Issue 13 News from the Architectural Association AARCHITECTURE

Beyond Entropy in Venice PG 20

Architectural Association Foster + Partners Prize PG 25

Other Babel PG 23

The publishing activities of the AA offer a timeline of the provocative and irreverent, often satirical and imaginative, and

AA Visting Schools PG 12 occasionally bewildering and ridiculous. Publish on Demand or Demand to be Published PG 28 VERSO

AARCHITECTURE CONTRIBUTORS Anne Save de Beaurecueil News from the Pedro Ignacio Alonso [email protected] Architectural Association [email protected] Issue 12 / Spring 2010 Jack Self www.aaschool.ac.uk Valentin Bontjes van Beek www.millenniumpeople.co.uk [email protected] ©2010 Emanuel Sousa All rights reserved Mollie Claypool [email protected] Published by the [email protected] Architectural Association, Yvonne Tan 36 Bedford Square, Elif Erdine [email protected] London WC1B 3ES [email protected] Tom Verebes Contact: Peter Ferretto [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] Nicola Quinn +44 (0)20 7887 4033 Brendan Woods Yan Gao [email protected] Please send your news items for the next [email protected] issue to [email protected] DENNIS SHARP TRIBUTE Evan Greenberg Guest edited by Mollie Claypool EDITORIAL BOARD [email protected] [email protected] Alex Lorente, Membership Brett Steele, AA School Director Samantha Hardingham Contributors: Zak Kyes, AA Art Director [email protected] Ed Bottoms [email protected] EDITORIAL TEAM Roz Jackson Nicola Quinn, Managing Editor [email protected] Paul Oliver Wayne Daly and Claire McManus, Graphic Designers Omid Kamvari Yasmin Shariff Scrap Marshall and Manijeh Verghese, [email protected] [email protected] Student Editors Olaf Kneer Simon Whittle ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS [email protected] [email protected] Valerie Bennett Aimee O’Carroll Franklin Lee Alex de Rijke [email protected] Architectural Association (Inc.) Satoshi Isono Registered Charity No. 311083 Jan Nauta Arthur Mamou-Mani Company limited by guarantee Charlotte Newman www.arthurmani.com Registered in England No. 171402 Christopher Pierce Registered office as above Sandra Sanna Marianne Mueller Charles Tashima [email protected] Thomas Weaver Luke Olsen Printed by Cassochrome, Belgium [email protected]

Lisa Pasquale [email protected]

Stefano Rabolli Pansera [email protected] AARCHITECTURE Issue 13

2 Post Occupancy Research 4 Klein’s Ecclesiastic Chrome 6 Modern Art Oxford ‘The Yard’ 7 Honourary Life Members’ Tea 8 A Review of a [Projects] Review: Animals, Predators and Vultures 10 Educating Architects, Reinventing Architecture 12 AA Visiting Schools 19 Venic Venic: Cedric Price at the Venice Biennale 2010 20 Beyond Entropy in Venice 22 Architecture on Display Book Launch 23 Other Babel 24 AA Bookshop and Bedford Press 25 The Architectural Association Foster + Partners Prize 26 New from AA Publications 27 New from Bedford Press 28 Publish on Demand or Demand to be Published 29 News 1 Projects Post Occupancy Research By Lisa Pasquale

Cutting Edge Research into Environment ‘Buildings in Use’ The quality of the internal environment is being In the field of sustainable building design, topical measured using several methods. Air quality, for research is focused around qualitative and quantitative example, is monitored during the winter season to ‘buildings in use’ research. Commonly called post- determine the as-operational ventilation rates in the occupancy evaluation, the thread of enquiry is to classrooms. This aids in verifying if the designed rates determine how well the built environment suits the are achievable and also informs whether typical rates needs of the end users and to verify design are creating the environment standards set out in assumptions during the post-construction phase. design guidance. Where shortfalls are found, this Architype, an architectural practice managed helps the designers improve the handover of this and by Bob Hayes (AADipl 1974) and Jonathan Hines, future buildings, and to better train users as to when has been advancing this agenda of in-use research by and how often natural ventilation devices should be conducting extensive post-occupancy evaluations of in operation. This also helps verify and adapt design their buildings as part of a TSB-funded project with assumptions to take into account observed variations myself working out of Oxford Brookes University’s in behaviour, along with events not otherwise Low Carbon Building Unit. The goal of the research accounted for during design. is to develop guidance and design methods to aid Architype in delivering buildings that are reliably Feedback to the Design Team more usable, comfortable, healthy and energy efficient. The results from these studies are informing Architype’s discourse with their consultants, aiding in St Luke’s Primary School: understanding appropriate levels of design robustness, A Case Study identifying knowledge gaps in standard practice and St Luke’s C of E Aided Primary School in in being able to offer performance-verified solutions Wolverhampton, recent winner of the RIBA Sorrell to clients’ requirements. The research findings are Foundation Schools Award, is one of the primary case currently being collated and we hope to report them studies for the research project. By observing how the in a future issue of AArchitecture. With its practical building is performing and being used, and combining approach to understanding the built environment, this with the handover and post-occupancy evaluation post occupancy research is one of the most techniques, the research has aided the occupants to fundamental research practices offering clear paths settle into the building and has brought feedback to to higher quality, lower energy buildings. the design team. Lisa Pasquale is an alumnus of the AA Graduate Energy School’s MSc in Sustainable Environmental Design The building’s energy use is monitored using a website that helps users track their meter readings, giving immediate, graphical feedback on energy performance. The website utilises algorithms which predict annual usage from just a few weeks data, amending the analysis of the data to compensate for local weather conditions (called heating degree day analysis) thereby ensuring that colder weeks, when the building would naturally demand more heat, aren’t reported as having poorer performance than warmer periods. This has been integrated into the pupils’ routine by training the student council to input the meter readings as part of their other green school initiatives, and allows designers to remotely monitor the buildings performance.

2 Exterior: west elevation with horizontal timber cladding

View down to the Key Stage 1 multi-purpose activity space. Photos George Mikurcik 3 Projects Klein’s Ecclesiastic Chrome By Jack Self

Detail of church’s chrome façade 4 Tobias Klein had several models in this year’s Royal properties, light filtering and scattering effects as the Academy Summer Show. One of the rules for the Italian marble. ‘The original print was stimulated by entry is that no work shall be exhibited twice. the idea that digital manufacturing processes might Although these particular 3D prints have never been actually bring something to the project, express accepted, the same 3D model was previously exhibited. certain qualities that could not be expressed in any This raises the question: is Tobias Klein responsible other way.’ for the virtual model, or the actual print? In an era of ‘When I first saw the chrome, I was really digital duplication, what (and where) are we designing? considering whether to smash it against the next wall.’ The significance of the plating, and its ‘Tell me about the chrome model’ I said. relationship to the original intents of the project, Tobias Klein, AA pedagogue and co-founder becomes clear: although chrome has certain qualities of the experimental architectural studio Horhizon, sat in itself, this material has nothing to do with the back in the large wooden chair and gazed thoughtfully meaning of the project – it transforms the model up at his East London office building. ‘That model is and strips out the history of the design process. What an anomaly — a highly fetishised oddity.’ remains is a fetishised version of what was once an Several months before I had followed Klein to architectural model. where a small group of technicians and students were ‘It asks the question, “if I have to look at it as examining a new product of the Bartlett’s digital an object, what has it become?” – a scale jump that prototyping lab. They all turned, somewhat guiltily architects find quite scary and uncomfortable. It is I thought, and made space so Klein could see the focus no longer a model, but an object.’ Whereas previous of their attention. versions of the model were unquestionably Glowing beneath the white neon was a shard representational, the chrome model represents only of glistening silver about two feet long. A crystalline itself. The electrolytic process has transformed it from lattice of bone-like spikes hatched the surface, a recognisable architectural facade into a metallic fracturing and exploding into complex geometries. statue. There was something vaguely sinister about the dark Earlier versions oscillated between the virtual sheen emanating from the delicate lace star shells and and the real, between digital design methodologies crucified skeletons. I peered into the depths of the and ideas about the future of manufacturing. This thing… was that a plated Mother Mary, a frozen Baby exchange is completely quashed by this material Jesus in her argent arms? The base model, now metamorphosis, which renders the model a digital covered by a molecular coat of chrome, was Klein’s palimpsest whose inherent attributes have been so diploma project –a church facade in Cuba. ‘Good God’ far distorted from the original as to be barely I heard him say. recognisable. ‘The chrome destroys the architectural ‘The driving narrative for the project’, he told project… and yet as an entity it does have other me later, ‘stems hugely from my fascination with the valuable properties reflecting on cultural connotations qualities of marble... In the Cuban necropolis of embedded within a fetishised object.’ Christobal Colon you are confronted directly with When it returned from the show the touch of the materiality of this marmo di Carrara – which many hands had softened the severe appearance of the is pre-revolutionary and shipped over the ocean to model. The fading chrome now reflected an oil-slick be laid under the equatorial sun. Its location in Cuba rainbow of cadmium light. It was only with the provides some of the most magnificent lighting authority of its newly acquired patina that I could see conditions for the material. The light gets sucked the ‘fetishised object’ once more as a model, deep into the material, radiating from the inside out representative of something else, something wonderful – ultimately animating the material’. and yet unplanned by its architect – in my mind’s eye During design development what became I saw a brilliant marble church, its façade silver-leafed apparent was the inability of existing rendering by the hands of 10,000 pilgrims, winking under a software to satisfactorily capture the more subtle – and flawless Cuban sky. essential – qualities of space and atmosphere. ‘This is something we all know from whitewash milky renders, Jack Self is a Third Year student which are actually quite good at explaining the complexity of geometries, but which don’t necessarily tell you anything further about the character and qualities of the architecture.’ The materiality of the project therefore rests in the materiality of the print itself. The powder used to layer up the model, has very similar material 5 Projects Modern Art Oxford ‘The Yard’

Reception view. Photo Alex de Rijke

Modern Art Oxford’s brief to ameliorate use and envisioned as an urban catalyst, will have much wider access to their gallery was met by architecture firm, repercussions if the planned surrounding streetscape dRMM, with the transformation of an existing improvements are also implemented. delivery yard into a new type of gallery space for the dRMM, led by Alex de Rijke, Satoshi Isono UK – a ‘storefront gallery’. and Junko Yanagisawa used a palette of largely timber, Completed in May 2010, the ramped lobby polycarbonate and paint to design the Yard based served as an installation; not permanent, plastered or on Modern Art Oxford Director, Michael Stanley’s white, but carefully constructed from massive idea to redefine the existing gallery facilities through engineered timber and polycarbonate panels. The an addition of a symbiotic gallery space that would ramp becomes a provocative site – encouraging artists allow for more flexibility in the programme. By to react in the hope that they will transform this entry coordinating the design input of structural engineers, space with an ongoing programme of exhibits. The a catering consultant and a specialist LED lighting deliberate omission of a facade connects the gallery manufacturer alongside Richard Woods’ contribution directly with the Oxford streetscape by day. At night, of artwork for the bar, furniture and shutter, Modern a specially painted and perforated roller shutter invites Art Oxford and dRMM have reinterpreted gallery the passer to view interior and exterior as a architecture as ‘useful art’. simultaneous artwork. The Yard provides not only a new entrance but Architect: dRMM a rebranded overall image for the centrally-located Artist: Richard Woods museum with a more active street frontage and direct Structure/M&E Engineer: Ridge and Partners level access. Drawing in people from the street, the Cost Consultant: David Flower yard is intended to address both the pedestrian and Specialist Timber Contractor: KLH UK the cyclist; shoppers and tourists are as welcome as Catering Consultant: John Conroy students and regular gallery-goers. The scheme, Main Contractor: Knowles and Son 6 Events Honourary Life Members’ Tea

AA President Alex Lifschutz and AA School Director Brett Steele raise their glasses to AA Life and Honorary Members gathered to celebrate the award of three new Honorary Memberships; Brian Henderson, Doris Lockhart and Dennis Sharp (see AArchitecture 12)

Dennis Sharp’s widow Yasmin Shariff and son Deen joined the event to accept Honorary Membership on Dennis’s behalf. Photos Valerie Bennett 7 Events A Review of a [Projects] Review: Animals, Predators and Vultures By Mollie Claypool

While writing a review of a review, one feels slightly a building which is not designed as an exhibition like a vulture, picking at a carcass of a dead animal space. This year the AA increased its exhibition space after it has already been killed by a predator. The through the timely addition of new buildings to review presumably has been completed, through the its Bedford Square campus in the prior weeks. The meticulous act of breaking down content and structure additional buildings enabled the 2010 exhibition to and evaluating minute judgements against the address critical issues of consistency, legibility, comprehensive greater body of work. A review of a navigation and space. review then cannot look at the animal as a living, Raw plywood was used throughout the whole creature. It can only look at the spoiled exhibition – floors, walls and tabletops – in order to remnants of what is left after the predator has killed pull the four buildings and several dozen programmes the animal. Only through reviewing the review can and units into a single, legible body of an exhibition. one then truly evaluate the judgments made in the Only a few predators ignored this directive – one type and the location of the kill, picking up where the could think that the metaphor of the male elephant review left off. A review of a review deals only with leaving its herd is applicable here – some choosing analysing the modes and methods of critique utilised instead to coat the entirety of their exhibition space in the review. in black paint. For an exhibition of such a short length Reviews of the end-of-year exhibition at the and with quite a lot of foot traffic, the plywood was a AA have been few and far between in recent years. suitable choice. Although it did get rather dingy quite This is in part due to its academic year being early on, the use of a consistent material throughout traditionally scheduled to end a week or two later than the show necessitated a minimisation of effort on the other London schools of architecture, as well as the part of the units and programmes in differentiating AA being the only private independent architecture from their neighbour. To counteract any feeling school in the UK amongst multiple public universities of monotony and add another level of legibility, each with architecture programmes. These factors have space was prepared with large graphics dictating the contributed to a neglect of the AA Projects Review necessary information about the work in that section by a wider critical audience. However, previous years’ of the exhibition. A determined path was provided on reviews have included vulture-like commentary the exhibition tour guide in order to lead visitors calling the beast of the exhibition’s layout a ‘Babel-ic through the winding spaces, instead of letting them confusion’ and notational devices ‘excuses for wander about freely as in previous years. The only exhibition navigation.’ (O’Carroll, Gerrard. ‘Best questionable choice, and a battle wrought between in Show – 2008’. Building Design Online. http:// Facilities, Exhibitions, Unit Masters and Programme students.bdonline.co.uk/2008/07/11/best-in- Directors alike, was the inclusion of a royal blue sign show-2008) This year’s show proved to be an exercise – matching the colour of the exhibition catalogue – in adapting to the needs of an ever-changing animal, outside each new gallery. in pursuit of an end-of-year exhibition worthy of the The vulture preys on what is left behind. vultures of an ample public critique. The parallel role played out in this review of the AA I will admit that the above criticism of previous School’s Projects Review 2010 end-of-year exhibition exhibitions is not entirely incorrect. The AA did not is one of both tutor and critic; vulture and predator. have a school-wide policy regarding issues beyond the The animal is the AA School. When an animal assigning of spaces to units and health and safety changes its patterns, whether migratory or otherwise, measures. The ‘Babel-ic confusion’ comment is not far the predator adapts. This review of a review could off the mark. However, this year’s show proved to be have been concerned with specific projects of an attempt at silencing such critiques. exemplary AA students, but instead aimed to address Projects Review has traditionally been housed the body of the animal as a whole and its attempts at in the AA’s main building, representing the work of managing the expectations and desires of predators over 500 students in Foundation, First Year, and vultures. Intermediate School, Diploma School and Graduate School. It has to survey an immense body of work in Mollie Claypool is an HTS tutor 8 Projects Review Opening, with banners showing the AA’s recent acquisitions

Gathering on the Terrace. Photos Valerie Bennett 9 Events Educating Architects, Reinventing Architecture

View into the A4 Gallery space from the lobby of the Takenaka Corporation building

Exhibition Workshop In July 2010 the AA installed an exhibition of recent On a weekend in September in the break-out spaces AA student work at the Takenaka Corporation’s A4 of the Takenaka building the AA ran a two-day design Gallery in Tokyo. The exhibition itself was designed workshop. AA tutors Shin Egashira, Yusuke Obuchi, around a recreation of the AA’s Bedford Square Natasha Sandmeier, Valentin Bontjes van Beek and library, and so large 1:1-scale photographs of the Christopher Pierce led 35 students and professionals library’s windows and bookcases provided a backlit through a variety of assignments all based around the internal facade to the gallery space. Student work in production of postcards. The resulting 300 cards have the form of portfolios, books and models were all been individually mailed back to the AA and will be positioned on tables, custom-made to mimic the exact exhibited later in the year. profile of those in the AA library. The result – surreal in both the exactitude of the library copy and its Symposium juxtaposition with the corporate surroundings of the On the back of the AA exhibition and workshop at the enclosing Takenaka building – enchanted and amused Takenaka Corporation the school organised a one-day its audience in equal measure. symposium, hosted by AA School Director Brett Steele. Other speakers at the event included four generations of Japanese architects and designers and featured, among others; Toyo Ito, Hideyuki Nakayama, Florian Busch, Akira Suzuki, Tom Heneghan and Hiroshi Kikuchi. 10 Shin Egashira and AA tutors Natasha Sandmeier, Christopher Pierce, Yusuke Obuchi and Valentin Bontjes van Beek during a two-day design workshop

The AA library installed 1:1 inside the A4 Gallery. Copies of the library tables display 50 student portfolios 2005–10. All images © Takenaka Corporation 11 Courses AA Visiting Schools

Santiago de Chile: Game (On) Santiago Blending’ seemingly conflicting elements co-existing 6–15 January 2010 in Beijing. Most significant was the awareness of a new The construction of a new sports infrastructure to way of thinking and doing based upon systematic house the 2014 South American Olympics – ODESUR design process, and the cutting edge digital techniques – was treated as an unparalleled opportunity to take a which could facilitate the development of the concept critical look at the ambitious plans currently under in a more rigorous way. Students learned how to work development. By staging two interrelated design units, in an international team environment; communicating Ground Strategies and Material Explorations, the and discussing design ideas with people they had workshop ranged from material properties and digital never met before was a big challenge. An extensive fabrication to the urban and landscape scales. We understanding of the practical application was looked at the redesign of the National Stadium Sport provided by the evening lecture which opened up a Complex in Santiago. Inaugurated in 1938 following broad horizon of ongoing digital technologies. The Berlin’s Olympiastadion, it is the largest arena in the workshop tested a different way of teaching and country and holds a complex comprising tennis court, learning under an intensive programme. How to teach swimming pool, velodrome, and indoor training efficiently while envisaging a rapid updating of arena, but the overall site is largely the result of the knowledge based upon the development of technology gradual, unplanned aggregation of scattered is a big question. The workshop not only engaged with programmes over time. No better chance to stage experimental design approaches, but also was an a masterplan in ‘retrospect’. Tutors Eva Castro, experiment itself. Alejandra Bosch, Rodrigo Pérez de Arce and myself looked at ground strategies while Monia De Marchi, By Yan Gao, alumnus of the AA DRL MArch Holger Kehne, Arturo Lyon and J Parrish (Arup programme and Director of the AA Beijing Sport) concentrated in material explorations. Visiting School Participants were ruthlessly challenged by simultaneous briefs coming from these units through a number of colour cards containing the formulation Dorset: Summer Make of key categories: programme (yellow); urban context 5–16 July 2010 (blue); structure (red); and environment and Once Upon a Time, deep in the enchanting Forrest of sustainability (green). Each team selected eight Hooke, in the fair county of Dorset, beyond Knights cards to which the project had to respond. And Bottom and below Shady Lady Glade gathered a respond they did. motivated band of makers. They included three merry mentors, 12 deft disciples, several passing By Pedro Ignacio Alonso, Director, Santiago professionals, a nimble forester and a genius workshop Visiting School and former HTS tutor miller and his delightful family. The aim was to contrive symbiotes to enhance and improve upon the existing infrastructure. Time expanded before them in Beijing: Super-Blend this remote idyll where over one hundred models were 30 January – 7 February 2010 manifest, before two new avant-garde parasites, This studio-based course held at the Digital College contrived to proudly embrace the Edward Cullinan of Crystal CG and Tsinghua Architectural Design designed residential building. The parasites live on & Research Institute was open to anyone interested in to this day, long after the rejoicing, blood, sweat and the experimental design of architecture. It investigated tears with guests from across the land who reveled in emerging computational approaches in the context of this summer make. Beijing, one of the world’s most architecturally eclectic cities. As the capital of the world’s fastest growing By Luke Olsen, Co-director of Summer Make country, Beijing has become an experimental platform for many architects making grand statements encouraged by the obsession for so-called ‘iconic’ San Francisco: Biodynamic Structures buildings. Does Beijing need any more of these and do 12–21 July 2010 they respond to the city’s history and culture or create At the CCA, ten days of weird science began with an entirely new context? The objective was to evolve Rhinos, Grasshoppers, Kangaroos, and a Firefly. some coherent architectural prototypes by ‘Super- Then, suddenly, an odd critter – Arduino – joined the 12 Santiago. Daniel Mahony, Daniel Portilla, Beijing. Photo Bejing Visiting School Gonzalo Carrasco, Robert Krumhansl

San Francisco. Photo Jacqlyn-Pia Malinis Daejon. Photo Peter Ferretto

Summer DLab. Photo Valerie Bennett Tel Aviv. Photo Arthur Mamou-Mani 13 São Paulo. Photo São Paulo Design Workshop

SummerMake. Photo Valerie Bennett 14 laboratory, transforming these curious animals into we ‘marched’ along a one kilometre territorial line robotic monsters, capable of responding to humans, imposed upon the urban fabric, charting the altering environments, and ultimately creating a intricacies of the city. From the gathered information, ‘Little Shop of Horrors’: strategies were crafted to conquer the coastline of the ever-expanding country; it was territorial expansion of Audrey II: You think this is all coincidence, baby? a peaceful nature. The AA Singapore Army’s aim was The sudden success around here? The press coverage? to design geography. Seymour: Look, you’re a plant. An inanimate object. Audrey II: Does this look inanimate to you, punk? By Yvonne S Z Tan, Alumnus and Singapore If I can talk and I can move, who’s to say I can’t do Visiting School Tutor anything I want? – Little Shop of Horrors, written by Charles B. Griffith,1960 Daejeon: Public River Interfaces By Evan Greenberg, EmTech Course Tutor and 25 July – 1 August 2010 San Francisco Visiting School Staff The third Korean visiting school was a blast, everything an AA summer workshop should be; disorganised, unexpected, creative and relentless, São Paulo: Micro Revolutions there is no other way to describe it. Everything 16–24 July 2010 seemed doomed, our Korean partners SAKIA had Out of our ivory towers and Victorian mansions and been hit by the global recession and wanted to cut onto the street. Or rather, underneath the street! The costs. All the units had to work with was a huge sports joint AA and NAI Design Workshop in São Paulo hall open 24 hours a day, which was fortunately air found itself under the viaducts in a formerly dusty and conditioned to cope with the torrid Korean summer drug-ridden residual urban landscape, which has now heat. After our field trip to see vast open landscapes been converted into an informal free boxing academy the students returned to base and started to ask by homeless ex-champion boxer Nilson Garrido. Here questions. Does an interactive river necessarily mean he has created an urban oasis of dilapidated old gym controlling the river? An artificial electrical monitoring equipment and punch bags made of suspended fridges river fish seemed to trigger the students into a drastic and gas tanks. 65 students and 12 tutors from response, the workshop was underway! Six units with Brazil, Equador, Bolivia, Germany, Spain, England six independent agendas, all looking at the same and Holland were inspired by Garrido’s theme, was enough to completely baffle our Korean resourcefulness and employed a ‘high-low’ strategy, assistant professors. The students were unbothered, combining ‘high-tech’ digital design with the ‘low- and they set the pace working until 3am on the first tech’ of recycled tyres, bottles, plastic seats, pallets, day and then drinking at the mosquito bar until dawn. metal reinforcement bars and even old CDs, to The evening lectures were a real highlight of this intervene within the sports complex and create programme; rather than opt for the standard much-needed seating, storage and environmental predictable option, all AA tutors threw caution to mediation. Design proposals and 1:1 prototypes were the wind. Kate and Matthias combined forces in a presented in a dramatic final review, where students’ 20 minute real-time design project for an architectural voices competed with the sound of passing cars and icon where both virtual and physical models were trucks, in the filtering light and echoes under the produced and projected live onto multiple screens. viaducts, followed by an action-packed boxing match! Valentin brilliantly improvised by bravely letting students freely select from his hard disk material, By Anne Save de Beaurecueil and Franklin Lee, and letting the lecture spontaneously develop. Cristina Unit Masters, Diploma Unit 2 and Directors and Efron showed a sensual pixilated animation of of the São Paulo Visiting School their working method, while Shin and I talked about our joint practice PRAXIS. The outcome, never the most important part of these events, was extraordinary Singapore: Designed Geographies in its diversity and creativity. Video shows, physical 21–30 July 2010 mappings, hydraulic machines, timber structures, The AA Singapore Workshop is like a boot camp for fighting dragons, musical performances as well as architects, and all those interested in architecture. political soap boxes; it will be difficult to top this one! Volunteers signed up from all over the region to get a feel of the AI of the AA. Not the Artificial Intelligence By Peter W Ferretto, Director of the of computer technology but our Architectural Korean Visiting School and Former Intermediate Intelligence imbedded in the AA approach. This year, Unit Master

15 London: Summer DLab Visiting School started in Tel Aviv, the one in Tehran 26 July – 6 August 2010 also began. Architecture can break boundaries! Summer DLab experiments thoroughly with the The specificity of our programme lay in its diversity: possibilities of digital design tools and rapid even though we started from the same brief, Adam prototyping techniques as highly integrated systems Furman and Marco Ginex’ unit produced wonderful of design development. It was organised into two and colourful imaginary worlds, Chris and Chris’s units, tackling architectural thinking and production students took delight in the unknown of new within the recent advances in the digital domain. technology while my unit which I ran with Ruth Unit 1 /Computational Organisation raised Kedar somehow managed to make full-scale the question: Is it possible to reduce all of architecture prototypes from low/high-tech components. We all to a series of objects? The first aim of the studio was to have different interests, which shows that the AA is far focus on code implementation of Python/IronPython from being a monolithic school. Now that I am back with Rhino, concentrating initially on basic scripting to sipping wine, I look forward to next year’s shots. operations, followed by more complex topics such as Object-Oriented Programming. These initial exercises By Arthur Mamou-Mani, alumnus of the AA and were used to propose projects responding to Tel Aviv School Staff complexity through intelligent organisation and reductive geometry. Unit 2 /Do the Evolution! focused on the Tehran: Manufacturing Simplexities generation of a smart component system producing 26 July – 6 August 2010 a variety of 1:1 objects such as display units, furniture, The Tehran Visiting School was one of the most and partition systems. The studio worked with unusual locations within the AA’s 2010 line-up. With a combination of bottom-up and top-down design a great deal of recent exposure Iran has very quickly approaches, where components were expected become a big talking point in economic and geo- to have embedded information about their structural political conversations. Less discussed is its amazing behaviour and their ability to connect with history of architecture. The workshop began on a hot their neighbours. The toolset for the studio was Tehran summer’s day where the tutors, up at the crack Rhino, Grasshopper, and Grasshopper scripting of dawn, met with an unusual breakfast and a short using VB.net. walk from their accommodation to the university The workshop concluded with final through the busy streets of Tehran city centre. The presentations by each team to an invited jury, which first day very quickly turned into a working session included Michael Weinstock, Monia De Marchi, when we realised that the next day would be a public Chris Yoo and the teaching staff. holiday. This pretty much set the tone for the intensity of the workshop; the students, fully expecting By Elif Erdine, alumnus of the DRL MArch comfortable lectures by tutors, were met with tasks programme and Summer DLab staff and homework from day one, which came as a bit of a shock to the system. This intensity carried on for the two weeks, with the Visiting School managing to keep Tel Aviv: Bad Mesh & Naked Edges the university open for 24 hours for the very first time 25 July – 4 August 2010 on two different occasions, which unsurprisingly led Architecture is similar to wine in that it requires to a number of different injuries relating to fatigue. patience and knowledge. The AA (the one where no In one particular case the injury carried with it a trip one is anonymous) Visiting Schools are more like to the hospital and a number of stitches. Throughout shots of vodka: In Tel Aviv, for ten days, everyday the highs and lows everyone enjoyed the challenge from 10 am to 10 pm students participated in lectures, of getting to know and work with each other; for the software and fabrication courses, tutorials and site students a working culture shock, for the tutors the visits, and all this while working on their project. challenge of teaching students in a completely alien Additionally, I was required to wake up at 7 am as environment. As always the highs outweighed the lows Chris Pierce and Chris Matthews had this ‘great’ idea and the workshop concluded with a fantastic to alternate one morning of Jogging with one of unprecedented exhibition, which remained open to playing Madkot (Tel Aviv’s Beach Racket). I attended the public for three months, a true testament to the the AA’s Visiting Student Programme in 2005, and quality of the work produced. it is this same intensity, passion and fun that made me leave France to join the School full-time. Another By Omid Kamvari, Alumnus of the AA, Alumnus aspect of the AA that convinced me five years ago is of AA Emtech MSc and Tehran Visiting School captured in a symbolic coincidence: the day after the Unit Staff 16 Tehran. Photo Omid Kamvari Shanghai. He Yuxing, He Zhuojun, Liu Tuo, Jesica Bello, Jiang Wenyu

Summer School. Photo Valerie Bennett 17 Shanghai: Post Expo 2010++ the Biennale offers. In addition, the Visiting School 13–21August 2010 provided an opportunity to view specific works of art, 2010 marked the AA’s fourth consecutive Shanghai to converse with curators, artists and architects Summer School, hosted by the University of including several generations of AA tutors (such as Hong Kong Shanghai Study Centre HKU SSC. Pascal Shöning, Katrin Lahusen, Brian Hatton, The programme was taught jointly by AA and the Liam Young, Ricardo de Ostos and Tobias Klein) University of Hong Kong staff and included 69 and possibly the only chance to hear conversations students, from 18 countries. This intensive nine-day between architects, scientists and artists on the theme studio-based course connected the realms of of Energy and Form. Finally, it is hoped that contemporary urban theory and cutting-edge Beyond Visiting marks the first episode of a regular computational design approaches in the context of collaboration between the AA, the Venice Biennale one of the fastest-growing, most densely occupied and the Fondazione Giorgio Cini. cities in the world. The course was enhanced by taking as its topic the city in which it was located; By Stefano Rabolli Pansera, Unit Master Shanghai – serving as a live model of a pre-eminent Intermediate Unit 5 and Curator of the Beyond twenty-first century city. Through studio-based Entropy Research Cluster speculative design work, we confronted the limitations of the Shanghai 2010 Expo’s short term legacy through engagement with the complexities Berlin: AA Berlin Laboratory of a dynamic, evolutionary approach to urbanism, 3–12 September 2010 focusing on proposals for the site after the Expo AA Berlin Laboratory investigated experimental event. In the first stage of a two-phase programme, modes of dwelling in the context of Berlin. From mass parametric design systems were introduced in a series housing to highly individualistic visions of living and of intensive design exercises and seminar sessions extreme communal regimes, Berlin has long pushed as the basis for investigating associative design the boundaries of what it means to live together. concepts and methodologies, which led to a second New organisational forms of dwelling, combined with phase of the workshop, in which students developed alternative implementation methods, are currently speculative design proposals focusing on developing challenging the roles of both architect and local new models of urban growth for the Expo 2010 site. authority in the process of delivering dwellings for the city. During this year’s workshop students from 12 By Tom Verebes, Director, Shanghai Summer School different countries studied 12 live case studies situated and former DRL Course Master in Berlin before developing their own visions. Working within categories such as Living Machines, Organic Living, Urban Living, Communal Regimes, Venice: Beyond Visiting Urban Villas and Self-organised Living provided a 26–31 August 2010 framework in which to launch into individual projects. The Venice Visiting School took place during the On-site experiences involved learning about self- three days of Vernissage at the 12th Architecture organised housing and meeting many of its Biennale. It was part of a larger ‘Venetian Experience’ protagonists, sneaking into numerous households, that included the exhibition of Beyond Entropy reflecting on Eisenman’s grids, meeting John Hejduk’s prototypes and the international symposium. The daughter Renata, playing crazy golf on the rooftop of visiting school focused on ‘visiting’ as a main vehicle the local commune and many all-nighters in Berlin’s for architectural research: as in the ‘Grand Tour’ bars and in front of the computer. tradition, the action of visiting exposes students both to the cultural legacy of classical architecture and By Marianne Mueller and Olaf Kneer, Unit to the contemporary experimentation of the Masters, Diploma Unit 1 and Berlin Laboratory international pavilions. Visiting is an active form Programme Directors of architectural engagement: rather than producing images, drawings, models or maps, the students were Visiting Schools also took place in Madrid, Bangalore asked to observe; to look at the pavilions, to talk to and Tokyo, and in London the AA hosted its Summer curators, artists and architects as well as to move School and Visiting Teachers’ Programme with the crowds populating the Giardini and Arsenale. Far from being a contemporary form of tourism or cultural pilgrimage, Beyond Visiting exposed the students and tutors to the extraordinary variety of research, experimentation and suggestions that 18 DENNIS SHARP

30 October 1933 – 5 May 2010 Dennis Sharp By Mollie Claypool

Dennis typing in front of an open window on Bedford Square (c. late 1970s) Photo: AA Archives As an educator, historian and practi- 50 years of investigation into archi- tioner within a field with a multitude tectural history, practice and theory. of modes of production, from draw- The strength and brevity of the ing to building, Dennis Sharp found writings he chose to commemorate his most poignant voice through the his own career range from personal art of words. As editor and writer, accounts of the careers and life of he produced an astounding body of close friends and family, which Paul texts both externally and within the Oliver and Dennis’s wife, Yasmin Architectural Association. Produced Shariff, have emulated in this in tandem with the development newsletter supplement, to editori- of his architectural practice, writing als for the Architectural Association enabled Dennis to explicitly address Quarterly which Edward Bottoms the broad spectrum of his interests discusses in his lecture transcript, in architecture and planning. to letters from readers as to Throughout my studies and the importance of his contribution now in the beginnings of an aca- to architectural pedagogy, as Simon demic career, I have until recently Whittle addresses in his piece on only had a casual acquaintance to the Sharp Prize. Dennis’s work, studying his writing Any editorial process is difficult, on the English house in Mackintosh especially when confronted with and Muthesius and assigning The the work of a master. It is one of Anti-Rationalists and the Rationalists addition and subtraction; active and as reading for a course on modern- passive interpretation. In the proc- ism. I became directly familiar with ess of discovering the intricacies Dennis’s work in the final months of the great coherency and compre- of his life, when I began the project hensible nature of the work of of compiling and editing a compre- Dennis Sharp, he has left me with hensive survey of his most seminal an invaluable lesson in how to pro- pieces of writing for a forthcoming voke and juxtapose while maintain- AA publication. This process began ing editorial clarity and consistency. in a very clear way, as Dennis, with His writing undoubtedly was and the aid of his wife Yasmin, outlined is an invaluable contribution to the what he believed to be his most ever-evolving landscape of architec- important works in a categorised tural discourse. list. Divided into sections showing the specificity of his various strands of research, the list encompassed Dennis Sharp Memorial, 1 July 2010 Talk originally given by Edward Bottoms, AA Archivist

I want to talk briefly about Dennis AA Quarterly and the AA Quarterly. I became What marked the AA Quarterly out personally acquainted with Dennis from its predecessor journals at recently, when we were setting up the AA, and indeed placed it at the the AA Archives in 2007. He was ex- forefront of contemporary architec- tremely generous in taking the time tural journals, was its international to visit our collections, sit down scope, intellectual range and the with us and talk through our plans. sheer quality of the writing. Contribu- Enthusing over student drawings tors included Charles Jencks, of the 1920s and 30s and lending Bruno Zevi, William Curtis, Colin strong, sympathetic but neverthe- Rowe, Amos Rapoport, Lucien Kroll, less firm advice, he instantly as- Tim Benton, Colin Rowe, Adrian sessed where we needed help and Forty – the list goes on. It reads as gently urged us to be more forceful a roll call, a Who’s Who of architec- and vocal in pressing our case. tural luminaries. It felt like being provided with a The conception of the AAQ benign, but firm, guiding push to get took place in 1968. Dennis had us travelling in the right direction. been hired the previous year to replace Frank Duffy as the editor of the AA’s journal Arena, whilst also teaching two days a week as Senior Lecturer in History. At this stage Arena was haemorrhaging money and was merged with Inter- build, the trade journal produced by built up, mixing work with socialising Prefabrication Publications Limited. and pleasure; an extended family As an attempt to share costs, adver- of contributors who could be drawn tisements and, ultimately, reader- upon for reviews, comments and ship, this merge failed dismally, with topical articles. Indeed, Dennis’s the publisher pulling out in 1968. editorial role has been described This failure provided Dennis with the to me as something of an impresa- golden opportunity to put forward rio, combining talent spotting with proposals for a new, invigorated and superb editorial judgement. For more broadly-based academic jour- example, Dennis published Charles nal. In his own words: ‘We had to Jencks’s ‘Pop Non-Pop’ article in invent a new magazine and I was de- two issues of AAQ in 1968, while termined that we would invent [one] Jencks was still a PhD student at that had a literary content, that was UCL. Michael Sorkin was also given something like a combination of the opportunity to publish impor- Encounter, Horizon, Time Magazine, tant early work while he was still and so on, with short, sharp articles studying at Harvard, including the but written to the length that was 1975 article ‘The Architect: A New required for someone to make a American Movie Hero’, which looked point.’ Its principal aim was to cre- at films such asDeath Wish and ate an international magazine that Towering Inferno. Likewise, promis- could be academic, critical, topical ing AA students were promoted and and theoretical, and which [crucially] brought into Dennis’s circle, such would be unfettered by discussions as Ken Yeang, who had his fifth year of built work.’ portfolio drawings published Indeed, key to the AAQ’s edito- as a pictorial essay in the ‘First Real rial approach was Dennis’s interna- Ersazt Architecture’ of 1972. Two tional awareness and range of con- years after his AA graduation, Robin tacts. A few years into his editorship Evans had his study of Bentham’s he was able to boast that ‘contribu- Panoptican published in 1971, tors so far have come from... the pre-dating Foucault’s Discipline & USA, France, Germany, Switzerland, Punish by some four years. Puerto Rico, Spain, Latin America, In terms of breadth of themes, Malta, Poland, Holland, etc.’ AAQ ran the gamut, from profession- Central to this international alism to social and building needs, scope was the network of friends architecture and politics to historical and contributors that Dennis had analysis. There was a prescient con- cern with energy questions, with one following, [and] elaborating a whole particularly important issue, The system of analysis and so on, and Human Setting, in 1970, which was then, at the end of the two term jointly edited with Amos Rapoport. programme, students were left to As Dennis himself said, ‘we had themselves to actually produce everyone writing for us, from their magazine’. Students gradu- Wedgewood Benn to Paolo Soleri’. ated and were brought on board Which other major journal would the AAQ as editorial staff. Amongst have published a nine-page spread those students nurtured by Dennis entitled ‘Motoralama: Introduc- through the course were the archi- ing Gerald the Herald’ – a comic tectural journalist Neil Steedman as strip following the adventures of well as Martin Spring, who worked a Triumph Herald and conceived for AD before going on to become by Piers Gough, Philip Wagner and the architectural editor at Building Diana Jowsey in the same issue magazine. Indeed, in many ways as a rigorous examination of pre- the course seems to have been an Columbian Mexican architecture by extension of Dennis’s approach at John Adams, an article investigating the AA Quarterly – guiding and nur- ocean systems by Farooq Hussain turing talent – which in turn fed into and include discussions of Paulo the AAQ network – and encourag- Soleri’s arcology? ing experimentation combined with Dennis’s work with the AAQ rigorous, open-minded exploration was only part of his concerns with of the broadest range of issues. architectural journalism and writing within the AA. In conjunction with his With grateful thanks to Yasmin more general editorial duties Shariff and Peter Wylde on such publications as the monthly, AA Notes, the series AA Papers and a host of other AA publications and texts, Dennis also operated an ar- chitectural journalism and criticism workshop for students. He seemed to be particularly proud of this course which aimed to ‘get an instant magazine out of students – the sessions covering journalism one week, criticism the Covers of AA Quarterly, edited by Dennis from 1968–1982 AA Archives

A Tribute to Dennis Sharp By Yasmin Shariff

Dennis Sharp loved the AA and all series. These books led Dennis to- it had to offer. Its influence guided wards to the history of art course he everything he did from the time attended at the Luton College of Art. he joined as a student until his death Despite his experience he still on 5 May, 2010. had to join the third year before he He started his career at the prac- could enter the Diploma School at tice of Sir Albert Richardson whose the AA. Dennis was a hardworking close association with the Bartlett at student; many of his projects received UCL meant that Dennis went against distinctions and were archived. He the advice of his mentor in joining won a Travel Scholarship in 1955, the AA in 1954. His experience in which enabled him to visit continen- Richardson’s office, in addition to the tal Europe, where he discovered the fact that his father and grandfather architectural delights of Alvar Aalto in were both builders, gave Dennis a Finland, Sigurd Lewerentz in Sweden solid grounding in architectural history and Walter Gropius in Germany. and the practicalities of construction. Whenever Dennis spoke of his Although Richardson’s practice time as a student at the AA, the enig- was committed to the modernist matic tutor Arthur Korn would inevi- attitude, it lacked the intellectual tably be mentioned. Korn’s commit- stimulus that Dennis needed as a ment, passionate optimism and belief young architect. Library books from in man, architecture and planning the Bedford County Library boosted as the most powerful instruments in his knowledge, and he even became making the world a better place was interested in the distinct landscape shared by his enthusiastic student. shape of the architecture shelves, Dennis played an active part in AA life, from which he borrowed texts by setting up the Architecture and Chris- Le Corbusier and Frank Lloyd Wright. tianity group, and when he became In the library, there were also a few a member of staff he set up the AA volumes of Skira’s History of Art Friday Night Jazz Club. The latter group enjoyed the presence of high-calibre (1991), as well as surveys of the musicians such as Don Rendell, Bar- work of Santiago Calatrava, Manfredi bara Thompson and Stan Tracey, who Nicoletti, Richard England and Kisho would sit in before retreating to more Kurokawa. The RIBA Library now has lucrative venues down the road such over 300 titles under his name. More as Ronnie Scott’s. These sessions recent publications include the new were advertised and reported in the translation of the three-volume set of AA Notes and the Events List. books by Hermann Muthesius called He moved to Liverpool University The English House (2007). Just before to study for a Masters Degree after his death he saw the completion of a graduating from the AA in 1957 with comprehensive survey on the Modern- the Ralph Knott Memorial Scholarship. ist architects Connell Ward and Lucas. His thesis at Liverpool, ‘Expression- The AA is currently in the process ism in Modern of compiling Architecture’, some of his provided Den- most impor- nis with a rich tant writ- source of ma- ings, due for terial for sev- publication in eral books. In 2011. 1968, Gradu- Dennis’s ate School writings were Director Paul complimented Oliver appoint- by exhibitions ed Dennis that he curat- as the Head of Council Lunch. Photo Valerie Bennett ed. Early in his History Studies. time at the AA Dennis’s remarkable knowledge of he set up an exhibition programme, architecture enabled him to be an in- filling the Front Members’ Room spiring lecturer. Yet, as was evident in with exhibitions on German Housing, the journals and books that he edited, Hermann Finsterlin and the Picture he was sensitive to the perception Palace. Dennis went on to launch The of others. Works include The Bauhaus Architecture Centre at the RIBA with a (1993); Twentieth Century Architec- major exhibition on Santiago Calatrava ture: A Visual History (4th edition: in 1992. 2002), and The Illustrated Encyclo- He was involved in other or- paedia of Architects and Architecture ganisations outside the AA. He was a co-founder of the 30s Society (now the Twentieth-Century Society), CICA – the Committee of International Architec- tural Critics and DoCoMoMo (Docu- menting and Conservation of Modern Movement buildings). He played an ac- tive part on RIBA Council (1991–95), the Worshipful Company of Architects and the AA Council (1994–2010). His practice, Dennis Sharp Architects, was founded in Manchester in 1964, and ran throughout his working career, un- dertaking a vast range of projects. He was master of architectural detailing due to his construction knowledge and a designer of great skill and vision. However, Dennis had few oppor- tunities in his design career, and his scholarly work overshadowed his work in his practice. He was seen by the profession as a prolific architectural writer and critic, making an important contribution to our understanding and knowledge of architecture and architects. He helped further the career of many and will continue to do so through the Sharp Prize for Architectural Writing that has been set up by the AA. Obituary: Dennis Sharp 30 October 1933 – 5 May 2010 By Paul Oliver

Dennis Sharp Architects, the archi- I knew Dennis personally for tectural practice developed over 40 years, having first met him in partnership with Yasmin Shariff, while teaching and lecturing at was based in St Albans during the the AA. In 1962, I was invited to 1970s, and later in London. At each reorganise the History of Architec- location the premises functioned ture course. As it was given in a as an architectural bookshop, single sequence of weekly lectures, enhanced with an art gallery where students had to wait two years selective exhibitions were held for before more recent architecture public view. The work of the practice was discussed. In order to avoid was largely devoted to the conserva- their missing an important stage in tion, restoration and renovation their studies I proposed a parallel of listed buildings, such as those of Modern Architecture History course. the Royal Ascot Racecourse and the At the time, I was also Editor of the Baseri House in Grosvenor Square. AA Journal and had published a fea- Other commissions included the ture entitled ‘Rudolf Steiner and the renovation of the Renault Centre Way to a New Style in Architecture’ in Swindon, which was originally de- (AAJ vol 79, June 1963) and, in De- signed by Norman Foster, and that cember that year, an unprecedented of the Flat Roofed House by archi- supplement The Modern Movement tect Colin Lucas. The nature of their in Architecture: a Biographical professional practice helped prepare Bibliography. Both were by former Dennis Sharp for the work for which AA student, Dennis Sharp, who he has become best known: his pro- explored new ground with his book lific writing and lecturing on various Modern Architecture and Expres- architect’s designs and buildings. sionism (Longman, 1966). Dennis was then teaching at the University paedia of Architects and Architec- of Manchester but when we met in ture (Quarto, 1991). London, I knew that he was essen- Apart from travelling and pho- tial for the course I had defined. tographing extensively in order to We planned it together, and when experience the architecture himself, I became director of the new AA Dennis Sharp also had one of the Graduate School in 1967, he was largest personally collected librar- appointed head of History Studies. ies on the subject, which is evident Dennis’s vast architectural in his book Sources of Modern knowledge and sensitivity to col- Architecture: A Critical Bibliography leagues and peers was evident (1981). He was an avid collector of in the journals and books that he books on all aspects of architecture edited, such as Planning and Archi- as I well know from our shared trips tecture; Essays Presented to Arthur to the bookshops of St Albans and Korn by the Architectural Associa- elsewhere. Our other mutual inter- tion (1967). When Dennis was made ests were in the arts, including stud- general editor for the AA in 1968 ies in painting and sculpture, and he initiated the AA Quarterly and in the music of blues and jazz, produced the series AA Papers. He which sadly, we can no longer share. wrote hundreds of articles, features Dennis Sharp will be greatly and reviews in such publications as missed, not only by his family, Building, Concrete Quarterly, Build- but also by all who knew his lec- ing Design, Architects Journal tures and his engaging personality and many more, for both European and those throughout the world and North American publishers. who have benefited from his prolific Throughout his working life published writings. Dennis was writing books, which Dennis is survived by his were often innovatory, such as daughter Melanie; wife, Yasmin The Picture Palace and Other Build- Shariff and their son Deen. ings for the Movies (Evelyn, 1969). He wrote with great skill, basing Paul Oliver MBE is former AA his data on intensive research. His academic staff and a Graduate texts are highly readable, often witty School examiner and always accurate. His biographi- cal writings were extended multi- nationally with his editing of The Rationalists: The Illustrated Encyclo- Sharp Words: Selected Writings of Dennis Sharp AA Publications, 2011

To commemorate the life and work Goff. Punctuating these texts will of Dennis Sharp, and his contribu- also be a number of editorials from tion to the academic and publishing his days as editor of AAQ, which culture of the Architectural Associa- graphically as much as intellectually, tion, in 2011 AA Publications will be offers emblems (still striking today) producing a volume of his selected of his time at the AA. essays. The book itself will be produced With so much written material in the spring of 2011 and will to process, making the selection be available at the AA Bookshop was no easy task, but with Mollie and website (www.aaschool.ac.uk/ Claypool as assistant editor we have publications) as well as through put together a variety of essays that bookshops the world over. tries to touch upon each of Dennis’s particular architectural fascinations By Thomas Weaver, Managing – among them, glass architecture, Editor, AA Print Studio Charles Rennie Mackintosh, thea- tres and picture palaces, masters of concrete, the pioneering research he carried out on English modern- ism and the MARS group, together with a handful of interviews and obituaries on figures like Kisho Kurokawa, Bruno Zevi and Bruce Sharp Words

Selected writings of Dennis Sharp The Dennis Sharp Prize By Simon Whittle

The importance of critical thinking develop a written argument within a within the design process is an un- thesis. My thesis – which won last equivocal tenet of the AA School’s year’s Dennis Sharp Prize – was a pedagogy. Of equal importance, re-reading of the spatial condition of however, is a critical approach the room as a critique of contempo- to the theories and ideas – both rary modes of production and social contemporary and historical – that organisation, drawing on the histori- underpin architecture. By engaging cal precedents of Sebastiano Serlio with these ideas – by understand- and Louis Kahn and the theoretical ing, questioning and reformulating viewpoints of Hannah Arendt and them – it is possible to create work Paul Virilio. that has a deeper relevance. This year, the Dennis Sharp The Dennis Sharp Prize has Prize will be accompanied by a been established to encourage and ‘Sharp Talk’ bringing together support enquiries of this kind. It is students, tutors, critics and histori- awarded every year to the author ans. This will be an opportunity of an outstanding essay written for for students to present emerging History and Theory Studies. Dennis ideas to more established practi- Sharp was intimately involved in the tioners, and for everyone to find a development of critical thought moment of reflection in this ever- and historical understanding at the changing world. AA through his work as editor, writer, A book of selected essays by tutor and council member. The prize Dennis Sharp will be published in preserves his legacy and helps the coming year by AA Publications. foster a new generation of archi- tects who value writing as an equal Simon Whittle is an alumnus part of architectural expression. of the AA Alongside their design work in the Diploma School, students Global Venic Venic: Cedric Price at the Venice Biennale 2010

An unfeasibly tiny but no-less chock-full room in the Palazzo del Esposizioni pays homage to one of the giants of th twentieth-century in architecture, Cedric Price (1934–2003), AA Dipl 1958. The exhibition celebrates Price the communicator, the thinker, ‘the observer of human nature’*, and more importantly, an architect for the 21st century. The idea for the room grew from a series of recorded conversations between Obrist and Price between 1998–2003. Amongst the encyclopedic array of subject matter covered (typically Pricean) a specific reference to sketchbooks led Obrist to invite Samantha Hardingham (AA First Year Master) to make a selection of previously unseen drawings from Price’s personal notebooks, and to present earlier screen footage dating back to 1975. Samantha Hardingham is currently researching and writing a Complete Works of Cedric Price in Three Volumes. For Price, the notebook sketches ‘serve as a personal reminder’; some are the finest and funniest cartoons capturing an idea in a few lines, often peopled with characters from Price’s world. Others are diagrams or sectional sketches showing the workings out of issues of scale or logistics; describing an architecture of both mobile and fixed elements assembling and dispersing over time. The room also features an online project conceived at the department for Exhibition Design and Curatorial Practice at the Hochschule für Gestaltung Karlsruhe (HfG). The website (http://huoarchive.hfg-karlsruhe.de) comprises hundreds of individually edited video-clips taken from Obrists recorded conversations and tagged according to specific key words, which can be used to generate a live, albeit fictional, conversation between Cedric Price and the user. *From The Pickwick Papers or The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club by Charles Dickens (1836–37) – a CP favourite.

Exhibition curated by Hans Ulrich Obrist and Samantha Hardingham

Special thanks to Eleanor Bron, The Canadian Centre for Architecture, Montreal, The Architectural Association Photo Library and The Institute of the 21st Century

Play it...all the time (c.1971) – Image courtesy of the Cedric Price Estate, London 19 Global Beyond Entropy in Venice By Roz Jackson

‘Beyond Entropy: When Energy Becomes Form’ is understanding of how this spring will respond; the ongoing collaborative project between artists, thereby resisting entropy. What we cannot know is architects and scientists developing new thinking the realisation of this energy, so we rely on theoretical about energy. Curated by Stefano Rabolli Pansera constructions to understand its existence. The and sponsored by Digital Technology Solutions, prototype focuses on the rigidity of the individual RePower and Bersi Serlini, ‘Beyond Entropy’ was machine, and the contrasting randomness of the prompted by the need to assess how energy is events happening within it. politically, economically and culturally impacting Complimenting this exhibition was the on our global future. marathon symposium event, held on 27 August from The project’s first phase involved a symposium 1pm – 12am, where a broad range of international held at CERN in Geneva (see AArchitecture 12), where speakers spoke to some 800 guests about energy. The the artists, scientists and architects formed groups, potential of energy can arise anywhere, as illustrated each focusing on one particular form of energy. Using by the diversity of the speakers’ backgrounds and the titles of nuclear, electric, gravitational, mass, specialities, ranging from philosophy to geography. thermal, potential, chemical and mechanical, they Angelo Merlino, a scientist working as a steered their minds towards new thinking on energy. mechanical engineer for CERN, delivered his talk, With this unique collaboration, the result was the entitled ‘Revealing the Origin of the Universe designing and producing of prototypes demonstrating through High Energy Accelerators’. CERN’s Large their thinking thus far in relating energy to space and Hadron Collider (LHC) has the potential to form. revolutionise our way of thinking about the universe, On 26 August 2010 the Architectural by studying the smallest particles of the world’s Association launched the second phase of the project origins that act as building blocks for all matter. – the ‘Beyond Entropy: When Energy Becomes Form’ Angelo addressed some of the questions CERN hopes exhibition, held at the Fondazione Cini on the island to answer through the experiments of the LHC, such of San Giorgio Maggiore in Venice. A group of AA as: ‘What is the origin of mass?’ and ‘In how many staff and students also travelled to Venice to be part of space-time dimensions do we live?’ this ambitious project; a Collateral Event, part of the Reinier de Graaf, a partner for the leading twelfth Architectural Biennale, which housed these international architectural practice OMA, presented eight prototypes, encouraging public participation in ‘Roadmap 2050’. On offer was his architectural the debate about energy. response to today’s looming climate crisis. We must For example, architect Vittorio Pizzigoni, treat climate change as a trans-national issue that artist Alberto Garutti and scientist Giuseppe Celardo needs to be addressed accordingly. In support of this collaborated to work on a prototype for Electric Roadmap 2050 he proposes a decarbonised power energy. As energy cannot be stored and reserved, grid for Europe based entirely on renewable energy we rely on it to be produced when we require it; every sources. Consequently we would welcome a future second of every day. This energy is not delivered from where European regions derive their identity from one place, but rather it is brought to its users at the their main source of renewable energy, and not from Fondazione Cini via a complicated network of sources. their culture. Perhaps it is time for architects to save In this case, 100 people are responsible for this the world. sophisticated system, and it is the ambition of ‘Beyond Beyond Entropy will next feature in Milan Entropy’ to bring them to the exhibition next year, for where Stefano Rabboli Pansera, Stefano Boeri, Pier the final phase of the project. 100 empty chairs await Alain Croset and other scientists and philosophers will their arrival. gather for a one day round-table event to continue the Under the heading Potential Energy, architect discussion on energy, space and form. It is then the Julian Loeffler, artist Peter Liversidge and scientist intention that the project will return to Venice for Roberto Trotta joined forces to create their prototype its concluding phase, as part of the 2011 Art Biennale, resembling a pinball machine. Here energy is stored where the final installations from the collaborative in a metal spring in the form of potential. We know groups will be exhibited. that when that spring is stretched, energy is required to perform this action, and we have an ordered Roz Jackson is an AA Development Officer 20 Outside the Fondazione Cini on the island of San Giorgio Maggiore

Mechanical Energy Prototype by Shin Egashira and Andrew Jaffe, with initial input from Attila Csorgo. Photos Valerie Bennett 21 Global Architecture on Display Book Launch

The book, Architecture on Display, a research initiative served as a model for a range of international by Aaron Levy and William Menking, was launched exhibitions. This book explores the Biennale through by AA Publications on 27 August 2010 at the the directors who established its particular discourse, Fondazione Cini at the 2010 Venice Architecture including Vittorio Gregotti, Paolo Portoghesi, Biennale. The publication consists of interviews with Francesco Dal Co, Kurt W Forster, Massimiliano each of the living directors of the Venice Biennale Fuksas, Hans Hollein, Richard Burdett, Deyan Sudjic, for Architecture. The origins of the Architecture Aaron Betsky and this year’s director, Kazuyo Sejima, Biennale are generally traced back to the 1970s, when as well as the current president of the Venice Biennale, it emerged from under the umbrella of the larger Paolo Barrata. These conversations do not seek to Venice Biennale, which was itself established in 1895. recapitulate the exhibitions themselves but rather Since then it has become one of the most prestigious explore the questions that these raise, with the hope forums for architectural discourse today, and has of offering a model for future curatorial endeavours. 22 Global Other Babel by Emanuel de Sousa

Take Note: Bernard Tschumi. Joyce’s Garden. 1976. Photo courtesy of Bernard Tschumi

Founded in 1979, the CCA (Canadian Centre for On yet another adventurous journey, which Architecture) Study Center is an international started forty years ago after the 1969 moon landing, research centre and museum devoted to the exhibition ‘Other Space Odysseys’ – curated by interdisciplinary research on architectural thought Caatrina Borasi and Mirko Zardini – presented three and practice through its Visiting Scholars Programme. responses to questions of space travel and inhabitation Linking advanced research with public engagement in of extraterrestrial realities. From the simple tools of a architecture, the CCA encourages scholars, students, farmer to digital animation tools, the exhibition traced architects and other professionals to advance new lines the work of architects Greg Lynn, Michael Maltzan of discourse and investigation in a connective inquiry and Alessandro Poli. Greg Lynn’s ‘New Outer that cuts across time, space, and media and to enable Atmospheric Habitat’ (NOAH), showed four planets research into the changing character of thought and developed for the science fiction film Divide, perception of the built environment. exploring the notion of ‘ground’ in the absence of From Gordon Matta-Clark’s handwritten notes gravity. Michael Maltzan’s ‘Jet Propulsion Laboratory’ on anarchitecture to Aldo Rossi’s sketches for la cittá (JPL), a NASA laboratory in Pasadena, proposed a análoga, the odyssey within this contemporary collaborative physical environment between the heroic Tower of Babel spans from the Renaissance to the sublimity of the received outer space image and the present day. day-to-day technical and bureaucratic life of the What began over 50 years ago, as a private ongoing Cassini mission. On the other hand, collection by the architect Phyllis Lambert, now holds Alessandro Poli presented a changed vision of planet more than 100,000 prints and drawings, 60,000 Earth – from Architettura Interplanetaria (1972), a film photographs, 150 archives, 215,000 volumes and by Superstudio, of which Poli was a member, to their over 5,000 periodical titles. The ongoing exhibitions research for Cultura Materiale Extraurbana. From and public programmes, both local and international the highway to the moon to the fictional protagonist in scope, reveal the collection linking architectural Zeno, the Tuscan peasant, Poli’s reflections are thought and practice, the history of ideas, and crystallised in the collage Zeno and Aldrin Meet in changing social and cultural conditions. Riparbella (2008), highlighting the rediscovery of ‘Take Note’, curated by Sylvia Lavin with Earth – and the way we inhabit it – through the UCLA students – the fifth in a series of CCA exploration of space. exhibitions developed in collaboration with universities – presented snapshots of pivotal moments Emanuel de Sousa is a PhD Candidate and HTS in the ongoing relationship between writing and teaching assistant, and recipient of the AA/CCA architecture. Lavin explains: in the 60s, ‘the page Research Collection Grant Scheme 2010 became a site for design and texts became architectural works in their own right’. www.cca.qc.ca 23 Global AA Bookshop and Bedford Press

AA Bookshop/Bedford Press Stand in the Off Press section, Art Basel 41, 16–20 June 2010. Photos Zak Kyes

The AA Bookshop and Bedford Press are collaborating in presenting publications at a number of key international events this year:

Salon Light 7 Au Point Ephémère 200 Quai de Valmy – 75010 Paris 22–24 October 2010 AA Bookshop & Bedford Press stand at this annual curated book fair as part of the programming of FIAC

NY Art Book Fair MoMA PS1, Long Island City, Queens 5–7 November 2010 AA Bookshop & Bedford Press will have a project room presenting a new work by artist Joseph Grigely alongside a temporary AA Bookshop

AA Bookshop 36 Bedford Square, London WC1B 3ES Tel +44 (0)20 7887 4041 www.aabookshop.net 24 Documents The Architectural Association Foster + Partners Prize

The annual AA/ Foster + Partners Prize is given to existing building. I aim to salvage a portion of the the AA Fifth Year Diploma student whose portfolio existing building in order to utilise this largely empty best addresses the themes of sustainability and building, prior, during and after its assumed future infrastructure. The essential aims of this new prize development as the Royal London continues to grow. are to forge stronger links between Foster + Partners By reactivating the mothballed mail rail as the and the AA and to encourage students to address ‘medi-rail’ I can help to network the Royal London themes that are of increasing relevance to architecture. through to the major central London hospitals, The winner is presented with the award at the AA’s alleviating the pressures on the heavily used medical graduation awards ceremony and invited to exhibit the couriers at ground level, and providing a safe and rapid work at Foster + Partners. The jury was held on 21 distribution route for medical material and samples to June, with presentations from six students, nominated and from the UK’s largest hospital. In doing so I also by the Academic Head in consultation with the have the opportunity to reveal this historical and Diploma Tutors following the Diploma Committee. currently hidden infrastructure of the mail rail, to the public, whilst simultaneously creating a new platform Project Description connection to the East London line and Whitechapel My proposal aims to bridge the infrastructural and station and at basement level, entrances to the development gaps of the local area. Through the hospital. Above ground the structural skeleton of introduction of a new medical and transport hub, the existing building is utilised to house a blood focussed on the sorting and distribution of medical donation distribution and disassembly station for the components and blood donation, my project aims to Royal London hospital, connecting to the hospital help network the Royal London Hospital development and distributing via the mail rail. This new organ for across Whitechapel and beyond. The project makes Whitechapel and the local area will act as a core for use of the former East District Post office on the future medical development of the rest of the site Whitechapel Road, adjacent to the Royal London as the remainder of the building is demolished and Hospital and Whitechapel tube station. The site itself redeveloped in the future. sits at an interesting infrastructural junction of the newly reopened East London Line and the historical By Aimee O’Carroll, an alumnus of the AA and infrastructure of the Mail Rail, deep underneath the winner of the inaugural Foster + Partners’ Prize 25 Documents New from AA Publications: Autumn 2010

Space as Membrane Marseille Mix Siegfried Ebeling William Firebrace With essays by Walter Scheiffele 248 pp and Spyros Papapetros 225 x 140 mm paperback 68 pp, col. & b/w ills October 2010 270 x 220 mm, paperback 978-1-902902-95-1 October 2010 £18 978-1-902902-92-0 £15 Marseille Mix describes the city of Marseille, its culture, buildings, gastronomy, cinematic images, What if architecture was no longer 3D or 2D, history, planning, language, music, detective stories, mass or surface, object or space? What if the criminology. These aspects create a complex ever architectural environment was envisioned not as an shifting image. Once one of the busiest ports in the abstract continuum but as a material envelope that world, its harbour is now largely empty. Marseille has grows organically from the human body, uniting its lost its traditional purpose. The book uses various skin with the periphery of a city, a region or a forms of writing – essay, narrative, description, list, continent, even the entire earthly atmosphere? recipe, glossary, conversation – to examine the city This hypothesis informs the 1926 essay ‘Space as and investigate its defining mix. William Firebrace Membrane’, by former Bauhaus student, architect and teaches in various London schools of architecture cosmological theorist Siegfried Ebeling. The first including the AA. English translation of Ebeling’s original treatise. The AA includes within its charter the promotion of architecture through publications. Today, thanks to the AA’s unique position at the centre of the international architectural scene, AA Publications has become a major architectural publishing house, with a reputation for innovative and finely produced publications. www.aaschool.ac.uk/publications 26 Documents New from Bedford Press: Autumn 2010

Civic City Cahier 2 Maelfa Design and Democracy Sean Edwards & Sam Jacob Gui Bonsiepe 64 pp, 2 col. 68 pp, 2 col. 136 x 185 mm, paperback 115 x 190 mm, November 2010 paperback with dust jacket 978-1-907414-09-1 November 2010 £12 978-1-907414-11-4 £8 Maelfa is the focus of artist Sean Edwards’s portrait of the near derelict Maelfa Shopping Centre in Rejecting the economically narrowed neoliberal Llanedeyrn. The book is composed of images shot as definition of democracy, Gui Bonsiepe claims for the research for his filmMaelfa (2010) which touches upon potential of design to promote democracy. Design and the poignancy of disappearing communities and failed Democracy introduces a concept of design activities utopian aspirations. Included is a text by Sam Jacob which aim to interpret the needs of social groups and on the architectural history of the centre. to develop viable emancipative proposals in the form of material and semiotic artifacts. This short text is Bedford Press was initiated by the Architectural accompanied by an interview with the author and a Association (AA), London in 2008 as a reprint of early 1970s material from Chile. publishing imprint of AA Publications Ltd that seeks to develop contemporary models of publication practice. It aims to establish a more responsive model of small-scale publishing, nimble enough to encompass the entire chain of production in a single fluid activity, from initial commission to the final printing. Its output includes publications, pamphlets, posters and limited edition prints. www.bedfordpress.org

27 Legacy Publish on Demand or Demand to be Published by Scrap Marshall

White Rabbit cover, 1970, AA Archive

Printing in the form of producing ‘books’ now seems Bedford Press and the AA Archive). As part of the emblematic of an architectural student’s education. course, student researchers and editors are currently Vast tomes are compiled each year to illustrate what in the process of investigating the content of these was ‘learnt’ or how hard someone has worked during publications to form a timeline of the provocative the year: backbreaking tomes of varying size, bursting and irreverent, often satirical and imaginative, and with drawings, diagrams, photographs and images occasionally bewildering and ridiculous publishing that explain technical and intellectual gymnastics activities within in the AA. This new student For over 120 years, however, another form publication will compile extracts and facsimiles from of printing has been active within the AA’s walls. the original publications in the AA Archive with News-sheets, newspapers, magazines, journals, analysis and opinions, interviews with protagonists, pamphlets and manifestos have been continually writers and editors and newly commissioned written produced by students to provoke thought (and people), texts. Rather than being a pragmatic or nostalgic announce intentions (wild and tame) and engage with history, the publication aims to question both the past and demand change in both their own education and and future role, if there is indeed one, of student the wider, often ambivalent, architectural publishing in the AA, and in turn, the wider establishment. (See ‘The Purple Patch to architectural community. Sexymachinery: 100 Years of AA Student Journals’ Further research and workshops are planned by Edward Bottoms, AArchitecture 1) for this academic year with a publication date in 2011. From the recently unearthed Architecting Interested students must sign up for all second term News of the 1880s to Sexymachinery in the twenty-first Media Studies courses including ‘Publish on Demand’ century, this form of publishing has encompassed during week 11 of the Autumn Term. the demands of Focus in the 1930s, the provocations of ARse in the 70s and the urban experiments of Scrap Marshall is a fourth year student and a NATO in the 1980s. Printing in this form, whether student editor of AArchitecture it comprises single newssheets with miniscule print runs, handed out in staircases, or finely printed If there are any students, tutors or alumni who sponsored journals sold in the thousands, has been a were involved in the production of any self- vital part of the independence and health of both initiated or alternative publications and would students and tutors in Bedford Square for many years. like to share materials or thoughts, then The Course ‘Publish on Demand’ was initiated please contact Scrap Marshall by AA Art Director Zak Kyes in 2009 within the ([email protected]) or Jan Nauta framework of AA Media Studies (in collaboration with ([email protected]). 28 NEWS Snow from Mount Fuji: Shin and Carolina’s Wedding Ceremony in Koshirakura by Valentin Bontjes van Beek

Group picture taken the night of the wedding The morning after, remains from the party scattered ceremony. Photo Miki Takafumi around the moving house. Photo Hiroe Shigemitsu

You take the train from Tokyo station north to Nigata a manifestation of their (and the village’s) serious for about 90 minutes and get off at Echigoyuzawa commitment and bond to Shin and his work. station, which during the winter months, I was told, The wedding celebration was held on a large serves as the portal to the ‘Snow Mountain’. You exit plateau above the school where ‘the moving house’ the station through an indoor farmers’ market, where is located, slightly further up the hill from the the sound of women’s voices shouting ‘Irasshaimase!’ swimming pool, into which everyone gets thrown (‘Welcome!’) reverberates around the hall. during the ‘Momigi Hiki Matsuri’ (the Maple Festival). Two hours later we arrive in Koshirakura the For the wedding party the students built location of the wedding and the place where the couple a forest of halfway split bamboo structures, elegantly met one year before. We enter the village from the bending arches holding candles in their centre. A top, driving down a small serpentine road. We could Brazilian and an American chef slowly cooked a 50kg be in Switzerland, only for the fact that we know we pig. The DJ started out by playing soft reggae music are in Japan. A humming sound is in the air: while the villagers prepared a large fresh fish dragonflies, cicadas and abundant heat. It is the day for sashimi. A small car had arrived delivering snow after the wedding. We drive by the oh-so-familiar from Mount Fuji – a bed for the fish. 200 people were looking bus stop; the viewing platform, and the little expected. This is what I was told. station built around the mountain spring’s well. This As we drive down the road the next celebration side of the road is now in shade. Just around the bend is about to begin. An annual festival, a workshop and lies the village centre, where people are getting ready a wedding are all part of the village’s story. I regret not for another celebration. being here the night before to congratulate Carolina Students have been travelling here for the past and Shin, but by now the music and the soju of the next 15 years to spend around two weeks at a time building celebration is already engulfing me, preventing me structures for the village, seeing and living something from continuing this line of thought. quite magically ‘Japanese’ and becoming a part of this remote village and its community. This year many Valentin Bontjes van Beek is a First Year Master have come back as guests to a wedding celebration, 29 NEWS Summer Office Moves

32 Bedford Square, First Floor Back. Photo Valerie Bennett

The AA has recently completed a long process of The following administrative offices are now acquiring several new properties along the west side in new locations: of Bedford Square and on Morwell Street. It now occupies a continuous set of properties from 32 to 39 The Office of the Company Secretary has Bedford Square, and 16–18 Morwell Street. This large moved to the second floor of 32 Bedford Square. acquisition of new properties has allowed the AA School to consolidate its activities on Bedford Square The Membership Office has relocated to the and was largely funded by the sale of the AA’s property ground floor of 33 Bedford Square. on John Street, which until now had been the home of the DRL and other graduate programmes. The Development Office and HR staff have During the period of negotiations with the moved to the second floor of 33 Bedford Square. Bedford Estate on the property acquisition, a consultant team led by Fiona Duggan of FiD Ltd was The Exhibitions team have moved their offices appointed to help the AA assess its space utilisation to the ground floor of 38 Bedford Square. patterns and identify areas of need (See AArchitecture Please note, however, that the exhibitions 10). With objective observations and hard data at galleries at the ground floor of 34–36 Bedford hand, Fiona and team led a year-long consultation Square and in the Front Members’ Room have with students and staff, and worked closely with the not relocated. AA Council to develop a plan for rationalising space usage across the full range of properties. The Visiting School and Professional Practice Over the summer, the AA began to implement (Part III) offices have moved to the second floor the space rationalisation plan, convening an of 38 Bedford Square. Operational Advisory Group (OAG) comprised of senior departmental staff. This group assessed the The computing and AV departments are first draft of a space reallocation plan for currently relocating to the ground floor of administrative offices and studio space, and through 16–18 Morwell Street, with IT administration an intense two-month consultation period examined and support staff located in the adjacent space and assessed the operational impact of the proposed at the ground floor of 39 Bedford Square. moves. The result of this consultation was the OAG’s submission to the Director of School a substantially Administrative offices will continue to be relocated revised plan that ensured departmental adjacencies during the academic year. The following moves are were thoroughly rationalised, and that office moves planned to take place before the end of January 2011: were timed to minimise impact on departmental working patterns. The AA Book Shop plans to relocate to the Please check the AA’s website for up-to-date ground floor of 32 Bedford Square. information on office relocations throughout the academic year. www.aaschool.ac.uk The Facilities team plans to move their offices and workshop space to the lower ground floor of 33 Bedford Square. 30 32 Bedford Square, Ground Floor Back. Photo Valerie Bennett

The new spaces were on show for the first time during Projects Review. Photo Sue Barr 31 NEWS AND NEWS BRIEFS

Peter Klein 1951 – 2010 appreciation when something interested X-Architects, with principal, Farid or amused him, and his precise Esmaeil (AA Member), and Al Qadra perfectionism in fitting things together Real Estate have won the Cityscape Abu – whether the ‘things’ in question were Dhabi MEMA Award for the Best Mixed ideas, parts or buildings, the front fork Use Future Development project of of a bicycle and a wooden stool, or a the year for their project Al Nasseem. photocopy, turned into a booklet. He The ceremony held on 18 April 2010 developed a sensitive and sophisticated recognises projects that demonstrate the sensibility, that was always his basis most sensitive approach to climate and for judgement and action, but perhaps sustainability in architectural design because of his grounding in and planning. Taking cues from both psychoanalysis, he was equally capable of the natural oases of Al Ain and the dense FenceSupport.BrendanPhoto Woods responding to earthy humour or finely urban fabric of traditional Islamic cities, Peter Klein, who studied at the AA over nuanced philosophy.’ He was a delightful Al Nasseem develops an environmental a long period of time, sadly died in late friend, always eager to delineate aspects synergy between landscape and urbanity July after a long battle with cancer. Peter of an experience that connected it to the that is both modern and unique. The started at the AA in 1969 but shortly world of ideas, sometimes bewilderingly practice has also won the 2010 Middle thereafter took himself to Paris where esoteric but always with an intense and East Architect Award for Boutique he immersed himself in the aftermath vital passion. He will be terribly missed Architecture firm of the year and Farid of ‘Les Evénements’ and became by Joanna, his daughter Penelope, his and co-founder Ahmed Al Ali have won particularly interested in the work of family and all his friends. the award for Principal of the Year. Gilles Deleuze. He was awarded RIBA x-architects.com Part 1 in 1978 around about which time Brendan Woods is an alumnus of the we first met and subsequently entered AA, Former Unit Master and former The AA Concrete Geometries Research competitions together, including the AA Councillor Cluster, organised by Marianne Mueller Brixton Community Centre. Our entry and Olaf Kneer (Unit Masters Diploma was awarded a Special Mention (we broke Unit 1), received an overwhelming 415 a few rules) and exhibited at the Royal The Nicholas Pozner Prize submissions from all over the world. 36 Academy in 1985. were selected to appear in a preliminary Peter eventually gained his AA exhibition in May and June 2010. A Diploma and Part 2 in 1993 when David symposium followed in October and a Gray discovered a way to help him bring short list will be devised from the entries his investigations to a conclusion, not an for a forthcoming exhibition and book. easy task as Peter would be sidetracked, In addition Mueller Kneer’s hm55 or seduced, by some aspect of a project furniture range designed for Hitch and go off on exhaustive research at the Mylius was on show at the Clerkenwell expense of the programme for the year, Design Week at the Farmiloe Building hence his 24 year period of study at from 25–27 May 2010. Marianne and the AA – which may well be some kind Olaf have also teamed up with Jens of record. By this time Peter had moved Casper (AA Visiting School tutor) to to Saffron Walden with Joanna whom The fourth year project of Fredrik realise a major new gallery project in he had met in 1980 and married in 1986. Hellberg (Fifth Year Student) which London. www.caspermuellerkneer.com Peter worked for local practices won the Nicholas Pozner Prize, was before eventually setting up his own in published on the cover of the September Asif Khan (AADipl 2007) participated 2003. He had compiled an impressive 2010 issue of Blueprint magazine. in the group show Subject: Matter by the portfolio of completed projects over the Cass Sculpture Foundation, November seven years and a recent project of his 2009 to March 2010 where he exhibited had been awarded Best Individual House a 2x2m mirror polished stainless steel in East Anglia. As his friend Andrew mobile called Swivel, originally designed Ballantyne has said, ‘the important for / shown at London Fashion Week as things were Peter’s openness to ideas, his part of fashion designer, Osman 32 NEWS BRIEFS

Yousefzada’s a/w 2009 catwalk. In In ‘From the Academia to the Praxis’ at the ‘Hat-itecture’ exhibition at addition he had a three-page article in Alfredo presented the research of the Gabriela Ligenza Hats from 19 June Domus in April 2010 about his project, AA LU MA and its application in the to 18 July 2010 and the Spontaneous Harvest. In June his practice was large scale urban projects that Ground- Schooling Exhibition where London nominated as one of the top 25 emerging lab has been developing recently. Metropolitan University work tutored practices in the UK in the AJ and www.unich.it/dart/ecotown.htm by Nate and Lida was exhibited at in July he appeared in the Independent Nous Gallery 18 June to 4 July 2010. newspaper’s list of the 100 most Architectural Record’s May 2010 issue ran www.superfusionlab.com influential creative people in the UK. a feature about Enrique Limon www.royalacademy.org.uk/exhibitions/ He also designed the new Pavilion Café (GradDiplDes (MA) 1997) as an summer-exhibition/ in Victoria Park and a restaurant in emerging architect. Selections were www.queensparkarenadesign Borough Market called Elliots due to made from a pool of international firms. competition.co.uk/ open this autumn in collaboration with In addition Enrique has received a Pratt graphic designers Rinzen and Fashion Faculty Grant to research parametric Material Formations, a workshop run designer Paul Smith. He is working on software and its relevance on an urban by Sevil Yazici (AA DRL MArch 2006), a range of tableware with Belgian scale. This research will be conducted founder of ParaMaterial, had a company When Objects Work, a range with two case studies– one in the area roundtable event on 18 June entitled of furniture for schools in developing of Harlem where the Metro North Spontaneous Schooling. Her work was countries with Italian manufacturer Railway bisects the neighbourhood, exhibited as part of the London Festival Magis and Julia King (AADipl 2007 and and the other in the area surrounding of Architecture from 18 June to 4 July AA Councillor) and on a lighting project the Los Angeles River, with Downtown 2010. An exhibition also took place at with Italian manufacturer Danese. on the West side and East Los Angeles ITU from 14 May to 30 June 2010. In www.asif-khan.com/Domus April 2010 on the other. limonLAB has also been addition her article ‘Creating Space with a4_s.pdf commissioned to do a low-income Material Intelligence’, was published in housing project in Mexico City Mimarlikta Malzeme (Vol. 05 No.15) Helena Marconell (AA Member) had an www.limonLAB.com by the Turkish Chamber of Architects exhibition of prints entitled ‘An Instant http://archrecord.construction.com/ Press, Istanbul, (ISSN 13066501) in Time’ at The Arts Gallery, Chelsea archrecord2/design/2010/May/ and Westminster Hospital from limonLAB.asp Steffen Lehmann (AADipl 1991) has 23 May to 5 June 2010. The Arts is an been appointed as Director of a new internationally known gallery sited in Superfusionlab’s Nate Kolbe (AA DRL Research Centre for Sustainable Design the ground floor of the hospital. MArch 2000 and former Intermediate in Adelaide which will have a particular http://p3-prints-paintings- Unit Master) and Lida Charsouli (AA focus on material flow, resilient cities, photographs.com DRL MArch 2000) were shortlisted design for disassembly and prefabricated for the Queen’s Park Arena Competition lightweight construction systems. Zubin M Khabazi (AA EmTech MSc in Glasgow. Their entry was exhibited in 2009) has recently had published an the Glasshouse, Queen’s Park as part of Julika Gittner (AADipl 2005) and Jon on-line book about computational and the Southside Festival during 22–23 May Purnell have curated a one day art and algorithmic geometry in Grasshopper 2010. The project aims to create a architecture event entitled ‘The Stones entitled Generative Algorithms by multi-purpose performance space on of Menace’. The event took place in the Robert McNeel and Associates the former bandstand site in Queen’s main space of St Paul’s, Bow Common, (Developer of Rhino and Grasshopper) Park, Langside, Glasgow. In addition a New Brutalist church from the late on their Grasshopper website Superfusionlab was selected to exhibit 1950s, and showcased work by www.grasshopper3d.com/page/ two models in the Royal Academy of architects, artists and members of the tutorials-1 Arts Summer Exhibition 2010. They local community. The show explored also took part in three more exhibitions a range of perspectives on the Alfredo Ramirez (AA LU MA 2005 as part of the London Festival of architecture of New Brutalism and the and AA LU Consultant) lectured at Architecture: the Bexhill Kiosk and role of art in relation to housing and the International congress ‘Designing Shelter project exhibited at the Aram regeneration in order to open up a Ecotown’ in Pescara Facoltá di Gallery 1 July to 28 August 2010, the debate on culture as a source of conflict Architettura, Italy, on 13 May 2010. Green & Blue hat for London exhibited and criticism. 33 NEWS BRIEFS

www.re-title.com/artists/julika- Ahmad Sukkar (AADRL MArch 2006 London South Bank University gittner2.asp and London Consortium PhD appointed Federico Rossi (AADipl 2007) www.scareinthecommunity.com candidate) gave a performance based to run the new digital design media on his fictional tale about the walls at platform as Senior Lecturer in Sounds and Arts in City Spaces (SACS) the faculty of architecture in Damascus Digital Media. Symposium Emotion and the City invited University and the department of Emanuel de Sousa (AA HTS teaching architecture at the International Nuria Alvarez Lombardero (Unit assistant and AA PhD Candidate) to be University for Science and Technology, Master Intermediate Unit 8) has one of the speakers at Escola Superior in Damascus at the end of 2009. The recently published an article entitled de Música e Artes do Espectáculo UP story is entitled ‘Ḍijrit minnī al–Ḥīṭān: ‘Reflecting on the Shop Window’ in in Porto in May 2010 where he presented Ilā Judrān Fairūz wa Zaha wa Ummī wa Metalocus magazine n.026. This paper a paper entitled ‘Heterotopia: E-Motion Scheherazade’ (Walls are Fed up with was presented at the 2009 AA Phd Spatiality’ that discussed the Me: To the Walls of Fairuz, Zaha, my Symposium ‘Ideology in Transparency’. valorisation of the relational and the Mother, and Scheherazade). The story Nuria and Francisco Gonzalez de performative in the reassessment of is about a student of architecture Canales (Unit Master Intermediate Unit spatial practices in the city. In addition turning into a wall and questioning his 8, MA H&T Course Tutor and AACP) he was one of the invited speakers in identity in relation to topics such as art, lectured in Mexico for three weeks this June at Centre Canadien d’Architecture politics, gender and spirituality. It is also summer. They have recently published (CCA), in Montreal, Canada, as part of in the process of being published in the article ‘The Right to Form in his residence at the institution, Arabic and English architecture and Arquitectos’ (Journal of the Spanish presenting the paper entitled literature magazines. Council of Architect Associations). ‘Heterotopia: Other Histories, 1960– Francisco has also published the essay Present’ where he discussed the Eleftherios Ambatzis (AADipl 2009) ‘The Conflicting Vernacular’ in the appropriation of the notion of recently completed an altar-sculpture Journal of Architectural Education. Heterotopia in distinct branches of presenting a set of wooden angels from knowledge. Emanuel is the recipient of the fifteenth-century. The work was on The Canapé House in the Flemish AA/CCA Research Collection Grant display until mid-July at the Sao Bento countryside by the practice of Martine 2010 (see page 23). He was also one of the Metro Station in Porto. The exhibition De Maeseneer (Former Diploma Unit invited speakers at the International was commissioned by Paulo Teixeira Master) has been nominated for Ultzama Campus 2010 on mobility, de Carvalho, General Manager of the the Belgian Steel Award 2010 in the Fundácion Arquitectura y Sociedad, on Hotel Infante de Sagres for the visit of Residential Buildings category. In 29 July, in Pamplona (Spain), where he Pope Benedict XVI to the city. The addition their Bronks Theatre in presented the paper ‘On Displacement: sculpture was inspired by the painting Brussels (see AArchitecture issue 9) Mobility within Heterotopia(s)’. Island of the Dead by Arnold Bocklin as has been published in the yearbook http://sacsverona.altervista.org/site/ an attempt to stretch the dead and of Architecture in Flanders 2008–2009: www.cca.qc.ca/en hermetic nature of the exhibits. Colour, the Specific and the Singular. www.arquitecturaysociedad.com/ texture and scale were juxtaposed and www.infosteel.be/nl/ create a surreal environment in the staalbouwwedstrijd10.php 6a architects, of which Tom Emerson centre of the central station of the city www.infosteel.be/fr/cca10.php (former Diploma Tutor and former AA and it was constructed in black glossy www.box.net/shared/t1kph5f2hp Councillor) is a director, were awarded resin by the sculptor Paulo Moura. £5,000 for the best first-time exhibitor http://eleftherios-ambatzis.com/#/ Leon van Shaik (AADipl 1971 and in the Royal Academy Summer altarpage1/4541690087 Former Academic Staff) and Geoffrey Exhibition awards for their Mines Park London (History & Theory Model while Florian Beigel and Philip Santiago Calva Maisterrena (AA H&U GradDipl(AA)) 1987) have recently Christou (both former Academic Staff) MA 2002) has founded multiple published a book entitled Procuring received a commendation for their A Box café-galleries in London and is now Innovative Architecture with Routledge. of Ideas. working as an independent architect/ The book includes De Bronks designer for a variety of corporate Children’s Theatre (see above). and private clients in Amsterdam’s red light district. 34 NEWS BRIEFS

Christina Doumpioti (AA EmTech MATRIPOLIS, is designed to house Jan Nauta (Fifth Year Student) MArch 2008 and EmTech Studio 500 people in a compact-sustainable interviewed Markus Miessen (AADipl Master), Evan Greenberg (AA EmTech development on a terraced slope, (Hons) 2004 and former unit master) MSc 2008 and EmTech Tutor) and such that every one can step directly in his article, ‘Architecture as a Tactic’ Konstantinos Karatzas (AA Emtech from their front door into a rich realm that was recently published in the MSc(Dist) 2009) have been invited of biodiversity. French magazine, l’Architecture to present their current research titled http://ihdc.org.uk/#/ d’Aujourd’hui’s issue 378 which was ‘Embedded Intelligence: Material runner-up/4543948924 guest-edited by Winy Maas. Responsiveness in Facade Systems’ at ACADIA 2010 at Cooper Union, Kirk Wooller (AA PhD 2010 and AA Maria Fedorchenko (Unit Master New York. H&T MA 2006) is the editor of a new Intermediate Unit 7) will present a book, 20/20: Editorial Takes on research paper Shape Follows Decorated Jonathan Dawes (AADipl 1999 and Architectural Discourse (AA Publications) Diagram: Modes of Aligning Formal former Intermediate Unit Master) that brings together editors from twenty and Programmatic Expression in Recent appeared in the 30 July 2010 issue of leading contemporary architectural Practice at the Constructed Environment Building Design. His project at Cottrell magazines to collectively discuss the Conference, in conjunction with the & Vermeulen Architecture was on the role that editors play in shaping 12th International Architecture BD website and was featured in a special architectural discourse. The critical Exhibition of the Venice Biennale in envelope supplement accompanying positions and observations are as diverse November 2010. the magazine. as the magazines from which they www.bdonline.co.uk/buildings/ originate, which range from the oldest Jeroen van Ameijde (Digital technical/cladding-and-facades/ student-edited journal (Perspecta) to Prototyping Lab and Unit Master cottrell-and-vermeulen%E2%80%99s- a research collective that at the time Intermediate Unit 6) taught a workshop brentwood-school/5003392.article of writing was on the cusp of being in Johannesburg, South Africa, launched ([bracket]). Also included are organised in collaboration with Kristof Land Lease HQ, a retrofit by Fletcher contributions from the editors of Crolla in August 2010. Invited by the Priest Architects, the practice of 306090, AA Files, Actar, An Architektur, PG Group and Glass South Africa, the Michael Fletcher (AADipl ) and Keith Footprint, Grey Room, Harvard Design workshop focused on advanced digital Priest (AADipl 1975 and Chairman Magazine, Hunch, Interstices, Log, design and fabrication technologies and of the AA Foundation) was featured as Manifold, Mark, New Geographies, OASE, was accompanied by a number of local a case study in AJ SpecificationAugust Praxis, Scapes, UME and Volume. publications and public lectures in 2010 which focused on green products. Johannesburg, Durban and Cape Town. Mark Chan (AA Dipl 2010) won the Ioanna Symeonidou (AAEmTech MSc railLA international Call for Ideas 2010, Ermis Chalvatzis and Natassa Lianou 2009) presented design research on an international ideas competition held (AA DRL Students) wrote a text for Surface Nets at the 5th EAAE/ ENHSA by a non-profit organisation to support the Catalogue of the Greek entry for Architectural Theory Subgroup the development of high-speed rail the Venice Architectural Biennale 2010. Workshop ‘SUR-FACE/ in Los Angeles. His winning entry was The catalogue is entitled The Ark, Old ΕΠΙ-ΦΑΝΕΙΑ: Digital Materiality and his Diploma 12 thesis project, Seeds for New Cultures and their text the New Relation between Depth and ‘Re-Envisioning Los Angeles’. The within is called ‘ProSeeding – The Surface’ as a Challenge for architectural project is exhibited in the LA Beyond process of seeding as a machine for education. The Conference and Cars exhibition. (29 July–28 August architecture’. Workshop were hosted by the Technical 2010, The Jewel Box, Los Angeles) University of Crete. www.mark-chan.com Winyu Ardrugsa (AA PhD Candidate) www.arch.tuc.gr/surface.html presented a paper entitled ‘Mount Tom Fox (Fifth Year student) Sumeru’ and the New Thai Parliament David Dobereiner (AADipl 1954) and participated in ‘Chto Delat What House: The ‘State of Exception’ as a Paul Jones of Northumbria University Struggles Do We Have In Common?’, Paradigm of Architectural Practices at School of Architecture were the runners a 48 hour Seminar at the Institute of the conference Theoretical Currents: up for the Integrated Habitat Design Contemporary Arts, London. Architecture, Design and the Nation’ Competition. The Scheme, at Nottingham Trent University. The 35 NEWS BRIEFS

event was organised on 14–15 September running a workshop at the Ecole (Fourth Year student), Johnny Gao (AA 2010 by the East Midlands History and Spéciale d´Architecture, Paris, as part Dipl 2010) together with Creative [SIN] Philosophy of Architecture Research of the GreenLab design studio which ergy, recently curated an exhibition and Network. The paper discusses the will investigate the issue of sustainable forum entitled ‘Uniquely Singapore, recent winning design of the Thai design via computational means. Distinctively London? A GeneriCity parliament complex arguing that the Immanuel was also invited to teach Project’ at the Crypt Gallery and proposal’s return to a religious and lecture at the Strelka Institute for Great Western Studios during the cosmological order for its spatial Media, Architecture & Design for their London Festival of Architecture and the and formal organisations discursively 2010 summer programme in Moscow. London Design Festival. Using deforms the constitutional nation- In June, Immanuel was invited to speak photography as a medium of exchange, citizen framework. at an Architectural Research Think the project has hosted a series of Tank Forum at the National University conversations on generic spaces between As part of the London Design Festival of Singapore (NUS) on his DRL thesis six pairs of architects, students and 2010, works of Tobias Klein (AA First project (Proto-Design Agenda). During writers in London and Singapore over Year and Media studies tutor) are his time at NUS, Immanuel served the past year. exhibited at the Victoria and Albert as a Visiting Researcher at the Ambient Museum. Tobias is a part of AVATAR Intelligence Lab at the National Rosa Ainley (AA Web Editor), with muf (Advanced Virtual and Technological University of Singapore’s Interactive architecture/art, was awarded an art Architecture Research) whose work and Digital Media Institute. This and public health commendation by the is framed within the show. Tobias was on-going research investigates the Royal Society of Public Health for work also invited to exhibit at the 12th relationship between virtual space and on the Leysdown Rose-tinted international Architectural Biennale real space via social media and is funded regeneration project, undertaken in in Venice. His work, entitled by the National Research Foundation 2009 for Swale Borough Council with Synthetic Syncretism, was displayed of Singapore. Part of the research will Kent County Council, funded through at the Austrian Pavilion, curated by be featured at Singapore’s ArchiFest the CABE Sea Change initiative. Their Eric O Moss. Tobias had an article 2010 in October. work is now being implemented. entitled ‘Theater der Organe’ published www.immanuelkoh.net in the Swiss magazine archithese in issue www.dia-architecture.de/ Klingmann Architects, the practice 4 on ‘Szenographie’. Tobias also www.esa-paris.fr/ of Anna Klingmann (GradDipl (AA) exhibited his research from the past www.strelkainstitute.com/ and Summer School Tutor 2004) and five years regarding magnetic resonance www.arch.nus.edu.sg/ Brand Consultants (KABC) has been in spaces at the ARAM Gallery in www.idmi.nus.edu.sg/ shortlisted for six awards in the the exhibition ‘Experiments and architecture competition at Cityscape Prototypes V’. Ivonne Santoyo-Orozco (AA PhD Dubai. KABC is attending the candidate) was selected to present the convention to discuss its latest Stephanie Edwards (AADipl 2010) paper, ‘On Aesthetic Diversity: The development in Salalah, Oman, a has collaborated on ‘Connecting Omnipresence of the Neoliberal State’ mixed-use eco-resort and sustainable Stockholm’, a live exhibition at the at the 7th Annual AHRA Research residential neighbourhood attached to Architecture Museum in Stockholm, Symposium. The symposium was held the wetlands preserves in the Dhofar designing a long term strategy that at the University of Sheffield on region of Oman. The project was turns the segregated capital of Sweden 22 October 2010. nominated in the Community Future, into a networked city. Leisure Future, Tourism Travel and Calvin Chua and Kai Ong (Fifth Year Transport Future categories, and for In October, Immanuel Koh (AADRL students) recently won an Honorable three special awards in the MArch 2010 & AA Shanghai Visiting Mention in the International Environmental category, Islamic School 2010 Unit Master) joined the Professional Competition ‘SEASIDE Architecture category and Master Faculty of he Dessau Institute of 2010’ hosted by Arquitectum. Their Planning category. ‘Cityscape Global Architecture (DIA/Bauhaus) Graduate project challenged the typology of 2010’ is the largest and most influential School in Germany, teaching both seaside houses by dispersing spaces and Real Estate Investment and computational design studio and programmes within the house through Development Event for emerging scripting modules. He will also be follies. In addition Calvin, Sarah Ho markets globally. 36 NEWS BRIEFS

The design proposal by Ludovico Douglas Spencer (AA LU Course Tutor) Back cover: AA Bookshop Reading List Lombardi (AADRL MArch 2008) for was an invited speaker at the symposium bookmarks, Summer and Autumn 2010 ‘A New Landmark for Aldgate’ Infrastructures and Landscapes at the competition, organised by The Institute of Urbanism and Landscape, Architecture Foundation, was displayed The Oslo School of Architecture and as part of the London Festival of Design, on October 14. His lecture Architecture 2010. Ludovico also won was entitled ‘Groundworks’. first prize at the Pelle+ Design www.terraincritical.wordpress.com Competition for designing the best project using vegetable-tanned leather. Alfredo Ramirez (AALU MA 2005 and www.architecturefoundation.org.uk/ Director of the Mexico City Visiting programme/2010/london-festival-of- School) organised a symposium which architecture-2010/high-street-2012/a- was held at the Universidad new-landmark-for-aldgate-exhibition Iberoamericana in Mexico City on www.vogue.it/en/talents/contests-and- 11 October 2010. The symposium was more/2010/09/ a one-day event of lectures and pelleplusselectedthewinners presentations given by staff and alumni of the Architectural Association as a Dominic Papa and Alex Warnock-Smith prelude to the AA Visiting School in (both AA H&U Programme Tutors) Mexico City in January 2011. gave a presentation at the Nangang www.arquitectura.uia.mx/boletines/10/ Vision 2050 International Forum in octubre/01/Anexo4.pdf Taipei and lectured at NCTU Graduate Institute of Architecture on 2–4 With regret we announce that William October 2010. Deane Dockeray (AADipl 1954 and Life Member) passed away on 6 July 2010. Paolo Cascone (AA LU MA 2003) has William Deane Dockeray was born in had his fourth ecology design project 1928 and in 1955 was admitted to the in Mali published in the Domus review RIBA, in the same year whereupon he (October 2010). The fourth ecology worked at Lyons Israel Ellis. In 1956 he design project for the Sevaré Cultural joined John Laing Construction where Center (Mali) is the result of the he remained until retirement in 1990. collaboration between Paolo Cascone and Fabrizio Carola. It is a case study Hapkido (traditional Korean Martial of the post-vernacular architecture Art) classes have resumed at the AA on research project directed by Paolo Wednesdays (see AArchitecture 7) in the Cascone towards a high-tech design Ground Floor Back Lecture Space at process and low-tech construction. 36 Bedford Square. The class is suitable Paolo and Andrea Di Stefano (AA Dipl for all grades and beginners. For further 2005) presented the Urban Ecologies information please contact Philip research project at the 5th International Hartstein on [email protected] Congress on Urban Ecology, which or come to the Public Programme office took place at the Humboldt-Universitat behind reception. Philip Hartstein is of Berlin from 22–24 October 2010 a licensed coach/ third dan in Korean www.co-design-lab.net Hapkido and has been instructing for www.domusweb.it/edicola/index.cfm over 30 years, certificated by the Korean www.stadtoekologie-berlin.de/en/ Kido. He is assisted by visiting upload/_aktuelles/flyer.pdf instructor, Anna Milan, third dan Spanish Olympic Taekwondo champion.