourced from both the Cedric Price Archive A student engages with HfG’s interactive online and the AA Archive. archive.

The Cedric Price badge was a popular souvenir from Students pore over material from the archive. the exhibition. Photos Sue Barr 5 Events The Archive as a Productive Space of Conflict By Manijeh Verghese

Armin Linke, Samantha Hardingham, Hans Ulrich Obrist and Markus Miessen discuss the spatiality of archival practice. Photo Scrap Marshall

Cedric Price at the AA c 1990. Photo Valerie Bennett 6 Wish You Were Here – Cedric Price Mental Notes was an conversation as a space of productive conflict. Hans exhibition in the Front Members’ Room documenting Ulrich suggested a new way of approaching the Cedric the ideas of the renowned architect through a variety Price archive would be to tag information according of media, each of which contributed to our under- to topics, for example, the Fun Palace, so that the standing of his body of work and thought processes. interview would become a polyphonic archive. During this exhibition, a panel discussion was Different interviews with Cedric Price mentioning organised by the Public Occasion Agency (POA) with the Fun Palace would converse with one another, regards to understanding this body of work within the alongside any other interviews by Hans Ulrich where context of the archive. the Fun Palace as an influence or precedent is cited. Wish You Were Here had originally been staged The choice of Cedric Price as the focus for this as part of the Venice Biennale last summer, where discussion about the archive was not by chance. He it was encountered by POA. It was curated by Hans provides the perfect example to explain the concept Ulrich Obrist and Samantha Hardingham with the of the archive within an archive. Since Hans Ulrich involvement of an ongoing research project based had interviewed him several times, each interview at the University of Arts and Design Karlsruhe (HfG) forms a chapter in a dialogue built up over time. headed by Markus Miessen and Armin Linke. The Using words and drawings, he often flipped through panel was initially planned as a trialogue to discuss his sketchbooks while on camera or drew while talking Markus’s and Armin’s research project, The Archive to illustrate a specific idea, allowing the audience as a Productive Space of Conflict, which focuses on the to engage with the material in different ways. Yet how archive compiled within Hans Ulrich Obrist’s Berlin accessible is this dialogue between Cedric Price apartment. Subsequently, to underline the emphasis and Hans Ulrich to the average user? Without the on Cedric Price as the subject matter of the exhibition archivist would it still be possible to navigate the as well as the portion of the archive being researched, archive as a complex collection of data? How much Samantha Hardingham joined the discussion. She of the logic of collecting and organising material is came to the surprising realisation that despite having locked up within the individual who performs these organised two exhibitions together, the foursome functions? Is the new (mis)use or reinterpretation had never been in a room together until that evening! of the archive, through the creation of user-defined The research project and the discussion focused connections between data, a way for the archive to on the spatiality of archival practice, and how to shift exist beyond the lifetime of the archivist? In this way, the concept of archiving away from a view of storage the archive becomes not only a productive space towards a productive dialogue between constituent of conflict in terms of how it is conceived but also in elements. Varied readings of the archive ranged from terms of its legacy and continued relevance to the user Samantha’s analogue interpretation of associations and archivist alike. with the weight of material and endless lists of numbers to index objects, to the digital processes of Armin’s Manijeh Verghese is a Fourth Year AA Student Phenotype project whereby objects are catalogued and Student Editor of AArchitecture. through reference IDs and reordered according to use and experience. Markus outlined various known The Archive as a Productive Space of Conflict, archives within the world ranging from the ‘clean’ Discussion, 22 March 2011, AA Lecture Hall, in the case of libraries and museums to the ‘dirty’ in Markus Miessen, Hans Ulrich Obrist, Armin Linke, the case of industrial facilities and material workshops. Samantha Hardingham Hans Ulrich discussed his own archive, a seeming mass of chaotic information that he easily navigates through a ‘structured logic’. He uses interviews as a necessary research tool for exhibitions yet, until this project, only the written transcripts were used while the 2,000 hours of moving images remained dormant within the archive. By no longer conceiving of the archive as a means of storage, it is transformed into an opportunity for serendipitous, arbitrary conversations. If the video-clips within the archive are shuffled and played at random as if by a DJ in a nightclub they produce a wholly different type of dialogue between different time periods, themes and audiences. The listener starts to create connections between clips, and the juxtaposition of these elements creates a fictional 7 Events Writing as Architecture By Danielle Rago and Emma Letizia Jones

The Writing and Critical Thinking symposium.

Marina Lathouri addresses the symposium audience. Photos Valerie Bennett 8 The Writing and Critical Thinking in Architecture However, architect Nasrine Seraji, offered Symposium, organised by Marina Lathouri, Director us the supposition that an architectural exhibition of the History & Critical Thinking MA Programme, transmitted by writing is better able to engage brought together a group of academics, practitioners, with the public than the architectural drawing. writers, curators and editors from within contemp- She presented writing not only as a form of critical orary architectural discourse, including: Jane Rendell, practice but also as a means of translating Mario Carpo, Yve Lomax, Nasrine Seraji, Giovanna architectural ideas to the public. Atelier Seraji’s Borasi and Hannes Mayer. It addressed the role of exhibition dazibao d’architectures, borrows from writing within the realm of contemporary architecture the ancient Chinese method of civic communication and culture and reflected on the role of criticism through writing – the dazibao, or ‘big-character within new modes of production of architectural poster.’ By omitting the architectural drawing knowledge. The topic of conversation in many ways in exhibiting architecture, Nasrine believes we can relates to the reformulation and renaming of the engage the public, who are better equipped to relate school’s History & Critical Thinking Programme, to the written word. There is a tendency, both which is structured around writing as a critical within the profession and without, only to legitimise practice as well as a form of architectural practice. architecture if it is built, but as Atelier Seraji’s Marina began the discussion with a exhibition demonstrates, an unbuilt work, of which commentary on writing as an operation enmeshed writing is a part, can be just as powerful as a built within the processes of both making and theorising one; it can go on to influence discourses that shape architecture. Using Alberti’s Treatise on Architecture architecture, both built and unbuilt. and modernist manifestos as forms of writing that The discussion resulting from the symposium engage critically with architecture, and in turn reinforced the notion that the monopoly over ‘truth’ influence its evolution, she illustrated that the act of and ‘reality’ in the publication of architecture either writing, along with the act of designing, gives ongoing written or visual is an ongoing concern, especially validity to history by constantly reformulating and with the introduction of new online and digital recreating it. This idea of writing (and design) as platforms with which to transmit architecture, as ‘narrative’, a trend which has once more found favour well as existing hard-copy architectural publications, as a working method for many of the design units at like architheses, edited by final speaker Hannes Mayer. the AA, was also explored by Jane Rendell, art critic The process of writing constantly redefines our and writer, who staged a reading of one of her very boundaries of truth, which are temporal and shifting. public site-writings, in which writing becomes a form There is no doubt that writing contributes of spatial practice. Exploring the coupling of Moss to the construction of architectural discourses which Green (an abandoned cottage) with iconic modernist are transmitted through publication to the public, buildings through recited narratives and photographs, and that these discourses can be just as powerful she demonstrated how the written word has the as the construction of a building. potential to actively ‘remake’ these derelict buildings The importance of writing to further by placing them within a new context. Following the architectural discourse and to inform the production narrative thread, writer Yve Lomax reinforced the of built design was the overall theme that ran civic function of writing through her performative throughout the symposium. The speakers invited readings in which she proposed writing as generative, us to think about writing as an important form of non-linear and inventive – making it an ideal tool in architectural practice, as much as other modes of the design process. production, such as drawing. The role of criticality Mario Carpo presented us with arguments in in every architect’s practice is essential, and writing favour of the demise of the image in the transmission plays an important role in this reflection process. As of the architectural project to the public, offering John Hejduk commented, ‘every architect needs to the catchphrase ‘tell, don’t show’. He asserted that have a dual practice, one that allows for questioning, the confusion of authorship with respect to the digital and another that allows for implementation’. image negates the ‘truth’ of the image as a document. We might suggest, as did Giovanna Borasi, Curator Danielle Rago is a Graduate MA Student in the of Contemporary Architecture at the Canadian Centre History & Critical Thinking Programme and for Architecture (CCA), that it is in the interaction Student Editor of AArchitecture. Emma Letizia between the text and the image that the ‘true’ story Jones is an MA Student in the History & Critical is told. For her, it is the relationship between writing Thinking Programme. and image that successfully develops a language of transmission of current architectural discourse, Writing and Critical Thinking in Architecture as demonstrated by previous CCA exhibitions. Symposium, 25 March 2011, AA Lecture Hall. 9 Events AA Projects Review 2011

Diploma 3 DRL and AAIS

The AA’s Projects Review summer exhibition offered a chance to see the past year’s work of 650 students. It was an opportunity to see architecture’s future in its most compelling and unexpected form – in the designs and minds of an emerging generation today. Hundreds of drawings, models, installations and photographs were on display alongside large 1:1 working proto- types, interactive media and even performances; all of which provided a snapshot of the latest thinking, experimentation and invention underway within the AA. The accompanying AA Book: Projects Review 2011 was also launched at the exhibition opening and is available from the AA Bookshop aabookshop.net

Projects Review, Exhibition, 18 June – 9 July 2011, AA, 34–36 Bedford Square

Foundation 10 Orientation Room

Media Studies and PhD 11 Emergent Technologies

Intermediate 5 12 First Year Intermediate 6

Intermediate 9. All photos Sue Barr 13 Events Magic Format By Erandi de Silva

FORMAT is a new ‘live summer magazine’ the architect, critic and AA Intermediate 12 Unit dedicated to the shapes that discourse takes, organised Master Sam Jacob moved the discussion to the by Shumon Basar. Topics included Philosophy, the junction between architecture and magic. Formless- Lecture, Library classifications, and historical ness, inter-penetration, disappearance, and levitation: Anniversaries. Here Erandi de Silva recounts what just a few of the ‘tricks’ modernist architecture has she saw – and didn’t see – at the inaugural Magic striven to achieve. Format. Creating a parallel with Copperfield’s vanishing of the Statue of Liberty in 1983, Sam pointed to Adolf Acts of levitation, central to both magic and Loos’ reductionist 1908 essay, Ornament and Crime, architecture, were a recurrent motif throughout the which manifests in the austere Villa Müller. And as evening’s presentation. A prelude included a YouTube Kalanag’s (Hitler’s go-to magician) arrow passes clip of famed 1980s magician David Copperfield. The through his assistant’s vanished mid-section, Mies’s audience witnesses the realisation of his childhood curtain-walls invoke the penetration of space. From dream of flying (as confided to real-time ex-fiancé Le Corbusier’s chapter in Towards a New Architecture Claudia Schiffer). Copperfield invokes the grammar devoted to aeroplanes, to the ubiquity of the ‘shadow of theatrics and the theatrics of melodrama, to gap’ detail, architects, like magicians, dream of their manipulate the viewer: has he indeed escaped the subjects/objects levitating. bonds of gravity? Punctuating the evening in a final act of When Copperfield takes the stage, there is an spectacular persuasion, Scott Penrose, an ex-architect unspoken understanding between the performer and now turned magician, performed a live levitation trick his audience, acknowledging that the ‘magic’ is in fact in the AA Gallery. Jonathan Allen was plucked from a trick. The evening’s first speaker, artist and writer the audience and amidst a fog of smoke ‘floated’ for Jonathan Allen, explored the limits of how magic is a few incomprehensible seconds in mid air. The crowd used to mislead audiences by drawing attention to how cheered wildly. the joy of being entertained veils the act of crossing Architects, like magicians, are specialists in the into deceptive territory. Magicians often subscribe art of manipulating reality, constructing seemingly to particular agendas and have historically used the impossible scenarios through various methods of format of magic for the purposes of branding, prop- trickery. Both formats use illusions to defy physics, aganda and political manoeuvering, thus performing for rhetorical ends, with their own kind of potent persuasive acts in the service of corporate entities, persuasive power. the Church, and even the nation state. In this context, innocent entertainment becomes secondary to the Erandi de Silva is an alumnus of the AA premeditated communication of an ideology. Jonathan Allen offered various examples To watch video recordings of the events, visit: demonstrating the magician’s shifting priorities http://format.aaschool.ac.uk beginning with a clip featuring Mark Wilson, a magician and host of the 1960s CBS show The Magic Magic Format, Lecture, AA Gallery, 28 June 2011, Land of Allakazam. A corporate sponsorship from Jonathan Allen, Scott Penrose and Sam Jacob cereal giant Kellogg’s ensured that literally every aspect of his routine was heavily branded. Showcasing a more extreme use of magic, Scott Sforza’s political agenda was then introduced. As Deputy Communications Director for George W. Bush’s administration, Sforza carefully constructed the President’s public image, staging idealised visual scenarios for the cameras. These images referenced established symbols of power, solidifying Bush’s authoritative position through magical association. Building on Jonathan Allen’s retrospective exploration of magic’s capacity to present arguments, 14 Jonathan Allen being levitated by Scott Penrose

Magic Format in the AA Gallery. Photos Valerie Bennett 15 Events New Forms of Practice By Manijeh Verghese, transcription by Eleanor Dodman

Anton Garcia Abril constructs his practice from stones and beams. Photo Scrap Marshall

Temporary exhibition space for Schunck*. Design: Rococo Relevance. Luc Merx and Sven Walter. 2010 16 In February and March 2011, Oliver Domeisen, Unit a cow from our neighbour so it could eat the comp- Master, Diploma 13 and HTS tutor, organised a series ressed hay that he had lent us. This was part of the of three lectures to show how an emerging generation constructive and intellectual process, the relationship of architects are constructing new forms of practice. of time and architecture and the way we could The series was aimed at AA students today and materialise all of these different states of concrete: the architectural practitioner of the future, providing from the liquid to the stringy to the smooth cut of helpful advice especially for those nearing the end the exterior – all from the same poured material, all of their academic careers and contemplating what lies producing a different materiality. We discovered, after beyond the AA. cleaning, how this wrinkled cave would react extreme- Each lecture encompassed a different form ly well with the only focal and perspective element of practice, ranging from Swiss architects HHF whose that opened onto the horizon – the window. We also stated aim is to progress through pragmatic building discovered how the different elements of contact: the – erecting 20 buildings over eight years – to Spanish earth, the hay, the horizontal and the vertical, with firm, Ensamble Studio, who have found ways to the same liquid concrete, could generate such different engage directly and creatively with the construction results. This was all part of the experiment to show process itself and Dutch architects, Luc Merx and how the building materialises nature. Christian Holl, who combine historical research with the newest digital technology as part of their Rococo Opulent Decay: The Contingency of Design Relevance project. The only things that all three Luc Merx and Christian Holl, offices have in common are that they are the product 14 March 2011 of a European context and they are in their late With this research we tried to discover the potential 30s or early 40s. Otherwise, their ambitions, their of architecture in cultural discussions and the power working methods and indeed their architectures are that architecture can have, especially in the use very different. of historic references. The project was initiated The idea behind the lecture series was to show with the need to understand what history could mean that despite the apparent monopoly of mega-offices in architecture. We noticed that there are only a few like Foster and SOM, and after a generation of fame- forms, a few buildings or a few elements that are hungry starchitects and their iconic styles, a new normally used as historical references in architecture. generation of young architects are finding ways of But with the richness of historical architecture in operating smaller offices. They not only survive, but mind, this is unsatisfactory and we wondered what also succeed in making their mark on the profession potential could be discovered if we were free from as a whole. The following excerpts from the lectures the restrictions that determine what architectural show how in a rapidly changing profession you cannot forms are recognised. In other words, we noticed that ‘rely on establishing models of practice but that you there are many taboos that stop us from using the have to adapt your metier to changing contexts’. forms history can offer us. Our idea is not only to offer solutions, or to tell other people how to work or Stones and Beams to design, but to instigate discussions and find ways Anton Garcia Abril, Ensamble Studio, and terms that might result in more precise questions. 2 March 2011 The most important question to ask is what is the The Truffle is an experiment: a prototypical possibility of architecture? experiment of mass construction that extracts all of the earth’s properties in order to become part Manijeh Verghese is a Fourth Year AA Student and of nature. It does not want to be architecture; it wants Student Editor of AArchitecture. Eleanor Dodman nature to cut, cover and give it form in the same way is a Third Year AA Student. that it gives form to a truffle. The programme that was used for scale was the Cabanon of Le Corbusier. New Forms of Practice Lecture Series, 28 February We tried to convert a thick shell of concrete into 2011, 2 March 2011, 14 March 2011, AA Lecture the same scale and shape as the Cabanon and to break Hall, Oliver Domeisen, HHF Architects, Anton Garcia different parts of the Cabanon into a new composition Abril, Luc Merx and Christian Holl – our cabanon of béton. The process was to dig a hole in the ground and to insert air, as materialised by hay bales, to pour concrete into the space in between these two spaces and to allow time to play its role by leaving nature to react with the concrete. After that, we cut into the concrete with quarry machinery but we did not yet have the space. The next step was to borrow 17 Events The Autopoiesis of Architecture: A Book Examined through Propaganda, Hearsay, Gossip and Conspiracy Theory By Liam Young and the Debating Fundamentals Symposium Audience

On the 11 March 2011 witnesses tell of a rare and ‘I honestly read enough of the book that extraordinary event at the Architectural Association. I thought I would understand what autopoiesis is and I don’t but after eight hours in this room Wow. The parametricists are queuing round I realise I don’t have to, because Patrik does.’ Bedford Square this morning. – Brett Steele, Director of the AA @anothersam, Sam Jacob ‘Can you imagine the time the doorknob broke? Patrik Schumacher had gathered together a collection – This describes my impressions when I tried of the architectural world’s renowned critical minds to read your book.’ to discuss and challenge his new book The Autopoiesis – Wolf Prix, Director of Coop Himmeblau of Architecture. It is an amazingly ambitious project, an arduous read, a Is anyone at this #autopoiesis bonanza? dense book organised into an astonishing 250 chapters. Are people wearing aprons and doing the parametric handshake? ‘At 450 pages (and with only 18 images) it’s the @ollywainwright, Oliver Wainwright first of a proposed two-volume work, making it surely the longest and, quite possibly, the most It was a talk show from the self-declared avant-garde, opaque manifesto in architectural with Schumacher its host and a procession of luminous historiography.’ guests invited to share their reactions. – Steve Parnel, Critic with the Architects Journal

I’m starting a new hash tag, for the AA The book is a sweeping universal appeal for symposium going on today: ‘debating architecture as a system of ideas. Reverse engineering fundamentals’ #aadebfun his parametric experiments in Hadid’s practice, @Jack_Self, Jack Self the AA DRL and his reading of systems theorist Niklas Luhmann, Patrik defines an agenda for how @Jack_Self I first thought #aadebfun was an architect can act in an increasingly complex world. about rich female students and white gloves. It is a book formed as a prop for a conversation Disappointed. and an anchor for a body of architecture that has done @entschwindet, Douglas Murphy and continues to present itself as the leading edge of the profession. We all gathered together to hear people discuss a book that for the most part they hadn’t really read, or if they ‘The effort to make the book has galvanised had done, they didn’t necessarily understand. a very substantial, important, essential, critical and fundamental discussion in the academy ‘In a way I didn’t really read the book, I scanned which hasn’t taken place in a hell of a long time.’ it, did things with it.’ – Eric Owen Moss, Architect and Director – Alejandro Zaera Polo, Director of Foreign of SCI-Arc School Office Architects 18 The book is dogmatic, relentless, but most Just like the conspiracy theory, the book finds traction importantly it is a provocation, at a time when in the world through the narrative that is generated provocation is one of the rarest qualities in around it rather than the intricacies of its argument. architectural culture. The typical account of conspiracy theories, in which governments and the military are concealing ‘The book is ‘a hammer with which to shape extraordinary technologies, extra-terrestrials and reality’ a weapon for a style war.’ black operations, is actually the opposite of the truth. – Bertolt Brecht via Patrick Schumacher ‘In fact the only active and important kind ‘You don’t have to go into this book ten seconds of theory in the world that we live in today before thinking of counter argument after is the conspiracy theory. Born out of a deep counter argument.’ scepticism for how the world appears, an – Jeff Kipnis, Architecture critic unfounded and ungrounded unification of all actions and events becomes the basis for In an era so bereft of ideology the very act of declaring us understanding the world as it operates.’ a new unifying theory, the ambition to do so and the – Brett Steele, Director of the AA mythology of manifesto making is perhaps more important than the substance of any particular claims ‘The gospel answers all of the questions it asks. it may actually make. It acts as solid justification for its own system of beliefs, bringing further clarification to the ‘The more I read the text the less it is new orthodox through deliberate obfuscation.’ about the text.’ – David Greene, Co Founder of Archigram – Theo Spyropoulos, Programme Director of AA DRL The world we inhabit today is really just formed through the managing of perceptions. Patrik’s book, ‘More than anything AoA seeks unification: and the event he has organised around it is evidence of architecture – not (merely) its theories. At of the ways a book can become useful and important some point all theories of unification eventually in the world separate from any particular act or notion lead to the same thing: conspiracy theories’ of actually reading it. A form of weaponised folklore, – Brett Steele, Director of the AA the mythology of a unifying theory, worthwhile not necessarily for the specifics of the system presented but for the audacity that someone would attempt to do it in the first place.

@liam_young I haven’t read it. But I’ve heard him speak and I’d say that I’m more on his side than the fucking throwbacks who attack him. @timabrahams, Tim Abrahams

@liam_young no one who talks about it has read it... for long, anyway, for my part, hats off to anyone manic enough to say, “HERE’S HOW...” @tonita00, Shumi Bose

@tonita00 there was some interference on the live feed caused by Alvin Boyarsky spinning. @knight_david, David Knight

To point out that the AA of recent years has founded itself upon such a treaty on architectural production serves to crystallise the reactions against it as much as it does its supporters.

The Debating Fundamentals symposium. Photo Valerie Bennett 19 Events

Patrik Schumacher with Zaha Hadid. Photo Scrap Marshall

@knight-david @anothersam They shld all hearsay, assumptions and predictions; the overheard, wear Mao uniforms, whilst chanting aphorisms eavesdropped, microphone amplified and publicly web from his book & occasionally banging their streamed; the conversation it promotes, the rumours heads with it. it generates, the aggravation it causes, the brows it @Furmadamadam, Adam Nathaniel Furman furrows and the debate it propels; the rally cries of the believers and the deniers and the people who attempt God – there is so much shit being spoken there, to distance themselves from it in the hope that it will I can smell it in Yorkshire. Is the whole of the AA all just go away. like that, or is it just these people? @steveparnell, Steve Parnell Liam Young is AA Diploma 6 Unit Master

‘Caressing with guiltiness the sweet drama Debating Fundamentals; Probing the Autopoiesis of of geometry addiction – Algorithm and Architecture, AA Symposium, Friday 11 March mathematics have a place in design, but to think 2011, AA Lecture Hall, Patrik Schumacher with Jeff that mathematics can actually describe or code Kipnis, Greg Lynn, Rem Koolhaas, Lars Spuybroek, our world is a mistake, or more an illusion.’ Charles Jencks, Eric Owen Moss, Wolf Prix, – Francois Roche, Director R&Sie(n). Excerpt Alejandro Zaera Polo, Mark Wigley, Mark Cousins, from ‘Postcard to Patrik’ Brett Steele, Zaha Hadid.. www.aaschool.ac.uk/downloads/aarchitecture/ postcardtopatrikschumacher.pdf The Autopoiesis of Architecture, Volume 1 by Patrik Schumacher, Wiley, 2010 is available in the AA It is this debate around the book that makes it Bookshop, who are also taking pre-orders for compelling. As a book, it is an immense project but Volume 2. aabookshop.net it is perhaps best described through the rumours and discussion that exist around it; collections of solicited and unsolicited comments, gossip and 20 Events AA Membership Events

Breathtaking view of the city’s skyline from AHMM’s Angel Building, tour led by Berta Willisch, 24 March 2011. Photo Sue Barr

AA Members’ Building Visits Saturday Brunches & Private Talks: Meet the Curators Allford Hall Monaghan Morris Thursday 24 March 2011 AA Archives: Projects, Personalities & Publics and AHMM took our group of AA Members through Wish We Were Here: Cedric Price Mental Notes three projects where the practice has incorporated Saturday 26 March 2011 existing concrete structures into the design. Each of AA Archivist Edward Bottoms took the group on the site visits was led by a member of the design team a guided tour of AA Archives: Projects, Personalities for that project. The highlight of the visit, for AA & Publics. Following on from this, Cedric Price SED students in particular, was the tour of the Angel biographer and AA Tutor, Samantha Hardingham, Building, in Angel, Islington which had recently won led a talk on the Wish We Were Here exhibition. From a Civic Trust Award for AHMM’s impressive project there the group was then served brunch in the Back planning that incorporated the re-use of an in-situ Members’ Room. concrete structural frame from the original 1980s building. To further compliment the impressive Beyond Entropy and Concrete Geometries design behind this project the fifth floor offered Saturday 21 May 2011 a breathtaking panoramic view of central London. Stefano Rabolli Pansera took visitors through a guided tour of Beyond Entropy while Marianne Mueller Zaha Hadid Architects and Olaf Kneer led a talk on Concrete Geometries. Thursday 14 April 2011 Following on from these talks, a brunch catered by Zaha Hadid Architects’ first completed project in Arnold & Henderson was served. England, the Evelyn Grace Academy in Brixton, forms part of the local community urban regeneration process. Membership Events, Private Talks, 26 March 2011 Both passionate and dedicated to this project, architect and 21 May 2011, AA Gallery and AA Front Lars Teichmann from the ZHA team behind the Members’ Room. Building Visits, Allford Hall school led this Members’ visit along with representatives Monaghan Morris, 24 March 2011, Zaha Hadid from EGA, including the knowledgeable Oliver Architects, 14 April 2011 James-Parr, who introduced the group to the educational side of the project which is integral to the design. 21 The Angel Building, Islington by Allford Hall Monaghan Morris, 24 March 2011

Zaha Hadid Architects tour of the Evelyn Grace Academy, Brixton led by Lars Treichmann, 14 April 2011 22 Edward Bottoms talks about the AA Archives exhibition, Projects, Personalities & Publics, 26 March 2011

Beyond Entropy curator Stefano Rabolli Pansera, 21 May 2011. Photos Sue Barr 23 Events AA Timeline 2010/11

24 30 July 22 October Architecture Open Talks Achill – Linda Brownlee Educating Architects, Mark Cousins at Hooke Park: Bill Gething Reinventing Architecture Technology and the Exhibiting an Exhibition: First Person Singular 10 November AA Today in Tokyo 28 August Sean Edwards, Sam Jacob Beyond Entropy at Book Launch/Lecture: No Dust Adheres 23 November Cini Foundation Venice Lorens Holm Open Seminars: Brunelleschi, Lacan, 11 November Writing as Architecture 20 September Le Corbusier: Architecture, The Americas, Photographs AA Diploma Honours 2010 Space and the Construction by Alex Laing Christopher C M Lee of Subjectivity Working in Series The Nicholas Pozner Prize 12 November 25 October Mark Cousins 24 November 8 October Book Launch/Lecture: Technology and the First Gabriele Mastrigli David Garcia Monster Pieces: Person Singular In Praise of Discontinuity MAP (Manual of A Retrospective of or La Leçon de Rome Architectural Possibilities) Retro-perspective Book Launch/Lecture: William Firebrace 25 November 12 October 26 October Marseille Mix Public Occasion Agency: Francine Houben Peter Ahrends, Metahaven Dutch Mountains Richard Burton, Architecture Open Talks Uncorporate Identity Paul Koralek at Hooke Park: Peter Clegg 13 October ABK: Threads and 26 November The Photographers’ Gallery Connections 16 November Symposium: @ the AA Open Seminars: Stranger than Truth Stephen Shore 28 October Writing as Architecture Thrilling Wonder Stories 2 Photography and the Limits Alain de Botton of Representation Living Architecture Public Occasion Agency: 30 November Nur Puri Purini Open Seminars: 15 October 29 October Commodities, Environmental Writing as Architecture Reading Landscape: Mark Cousins Markets and the Future Contemporary Landscape Technology and the of Cities Public Occasion Agency: Photography First Person Singular Arnold Reijndorp 17 November The City as Performance In the Bubble: Book Launch/Evening Eugene Kohn Noam Andrews and Lecture: Jane Burry KPF: The Global Practice 7 December René Barownick The ‘New Mathematics’ Book Launch/Lecture: Patrik of Architecture 18 November Schumacher Concrete Geometries Public Occasion Agency: The Autopoiesis of Research Cluster: 2 November Kai Van Hasselt Architecture Spatial Form in Social The Photographers’ Gallery Reflexive Urbanism and Aesthetic Processes @ the AA: Paula Yacoub 8 December ‘What do I do’ and 19 November The Photographers’ Gallery PE50: 50 Years of ‘What happens to me’ Mark Cousins @ the AA: David Spero Peter Eisenman Technology and the First Structures and Environment 5 November Person Singular 18 October Open Jury: Portfolios 9 December Shumon Basar, 2009/10 Anthony Vidler Alexis Zavialoff Cynthia Davidson The Crisis of Modernism: Distribution & Attitudes Editing vs Curating AA Bookshop and Bedford James Stirling out Press at the New York of the Archive 10 December PE50: Peter Eisenman, Art Bookfair First Year Lecture Series: Luis Fernández-Galiano, 20 November Grayson Perry Brett Steele 9 November The Slice: Cutting to See Daniel Libeskind John Pawson – Plain Space The Space of Encounter Working in Series: Serie Architects 25 Events

Mark Cousins Bata City vs Thames Photographers’ Gallery @ Architecture Open Talks at Technology and the First Gateway Projects the AA: Stephen Gill Hooke Park: Matthew Lewis Person Singular Bauhaus Kolleg/AAIS Mostly Within the Area: Interprofessional Studio Photographic projects from 25 February 15 December in and around East London Artist Talks: Jeff Kipnis, Hide and Seek 26 January Tobias Rehberger Peter Cook 10 February On Art and Architecture 12 January The Lost Art of Architectural Translated By Book Launch The Photographers’ Gallery Composition – The and Report: 28 February @ the AA: Beatriz Colomina Ingredients Charles Arsène-Henry, HHF architects: Recent Double Exposure: Shumon Basar Works/Formalistic Architecture as a Machine 28 January How We Are Readers Pragmatism to See Artist Talks Series: Peter Welz 11 February 1 March 13 January Artist Talks: Hito Steyerl Lecture/Book Launch: Mark Wigley, Brett Steele 1 February Enric Ruiz Geli Architecture of Failure Damon Rich 15 February Media-ICT Cities Destroyed for Cash Public Occasion Agency: 14 January Anna Minton 2 March Jeffrey Inaba, Mark Wigley, 3 February Ground Control Anton Garcia Abril Brett Steele and others Wouter Vanstiphout Stones and Beams Volume 24 Roundtable Blame the Architect: On the 16 February Relationship Between Urban Bolle Tham, Architecture Open Talks Translated By Planning, Architecture, Martin Videgård at Hooke Park: Culture and Urban Violence Out of the Real Steven Johnson True Cities 4 February 17 February 4 March Dolor Symposium/Book Launch AA Archives: Projects, Christoph Keller The Unprimed Canvas: Personalities & Publics A Perisher’s Nostalgia: 15 January Burgeoning Fields in Books and Art – Becoming Fiction – Practice 18 February A Relational Crisis Self-Portrait as a Film-still Open Jury AA Foundation The Unprimed Canvas Wish We Were Here Yannis Kizis Cedric Price: Mental Notes 17 January 7 February Book Launch: Lecture/Book Launch: 22 February Ecclesial Anatomies Teresa Stoppani, Fred Scott Brian Ford, Bruno Latour Paradigm Islands: Rosa Schiano-Phan Do Objects Reside in ‘res Inter 1 – Going Back to Manhattan and Venice The Architecture & extensa’ and If Not Where Greenville Engineering of Downdraught are They Located? 18 January Cooling 8 March EmTech Jury Keynote 23 February Book Launch: AAINTER10/ Lecture: Michael Weinstock 8 February Peter Cook ecoMachines v3.0 Architectural Agendas 21C Public Occasion Agency: The Lost Art of Architectural Dubai Marine World: Life Patrick Wright Composition – The Incubators 19 January On Living in a World of Ingredients Book Launch/SED Jury: Facades: From Prince 9 March Joana Carla Soares Potemkin to the Berlin Wall AD Typological Urbanism: The Photographers’ Gallery Gonçalves and the Truman Show Projective Cities @ the AA: Howard Caygill The Environmental Revisiting the Boulevard du Performance of Tall 9 February 24 February Temple: Architecture and Buildings Peter Cook Bedford Press Lecture Proto-Photography The Lost Art of Architectural Series: Can Atlay 21 January Composition – The Exercise in Sharing: 10 March DRL Jury Keynote Lecture: Ingredients Inhabitants, Settings Marcelo Spina Neil Denari and a Gazette Interstitial Mass: Figural and Embedded 26 Lecture/Book Launch: 21 March Vittorio Pizzigoni 23 May Brad Cloepfil Bedford Press Lecture The Energy of Concrete Geometries: Occupation Series: Jesko Fezer Mies van der Rohe Space versus Geometry Design Problem Reality 11 March 4 May 27 May Symposium 22 March Book Launch: Concrete Geometries: Debating Fundamentals: Public Occasion Agency: Rosa Ainley Finnisage Probing the Autopoiesis Markus Miessen, 2 Ennerdale Drive: of Architecture Hans Ulrich Obrist, unauthorised biography 10 June Armin Linke Presentation: Alyssa Ueno, 14 March The Archive as a Productive 6 May Reporting Back From Tohoku First Year Lecture Series: Space of Conflict Concrete Geometries: Hoi Chi Ning Spatial Form in Social and EmTech Lecture Series: 23 March Aesthetic Processes Andrew Kudless, Recent Luc Merx, Christian Holl Gareth Doherty et al Works Opulent Decay: The Launch event: New P.E.A.R. Contingency of Design Geographies, A Journal of 11 June Design, Agency, Territory Sharp Prize for Excellence in Benedict O’Looney, 15 March Writing: Poetics and Low Weald Cycling and SED Lectures Daewha Kang Polemics Sketching in the Kent Environmentally Responsive Countryside PhD Presentations Architecture: An Integrated 13 May Approach to Design Politics of Fabrication 17 June 16 March Laboratory Projects Review Peter Cook 24 March The Lost Art of Architectural Caroline Evans Beyond Entropy: AALASH End of Year after Composition – The The Ontology of the Carlos Villanueva Brandt Show Party Ingredients Fashion Model The City as Creative Energy 20 June 16 March 25 March 14 May Projects Review, Members’ Concrete Geometries Writing and Critical Thinking AHRA Research Student Evening Research Cluster Event: in Architecture Symposium Arno Brandlhuber, The City: Language, 28 June Christian Posthofen, Book Launch: Planning and Politics FORMAT Issue 1: Magic Marianne Mueller Martin Self, Charles Walker Format The Ordering of Social AA Agendas 9: Making 17 May Relations through Building Pavilions Beyond Entropy: 30 June Dr Silvia Davoli FORMAT Issue 1: Philosophy 17 March 26 March Lina Bo Bardi: Primitivism Format Lecture/Book Launch: Meet the Curators Brunch and Sustainability Pier Vittorio Aureli and Private Talks 6 July The Possibility of an 19 May FORMAT Issue 1: Lecture Absolute Architecture – 28 March Informal Cities Cluster Format Writing Architecture First Year Lecture Series: Event: Alfredo Brillembourg Max Hatler S.L.U.M. Lifting: Informal 8 July 18 March Toolbox for a New FORMAT Issue 1: Library First Year Lecture Series: 29 March Architecture Format Henry Hemming Peter Cook The Lost Art of Architectural 20 May 11 July Angelo Merlino Composition – The Beyond Entropy: Time Travel Summer 2011 Trajectory Large Hadron Collider: Ingredients – Shamanism to the Space Public Forum, The Big Bang Factory Age Unknown Fields: From the 3 May Atomic to the Cosmic Beyond Entropy 21 May Meet the Curators Brunch FORMAT Issue 1: and Private Talks Anniversary Format

27 Projects Faceted House 1 By Paul McAneary Architects

Clutter-free concept kitchen with sliding glass doors and frameless folded roof panel.

Paul McAneary Architects have recently completed combined with the large fixed frameless panels of the Faceted House 1; an Edwardian terrace house located facade that fold back into the depth of the building within a conservation area, in Hammersmith, London. with a frameless folded roof panel. A sharp beam of The project’s brief was to remodel and extend the light is projected into the depth of the house which three-bedroom, two storey house that was in a decrepit dances through the space during the hours of daylight state and in need of considerable refurbishment and and which is extenuated by the pale coloured floor and modernisation. The client asked for a contemporary ceiling bouncing light to the other end of the house. design and functionality and he also expressed the A ‘ballet of light’ is the result. desire to be able to perceive the garden as a continuation PMA emphasise the importance of having of the domestic space rather than ‘the outdoors’. a good client. As one of the earliest projects for his Paul McAneary Architects (PMA) responded medium-sized office, Faceted House 1 was a unique to the brief by demolishing the existing 1980s rear opportunity due to the freedom the clients afforded extension to the property which was crumbling the architects in the design and construction of and dilapidated. The new extension was added via a the project. Their only request was a clutter-free clean and clearly defined line to the rear that respects and practical house allowing PMA near-autonomy in the house’s heritage and gives it a unique, uniform making most of the design decisions. Thus rather than aesthetic. The sculptural facade is at the same time just a pragmatic construction, the house takes on a visually striking and elegant. The reconfigured and conceptual playful approach using light and angular expanded existing space was achieved by designing forms to make an architectural statement. a huge openplan. The concept driving the whole Faceted House 1 was included in the Don’t design is a 30° twist that allows physical and Move Improve! exhibition at NLA and was awarded perceptive overlapping between indoor and outdoor the Living Space Design of the Year at the 2010 spaces, between garden and kitchen thresholds – so Design Awards. whilst at the sink you feel the garden is actually behind you. This conceptual idea is manifest in the Paul McAneary is an alumnus of the AA and a details of the faceted zinc facade and the floating former AA Honorary Secretary external deck, cut back to a fine angled edge. Light floods into the house via the finest Faceted House 1, Alumni Project, possible sections, making up the sliding doors, Hammersmith, London 28 Bird’s-eye view of the 30° faceted angle that allows the overlap between the indoor and outdoor spaces.

Night view of the sculptural facade and the floating deck. Photos: Paul McAneary Architects Ltd 29 Projects Honours Students 2011

Every year the AA awards exceptional fifth year Fredrik Hellberg: The Second Community. Diploma students with Honours for achieving Identity Tourism. California City outstanding innovative work. This year’s recipients In the desert northeast of Los Angeles in an were Kim Bjarke (Diploma Unit 9), Tom Fox abandoned city called California City the 739600m2 (Diploma Unit 4), Fredrik Hellberg (Diploma Unit 5) Second Community floats above the desert floor and Aram Mooradian (Diploma Unit 6), who were like a mountain avatar. In its crater the 1500 awarded with AADipl (Hons). Their units’ work was heliostatic mirrors reflect the light onto the artificial displayed as part of the exhibition and their Honours sky covering the desert of the trans-identity port. work will be showcased at the AA next term. With a capacity of 40,000 people the port gathers in its featureless white space individuals open to role- Kim Bjarke: The encased copy play. The Second Community explores an alternative The project investigates the relationship between the identity tourism that goes beyond the virtual space original architectural object and its copies. Contrary of online role-playing games, the open desert of to general opinion in today’s society, the project is the Burning Man festival and the convention halls based on the argument that the copy is not something of Cosplayers. Spanning half a kilometre the artificial bad, devalued or impure, it is instead something to desert of the port isolates the person in a void of cherish. The argument is visualised through a scenario imagination where the persona of an individual of multiple iterations of copying, creating a context becomes a fugitive and creative semiotic gadget which in which our preconceived ideas of the copy can be collectively generates a public space of radical re-evaluated. The physical context of the project is self-exploration; an experimentation. The porous located around Mies van der Rohe’s Illinois Institute mountain avatar surrounding and supporting the sky of Technology in Chicago. But the context of the of the port collects its energy from the concentrated project is not limited to the physical boundaries of the solar power plant in the centre of the crater, campus site. It also includes the larger body of Miesian harvesting the power of the sun and delivers it to architecture, and how the buildings are represented, the caves around the central port where the identity and in the end perceived. tourists prepare for the events in the port.

Tom Fox: The Southern Mediterranean: Aram Mooradian: Gold Fictions Towards Radical Hospitality Aboriginal dreamtime narratives speak of a time The project proposes a series of architectural and when the ground was soft and creation beings shaped infrastructural devices that operate within Europe’s mountains and rivers. Now the financial narratives southern frontier. Set within the recent reorganisation of gold prices reshape the earth through massive of the European border and the popular uprising in excavations and technological incisions. The Atlas North Africa, the project examines the close relationship of Gold Fictions catalogues the strange infrastructures between circulations of populations, capital and of the gold economy, from its source in the mines technology, and the construction of both urban systems of Australia to the web of precious artefacts scattered and water infrastructures. Rather than the prevalent across the globe. The infrastructure of gold’s solely image of the border as a finite limit, the project virtual value is reimagined through the speculative exposes the frontier as a deep, fragmented and temporal artefacts of a new network of gold objects inscribed surface extending deep into both the European and with the oral histories of the land from which it came. African interior, operating through the reorganisation A suicide note is inscribed on a single gold bullet, of local space. Within this system, sovereignty is largely the sound of a grandmother’s laughter is encoded into defined by the ability to identify levels of mobility for an heirloom necklace and the dying languages of people and objects, or the power to limit or qualify the Australia’s indigenous culture are recorded onto the right to hospitality. The project proposes both spatial gold bars dug out of the very ground of their homeland. and institutional structures that position architecture Our relationship to our finite resources is re-examined amongst the multitude of practices that shape the with this new dispersed geology of artefacts encoded physical space of the southern Mediterranean city. with the cultural rather than economic values of Spanning from Europe to North Africa, the project the contemporary world. reorganises the various regimes of mobility that operate in the territory: tourism, global agriculture, oil extraction, AA Honours Students, 17 July 2011 surveillance of migration and water management. 30 Kim Bjarke Fredrik Hellberg

Tom Fox Aram Mooradian 31 Documents Foster + Partners Award

Haiti Simbi Hubs , Aditya Aachi, Diploma Unit 7

Foster + Partners award an AA fifth year Diploma to do so. The earthquake and cholera have caused student a prize to commend the work which best the Government and WASH NGO cluster to work addresses the themes of sustainability and infra- together for the first time. This proposal aims to structure. Established last year, the prize aims take advantage of this rare cooperation through to build stronger links between Foster + Partners and the implementation of a government-managed and the AA and to promote understanding of contextual NGO-built infrastructure. practices in the architectural industry today. This This will be achieved through introducing year’s winner was Aditya Aachi, Diploma Unit 7 a network of sanitation points in the form of Simbi with his project Haiti Simbi Hubs. He was awarded Hubs. These hubs localise sanitation processes the prize at Projects Review. A formal reception by providing toilets/showers/clothes washing areas and exhibition of all the finalists’ work at Foster + and food storage and preparation facilities. Partners’ studio will follow later this year. In each hub the path of the water purification process is intersected at specific locations where Project Description: The earthquake and cholera recycled aluminium components act as a cue for outbreak of 2010 have exposed the lack of both maintenance or user interaction via the use of local physical and governmental infrastructure in Haiti. vodou symbology. The aluminium components are Rapid unregulated growth of the city during designed and fabricated locally, using both traditional economic depression led to bad building practice methods of metal fabrication present in villages and planning. Post quake the IDP camps have outside the city and also training people in more overtaken any existing public space. modern techniques within the city. The rapid spread of cholera has highlighted The vision for the interventions is not only poor access to water and sanitation in the country: to create a new sanitation infrastructure, but also ——34 per cent of people get all their water from rivers to make sense of the largely unplanned city through ——Only eight per cent have taps in their houses adding a layer of much needed public realm into ——Only 19 per cent of people have access to a toilet. the urban fabric. The government can’t afford to build infrastructure and it is outside of the power of NGOs Foster + Partners Award, 17 July 2011 32 Documents The Dennis Sharp Prize for Architectural Writing

In an effort to promote critical thought and historical Fly-In, Fly-Out. Fit-In or Fuck Off: understanding through writing, this year saw the Fictions of the Australian Industrial Landscape Dennis Sharp Prize opened up across the school Aram Mooradian, AA Fifth Year inviting entries that were submitted not only for ‘Peter lit his own cigarette and for the first time since History and Theory courses but also student writing entering the bus at Kalgoorlie, looked at the landscape for projects or otherwise. Dennis Sharp, through around him. The bus had not stopped in a town at all, his work at the AA as editor, educator and writer, was or rather, it had stopped in a corpse of one. Large committed to the development of architectural practice rusted machines, the valves of crushers and the husks through writing. The prize preserves his legacy and of old cars, sat piled in a line, which he imagined at reminds a new generation of architects that writing some point in the dying years of the settlement had is an equal part of architectural expression. Of the 60 been rearranged in some effort of salvage. The dirt papers nominated, 12 shortlisted essays were presented road that had brought the group to Menzies stretched on 6 May 2011 as part of a roundtable discussion. The forwards and backwards into the distance, with judging panel for the award included Academic Head an array of scattered stone buildings on either side. Charles Tashima, Editor of AA Files Thomas Weaver, He approached the nearest and read the words Dennis Sharp’s widow Yasmin Shariff and Simon General Shop painted in blue across a surprisingly Whittle, recipient of the inaugural Sharp Prize last recently painted stone wall. At least it looked recent, year (see AArchitecture 13). With students nominated he thought. As he peered between the bars that from both the Intermediate and Diploma Schools, the guarded the windows, he saw dusty shelves where essays covered a broad range of themes from the the odd can and package still sat, half moved.’ narrative to the critical, the historical to the abstract. The 2011 winners were Scrap Marshall (Fourth Year), Architects Vs. The City or the Problem of Chaos Aram Mooradian (Fifth Year) and Silvana Taher Silvana Taher, AA Fifth Year (Fifth Year). Excerpts are reproduced below: ‘In 1978, Koolhaas put Corbusier up against Manhattan and, perhaps surprisingly, declared No Escape From Modernism and Modernity: Manhattan the winner. Manhattan, the city, managed Mr. Blandings Attempts to Build His Dream effortlessly to create what Corbusier had tried Home and Escape From The City painfully (and unsuccessfully one might add) to Scrap Marshall, AA Fourth Year recreate. If Manhattan could outsmart Corbusier ‘By looking at issues opened up by this lack of (not a meagre architect by any standards) would it not consideration of what constitutes city and country be reasonable to consider that cities might be better we can question the role of Mr. Blandings’ Dream at creating cities then architects are at creating in terms of both modern ideal and modern production, cities? That cities, partly planned, partly unplanned, the problems of realisation and a life that seems partly designed, partly forgotten are simply better to balance so precariously between happiness and at creating the social and economic construct of the anxiety. By looking beyond the inevitable narrative urban. So in 1978, Koolhaas put Corbusier up against conceit of the film, I’d like to suggest that far from Manhattan. Six years prior to that, he put himself escaping the city and leaving his problems behind, up against London. This time he declared himself Mr. Blandings is in fact inadvertently embracing it the winner. The architect, the organiser, the designer, and what the city actually stands for. In fixating on an the one with the holistic vision had won over the image of a better life in the country and endeavouring unorganised, the historic, the chaotic, the sometimes to make that image a reality, he is in fact consuming rather ugly, London.’ both the image of modernism and the production of modernity. Through this he becomes intrinsically Dennis Sharp Prize for Architectural Writing, involved in the continuation of the city he is trying 6 May 2011 to leave, playing a vital part in the construction of yet another iteration of it – the suburb. Put simply: Blandings can’t leave the city because he’s too busy building another.’ 33 Documents New from AA Publications

Architecture Words 6: Projectiles Bernard Cache Selected essays with an introduction by Mario Carpo Translated by Clare Barrett and Pamela Johnston 144 pp, 180 x 110 mm, paperback May 2011 978-1-902902-88-3 £12

Architecture Words 8: Tarzans in the Media Forest Manifest Destiny: A Guide to the Essential Toyo Ito Indifference of American Suburban Housing Selected essays with an introduction Jason Griffiths by Thomas Daniell With an afterword by Martino Stierli c 160 pp, 180 x 110 mm, paperback 144 pp, extensive col. ills April 2011 170 x 220 mm, hardback 978-1-902902-90-6 August 2011 £12 978-1-907896-05-7 c £15 Architecture Words is a series of texts and essays on architecture written by architects, critics and scholars. On 18 October 2002 Jason Griffiths and Alex Gino set The words are edited and the pages designed in a way out to explore the American suburbs. Over 178 days that acknowledges the ability of graphic forms to they drove 22,382 miles, made 134 suburban house communicate architectural ideas; not only the ideas calls and took 2,593 photographs. In Manifest Destiny, contained within each volume, but also the power Griffiths reveals the results of this exploration. of written ideas to challenge and change the way all Structured through 58 short chapters, the anthology architects think. offers an architectural pattern book of suburban conditions all focused not on the unique or specific Forthcoming but the placeless. These chapters are complemented Architecture Words 5–8 by an introduction by Griffiths and an afterword by Box Set Swiss architectural historian Martino Stierli. Limited edition June 2011 For further information on AA Publications visit 978-1-902902-91-3 www.aaschool.ac.uk/publications £55

34 Documents New from Bedford Press

For Swyngedouw, designing dissensus in the Civic City Cahier 5 context of a post-political regime requires transgressing Designing the Post-Political City ‘the fantasy that sustains the post-political order’. and the Insurgent Polis It would strive to redesign ‘the urban as a democratic Erik Swyngedouw political field of dispute’ and to produce ‘common 64 pp, 2 col. values and the collective oeuvre, the city’. While the 115 x 190 mm, paperback with dust jacket city as polis may be dead, spaces of political engagement May 2011 occur within the cracks, in between the meshes and the 978-1-907414-19-0 strange inter-locations that shape places that contest the £8 police order. It is here that design, as a renewed political practice, can intervene. Reading the urban revolts and out-bursts of irrational violence preceding and following the crisis of Bedford Press was initiated by the Architectural neoliberalism as signs of discontent and of a desire Association (AA), London in 2008 as a publishing for alternative designs of the urban, Erik Swyngedouw imprint of AA Publications Ltd that seeks to develop reintroduces the idea of the (dead) polis as a space contemporary models of publication practice. It of political encounter. Techno-managerial policies aims to establish a more responsive model of of governing colonised the polis. Politics as dispute is small-scale publishing, nimble enough to encompass replaced by the neoliberal, postdemocratic consensus. the entire chain of production in a single fluid This condition, which designers of all kinds helped activity, from initial commission to the final printing. to shape, excludes disagreement and disavows conflict Its output includes publications, pamphlets, posters as the constitutive element of democratic politics. and limited edition prints. www.bedfordpress.org 35 Documents Photo Library: Call for Collections

Jumping on the dunes, UAE. Photo Dimiter Dobrev

Contribute to the AA Photo Library Collection. Over the past six years we have also been scanning and Have you taken any pictures on unit trips this year? cataloguing the collections of schoolwork dating from Would you like your photographs exhibited in the the 1880s, and school life from the 1920s – with the Photo Library Gallery? 9,000 images are already ambition of creating a new online resource. In the online and the Collection holds thousands more. Many meantime, these can be accessed in the Photo Library. have been taken by AA students, staff and alumni. The Photo Library also holds the AA’s DVD The AA’s photographic collection was originally archive of our lectures dating back to the 1960s, created by students and staff when they started to take including talks by Cedric Price, Robin Evans, Reyner slides on school trips. Many were members of the Banham, Rem Koolhaas and Zaha Hadid. Not to AA Camera Club which began in 1893 and was mention an expanding collection of approximately re-launched in 2005 to encourage students and 1,000 films by directors including Wim Wenders, members to contribute to the Collection. Since the Andrei Tarkovsky, Federico Fellini, Stanley Kubrick, 1890s, the AA Photo Library has expanded Jean Cocteau, Werner Herzog and Jim Jarmusch. dramatically with an archive of over 300,000 slides, These are for student use only and can be borrowed negatives, prints and lantern slides, which are in the overnight. The films and lectures can also be viewed process of being uploaded to the website. AA students in the exciting new AA Cinema, which opened in 2009 and staff have the facility to download low-resolution (equipped with 20 cinema seats and surround-sound). images from this site for school projects and it’s also The Cinema can be booked by units and students, and a useful academic resource holding comprehensive the AA Film Club has screenings every week during information about each building featured. Versions term time. without watermarks are available in the Photo Library. Addendum: The two images on page 13 We publish cards and postcards from the of AArchitecture 14 of buildings by James Stirling Collection and hold regular exhibitions and are part of the AA Photo Library collection. competitions, for example, a Camera Club exhibition is scheduled for early next year, to which new members www.aaschool.ac.uk/photolib are welcome to contribute by sending either slides AA Photo Library, Mon–Fri 10am–6pm, or high resolution tiffs for selection for the Collection. 37 Bedford Square 36 Jumping on the dunes, UAE. Photo Dimiter Dobrev

In rows from top left; An Italian conversation, Acireale; Cleaning the sunlight, Abu Dhabi; Vine fields, Trentino; Satellite dishes, Istanbul; Calatrava’s Oceanographic Museum, Valencia; India; Casa Mila, Barcelona; Floral Ornament, John Soane Museum; Barcelona. Photos Dimiter Dobrev 37 Courses Hooke Park Building Begins By Martin Self

In the autumn of 2011 the new Forestry Plan for Hooke alongside seminars for Design & Make and are opened Park, which is redefined on a ten-year basis, will be up to a local audience of architects, artists, builders written. This will force the AA to consider its place and others with an interest in Hooke Park. This and ambitions for Hooke Park (the 350-acre woodland new and supportive local group is emerging through campus that the AA took on in 2001) in new wider word-of-mouth. In the second term the talks’ focus terms, expanding consideration beyond the workshop shifted to timber and fabrication technologies. and studio facilities and into the estate’s landscape and Matthew Lewis, of London’s Metropolitan Works ecology as a whole. The detail of the 25-year plan will talked about how digital fabrication technologies may determine the tree felling and replanting strategy and be applied to natural materials and Steven Johnson, how issues like public use and biodiversity are managed. of The Architecture Ensemble, presented the processes But underlying those decisions must be a fundamental involved in designing and building the Downland philosophy about how a place is treated in the long Gridshell Museum. Jez Ralph, of the Silvanus Trust, term, beyond being just a resource for building material also visited to speak about relationships with UK and a site for a workshop. forestry, local timber production for construction 2011 is a significant year for the AA at Hooke and the future projects at Hooke Park. Park, with the Design & Make programme underway Outside of term-time, a series of short residential and the first student-designed building projects courses is being developed. In April 2011 the new starting on site this summer. Until now the AA’s MakeLab Visiting School, a collaboration between presence at Hooke Park has been mainly as short-term Hooke Park’s workshop and the Digital Prototyping visitors, so for the first time we have a permanent Lab, spent five days testing inventive approaches to engagement in, and responsibility for, this unique fabricating and assembling at Hooke Park, using place. Using the framework set out in the strategic plan materials from the woodland. Led by Jeroen van (developed by Andrew Freear, Elena Bartel and their Ameijde, Michael Grau, Luke Olsen and Brendon students in 2006–7) an infrastructure is emerging Carlin, bespoke robotic setting-out devices were made which allows the future of Hooke Park – physically and deployed to help build two structures amongst and culturally – to be determined by the AA. Through the trees. Motion-capture and brain-wave-sensing the mix of activities at Hooke – including short unit and technologies, linked to the geometric definitions used other London-based programme visits, Visiting School by the devices, were employed to help determine and workshops, and the long-term residential Design & analyse the constructions. The following week, Make programme – the AA now has a continuous the Maeda-sponsored workshop, entitled Furnishing presence at Hooke Park. the Landscape and led by Shin Egashira, continued In setting out the ambition for Hooke Park, the the explorations of the previous Twisting Concrete strategic plan described the basis of the Design & Make workshops, by looking at how those systems can be MArch course. This year with Diploma 19, Design applied as site-specific furniture in the Hooke Park & Make is designing and building the ‘Big Shed’, landscape. These projects are all examples of the a large covered work-space that will provide the emerging ambition to have a deeper engagement in prototyping and assembly space for subsequent Hooke Park’s topography. Working with Chris Sadd, projects. The building is part of the development of Hooke Park’s forester, the redefinition of the Forest facilities at Hooke Park, which includes the Caretaker’s Plan is one example where we can influence the future House designed by Intermediate Unit 2 last year of the Hooke Park landscape at a fundamental level. (and which will be on-site later in the year) and, in subsequent years, further accommodation and studio Martin Self is the Director of the Design & Make space. Substantial initial funding from these projects MArch Programme and Unit Master, Diploma 19 is in place through the very generous Horace and Ellen Hannah Wakeford Bequest. Hooke Park, Beaminster, Dorset A public programme of visiting lectures at Hooke Park also began this academic year. Peter Clegg, Gianni Botsford and Bill Gething spoke during the autumn term about their respective approaches to sustainable architecture. These open talks take place 38 Design & Make and Diploma 19 students prototyping assemblies of the Big Shed workshop building.

A structure produced during the MakeLab Visiting School in April 2011, using an automated setting-out device suspended from the trees. Photos Martin Self 39 Legacy Spring 2011 School Meetings By Hugo Hinsley

The AA is a unique organisation which over its long to review a previous model of a representative group history has offered a place for debate, exhibition of students and staff that was established in order to and argument about all aspects of architecture, as improve communication and the discussion of ideas well as creating a distinguished School. The AA is across the School, and between the School and the independent and self-governing, and runs both the Director. Such a group of elected representatives School and the Association. Since 1971 the model of existed from 1993 to 1996. It was an advisory group organising the AA has developed a dynamic balance and had regular meetings with the then Chairman. between the Council (the elected trustees), the School Questions raised in the discussion at the Community (Council members and all students and meeting included: staff), and the broader membership of the Association. ——Does the School need another group, or should The Chairman or Director has been selected by the we consolidate and link more effectively the School Community and appointed by Council to lead existing groups? the academic and operational development of the AA. ——If the School needs another group, should it be Intentionally, there is very little structure imposed by elected, what structure of representation should Council or the AA constitution on a Director – they it have, and what remit and powers should it have? are free to make whatever arrangements, committees ——How soon could such a group be organised? or other administrative structures they think best, so long as they maintain the confidence of the School It was pointed out that there were a number of Community and remain within the terms of their advisory groups currently reporting to the Director’s contract with Council. office, but it was unclear how many of these existed The School has evolved and expanded over the and what their remit was. Brett agreed to circulate past 20 years, offering a rich and diverse programme an updated list of these groups and their remits. of undergraduate and postgraduate education. In It was agreed that written proposals for the past few years Brett Steele has consolidated and representative models could be made by any members expanded the space of the AA into the current of the School. These proposals were discussed at a collection of buildings in Bedford Square and Morwell School meeting at the start of the Spring Term. Two Street. One result of this is the recent opportunity proposals were presented, only one of which was a to rethink how we use the space – there has been a first long-term model. This model will be developed and exercise to propose an outline plan, and there will be there will be a report back to the School in the form further debate about this in the next few years, of a meeting at the start of next term combined with a major fundraising exercise. The third item on the agenda was not discussed During this academic year there has been for lack of time but it was supposed to be an a lot of discussion across the School about developing explanation of a previous model of a Working Group a debate on the present and future models of the of the School Community to develop alternative academic structure, and on ways of improving models for the future academic and organisational discussion and communication. Part of this has been structure of the AA School. It is expected that this about immediate questions (for example about the item will be discussed at a later date and an agreement academic calendar, and about Brett’s new contract), reached about whether to set up a Working Group, and part has been about a longer term rethinking of to enable alternative models to be developed and the relationships between the Director, the Academic discussed before the end of the current Director’s Head and all the parts of the School. This debate has contract. These debates will continue and new models flowed through many informal meetings, a formal will evolve, as they always have in the culture and meeting of the School Community, and a Special history of the AA. We can look forward to another General Meeting of the whole Membership. cycle of change in this unique organisation. At the School Community Meeting on 21 March 2011 there were three agenda items. The first was a Hugo Hinsley is a Course Director of AA Housing statement by Brett to bring the discussion up to date and Urbanism, AA Future Practice and the following the many meetings, and this led to further AA Visiting Teachers Programme discussion and an agreement for further informal meetings before the end of term. The second item was AA School Meetings, 21 March and 26 May 2011 40 Global AA Tohoku Earthquake Action By Naoki Kotaka

Yakitori grill, designed and made by Shin Egashira, AATEA Yakitori Fundraiser. Photos Valerie Bennett Rubens Azevedo, Julian Loeffler, Masaki Echizenya & Xiong Chan. Long distance design consultant Jesse Sabatier.

‘A month has passed since the traumatic disaster redevelopment plan in a recent news article, assigning occurred on 11 March...’ Yet, while scrolling through the first three years to restoration, the next four years an online newspaper, the length of time that has passed to reformation, with the last three years as a since Japan’s earthquake and subsequent Tsunami feels reinforcement period. This shows what it will take almost immeasurable. It is as if the sheer ferocity of this to return to normalcy – a considerable length of time natural catastrophe has collapsed any sense of value that and a commitment to rebuild Tohoku’s architecture our lives had previously been built upon. and culture. As time progresses and coverage of the The physical and psychological scars with which incident gradually disappears, it is inevitable that our the disaster has left us are unprecedented. However, awareness of the disaster will fade. Thus, AATEA on a more positive note, the network of support and will continue to act as an agent within the AA to raise sympathy that emerged from the global community has awareness through organising a series of talks and proven to be extraordinary. In addition to worldwide events in the coming months. financial aid for Japan, there have been numerous fundraising activities at both institutional and Naoki Kotaka is a Fourth Year AA Student individual levels. The AA was no exception with AATEA (AA Tohoku Earthquake Action), comprised AATEA has raised £4,024 at the time of writing of students, alumni and tutors, being formed on the and all donations have been passed on to the Monday after the earthquake, to promote the Civic Force, a Japanese disaster relief organisation. immediate aid and redevelopment of the Tohoku area AATEA would like to thank all the generous of Japan. A network of support quickly spread through donations and extend our acknowledgement to: donation boxes located within the AA as well as a first AA Director’s office, AA Development office, fundraising event that took place on the following AA Membership office, AA Audio Visual office, Friday. On the evening of the event, the AA was packed AA Digital Platforms, AA Workshop, with like-minded, generous people who had come to AA Maintenance, POA, and Student Forum. show their support. A second fundraising event took place at the end of term party where AATEA sold Asahi For more information please visit beers, and a further event took place on 10 June 2011. tea.aaschool.ac.uk or write to After these initial actions, the formulation of [email protected] ideas through architecture and education is crucial in order to assist the long-term redevelopment of the AATEA, Fundraising Events, 25 March 2011, region. The Miyagi prefecture, one of the most 1 April 2011, 10 June 2011 severely damaged areas, presented an outline of their 41 NEWS AND NEWS BRIEFS

AA COUNCIL 2011/12 AA BOOKSHOP HAS MOVED Bolles+Wilson, the practice of Julia Every year the AA Membership The AA Bookshop has relocated to the Bolles-Wilson and Peter Wilson (both (including staff and students) elect a ground floor front room of number32 former AA students) has a new book number of representatives to form the Bedford Square for the duration of the being published, entitled A Handful AA Council, the body that has overall Autumn term. We will close for a few of Productive Paradigms. The book responsibility for governing the weeks after Christmas and re-open chronicles not only the wide range of Architectural Association, Inc., which mid-late January in an expanded space projects by the Münster-based architects includes the AA School. The AA is at the same location. Our contact details over the last eight years, but also includes governed constitutionally as a charitable and opening hours remain the same. an accompanying theoretical and company, which means that it is both a www.aabookshop.net cultural discourse which underpins their Registered Charity as well as a Company international reputation. Bolles + Wilson Limited by Guarantee. AA Council MEMBERS’ TRIP TO COPENHAGEN believe that architecture is a symbiosis Members are, in effect, trustees of the The AA Membership Office is organising of the conceptual and the pragmatic, charity and directors of the company. a trip to Copenhagen for a guided tour of of the everyday and the exceptional, The Council for the session 2011/12, Living Frontiers of Architecture III–IV of the scales of masterplans and of details made up of Officers and Ordinary at the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art of urban context and choreographed Members of Council is: (www.louisiana.dk). interiors, of emotion and ‘ratio’. The exhibition consists of a crossover Officers between architectural projects, art Gustafson Porter, the practice of Neil President: Keith Priest installations and case studies from Porter (AADipl (Hons)1983, former Hon. Vice Presidents: David Jenkins, various places in the world and is divided AA Academic Staff and Former AA Christina Smith in to three overarching themes: The Council Member), Kathryn Gustafson Hon. Treasurer: Sadie Morgan, Dream, Cell/Network and Homeland. and Mary Bowman (AA Dipl 1988, BA(Hons) MA(RCA) Additional programme information former Vice-President of the AA and Hon. Secretary: John Andrews, AADipl TBC. Friday 30 September – Sunday former AA Academic staff) received a Past President: Alex Lifschutz, 2 October 2011 commendation at the 2011 MIPIM BSc(Social Sciences) www.aaschool.ac.uk/membership/ Architectural Review Future Projects benefits/events.php Awards for their project Bay East, Ordinary Members Gardens by the Bay in Singapore. Julia Barfield, MBE RIBA The Gardens by the Bay form an integral Mike Davies, CBE AADipl MArch RIBA part of the strategic development plan FRSA FRGS FICPD to promote Singapore as a ‘City in a Frank Duffy Garden’. Gustafson Porter addressed not Merlin Eayrs only the environmental concerns within Julia King, AADipl the site, but worked collaboratively with Sophie Le Bourva Government agencies to understand Aram Mooradian how the Bay East Gardens can enhance Diana Periton, M.Phil DipArch the future development of Singapore. Ken Powell, MA HonFRIBA The practice has recently won two Jerome Tsui major high-profile design competitions: Jane Wernick, BSc(Hons) FICE the Milan City Life Park, a major FIStructE FRSA redevelopment of the historical Fiera Julyan Wickham Milano Quarter, and the 23-hectare Valencia Parque Central project which For information concerning the AA is part of the most important redevelop- Council, the AA’s structure and ment project of Spain’s third biggest constitution or a copy of the Electoral city to date. In addition, Mary Bowman Reform Services report, please contact judged the 2011 RIBA Awards for the Kathleen Formosa, Company Secretary, East Midlands, as one of 17 RIBA judges on 020 7887 4018 or email this year selected for their professional [email protected] eminence, while Neil Porter presented 42 NEWS BRIEFS

Landscapes in Transition: Gustafson Porter’s realised in the garden of the House of luxury hotel in Dubai, Face Scripting: Work on the Periphery at the Rapperswil Architecture in Rome, on 9 July 2011, What did the Building See? is a film Meeting 2011 in Switzerland. with a public ceremony. collaboration between artists Jane & www.abitare.it Louise Wilson, Eyal Weizman (AADipl The Angel Building by Allford Hall www.inarch.it/default.aspx? 1998) and Shumon Basar (AA Dipl 2000 Monaghan Morris, the practice of pag=0.6.10.3&lang=it#english and AACP director), which debuted at Simon Allford (former Vice President www.co-design-lab.net the Sharjah Biennial. It reflects on the of the AA) and Paul Monaghan mediatisation of the incident as a new (GradDiplCons AA 1989) (see p21–23), Tal Senior (AADipl 1991) won first prize kind of filmmaking and21 st century was featured in the 10 February 2011 for the design of the Holocaust forensics. The project was commissioned issue of the AJ. The refurbishment is the Children’s Monument in the Open by the Sharjah Art Foundation, and practice’s fourth office project for Public Competition in the city of Holon, co-produced by the Farook Foundation, Derwent London, a development near Tel Aviv in 2010. The monument, with Mohammed Hafiz & Dalia Asaad company. designed as a labyrinth consisting of and Luis Augusto Teixeira de Frietas. walls of varying heights, is intended www.sharjahart.org/biennial/ Valeria Guzman (AA H&T MA 2006 to create a sense of place. The walls will sharjah-biennial-10/artists-participants and AA PhD 2010) recently organised be clad with a system of glass panels an event entitled Training as an Architect, containing 1.5 million marbles to Alfredo Ramirez (AALU Studio Master Thinking about Architecture, which commemorate the 1.5 million Jewish and AA Mexico Visiting School Director) featured nine architects from Costa Rica children who perished in the Holocaust. gave a lecture on the subject of who studied at the AA, presenting their The project was exhibited along with Landscape Urbanism at the School ideas, tools and the modalities through other work by Tal at the 2010 Israel of Architecture, Syracuse University in which they make, speak and think about Conference for Architecture and Design Florence on 31 March 2011. The lecture architecture at the School of which took place in May 2010 in Tel Aviv. was part of a Symposium called: Green Architecture at the University of Costa Around 50 Israeli Architects, including Value: the Economic Benefits of Sustainable Rica, May – June 2011. Valeria has also Senior, were invited to exhibit at the Design, organised by Lawrence Davis, had her AA Doctoral Thesis published conference, which was organised in Syracuse School’s co-ordinator. as the book Form and Fact: Graphic collaboration with Domus magazine. Design, Modernity and Governance. Building will take place this year. Teresa Stoppani (AA Member and The book is about how the graphical former AA Academic Staff) gave a public arrangement of numerical data becomes a Paola Yacoub (AADipl 1994) had an lecture at UTS, where she is a visiting means through which to collect, classify, exhibition entitled Drawing with the professor of Architecture History and enumerate and disseminate knowledge in Things Themselves at the Beirut Art Theory, on 6 April 2011 entitled, Islands the modern western world. Center from 10 February – 15 April 2011 and Paradigms: on Unorthodox Ways to which was reviewed in the Daily Star Read the City. Drawing from Teresa’s Paolo Cascone (AA E&E MA 2003) was online, a Lebanese publication. She recent book Paradigm Islands: Manhattan interviewed in Abitare on the topic of also gave a performance of The Edifying and Venice (Routledge 2010), the talk post-vernacular design and the Atelier Story of Li Guoxing at the venue on argued that the city and its processes are Paolo Cascone self-construction 24 February 2011, written by herself intellectually understood not only by experiment in Sourgoubila, Burkina Faso and Michel Lasserre. In addition she reference to the urban cultural context in February 2011 (see AArchitecture 14). led a workshop entitled Aldo Rossi’s but also by drawing categories from other Cascone/CodesignLab also led a Displacements at the Centre disciplines. She also presented the paper workshop entitled ECO-LOGIC International d’Art et du Paysage de Eyes that do not see; Urban trompe-l’oeil as HABITAT about performative l’île de Vassivière on 14 March 2011. a Critical Act on 9 April 2011 at the self-construction from 27 June – 9 July www.dailystar.com.lb/article. University of Sydney as part of the Right 2011 at Casa dell-Architettura di Roma, asp?edition_id=10&categ_id=4& to the City Symposium. In addition she in partnership with Fabrizio Carola article_id=124974#axzz1EJyPmdG3 gave a lecture entitled The Architecture and AKT Engineering. The workshop of the Disaster at RMIT University in proposed a new way of bridging Based on the (now infamous) 2010 Melbourne on 27 May 2011. high-tech design processes and low-tech assassination of Hamas operative www.therighttothecity.com/ construction. The final prototype was Mahmoud al-Mahbouh in a five star symposium.html 43 NEWS BRIEFS

The Bronks Youth Theatre in Brussels Immanuel Koh (AADRL MArch 2010 Jeanne d’Architecture, or: Phyllis by MDMA, the practice of Martine & AA Istanbul Visiting School 2011 Unit Lambert and the Love of Architecture, De Maeseneer (Former Diploma Unit Master) has been appointed Unit Master in Oase 83: Commissioning Architecture, Master) having previously been at the Dessau Institute of Architecture was published at the beginning of 2011. nominated for the Mies van der Rohe (DIA/Bauhaus) Graduate School in An essay on the renowned architectural Prize 2011 (see news briefs, Germany, in addition to his current role photographer Hélène Binet was AArchitecture 14) was one of the six as Scripting Course Master. His studio published in a monograph on her work finalists. This is the first building in investigates the use of computational by Phaidon in May 2011. An essay about Belgium to have reached this stage systems and physical computing artists and architects was published in in the competition. apparatus in architectural design, Painting with Architecture in Mind, edited constituting part of DIA’s Digital by Ed Whittaker and Alex Landrum in Ahmad Sukkar (AA DRL March 2006) Cluster. Immanuel has also been invited June 2011 and a short essay about the presented his PhD thesis Structures to teach at the ars11Berlin, a five-week lobby of New York’s Paramount Hotel of Light: the Body and Architecture in the programme based at the Beuth recently appeared in Lobbies and Lounges, Islamic Tradition at the Boundless Human Hochschule für Technik Berlin (BHT), published by Routledge and edited by Potential Symposium, Worcester in June 2011. Tom Avermaete and Anne Massey. College, Oxford on 7–8 May 2011. www.immanuelkoh.net www.ibnarabisociety.org/ http://codesintheclouds.wordpress.com Le Foin Bas, a residential project by Max events.html#sukkar http://summer-academy-berlin.eu/ Babbé (AA Dipl 2006) with MOOARC, www.ahmadsukkar.com ars_berlin.html located on the southcoast of Jersey, Channel Islands, has won a Downland Michael Kloihofer and Zoe Chan (both Eugenia Fratzeskou (AA Member) has Prize in 2010, and has been nominated AADipl 2010) have created a temporary been one of the international reviewers for a RIBA Award in 2011. architecture/art installation project for ISEA 2011 Istanbul and she will and pop-up teahouse in Dalston in deliver her lecture, Mapping Uncertainty, Following the award-winning repair collaboration with other designers. at ISEA 2011 Istanbul Conference (14–21 and restoration by John Melvin (AA Dipl The installation, called Urban Fog, was September 2011). Eugenia has also been 1963 and former Vice President of the on display from 1–21 May 2011. Proceeds appointed a workshop tutor and member AA) of Oxford’s Holywell Music Room, went towards the relief effort in Japan of the Curatorial Committee for Urban the oldest purpose built music room in following the disaster earlier this year. Transcripts, Rome, 2011. Her video work Europe, Papadakis Publishers recently Lawrence Lek (AADipl 2008) created a was included in the Road Movie One published John’s The Stones of Oxford: sound installation entitled Drones for the Minutes Selection, April 2011. Eugenia’s Conjectures on a Cockleshell, illustrated project which consisted of two sculptural latest articles Urban Transcripts 2010: essays on architecture and town planning. speakers placed at opposite ends of Urban Over the Skin of the City and Revealing Fog, playing an ambient sound loop that Interstitial Spaces are available in Saturday 7 May marked the first time at slowly pans between the front and English & Italian through Digicult. the AA and in the UK that the AA’s Part back chambers, thereby augmenting www.digicult.it/en/ 3 exam went digital, thanks to Alastair the acoustic depth of the installation. www.sarcha.gr/ViewAssociate. Robertson (AA PP Director) and Rob In addition Lawrence and Onur Ozkaya aspx?associateID=134 Sparrow (AA PP Co-ordinator). The 17 (AA Emtech MSc 2007) produced a Part 3 candidates prepared and submitted sculptural installation entitled Twins in Mark Pimlott (AA Dipl 1985 and former all their experience records and wrote which two identical wings formed from AA Academic Staff) was commissioned all their four examination papers in bent plywood cells create a suspended to make a new work, Some Clearings, digital format, including one candidate surface and path into an artificial cave. a series of thirty-six photographs, for the sitting the AA Part 3 exam in Dubai. The Coldharbour London gallery hosted exhibition Radical Autonomy / Nieuwe Students already get their Part 3 resource the inhabitable sculpture at its inaugural Werelden van Niks which recently opened materials and course lecture notes on a exhibition, Illuminations, in June 2011. at Netwerk, Centrum voor Hedendaagse memory stick. Now the Part 3 examiners www.urbanfog.net Kunst, Aalst, Belgium. In addition, will receive students’ exam submissions World, a public square designed by Mark in the same format. at BBC’s Broadcasting House in central London is now complete. Mark’s essay, 44 NEWS BRIEFS

Henrietta Williams (AAIS student) was Christina Doumpioti (AA Emtech Mehmet Konuralp (AA Dipl 1965) has recently interviewed by Tom Dyckhoff Studio Master and AA San Francisco recently been awarded by the Turkish for a section on The Culture Show Visiting School Course Co-ordinator) Chamber of Architects the Grand about the subtle militiarisation of cities was an invited speaker at the Processing Architect Sinan Prize for lifetime in which she showed Tom around Matter / Processing Complexity achievement. He has been active as a the Ring of Steel, a security installation event taking place in Welsh School designer as well as a lecturer in many around the City of London that she of Architecture, Cardiff University, parts of the world and he is still in photographed and mapped with on 17–18 May 2011. practise in Istanbul. George Gingell (former AA student). http://digitaltransformations.net/ The programme aired on 19 May 2011. processingmatter Manijeh Verghese ( Fourth Year AA www.henriettawilliams.com Student and Student Editor of Studio Integrate: Mehran Gharleghi (AA AArchitecture) is now the website editor AA Landscape Urbanism MA opened Emtech MArch 2009), Amim Sadeghy of a new start-up architecture, fashion its landscape pavilion as part of the (AA Emtech MArch 2008), Tomasz and design journal entitled Disegno Horticultural Fair taking place in Xian, Mlynarski (AA Emtech MArch 2008), Magazine. China from April to October 2011. The Kyle Schertzing (AA Emtech MArch www.disegnomagazine.com pavilion began as an invitation to develop 2010), and Diana Araya (AA LU MA a small piece of landscape able to reflect 2010) recently designed an installation Accra Bus Rapid Transit System, the principles and concepts developed in called Inverscape, comprised of draping designed by Elsie Owusu (AA Member the MA programme. Special thanks to a fabric ceiling and synthesising dynamic and former AA Student) and Elsie Owusu Hossein Kachabi, Jorge Ayala, and computational design and behaviour Architects with FAM Architekti was Min Joo Baek (all AA LU MA 2008) and analyses with physical material recently launched by HE John Mahama, Eduardo Rico (AA LU MA 2003 and AA experiments, to achieve an innovative Vice-President of Ghana. LU Tutor) and Alfredo Ramirez (AA LU and unique spatial quality. The MA 2005, AA LU Tutor and AA Mexico installation was on view at Tina We Salute Jae-Sung Chon (AA Member and AA Visiting School Course Director). You in North London from 3 May – Visiting Teacher 2009) together with http://aa-landscape-urbanism. 1 July 2011. Migrating Landscapes Organization blogspot.com http://studiointegrate.com (MLO) was selected to curate the Canadian Pavilion at the 2012 Venice Rosa Ainley (AA Digital Platforms Zubin Khabazi (AA Emtech MSc 2009) Biennale in Architecture. Editor) published 2 Ennerdale Drive: recently published two e-books: unauthorised biography (Zer0 Press), Generative Algorithms, Concepts and Marta Malé-Alemany (AA DRL Studio a memoir of an existing house in Experiments, Weaving and Generative Master) has presented work from design Colindale, north London and its Algorithms, Concepts and Experiments, studios at the AADRL and IAAC occupants, their families and the houses Porous Shell on Grasshopper, which are (Barcelona) at the FABRICATE they lived in. The book analyses the the result of his ongoing research on conference at UCL, 16–17 April 2011. everyday lived experience of housing algorithmic architecture. The work, from design studios taught design, and its impact on class identities www.grasshopper3d.com/page/ in collaboration with Victor Vina and gender roles, through the prism tutorials-1 (Barcelona) and Jeroen van Ameijde of family narrative, disturbing the (AA Digital Prototyping Lab, AA Unit boundaries of the imaginary and the real. Cesare Griffa (AA DRL MArch 2002) Master Intermediate Unit 6 and AA DRL A work of text and image, 2 Ennerdale together with studiogriffa architetto Course Tutor) is also published in the Drive calls into question the veracity recently presented their project Porto conference book under the same title, accorded to ‘documents’ produced across Pino Beach at the international (FAB)BOTS, Customised Robotic institutional, public and private family competition 20+10+X Architecture Devices for Design and Fabrication. contexts, using publicity materials such Awards, 9th cycle and have been selected as production stills, promotional leaflets, and classified in the top20 by an Danielle Rago (AA MA HCT Student postcards and press cuttings. international jury. and Student Editor of AArchitecture) http://cesaregriffa.com is now Curator at Archive of Spatial www.worldarchitecture.org Aesthetics and Praxis. www.archiveofspatialaesthetics.com 45 NEWS BRIEFS

Martha Giannakopoulou (AA Dipl 2001), Dongyun Liu (both AA LU MA 2005) a contemporary language for Versailles’ Seki Hirano (AA Dipl 1999) and Annika comprising 37 hectares of landscape and architectural heritage: to convert the Grafweg (AA Dipl 2000) of IF-[untitled] three buildings – Guangyun entrance, National Archives of Versailles, a very Architects, an Athens- and London- Creativity pavilion and a greenhouse. pragmatic building from around 1920, based studio, have recently been selected www.groundlab.org into a housing and office complex. by NIB as one of the top ten young www.plasmastudio.com practices in Athens. Matthew Butcher (AA Tutor, www.if-untitled.com GMG Collective, Eduardo McIntosh Foundation) was recently involved in an www.newitalianblood.com/ (AA Diploma 18 Technical Tutor), exhibition, organised by The Society of index.pl?pos=04.01 Kostas Grigoriadis (AADRL MArch British Theatre Designers, a survey of 2009 and AA Design and Make Course British set design, at the Royal Welsh On Friday 13 May a symposium entitled Tutor), and Evan Greenberg (AA Emtech College of Music and Drama. The Politics of Fabrication Laboratory MSc 2008, AA Emtech Course Tutor and exhibition was called Transformation & took place at the E[AD] Escuela de AA San Francisco Visiting School Revelation: UK Design for Performance Arquitectura y Diseño, Pontificia Co-Course Director) were winners of the 2007–2011 and ran from 18 March to 16 Universidad Católica de Valparaíso in Spiretec Competition 2010, appointed to April 2011. A collection of some of the Chile. Participants included Brett Steele design a new 62,000 square metre works from the show will be exhibited at (AA Director) and Franklin Lee (AA Dipl mixed-use development in Greater the V&A next year and at the Prague 1995), among others academic leaders, Noida, Delhi, India. Quadrennial this summer. practitioners and architectural www.gmgcollective.com www.post-works.com personalities, opening up a conversation www.theatredesign.org.uk/ on the implications between particular Naina Gupta (AA DRL MArch 2003) publications/catalogues socio-cultural conditions and current is currently doing research at Strelka digital fabrication techniques. The event Institute of Architecture, Design and Somayeh Ebrahimi (AA Member and AA was a prelude to the AA Valparaíso Media in Moscow entitled Russia: Tehran Visiting School student 2010) Visiting School, 1–12 August 2011. Beyond Oil and Gas: Minimisation along with Mahdi Alirezaei was recently of Energy. awarded a third place Iranian Interior Dolores Ruiz Garrido (AA Member) was Design Award for their AASAA Pain recently awarded honourable mention for X-Architects, the practice of Farid Clinic by Architecture & Construction the Spiretec Competition, India, along Esmaeil (AA Member), had work on magazine. with Crab studio and Semisotano RGRM display at a stand at Cityscape Jeddah Arquitectos. Also, last month one of her 2011, an international urban development Emina Camdzic (AA Member and AA buildings was selected in the Spanish and real estate investment event which Dubrovnik Visiting School student 2011) Biennale, ‘Tetris house’ new apartments took place from 11–13 June 2011. is participating in the International in an old house. Design Studio 2011 workshop entitled www.rgrm.es Helena Marconell (AA Member) had Development of a Sustainable Green www.semisotano.es some of her art work exhibited at three Building. The workshop was established venues at the Notting Hill Visual Arts as a joint venture between the The Plasmastudio/Groundlab Flowing Festival, the Tabernacle (8–16 June 2011), Architecture Faculty at the University Gardens project has officially opened in West Eleven Gallery (17–24 June 2011) Sarajevo, Yildiz Technical Faculty in Xian, China as part of the International and Harris Arcade (3–25 June 2011). Istanbul and Twente Technical Faculty Horticultural Expo 2011. The project is a in Enschede. collaboration between Plasmastudio, the Max Kahlen (AA Dipl 2008 and AA practice of Eva Castro (GradDiplDes Media Studies Course Lecturer) along Shajay Bhooshan (AA DRL MArch 2006, (AA) and AA LU Director) and Holger with his London-based office Dyvik & AA DRL Course Tutor and AA Kehne (former AA Diploma Unit Master) Kahlen Architecture and Elseline Bazin Bangalore Visiting School Director) was and Groundlab Eva Castro, Holger was awarded the first prize for the recently interviewed by Computational Kehne, Alfredo Ramirez (AA LU European Wilmotte Competition in Craft, published in city-vision magazine MA2005 and AALU Studio Master), Versailles. The challenge was to invent issue 3, 2011. Shajay also presented and Eduardo Rico (AA LU MA 2003 and AA published a technical paper Use of LU Course Tutor), Sarah Majid and Sub-division Surfaces in Architectural 46 NEWS BRIEFS

Form-Finding and Procedural Modelling at Jai Lee (AA Dipl 2003) and her (AA Dipl 2001, AA Unit Master, simAUD 2011 along with Mostafa El architectural practice JAIA (Joint Intermediate Unit 4 and AA Singapore Sayed in April 2011 and exhibited work at Architectural Intelligence Associates) Visiting School Course Co-Director), TED 2011, Palm Springs, as part of an held the 2011 JAIA workshop, 27 June–3 have received the RICS London Project Autodesk showcase in March 2011 and at July 2011 on the theme of the of the Year Award for the Town Hall Autodesk galleries in San Francisco. In International Ideas Competition for Hotel & Conference Centre in London. addition, he lectured at the Digital Craft Busan Opera House. JAIA’s aim was The project was also awarded the RICS symposium, Autodesk University, Las to share information related to the 2011 Building Conservation Award and Vegas in December 2010, as well as competition and ultimately to help was part of the London selection for this lecturing and participating in a panel participants to explore and develop year’s RIBA Award. discussion with Tobias Klein (AA First various ideas through this workshop. Year Master and AA Media Studies www.jai-a.com SARCHA (School of ARCHitecture for Course Tutor), Dietmar Koering and All) www.sarcha.gr initiated by Maria Michael Wihart at the University of AL_A, the practice of Amanda Levete Theodorou (AA H&T PhD 1998), was Innsbruck, Austria, November 2010. (AA Dipl 1982) has won the international one of the seven teams shortlisted from design competition for the V&A the 56 entries submitted at the Maria Fedorchenko (AA Unit Master Museum’s Exhibition Road development. Resourceful Architect open call. The Intermediate 7 and AA Unit Master HTS The project isn’t just about a gallery; it’s competition was organised by the Royal First Year studio) published an article, an opportunity to create a new public Society of Arts (RSA) and the Shape Follows Decorated Diagram: space for London – South Kensington’s Architecture Foundation. SARCHA’s Alignment of Form and Program in Drawing Room. The pattern of the entry features in the 12 May issue of the The International Journal of Constructed courtyard derives from the structure and AJ. The final presentation took place at Environment. the richness of the V&A’s collection, and RSA on the day of ideas on 18 May 2011. continues the didactic tradition of the The working team also includes Stefania Gonçalo Furtado (AA Member) is V&A buildings. Triantafyllou (AA Year Out student). co-ordinating the research project www.thersa.org/projects/design/ Architectural Interactive Surfaces James McBennett (AA Dip 16) was theresourcefularchitect Modelled in Composed Materials, with selected to present at the first TED the support of Oporto University and auditions in New York with his AA On 31 May 2011 the church of St Banco Santander. The project intends to project Natural High. The project Patrick’s in Soho Square was opened once investigate components that bind the explores new forms of brick. For 8,000 again to the public. It had been closed multisensorial experience of a space to a years brick has had six sides. Opportunity since March 2010 while building works surface. exists to upgrade bricks with as many were carried out. Castanon Associates, sides as a material can tolerate using the practice of Javier Castañón (AA Tatiana von Preussen (AA Tutor, 3D printing on-site. New forms that Technical Studies Course Master and AA Intermediate Unit 7) along with PPR are cheaper, stronger, lighter and more Professional Practice, Part 1 Course Architects, put on an exhibition in April intelligent than previous constructions Master) were the architects. The work 2011 at the Architecture Foundation, in can be created. This project applies carried out comprised the refurbishment collaboration with Joseph Bedford named these new opportunities to the informal of the interior of the church as well as the More Than > A Building? Architecture on city that can rise safe against disaster, excavation of a new basement covering Trial: Stirling and Gowan’s Leicester without depleting natural resources; the entire area of the church. The church Engineering Building. It was a satellite a natural high. occupies the entire site so excavating the exhibition that coincided with Anthony hellojam.es basement to form the new crypt, with Vidler’s exhibition at the Tate: James www.youtube.com/ expertise from the structural Engineers Stirling: Notes from the Archive (see watch?v=yyQL8UFdHNo Sinclair Johnston and Partners, was the AArchitecture 14). only way to provide the much-needed www.vppr.co.uk/index.php?/ongoing/ RARE, founded by Michel da Costa space for the many growing needs of this architecture-on-trial-exhibition Gonçalves (AA Emtech MA 2005, AA church. The church, designed by John Unit Master, Intermediate Unit 4 and AA Kelly, was built in 1893. The architects Singapore Visiting School Course have tried to bring back its renaissance Co-Director) and Nathalie Rozencwajg appearance by the treatment of the 47 NEWS BRIEFS

materials, particularly the new marble architects programme for his project how to get answers. Siamak’s argument floor and the handling of natural light. MAXXI Cloud and launched a was how can graduates learn to get The refurbishment work was done in suspension light called Swivel for Italian answers for those areas not addressed in association with Castañón Asociados brand Danese at the Milan Salone Del studios or other course work? In addition (Madrid). Javier would be happy to show Mobile. his studio, SHAGAL│iodaa, recently the result to anyone who is interested. designed the Reuse/Recycle/Retrofit of [email protected] Khandaker Shabbir Ahmed (AA E&E Suburban Zurich, as well as the doing the www.itv.com/london/ PhD 1996) co-ordinated a two-day redesign of Zurich Airport through a soho-church-reopens25064 workshop entitled Performance Based shrinkage-programme. The exhibition Design: Introduction to Computer Based Past/Present/Future in Spring 2011 The collective Vatnavinir, of which Lighting Simulation Techniques, designed presented a survey of selected works by Sigrún Birgisdottir (AADipl 2001) to introduce lighting design techniques SHAGAL│iodaa. is one of the founding members, has within the purview of Performance www.shagal-iodaa.net been awarded the Global Award for Based Design approach. The workshop Sustainable Architecture 2011 by Locus took place in Dhaka, Bangladesh on The AA Membership Office is sorry to Foundation, under the patronage of 11–12 June 2011. announce that the following Alumni UNESCO, for their work, Wellness have recently passed away: Cedric Country Iceland. Vatnavinir is a MESE, the office ofSelahattin Tuysuz Astbury (AADipl 1952), Bertie Dinnage multidisciplinary collective established (AA DRL MArch 2008), Yusuf Burak (AADipl 1961) and David Hoblyn in 2008 in Reykjavik and brings Dolu and Erhan Yıldız has just received (AADipl 1972). Landscape designer architects, designers, philosophers and fourth prize in the Museum of Troy Jeanne Bliss, who collaborated with the artists together with experts in the areas competition. The competition was AA’s former Garden Conservation of tourism, health and marketing in order organised by the Ministry of Culture of course, passed away in March 2011. to work with water as a resource for Turkey. The brief was to design a 10.5 Enrico De Pierro, AA tutor from the late sustainable development in Iceland. square metre museum building at the 1940s to the early fifties, died at home The Global Award for Sustainable Troy Archeological world heritage site. aged 93 in June 2011. Architecture is now in its fifth year and MESE’s design aimed to create a simple is awarded every year to five architects modest cover which would form the who are committed to the notion of museum’s open, semi-open and closed sustainable development and have spaces and to allow for a visually calm developed their own innovative approach green area. to the issue. Yasmin Shariff (AA Member) has been Asif Khan (AADipl 2007) has been appointed to the newly formed awarded Designer of the Future 2011 by Hertfordshire Design Review Panel. The Design Miami, the first architect to ever panel is funded by Hertfordshire County receive this award. He also had a solo Council and has been set up to help installation at Design Miami/Basel 13–18 planners, developers and designers realise June 2011 for Designers of the Future the full potential of development 2011. In addition he was selected by the schemes. It is a new addition to the British Council and the Royal Academy Building Futures initiative and provides a to design their Future Memory Pavilion resource to support the delivery of high for the Singapore Arch-fest in October quality, sustainable design for those 2011 and he has also spoken at The Royal bringing forward development proposals. Academy as part of their Future Memory www.hertslink.org/buildingfutures programme. He spoke at Knoll showroom on 24 May as part of the In January 2011 Siamak G. Shahneshin debate, Are there too many Designers?, (AA E&E MA 2000) delivered a lecture during Clerkenwell Design Week 2011. entitled Common Knowledge on the Asif has also won a special jury citation as legislated architectural pedagogy and the a finalist in the MAXXI / MoMA young claim by educators that they teach people 48 EDITORIAL STATEMENT

AArchitecture has evolved considerably since its inception in the summer term of 2006. Established within the long tradition of AA journals, AArchitecture was initially aimed at cataloguing the printed space of the AA. The first six issues were devoted to revisiting ‘the legacy of numerous short-lived AA publications’, as outlined in the initial editorial statement. Subsequently, the publication evolved into a much more official and permanent entity – the form it takes today. A tri-annually issued booklet, it serves as a newsletter for the AA School Community and its wider membership. This issue represents another milestone in the publication’s history as the first issue solely edited by students. We saw this as an opportunity to try to encompass a majority of the different groups and programmes that comprise the manifold organisation that is the AA. From the History and Critical Thinking Masters Programme to a summary of events taking place at our Hooke Park Campus in Dorset, to the typical coverage of lectures, symposiums, exhibitions and membership events, we hope to have encapsulated the true diversity of AA life.

Danielle Rago is an MA student in the History & Critical Thinking Programme. Manijeh Verghese is a Fourth Year AA Student. They are both Student Editors of AArchitecture. AA Bookshop 32 Bedford Square London WC1B 3ES

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