Aarchitecture 21Download

AArchitecture 21

The AArchitecture Salon kicked off the new academic year with a kaleidoscope of different takes on paper, that ubiquitous material. As banknote, portfolio or passport, paper’s many contemporary roles are often as politically charged as they are diverse. It is already a tired cliché that a new digital age has arrived to replace this ancient fabric, but many of the articles in this, the 21st edition of AArchitecture, challenge this assumption. Arturo Revilla, for example, demonstrates that the paperless aspirations of four well- known architects in the 1980s resulted in quite the opposite outcomes in their work. The work of Intermediate Unit 2’s Takero Shimazaki, on the other hand, embraces the fleeting qualities of extremely fine tissue paper, which holds onto his designs for only limited periods of time before it fades. Similarly, DRL student

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Student Editorial Team: Eleanor Dodman Radu Remus Macovei Roland Shaw

Editorial Board: Zak Kyes, AA Art Director Alex Lorente, Membership Brett Steele, AA School Director

Graphic Design: Claire McManus

AA Photography: Valerie Bennett and Sue Barr

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Architectural Association (Inc) Registered Charity No 311083 Company limited by guarantee Registered in England No 171402 Registered office as above

Cover: ProtoPaper pattern ProtoPaper is a technical paper used to design, create and visualise 3D prototypes from its triangular mesh. www.protopaperlab.com AArchitecture 21

Mel Sfeir gives an account of his recent paper from News Architecturalthe Association manipulation experiments whilst First Year’s Monia DeMarchi rejoices in the sense of possibility that a clean sheet of A4 holds. There are several new units to the AA this year in both Intermediate and Diploma schools. What better way for Dip 3, Inter 5 and Inter 12 to introduce themselves than with a speed-dating event with our very own editorial team in which they each express their unit as a sketch? In a similar sketching event, AA Foundation and PhD students compete in a game of consequences, devising towers by folding paper and blindly drawing on from the previous fragment. Meanwhile, projections are the theme of Alejandra Celedón and Gabriela Garcia de Cortazar’s interview with Sachiyo Nishimura and Alejandra Celedón’s piece on paper as a site of inscription. Mark Campbell writes instead about film, namely the mediative capacity of writing in Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining.

Student Editors: Eleanor Dodman – Diploma 9, 5th Year Radu Remus Macovei – Intermediate 9, 3rd Year Roland Shaw – Diploma 4, 5th Year

Contributing Editors: Assaf Kimmel – Intermediate 7, 2nd Year Buster Rönngren – Intermediate 2, 2nd Year Costandis Kizis – PhD, 3rd Year Ema Kacar – Intermediate 9, 2nd Year Jingming Wu – PhD, 2nd Year Patricia Souza Leão Müller – Intermediate 11, 2nd Year Contents

2 Paper Intention 3 I Can’t Pan Paper 4 Let the Paper Fold and Unfold 6 The Autonomy of 1:1 Paper Architecture? 8 Generation X(erox) 9 Borges and the Blasé 10 The Place of Paper 13 Paperless 14 Towards Provocations 16 The Mark Fisher Scholarship 17 Contingency 19 Kiosks: Heritage or Utility? 20 All Work and No Play 22 Less is a Copy

Graduate Gallery

25 Recommended Reading 26 Thoughts Poured Out onto Paper 28 The Book That Hasn’t Been Borrowed for Decades 30 A Smashing Party 32 The AA’s Frankenstein Towers 34 The Magician and the Surgeon 36 Speed Dating 40 Inscribing Sites 42 A History of Architecture in Five Minutes 44 AA Publications 45 Bedford Press

46 News

Next Issue’s Theme School Announcement Student Announcement

Joshua Harskamp, Intermediate 2 2 Paper Intention

Takero Shimazaki, Intermediate 2 Unit Master, describes a tradition that never repeats itself

is a sense of time and fragility of the objects and artefacts in these prints. Tissue paper can only hold the information it carries for a short space of time. Almost all of our architectural design and intent also occurs on fine, delicate translucent papers. Pencil lines, on this fragile material, create the most surprising accidents on the elevations or plans that we draw over. Disrupting the speed of a line, the pencil can rub the texture of the specific paper surface, and the straight line is subtly distorted, giving the drawing a ‘character’ and a ‘personality’. Drawing the same elevations or plans in a program such as Vectorworks, the outcome will lack this initial and sensual drama, with rather flat and efficient lines appearing instead. We return to the tissue paper and pencil,

tracing over the CAD drawings, to ‘bump Screen-printedtissue paper from courtesy 2012 Shimazaki of Toh Architecture into’ those characters again. Sometimes, Every New Year, we choose the most the accidental ‘characters’ appear to have memorable image out of a project from the a force of their own, potentially being past year to be screen-printed onto tissue transformed into the architectural material paper. Texture and colours are carefully and fragments of a building that we are handpicked and we spend a month, or trying to conceive. It is a journey that has two, working on the subject that eventually no certainty or expectation. Somehow, gets printed. It can be a hand drawing, the pencil lines drawn over the translucent photographs of a building fragment, a tissue paper trigger that initial hint computer-generated drawing, and so on. for an idea that may be materialised into In a limited edition of 100, these screen- a completed building. Or they may not – printed tissue papers are hand folded, placed it all depends on what we see in them. within a perfectly matched envelope, and posted to our dearest friends and contacts – those who have supported us during the previous year. On the most delicate, fragile and ephemeral material, the prints will eventually fade in direct sunlight. Some people have chosen to frame these artefacts, and after a year or two, the images are washed and transformed by the light. There

stoned muppets watching football from rear gate into and work, his please visit: read more about Tak To www.aaschool.ac.uk/inter2 3 I Can’t Pan Paper

Tobias Klein, Diploma 1 Unit Master, explores paper, or rather, what one would write outside of it

Asked to write about paper, I was and referencing need to have the same spontaneously reminded of an RSA1 importance as the transparency and animated video drawing by Sir Ken texture of paper once had? Here it comes Robinson that speaks of the idea of – the digital space that imitates a paper industrialised education and the value surface is an interface that has already of lateral thinking. He explains lateral started to change the architectural intelligence through the device of a profession and the way in which we paper clip, describing how academics project ideas onto paper. Superseding the and specialists have a reduced capability paper space – due to the limitations of to imagine what to do with a paperclip the material as a substrate for ideas – it compared to a child who has not gone should henceforth lead to an end to what through the mill of institutional education. we call paper-architecture – a confusing In general the educated academic comes and technologically outdated concept. upwith maybe 200 ways to use a paperclip, Now, in conclusion, I am a great whereas the child’s response multiplies admirer of paper as a building material, be that ten-fold. Other than being amazed it for models, laser-cut, folded, assembled by the academic’s lack of imagination, or in built architecture. Yet I am dubious I was drawn to the medium of the about its capacity to be the projection presentation – a white space onto which a ground for contemporary ideas and the gentle hand draws at incredible speed what space for enduring and colossally imaginary Robinson is talking about, panning along architecture. But then again I might be as his discourse flows and creating an entire wrong since a friend’s four-year-old, lecture on digital paper. Had we seen the annoyed by my rambling, pans me out sheer size of the paper beforeforehand, it of his view with a gentle but precise move might have come as less of a shock (bearing of his right hand, making no difference

in mind the fable by Borges, referenced between the beloved iPad and reality. by Baudrillard, and the architect’s tendency to freeze in front of white emptiness). 1. Royal Society for the encouragement But pondering this thought of the of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce seemingly endless crisp paper surface and the problem of projecting ideas, we might speculate further on the idea of a medium that has, since Marshall McLuhan’s seminal work, become the message, influencing and dictating, as well as translating idea into condensed proposal, form and construct. In this context, the evolution from a piece of DIN-normed, framed paper, might not be adequate anymore. To think laterally, what should a space without limitations be? An endless panning space, where zooming

To read more about Tobias Klein and his unit’s and unit’s his Klein read more about Tobias To www.aaschool.ac.uk/dip1 visit: please work, mediocre bread smelling corner-shop poor wine selection 4 Let the Paper Fold and Unfold

Melhem Sfeir, Phase 1 DRL Student, gives an account of his recent paper manipulation experiments Paper tested as a viable structural material structural viable a as tested Paper

We recently investigated how paper shape which we further developed and reacts to different folds and loads, and the scaled up, straining the pressure points objective was to deliver structurally stable to reach the maximum supporting furniture designed out of the discovered strengths. First we tested in cardboard folds. With this aim in mind, we applied and then to polypropolyene, which displays different strains on the paper while marking similar reactions to paper. In the end, the various pressure points (or straining we folded 50 paper iterations of study points) and we let the paper guide us. In this models, always fascinated at its folding process, we recorded a series of patterns on and supporting capacities. the surface which consisted of mountains and valleys. Once set, we refined and smoothed Workshop led by: Shajay Bhooshan out the pattern into a defined geometric Team members: Sai Prateik, Arunachalam shape. Different iterations resulted from the Karthikeyan, Eric Chen and Melhem Sfeir

Boogie on my scoot bambino Quick fucks in alleyway 5

Fromtop Evolution of the pattern in series; Alternativethe #3; resultant iterations in series

Please visit http://drl.aaschool.ac.uk if you want to find out out find to want you if Please visit http://drl.aaschool.ac.uk more about Design the Research Laboratory and work. its Pay gateman once more today, Then “get out”, 6 The Autonomy of 1:1 Paper Architecture?

Jingming Wu, a current AA PhD student, explores the way in which Shigeru Ban’s work has shaped, and often misled, our understanding of the applications of paper in architecture.

Is there an autonomy of 1:1 paper nature of long paper tubes, that is, the architecture? 1 fact that they are easy to bend. This detail For years, Japanese architect Shigeru is not frequently shown in Ban’s work Ban has tried to justify this argument in publications. The paper tubes or panels structural, moral and aesthetic terms. in selected photos and diagrams seem He has argued that the paper tube features to function as metal tubes or panels, but structural advantages due to its cheapness, actually they don’t (see image right) .3 solidness and convenience to manipulate. Without being aware of these structural However, a simple comparison to other details, we mistakenly identify paper materials, such as glass and concrete, panels and tubes as structural elements makes the case problematic. and therefore believe in the structural Let’s not stick to aesthetic criteria, autonomy of paper architecture. which can be subjective, and let’s only My second point of suspicion regards examine here the suspicious structural the moral contribution of paper architecture advantages and the moral aspects claimed to disaster relief projects. After earthquakes, by Shigeru Ban. By reviewing the technical temporary shelters should firstly consider details and management of his work, safety and the capacity to withstand I will investigate the structural and moral extreme conditions, such as floods and factor of his paper architecture, and thus climate. Paper architecture does not seem question its autonomy. a convincing solution compared to light To build up autonomy on a structural steel structure architecture. Another level, paper tubes and panels in Shigeru important consideration in such cases Ban’s works are mainly supposed to be is the need for psychological reassurance columns or truss elements, all members after traumatic events. Ban has argued of a grid structural layout. But sometimes that the natural tactile attributes of paper they are not as important as they look. would make refugees feel comfortable. 4 For example, in the disaster relief projects However, the paper’s fragility creates a in Ahmadabad, India 2001, the main paper sense of insecurity, and many refugees tube in the four corners of the structure have refused to live in Ban’s paper houses. 5 served not only as a column, but as a mould Because of the two points above, the Indian as well: ‘Liquid POP (plaster of Paris) is local government was reluctant to accept poured into the four corner tubes so that Ban’s paper architecture as an emergency the steel rods are firmly held in place’.2 solution. By contrast, charitable trusts That is to say that paper tubes have firmly supported his projects. to be reinforced by steel rods and liquid I would argue that the charities’ POP to adapt to post-disaster environment. decision was motivated more by a desire for Its structural capacity is limited by the self-promotion – through association with

stupid Englishman! 7 A typicalA paper house in disaster relief project

an architectural celebrity – and less about 1 By ‘paper architecture’ I mean the contribution of Ban’s ideas to emergency here practical projects that are built situations. It is still debatable whether at 1:1 scale, including pavilions in paper architecture meets the needs of people exhibition, disaster relief projects, who have experienced natural disasters. houses and public buildings.

Paper, like every material, has its Installations in exhibitions, stage own nature. Whether paper is able to design and furniture are excluded find a place in architecture depends on its since they are not required to bear use. When paper is used as a structural loads or climate challenge. substitute for metal tubes or panels, it 2 Plaster of Paris, a fine white powder can hardly compete with other materials used for cornices and false ceilings, because the grid structure or truss is based does not require curing and is cheaper on the attributes of steel. I’m not trying to than cement. argue against the autonomy of paper as a 3 ‘Paper-Tube Housing’ by Shigeru building material; what I’m suggesting is Ban and Kartikeya Shodhan, Perspecta, that the most celebrated application of 1:1 34 (2003). paper architecture – that is, Shigeru Ban’s 4 Ibid. work – has led us along an unconvincing 5 Ibid. path. But why do not we change our mind towards an architecture created just for paper? This might lead us to a new type of structure, or else to an entirely different point of view, instead of ‘structure’.

The monograph Shigeru Architecture, in Paper Ban, AA the aabookshop.net at at Bookshop available is Small size car (fiat?) 8 Generation X(erox)

Chris Pierce, Intermediate 9 Unit Master, provoked by Ema Hana Kacar, editor of AArchitecture, amusingly questions the apparent division between paper and technology.

The entire premise I’ve been set is pants hands on your partner and on your Apple? – that ‘technology is replacing paper That’s doing nothing for what’s left of your documents’. Hah! Not to swing this into cherry. But you’re quids in if you’re talking a unit- or school-centric conversation, but Kindles. Like most things hailing from on more than a hunch I’d say that more Washington State I’d rather be reading than half of the current units are enslaved the Bible than messing around with a soft to paper. It seems that the ‘world’s most grey thing from Ann Summers, oh I mean international school of architecture’ just Amazon, in my Vividus. I guess that’s can’t get enough of the International Paper also why those contemporary Victorians Company’s main stuff. Where would the Rachel (Weisz) and Daniel (Craig) recently Dip 9 Honours machine and PV posse, pronounced that they leave theirs in the not to mention my own paper pulp problem, other room. be without it? Have you really not seen Technology has revolutionised paper, the number of books Diploma School (and its production and what we can do with it. now some followers in the Intermediate I might be old, though not as old as Ema School) students are churning out? That’s seems to think (I had Pong and Pac-Man on not even mentioning the forests felled my Atari 2600!), but I’ve also got a sneaking in those two digital daddies, the DRL feeling that the young Mancunian on the and EmTech. It feels like 1439 in Mainz other side of this ‘printed page’ has an even all over again. Think back to Projects softer spot for moveable type and a hand- Review 2013. When did a book become an sewn binding than I do. And the way this obligatory architectural output? And don’t has been staged I’m supposed to be the one say Vitruvius – neither he nor most of his with the Jungian crisis. People do still buy fifteenth-century followers could write. and covet books and journals (where would I might know why – because even at 19 they Tom Weaver be if they didn’t!) and an iPad all ain’t too keen on the 42” plastic Samsung Air – but they don’t buy CDs. Come to plasma screen! Kate and Liam and Sam and think of it, what you should be doing right David seem to have the knack; otherwise now Ema, instead of working on this rag, is I know that I’m not the only one who’d popping down to Paperchase. Rock-paper- prefer to lie flat on his back in Dr Wolfe’s scissors, anyone? surgery than face another PowerPoint jury. Technology is not an either/or issue as luddites, techies and editors frequently cast it. It’s an AC/DC thing – know what I mean? If not, look it up. I absolutely love ‘the machine’ and I spend a lot more time caressing and fondling its 41 different Californian forms than I do my Midwestern wife’s ones. How many hours a day are your

Don’t forget the milk! 9 Borges and the Blasé

Rory Sherlock, Intermediate 9 Student, equally provoked by Ema Hana Kacar, commends the uplifting presence of paper in our lives.

Jorge Luis Borges was not only a man of the iPad and Kindle, the physical volume literature, a revolutionary of contemporary is increasingly being binned as its sleek, fiction in the twentieth century, but a backlit counterpart is pawning its contents man fundamentally concerned with books. on whim for tuppence. The perpetual Spending time as a child in his father’s expansion of the library, along with the 1000-volume library would prove to be massively reduced costs of the texts, has the ‘chief event’ in the writer’s life, leading proved successful for the proselytising him on to work cataloguing books at the campaigns of the device manufacturers, Buenos Aires Municipal Library. This with hardcopy sales tumbling over the last extensive early submersion in a world two years. However, in the grand scheme of physical volumes had a profound effect of things, what this really entails is a large on the content of the Argentinian’s prose, increase in rough, and a very small increase almost every short story and essay to in diamonds. Get digging. subsequently flee his pen finding its prosaic As a child of the 90s I grew up device or framework in a book or library, surrounded by this exciting and rapidly and the intriguing, inherently labyrinthine developing world of technology. However, nature thereof. it is precisely this (over)exposure to a vast In ‘The Library of Babel’, Borges and infinite world of information and describes a universe consisting of a series literature, all available with no effort at all, of interconnecting hexagonal rooms, that has made me indifferent towards it. each lined floor to ceiling with 410 page Would Borges have become the influential volumes. In this library, in these volumes, literary pioneer he was if his dad had there is a physical transcription of every decided to flog his books and get a Kindle combination of letters and punctuation that instead? It is precisely the commitment, the can possibly exist. There exists somewhere vested interest, involved in the purchase or in this vast construct every book ever sourcing of a physical text in a library that written and ever to be written. The books, enhances our consequent understanding to this end, become one. The content of value of it, and it is through this physical of the library is more information than manifestation of text that meaningful anybody can process, and thus the volumes progression of knowledge will persist. become meaningless, unnavigable tomes. This bombardment of content renders the ‘The fact is that poetry is not the book readers indifferent, in the same way that in the library . . . Poetry is the encounter Georg Simmel describes the blasé attitude of the reader with the book, the discovery of the metropolitan man, degenerated by of the book.’ – Jorge Luis Borges overexposure into a state of indifference. This infinite and labyrinthine library is becoming a digital reality, slyly slotting neatly into pockets worldwide. Through sumptuously designed products such as

Skimmed for the water lovers, semi-skimmed for the ordinary,

Should you like to know more about Intermediate Unit 9 know 9 to more Unit about like Intermediate you Should please visit and approach its paper to and technology, www.mis-architecture.co.uk and full fat for the picknees 10 The Place of Paper

Buster Rönngren, Intermediate Unit 2 Student, interviews Alexander Brodsky on matters of origin, in an attempt to orientate paper architecture in the present Courtesy of Bureau Alexander Brodsky Alexander Bureau of Courtesy

‘Local? I have never thought about it that way. Paper is a material, different from stone.’ – Alexander Brodsky

Once the unmoved mover of the phenomenon of paper architecture in 1970s Moscow, Alexander Brodsky worked alongside Ilya Utkin, creating etchings of potentially better places, seeing paper architecture as presenting another possibility to the uniformity of the sanctioned architecture of the Soviet city. Under the authoritarian state, Brodsky opted to stay on paper, drawing, as if the project was an antonym. Today, the architect, who in the 1980s worked as sculptor of objects and site-specific installations in New York, continues to address his practice, in a now-liberated nation that once hired no architects. (Well, architects didn’t have names in the first place, other than the mark of the state, to sign the documents of building.) On the topic of paper, Brodsky is at variance with the attempt to relate paper to matters concerning commonplaces. From topos (a place), a paper is linked to the term topic, at most, in the sense of determining the evidence of a place. There is perhaps no topographical agenda in the material itself, for right reasons. ‘It means that it exists only as an idea,’ explains Brodsky during our interview. ‘Even if a project is not a critical piece of paper, but exists in the computer, it can still be called paper architecture.’

Parked here, and under fragrant pine over there 11

Buster Rönngren: Where do you draw the line between paper architecture and built form; is there a distinction between idea and architecture? Alexander Brodsky: For me personally, paper as a material is an important part of the whole thing. This has nothing to do with paper architecture as a movement or whatever, but it somehow worked with it at that time. It was paper architecture as an idea, and paper architecture on a real piece of paper...From the moment a structure is built it becomes a real thing and it stops being paper architecture. Before the realisation of the building is the border between what I am drawing and what I am building. I am always trying to destroy this border. When I think about the old paper projects, theoretically many of them, let’s say all, could be built. But, nobody wanted to build them at the time, so they remained on paper.

When there is no authorship to find behind building, paper architecture can be seen as a reaction: writing the name of a place before there is an actual place to go to. The reason for paper architecture is, in this sense, not about informing the unseen reality, depicting unrealistic places, but about envisioning real places where one is not allowed to go. Acknowledging that state buildings in 1970s London carry signatures of different architects, although initiated as projects on paper, the reaction came from a retroactive elsewhere.

With regard to the the material, are there specific types of paper that you prefer or find useful in your work? For a long time, in this country and city, there was a restricted amount of material. I used what I could get. For instance, producing a master print for a project back in the 80s, there was only one type of etching paper available. And even this etching paper was rare at times. If there was a store supply, you would ask for five metres at once. When I first came to New York though, there was an idea to print an edition of our etchings. At the print shop, they asked about what type of paper I had in mind for the publication. At that time I couldn’t reply since I only knew of one type. So I was taken to an art store for reference. 150 different types of etching paper, I didn’t know what to say, I wanted to use all of them. A man explained to me that ‘these ten types are German, and these are Italian, and these are French’, and so forth. Initially the difference between them was only a question of origin, but after some time, I could say I liked the texture of a certain type, no matter where it was from.

Have you ever found yourself in a situation when paper proves insufficient to express an idea, that the medium is too narrow? Every project begins with a piece of paper. Even if the end product is an installation or sculpture, it is a continuation from a pencil sketch. Paper exists in everything I do, it is the very beginning. When I seek what can be done with a specific piece of paper, I sometimes find that it is too beautiful to do anything with it. The sad thing is that I have a lot of paper that I never used because I somehow don’t dare to. I have

Salami colored broken vase trickling marble and 12

some amount of paper that came from my father. Some of this paper is from when he was a student in the 40s, really old paper that he got somewhere, but never used himself. He gave it to me many years ago, and I still haven’t used it. It is strange, but sometimes I look at it and I think, no, I am not ready to take a pencil to draw the line.

Although the AA is based in London, it is not an institution of the city as such. At a place where creative people are motivated, have a kind of sovereignty, what is there to respond to? In this laboratory environment, what is the relevance of paper architecture, traditionally a form a retreat or defiance? In fact, where acknowledged authorship merely exists in building and where drawings are not even signed, the reverse of paper architecture is true. Projects in this visionary category at the AA, tend to lack an opposition, simply becoming a thing of the school. Perhaps the reaction can only come from building in 1:1.

May I add a comment on this? (Brodsky’s colleague, Kiril Ass, states further) We grew up in a time when paper was the main medium for producing any kind of ideas, to affix any type of idea. If we take it, not as a presentation method, but as a thinking method, paper is as efficient as talking. Even if you speak in another language, you will still speak better in your mother tongue. This is possibly why this question of relevance is not rising in our own business. We are simply used to do it like this. If you are relating paper architecture to a school project then it is a completely different thing.

Admitting that there was no agenda in paper, no political act to be drawn from paper architecture itself, makes it inaccurate to relate it to the notion that the idea is as good as the building. Furthermore, it is careless to think that paper architecture even matters to us, when we are free to build, and when there is nothing stopping us from making a name of our own. Alexander Brodsky did what he could do under the circumstances: paper architecture was an invention out of necessity, out of materiality. However, Brodsky’s concern for paper, to the extent of not wanting to draw on it at all, suggests that there is something besides just the materiality itself. Arguably, this is part of his process. By not drawing and by not building, Brodsky destroys the border, authorising the two practices to be equal. Since his first building commission in 2002, Brodsky is proving that, as an architect, it was the context that was political, not his work when drawing that which would not be built. Having a historical frame of reference is, notwithstanding, what the architect student falls short of. Never have we found ourselves in a political context and unable to get out. In our free society, paper architecture can only go as far as being a material exploration. Thus, what the commonplace of paper is, where paper architecture can be orientated in past and present, is in the matter of making proposals. Now, Brodsky is like any architect:

The main thing is to do good architecture, the rest is less important.

wet blouse hanging 2, Unit out about paper find role of the Intermediate in To visit: please www.aaschool.ac.uk/inter2 13 Paperless

Arturo Revilla, a current PhD by Design Candidate at the AA, evaluates the work of four architects with regard to paper, questioning what effect the rise of the digital in architecture has had on its use.

Last summer the Canadian Centre for of representation. Computers, were Architecture (CCA) invited Greg Lynn immediately used to supersede the role of to put together an exhibition under the paper and physical models as the ultimate name ‘Archeology of the Digital’ which formats for capturing, translating and would ‘take us to the foundations of digital communicating architectural ideas. Screens, architecture at the end of the 80s and fly-throughs, light projections, formal the beginning of the 90s.’ Lynn brought iterations and eccentric perspective angles together models and drawings of four mixed with physical installations were architectural projects (The Biozentrum by exposed during the different presentations Eisenman, the Lewis residence by Gehry, as the devices of an emerging sensibility the Iris Dome by Hoberman and the Toyama that in the following years would flood Gymnasium be Shoei Yoh) to trace the Columbia’s design studios. As Tschumi, genealogy of the digital in a more concrete Lynn, Rashid and Allen explained in their fashion, hoping to end the days of the digital talks, members of the studio faced the as a project restricted to the future. challenge of ‘a new mode of notation’, In an effort to distinguish different an interface in which dynamic procedures, lines of thought and establish some sort real time feedback, forms of connectivity of clarification about today’s architectural and fluidity challenged the traditional hot topic, the CCA accompanied Lynn’s role of tools to communicate architecture. particular curatorial project with The Contrary to common belief, and Toolkit 2013, a seminar attended by scholars despite the fact that the studio came out with a direct link to digital culture and with a range of experimental proposals, 15 PhD students from the most renowned Tschumi commented that ‘the computer architectural schools in America, the did not generate a new language, it simply Bartlett and the AA. The different themes accelerated the existing concerns of a of discussion ranged from software and talented group of people’. the construction industry to authorship, The Paperless Studio famously produced information and meaning. more paper than any other studio at the Here, Columbia’s GSAPP Paperless time, although it used the digital to Studio came about as an indisputable replace some of the traditional means of milestone. Started in 1988 by Bernard architectural production. The Toolkit 2013 Tschumi and a team of young architects, reminded us that this particular moment roughly in their 30s at the time, the in the history of architecture has to be experimental studio erupted at the heart reconsidered for its capacity to generate of a ‘left-behind conservative school’. a state of uncertainty that unleashed a Wrapped in an attitude of innovation, creative symbiosis and speculative spirit young tutors set out to explore the wrinkles branching from academia to design of the old problem of language with new processes and all the way to established tools, methodological formats and means practices and the construction industry.

More Info Text: For more info on the Toolkit 2013 and the CCA and CCA the 2013 Toolkit on the more info For Text: More Info www.cca.qc.ca/en/study-centre/2162-toolkit-2013 to go Lover’s graffiti dog shit unkempt garden 14 Towards Provocations (Or Whatever Happened to Paper Architecture?)

Maria Fedorchenko leads Intermediate Unit 7’s work on Shadow Cities and Cultural Processors

In the wake of all those post-, after- grow highly anxious with regard to the and beyond- departures, our position paper project and mistake it for yet another on the architectural project is confused double-edged sword: fantasy or utopia. at best. Pressured to deliver ingenuity, On one hand, we tend to conjure resolution and impact, we remain experimental structures, theatrical plagued by uneasy questions: Do we events and hybrid imagery as developed focus on social responsibilities or personal autonomously in a creative vacuum. preoccupations, and do we solve or pose Linked to dreams and memories of problems? How does one engage discipline individualistic architects, spatial fantasies and city, or design / research? Do we and compositions don’t seem to line foreground theoretical or practical up with reality. We are drawn to dense experiments, concepts or structures? What imaginary worlds of interwoven histories, do we construct: visions or prototypes? references and fragments, but with Communicating process or products, how all our responsibilities, can we afford do we choose between broadcasting and intellectual games? On the other hand, private conversations? we are haunted by the ghost of utopia. Whichever way we lean, there are As radical experiments associate with even tougher choices ahead. If we play political activism and social engineering, it safe, responding to topical briefs as we see paper projects as loaded, yet professional information-managers with impotent, and would rather avoid their expanded technological bases, we could subversions. In addition, utopian diagrams achieve dutifully contextual, sustainable, don’t seem to apply socially and spatially. efficient, yet disappointing outcomes. All We respond to the manifestos and the by-products of methodical exercises the singular visions, but question uniform – rapidly researched, programmed and and homogeneous mega-installations. prototyped with intimidating skill – Secretly, we yearn for colourful may not add up to quality or difference. personalities, loud statements, drastic Conversely, if we aspire towards biased measures, extreme propositions and dramatic projects made of conceptual and imaginary gestures. But we hold back. And in our constructions, don’t we begin to slide double avoidance, we miss the opportunity into the dangerous realm of ‘paper to animate the truly visionary, radical architecture’? The problem is that we and catalytic behind paper architecture

tarnished entirely 15

and to come forward with our own design parallel shadow cities, not only before- and ‘provocations’. As a long-standing preferred after-cities. Going beyond utopia’s emphasis domain for architectural experimentation, on eternity, the golden past or the architectural provocation could help us bright future, they mark presents, moments deal with previous excesses and obsessions and flashes-in-the-pan. Contestable with just the right dose of realism and and transient, provocations are concerned impatience. Provocations can be lean, mean, with complex collages and junkyards of fast and most effective – an evolved breed provisional utopias. While inspired by of paper architecture. manifestos and social programmes, they Provocations are not only a quick reveal the fragile nature of architectural way to visualise a strong idea. They also hypotheses and radical experiments. allow us to access and engage larger Marking a pluralistic project, heterogeneous contexts, both disciplinary and urban. multidimensional constructs entertain They situate our work within wider streams diverse visions. Aptly, as opportunistic and longer cycles of precedents as distinct mixtures of images, drawings, diagrams extensions or oppositions, eg erasing and texts, provocations offer a compact yet and tracing, distributing and densifying. diverse tool-kit for realisation of our ideas To frame views and stir debates, we collide as distinct from terminal ‘building’. and distort our precedents. In the process, With rediscovered freedoms, we build up our own agendas and identities, provocations allow us to exploit histories while restoring avant-garde modes of and settings to animate alternative worlds, repetition that go beyond following master play with samples and loose affiliations, figures or myths of the new. and catalyse our conceptual and formal Similarly, provocations operate fluidly propositions. Combining both the within and on the messy realities of the functional and the fantastic, they respond contemporary city, fuelled by paradoxes, to critical utopias and imaginary inconsistencies and difficulties. Adult projections. They leap between concepts concerns coexist with childish curiosity in and structures, while remaining easy urban games driven by need and pleasure, and light. In the expanded paper realm affordability and extravagance, austerity and of provocations we can make a splash and mischief. Research gives way to pragmatic make a difference. We can dare to challenge diagnostics, as we extract hidden rules and revered masters and rising stars, old and

orders from the city to condense them into new methods and tools. So come on – new projects. The line between artificial let’s smooth the collages and drown the excavations and projections is blurred; archipelagos, explode stop-cities and iron we learn from the city as we transform it. out data-towns, arrest junkspaces Paper cities are made of ‘samples’ from and animate monuments. Provocateurs: real and imaginary cities, re-combined choose your enemies, weapons, strategies using scenarios and transcripts. Working and tactics. This is a call to arms. diagrammatically, provocations are tools of the ‘virtual’ used to construct alternative worlds, yet unlike utopian diagrams they don’t diminish in force or purity on contact with reality. In this sense, they are a perfect bridge between abstract and concrete – they enable ideas to take shape, scenarios to carve spaces, diagrams to affect form, etc. Notably, these in-between urban worlds don’t claim permanent or absolute power. Fantasies suggest coincident and

To see the work of Intermediate Unit 7, please refer please refer 7, Unit see Intermediate work of the To www.aaschool.ac.uk Projects at to Review Eroded china cabinet mind fuck 16 The Mark Fisher Scholarship

Established by Tait Towers in support of AA Students MarkFisher, inflatable pig at Battersea Power Station, launched to celebrate therelease of Pink Floyd’s album, Animals, Mark© in 1977 Fisher

A new AA Scholarship has been established of exceptional talent and interest in the in memory of Mark Fisher, a graduate intersection of architecture, performance, and inspiring teacher at the school who media and engineering. Undergraduate sadly died in June 2013. The Mark Fisher applicants must state their interest in an Scholarship Fund has been initiated AA scholarship in the ‘Scholarships and by James Fairorth and Tait Towers, Awards’ section of their application form who worked closely with Mark on ground- for entry to the school. breaking music performance events For more information on the around the world. Scholarship, or to make a donation to the

Mark combined his skill as an Mark Fisher Fund and help commemorate architect and designer with a passion his important legacy to the worlds of for rock and roll, pioneering the architecture and performance, please modern stadium performance and with visit markfisher.aaschool.ac.uk or email it reimagining what we understand as [email protected]. the architectural spectacle. The Scholarship will be managed by the AA Foundation and given annually starting 2014/15 for the equivalent of one full year’s school fees in support of a student

grandmas pajamas. please more visit information For http://markfisher.aaschool.ac.uk

A make-your-own paper pig based on Mark Fisher’s infamous inflatable flying pig moored at London’s Battersea Power Station. 17 Contingency

First Year Tutor Fabrizio Ballabio replies to Intermediate 2 Student Buster Rönngren’s letter on the question ‘what is the contemporary?’, in a discussion of the First Year brief ‘Architecture and Time’.

Leftto right: Andre Corboz, Peinture militante et architecture révolutionnaire: proposà du thème du tunnel chez Hubert Robert; Giorgio Agamben, What 2 Primer War Chanarin, Oliver and Broomberg Adam contemporary?, the is

This means that the contemporary is not only the one who, perceiving the darkness of the present, grasps a light that can never reach its destiny; he is also the one who, dividing and interpolating time, is capable of transforming it and putting it in relation with other times. He is able to read history in unforeseen ways, to ‘cite it’ according to a necessity that does not arise in any way from his will, but from an exigency to which he cannot respond.

Fear of snakes 18 Big mirrors sundowningBig mirrors sicilians Waking up of judgement. power the to arrogance and pride all subjugated has depths of the spirit The contemporary… of everything depths the rules which that namely work, at spirit another still is there time of this spirit the to addition in that learned I have

me down to the last and simplest things. simplest and last the to me down He me. forced out in die time of this ideals the to he let devotion and things, ordering and of joy explaining me of the robbed he science, in belief my away He took

Should you like to respond to this letter, or write a letter to your tutor, or conversely, to your student, please email your proposals to [email protected]. Carl Gustav Jung and Liber Novus, On Architecture as Type, Censura, AAFY 2012–13 19 Kiosks: Heritage or Utility?

Bobby Jewell in AA Membership explains the reasons behind the downfall of kiosks SwedishMeganews Magazines; photo courtesy of Meganews

Kiosks are a familiar site in the urban into a sculpture itself and in Stockholm landscapes of many cities; they act as news MEGANEWS kiosks cut out the social sources, community hubs and meeting aspect altogether, electronically printing points. Yet with the decline of printed newspapers while buyers wait. As well- media, kiosks are facing redundancy and meaning or creative as these ideas are, the

re-appropriation. Even in Paris, a city fate of kiosks mirrors a wider downturn in that prides itself on its iconic kiosks, public retail as a whole. Local kiosks are losing out authorities had to come to the financial to free information online just as retailers aid of newsagents this year and set up a are to online shopping. promotional campaign ‘Paris aime ses Though kiosks with community kiosques’ to encourage Parisians to use them support could well survive in Europe, on the occasion of their 150th anniversary. things are different in London where Elsewhere, disused kiosks have corner shops act as newsagents and red been remodeled as miniature galleries, telephone boxes as heritage. The bigger such as HOK’s San Francisco Street change here will be shown in how the Museums (bizarrely exhibiting puppetry) high street develops, especially considering or Gunther Vogt’s Republic of Common the recent declarations of current Tory Ground exhibition as part of the Venice Planning Minister Nick Boles, who argues Architecture Biennale 2012 aimed at that inner-city retail units should be used encouraging discussion within the city. for housing and offices in an attempt to end, Conversely, Thomas Heatherwick’s 2009 or at least assuage, the UK’s housing crisis. Paper House design aimed to turn the kiosk

If you would like to read more by Bobby Jewell, see see read to more Jewell, Bobby by like would you If http://conversations.aaschool.ac.uk/the-institute-of-making Fear of snakes 20 All Work and No Play

Mark Campbell, Intermediate 1 Unit Master, writes about the mediative capacity of writing in Stanley Kubrick’s ‘The Shining’

Curious at the results of her husband’s Pauline Kael, a frequent Kubrick-detractor, solitary industry, Wendy Torrance simply found the finished film ‘dumb’, finally steals a glance at the manuscript expressing the prevailing critical dismay of his new ‘writing project’. Horrified, that an auteur like Kubrick could preoccupy she begins to read, laid bare against the himself for almost two years shooting a page with malevolent intent, the same ghost story which would take a B-grade perfect sentence, ‘All work and no play director less than two months to make. makes Jack a dull boy, All work and no So what is there, amidst all this play makes Jack a dull boy, All work and no character assassination, overacting and play . . .’ repeated obsessively over several dumbness to say about writing? Or, by hundred pages of close typed manuscript. extension, what is there to say, however A labour, one might say, of love. briefly, about paper as a medium for Of course this is an infamous scene writing, suggested by the creased sheets from Stanley Kubrick’s masterpiece of Torrance’s manuscript? The Shining (1980), adapted from the novel For me, Kubrick’s Shining illustrates of the same name by the horror writer the inherently mediative capacity of writing. Stephen King. As King noted, part of his Mediative in the sense of facilitating an – ambition for this work lay in the desire albeit insane – absorption in concentrated to write a book about writers or, more thought, ‘All work and no play’, while accurately, about the torments of writing, also insisting on the primacy of the act of about the violence and contempt of the writing, which comes before all others. blank page. A failing writer, Jack Torrance (Prefiguring, as Jacques Derrida reminds faces this abyss with unwarranted bravado, us, all other forms of language and certainly rebutting his employer’s concerns by noting any mode of drawing.) Set in these terms, how the position of winter caretaker at I am interested less in the capacity of a the Overlook Hotel would afford him the sheet of paper for endless invention, than quiet isolation necessary ‘to write’. I am in the capacity of that page for singular Despite his obvious interest, inscription. For fixing, arresting and, in Kubrick’s annotations on his copy of King’s a kind of foreclosing of extension, opening manuscript frequently denigrated the up the possibilities of reading. writer’s conception as ‘stupid’. (‘Idiotic’ was Naturally, one form of this foreclosure another typical comment.) The animosity lies in the gravity of sheer volume, with between the pair was unsparing. Kubrick the weightiness of Torrance’s manuscript rightly considered King a hack and, for his suggesting that all possibilities of invention, part, King found the director’s adaptation of variation, and scale have been incorporated his gothic novel ‘maddening, perverse and within it. (As Roger Luckhurst has recently disappointing’. (He also thought Kubrick’s noted, in this sense it resembles nothing torturing of Shelly Duval, the actor who so much as a proto-modernist masterpiece.) played Wendy Torrance, reduced her role to Another, perhaps even more interesting that of a misogynistic caricature.) The critic characteristic, lies in its repetition, which –

Ethernet cable into baroque wall drooping in breeze 21

The Shining The Screengrab from Stanley Kubrick dir., 1980). Bros., Warner / Productions (Peregrine

through its constant restatement – becomes also demonstrates how the Outlook Hotel impossible to erase, or to change. In this provides the spatial and cinematic means way, the compulsion to repeat ‘All work and to manifest its own murderous intent. no play makes Jack a dull boy’ complicates (Again, words before actions.) the suggestion that the mediation could This exposition differs significantly actually bring about a reconciliation or from King’s novel, which described a resolution, producing only open-ended nightmarish ‘blackness where one sinister variations. As Kubrick suggests in his word flashed in red: REDRUM’. Dragging Shining, this repetition not only produces this sentiment out of the darkness, Kubrick familial distress, but is also enacted through mirrors it in the most domestic of the architecture. hotel’s interiors, the Torrances’ ‘homey’ In another famous scene, the caretaker’s apartment, lit with the tawdry Torrance’s psychically-gifted son, banality of the everyday. (The director’s

Danny, walks across his parents’ bedroom note for the design of this apartment wryly carrying a butcher’s knife in one hand observed, ‘the rooms they occupy have to and red lipstick in the other to write the be interesting and useful . . . a lot happens word ‘RE UM’RD the bathroom door. there’.) The final mirror-shot in a film Chanting, trying to establish the meaning full of mirror-shots, this masterstroke of ‘RE UM’RD through its repeated reminds us that Kubrick was an entirely incantation, he wakes his mother who different kind of hack. One whose elaborate looks over Danny’s shoulder to see, reflected and often maddening cinematic constructs, in the dressing table mirror, the single word assembled as much through the proto- ‘MURDER’. While his actions illustrate Demandian paper models used to conceive how the building has become the surface the hotel’s labyrinthine interiors as through on which to write, replacing the sheet of any revisions to the script, encompass us paper in conveying an even more essential all in their beauty, leaving us with a series message, her scream, which emanates of images that are incised into our memories from this reflected acknowledgement, with the perverse sting of a paper cut.

For more information about Mark Campbell’s Mark about Campbell’s more information For please visit Lost’, Research ‘Paradise Cluster http://paradiselost.aaschool.ac.uk. Hot traffic sounds 22 Less is a copy

Buster Rönngren, Intermediate Unit 2 Student, visits three corridors, in and about the premises

…a circumferential passage consumes to borrow examples out of the archive of a large area, which is eligible, by most printed images at hand, to collect content methods of reckoning, to be called waste for one’s own operating manual of sorts. space. Indeed, many state building agencies Using the copy machine placed in the distinguish circulation spaces from rooms...1 corner of the gallery, the categorically organised b/w prints could then be used There is no pretension for realism in as the basis to make addressed books of the longing for site-specificity: the gallery copies. Reproducing what is available is a local form of a corridor. If there is a becomes a direct operation, what is already real limit to a collective architectural on paper can remain on paper, but it can knowledge, it does not require a specific still be re-employed. For example, images author to be exhibited. Furthermore, the from the exhibited categories formula 1 first exhibition of the semester, titled race tracks, concrete structures, and offices Book of Copies, is an example of how the for more than 1000 employees, can provide outsourced selection of references can references for something other than make up a tentative index for a project Fiat’s Lingotto Factory. that nonetheless endures the medium. Having the visitor enforce the To produce architecture, from packets of black distribution of the content creates a and white A4 photocopies, assembled by a definition of locality in the interdependence multitude of producers – visitors were advised between situation and medium, between

street lights with orange gaze through spiked tall green ones peering over short 23

The third corridor – the Photocopier, photo Sue Barr. Barr. Sue photo Photocopier, the – corridor third The Opposite:The Picture Rails in the AA Gallery, photo Valerie Bennett

neighbour and hood. Beyond copyright, a print passes through the copy machine, it if an image is treated as material, a weather has to pass through matter. And during this report is true to what neighbours agree passage that print is replaced by another on not seeing. Being aware that an idea is print, and another one. The purpose of our given the situation, its tolerance relies on line of work is increasingly experienced as the coherence of the medium in which it something introverted, and outside becomes is distributed, being the closest parallel to less interesting in the first place. the idea where resolution is none. Reducing Like a corridor in transformation, the reference, or the image of an idea, to a the Book of Copies exhibition was narrowed material can be justified accordingly: when down by the growing collection of paper

walls, 24

in it. At the 2012 Venice Biennale, its It is inconsistent that corridors be so archive was presented in prints laid common in a world where direct resonance out flat on a table. In the AA Gallery, is so rare. Although there is plenty of the same prints were displayed on two room for ideas at the AA to be localised, parallel picture rails, forming the outer only a few of them are echoed within. boundaries of a model corridor that divided The Book of Copies made one exception, at the gallery in two. Prints that existed in a low frequency of conversation. Current this corridor within a corridor, went on things that matter, and projects in general, to a third corridor, the photocopier, tend to be transmitted to a receiver away where two parallel surfaces met to close from school, as if the corridors do not lead the gap, directly resonating in a document far enough. By comparison, information for a potential room. A light was thrown enters a school project from far and wide, on something as the print was passing as if a discourse occurring from within the through; by another method of reckoning, building is too close to suffice. The signal the corridor is not waste space, but a weakens when its limit is moved out, what space wasted – no longer in the service is taken out as a reference from a distant of communication. source runs the risk of being nondescript, In due course, a corridor can take its intactness being conditional on the the form of a domain. In a building filled medium. Arguably, by detaching an idea to capacity, where rooms for matter are from just any paper, its scarce, a passage will soon be governed by a machine, or even literal waste. Smith’s …entire form vanishes, as when an Passage, the new corridor connecting the indescribable truth is lifted out of silence AA Diploma units to the rest of the school,2 and formulated into an inert mass...3 is bound to be appropriated by elements that do not care for circulation – stacks of To avoid the surfacing of words to a mere paper, a copy machine that finds no vacant monologue about architecture, to debate corner: things that take place. Paradoxically, a lecture before applauding it, one ought through this eventual accumulation to listen and speak of what is within reach. of things, one finds the corridor to be The outset is that there is actual material a transition in transition. Its immediate to immerse in our current location, our function, linking rooms, becomes current medium. Think of what the AA immediate simply because a corridor is would be like if the inside did not become becoming a room itself – from the first dust outside: acting in a vacuum, being ever that finds it. Even the first layer of paint more specific. Perhaps, one fails to see the in a corridor begins to narrow it down: the proximate parallels, what is in the education gallery is a local form of a corridor. Walls of an architect, if contemplating school as that mark the boundaries of a room inwards a means to an end. Through the waste of act in the opposite direction – the proximity time, corridors will cease to exist. The need to another type of place, and towards a for reflection of ideas is constant: one should different, possible, state of the typology, strive to project onto a close analog wall is revealed. Evidence of this having taken to make sure that what is being announced place can be seen at the basement level can resound and feed back all the while. of the AA, where the room of the Digital Prototyping Lab has engulfed the corridor 1 Gerald Allen, Charles Moore that used to connect the restrooms to and Donlyn London, the Accounts Office. Articles and paper, The Place of Houses, p 161. once omitted in the transit, now have to find 2 See AArchitecture issue 20: other domains to waste. To the rest of the Time, centrefold. school: go and appropriate Via Christina! 3 Tomas Transtromer, Baltics, p 14.

maybe medium height. read interview the authors ‘Books the Copies’ of with of To conversations.aaschool.ac.uk/san_rocco. visit: please Graduate Gallery

The new Graduate Gallery was opened for the Project Review exhibition 2012–13. Located in the former Materials Shop space, behind the lecture hall in 36 Bedford Square, it was built to showcase work by AA students present and past. Since opening the gallery has shown the Director’s selection of student work from 2012–13 as well as an exhibition representing the work of high- achieving graduates from the AA Graduate School. Exhibitions will change regularly so please check the AA website for updates.

Photo Sue Barr

For more information on the current exhibition please visit www.aaschool.ac.uk/exhibitions 25 Recommended Reading

Architectural Inventions: Visionary Drawings Folding Techniques for Designers: Matt Bua and Maximillian Goldfarb From Sheet to Form 336pp, 280 x 216mm Paul Jackson Hardback 224pp, 220 x 220mm, illustrated London, 2012 Paperback with CD £12 Oxon, 2013 £19.95

Born out of the drawingbuilding.org online archive, Architectural Inventions Many designers use folding techniques presents a stunning visual study of in their work to make three-dimensional impossible or speculative structures that forms from two-dimensional sheets exist only on paper. Soliciting the work of of fabric, cardboard, plastic, metal and architects, designers and artists of renown, many other materials. This unique book Maximilian Goldfarb and Matt Bua have explains the key techniques of folding, gathered an array of works that convey such as pleated surfaces, curved folding architectural alternatives, through products, and crumpling. An elegant, practical expansions or critiques of our inhabited handbook, it covers over 70 techniques environments. Highlighting visions explained in clear step-by-step drawings, that exist outside established channels crease pattern drawings and specially of production and conventions of design, commissioned photography. The book Architectural Inventions showcases a is accompanied by a CD containing all wide scope in concept and vision, fantasy the crease pattern drawings. and innovation.

Order these titles online at aabookshop.net where aabookshop.net where at online Order these titles books,a selection new special of offers and some are available titles backlist Joy Matashi, Intermediate 2 student 26 Thoughts Poured Out onto Paper

Monia DeMarchi, Head of First Year, finds the power of paper in its liberating quality Quick projects by First Year students. FirstYear by projects Quick

Architecture is Like a Cup of Tea 27

Using a piece of paper can be liberating – texts, novels, and chats in a multiplicity liberating not in a therapeutic and sedative of dimensions for possible architectural sense, but in a provocative one. A blank scripts where forms, figures, spatial sheet of paper is a thrilling place for our qualities, symbols, facts, and relations mind; it can take us somewhere else and talk and fight with each other. save us from sleek apathies. Let’s put this idea into practice and Here, I am not writing about paper try out a few situations – just grab a project (printed or drawn on) used by architects (a theme, a question, a word), a pen, a piece to present and publish architecture projects of paper, and an hour of your time. as books, drawings, illustrations, visual What if we sketch out, draw and notate scenarios; nor do I have a nostalgic affection a hypothetical project we are curious about for drawings on napkins sketched out and imagine it as real, surreal, imaginary, by architects in a sort of ‘creative’ impetus. fantastic, mythical? Here, I am writing about paper used What if we sketch and write a as a tool in the moments of discovering, possible table of contents of a project, thinking, and figuring out projects and or of a portfolio? positions: the disposable paper stripped What if we embrace the different down from any visual craft; the paper meanings of a spatial project by questioning that starts to pile up while a project takes it in various ways, such as drawing it form within a juxtaposition of intuitive accurately, sketching it as a series of visual and logical questionings. similarities and analogies, outlining its Unlike other tools for expressing timeframe in a storyboard, or in writing one’s self, the liberation of paper lies in its it out as a brief? simplicity. An A4 stack of paper doesn’t help What if we take a project or a topic me, but it doesn’t limit me either – there and search for a synthesis? What if we are no interfaces with countless possibilities write it down in a short sentence, or sketch balanced out by a series of limits, and it with an icon, or cut it out from a sheet there is no need to master anything before and reassemble it? its use; there are no introductions and no One hour of thoughts poured help buttons. Instead, we can just dive out onto paper can inspire us and shake in and pour out the ideas rushing through our explorations. This extension of time our mind, and this is what takes our and place free of imposed distractions is investigations into unpredictable territories. something we should embrace, a luxurious Our mind’s wandering suddenly becomes excess that keeps our mind and hands visual through written words, sketches, from wandering. notations, enquiries and signs by overlaying Now pick up a pen and a paper, imaginative speculations and sharp and let’s get started.

observations. We embrace not only what we know, and what we see around us, but also what we guess by juxtaposing things that are real, surreal, imaginary and projective. A piece of paper is a place where we can visualise an idea, a curiosity and a theme that we love, one we are passionate about. We start to pin it down with words and sketches, we make visual connections with what we remember and what we see, we start imagining other possibilities, we move to different associations with things we experienced in other places, projects, films,

If you want to know to more want you aboutIf work the please visit: students, Firstof Year http://pr2013.aaschool.ac.uk/first-year The English Way 28 The Book That Hasn’t Been Borrowed for Decades

The AA Library holds thousands of titles, some of which have not been borrowed for a very long time. Eleanor Gawne, AA Librarian, presents one such, Staircases and Garden Steps, which was last borrowed in 1989.

AA Library staff constantly re-evaluate were checked out with a date stamp and the stock to make sure it remains relevant. a checkout slip in a cardboard pocket The Library also holds several titles which inside the front cover. The stamps in this although not in regular use, record the book show that it had a lively history of history of pedagogy at the AA. One of borrowing from 1960 until 1989, when these titles is Staircases and Garden Steps it became a reference copy. Perhaps the by Guy Cadogan Rothery, published in popularity of the book is linked to the AA’s 1912, presented in 1934 by Enid Caldicott, syllabus at the time. The American edition AA Librarian. Before computers, books is available online at OpenLibrary.org

It may be the best way, but what is an English cup of tea (or English Breakfast Tea shall we say)? 29

For more information on the Library’s collection please visit: Library’s on the more information For collection please visit: www.aaschool.ac.uk/aalife/librariesarchives.php Do we defend a certain brand? 30 A Smashing Party

The AA’s 166th Birthday celebration took place on 8 October 2013, and offered a diverse programme including a piñata-smashing contest.

There’s a saying at Tesco’s... 31 Photos Valerie Bennett Valerie Photos

For more information, please morevisit: information, For www.aaschool.ac.uk/aa166birthday ‘A cupboard without a box of PG Tips is a cupboard in despair.’ 32 The AA’s Frankenstein Towers

AA Foundation and PhD students competed in raising towers with a game of folding paper and blindly drawing in continuation from the previous fragment.

The Villa Palagonia in Bagheria, 15 km from Palermo, in Sicily 33

For more information on the AA on the more information For Foundation and please PhD visit www.aaschool.ac.uk Lawn gnome progenitors 34 The Magician and the Surgeon

Artist and photographer Sachiyo Nishimura’s recent show in the AA Bar was called Random Structures. She is interviewed here by AA PhD candidates Alejandra Celedon and Gabriela Garcia de Cortazar, who organised the exhibition. Sachiyo Nishimura, Landscape Fiction 14, ©Anise Gallery-artist ©Anise Landscape Nishimura, 14, Sachiyo Fiction

In architecture, the drawing of plans registers in a two-dimensional plane a three-dimensional reality, impossible to actually view. Until aerial images became available, plans were the only tool to offer a view of a plot in a single glance. In addition to that, architectural paper also offers a single archetypical shot (form), which acts as a diagram with the potential for variability and manipulation. Nishimura’s work explores these features from the photographic language, aiming to construct a two-dimensional whole by means of reproduction, distortion and transformation of an original photographic shot. Sachiyo Nishimura’s work takes place both in the regularity of a two- dimensional grid (as the one instructed by Dürer’s engravings on orthogonal projection) and the distorted, displaced and cropped images of the photographs occupying the spaces in between such grid. These two languages and magnitudes, the painter’s and the cameraman’s, mediate between the three (or four if we include time) dimensions of the photographed landscapes and the two dimensions of the paper. This is how both an objective and detached subject is behind her grids and lines (the magician), together with the subjective and proximal viewer in charge of the camera (the surgeon). This dialectic between distance and proximity, object and subject, original and copy, explains the function of paper in both architecture and photography.

Heard of measuring water before pouring into a mug? 35

What does the possibility of the copy reveal in your work? When an image can be mechanically reproduced, there is a certain sense of proximity and intimacy towards the copy that is opposed to the distant sense of ‘respect’ towards a unique original piece. This proximity entails a sense of freedom and fearlessness to touch, cut or modify the copies, opening a wide range of possible actions, from the very subtle to the daringly radical. The photographic medium in particular has quite a large range of image plasticity, which makes the process of modifying the image reproduction even more interesting: changes of scale, tone and intensity, acts of cropping, overlapping, etc.

Your work is not only photographic: aside from the ‘original’ images, you draw subtle lines on top. What is your view in relation to the proximities and/or distances between photography and drawing? What we expect to see in a photographic image is a cut-out of a specific time and space transferred into a flat surface by means of the mechanical process of photography. If we leave the photographic device out of the equation, and stick only to the desire of finding a piece of the visible world retained within a flat image, our expectations are not far off from those pre-photographic era attempts. Before photographic technology, drawing, through the use of perspective and grids, achieved an accurate translation of the three-dimensional into the flat surface. Although the means differs, both photography and these geometrical devices help us to put together an illusion of space onto a flat piece of paper that is fairly close to what we perceive. The grids, the drawn ones and the virtual ones, are the foundations for photography itself.

What is the importance of the final printed version of your images, when the work process is entirely digital? What is the place of paper within your work? Although we live in a digital era where photographic images don’t necessarily need to reach the final stage of paper print, I think there is certainly an added value to the photographic image in an actual, tangible print. I still get surprised when I see some of my work printed for the first time, noticing things that can only be perceived once the image is actually printed and materialised. As some aspects of the finished print (such as paper quality or scale) can radically change the character of the photographic image, it is absolutely necessary for me to think thoroughly on which kind of print and finishing would possibly enhance what I want to visually achieve. Further on, in order to emphasise the crossover between photography and purely graphic elements, I’ve chosen an etching paper and ink based print as it brings the photographic image somewhere closer to the ink drawing field but not quite there yet, creating a sort of hybrid graphic language in between.

Sachiyo Nishimura’s exhibition ‘Random Structures’ took place from 16 November to 14 December in the AA Bar.

To find out more information about Sachiyo Nishimura’s about out more find Sachiyo Nishimura’s information To work www.snishimura.com visit: Nope. 36 Speed Dating

This year the AA welcomed three new units into the Undergraduate School. Curious to find out more about the units, AArchitecture asked the tutors questions, turning the table on the student-tutor interview process.

Intermediate 12: Happening Architecture (Tyen Masten and Inigo Minns)

What makes your unit different from any of the others? Why should students pick it? Inigo: We are very interested in the generation of buildings around events. That’s the kind of theme that we’re working on, and we titled it as ‘Happening Architecture’. Tyen: Partly because we wanted the idea of the event to be more ongoing rather than seeing events as kind of a one-shot thing. The ‘happening’ has a looser feel to it and it suggests something that is more ground-up in terms of the generation of architecture and how architecture can evolve through that event and have a legacy that’s beyond just the single moment.

If you were to draw an advert for the unit, what would it be?

Is the unit Now or New? Tyen: It’s Now. There’s no such thing as New. Inigo: We are really interested in the temporality of architecture. The starting point is temporality as a kind of gestation point, which makes way before the building, and it has a legacy that exists after the building. There are multiple side activities that happen within this range.

Neither have I. 37

Tyen: We gave them a range of events: Yoko Ono and John Lennon’s wedding was the small-scale, and the large was something like a tsunami. We actually started the year doing an event in which we set up a few key items in which the students went on a scavenger hunt in London and had to map that event. We found is that events that were shorter in time had higher impact because of the legacy they left on the students, who were sharing the stories after the event itself. For example, they had to dance with someone random down at the tube station. Inigo: I’m thinking about some of the things that they came back with and they all came back with 15 examples of events and took that down to their three favorites. We ended up with everything from Kate Middleton’s bum, Will and Kate’s wedding –

Surely it’s Pippa’s? Inigo: Oh yes sorry it was Pippa’s.

Intermediate 5: R & R (Ryan Dillon)

What’s the most difficult question you’ve been asked so far by students? Are they challenging the brief? Ryan: The most difficult is somewhat challenging the brief and working with constraints. But overall they mostly embrace that idea. Because I think it’s overbearing – here are these rules – and it’s actually more like a process of learning.

What are the criteria to get into your unit? Students willing to take risks and engage, to open their minds to different sort of ideas and to be radical and visionary rather than just remain at the status quo.

Can you see that in a student in a 10-minute interview? I think so, to some degree. When I see what they’ve worked on before; or just how they talk and what they’re willing to do.

What kind of questions would you ask them? What interests you about the brief? – which sounds like a very basic question, but is very difficult to answer. Some people have a very distinct and clear response to that and then for others it’s almost as if they haven’t read the brief. So you can see right away where their interests are.

Other questions? Well, there’s a basic one – what’s your favourite project?

Oh yeah, what’s your favourite building? I asked my students that today!

Mug, Cup, Glass, whatever the container! 38

What responses did you get? I was quite surprised. They had answers and they weren’t the typical responses. It wasn’t your favourite building, it was their favourite architecture practice and what building of theirs did they like.

Ok, so did they ask you to answer? They did. I said Le Corbusier and the Assembly Building in Chandigarh, mainly from my personal experience of that building.

Who was your first architect crush? Actually it would be the same answer because it was jammed down our throats when I was in undergraduate school, and we had no choice but to love it. But then I went through a period of hating him.

If you could choose, would you be an ant, a spider or a bee? In terms of how they build. A bee. I am drawn to the spider as well for some reason. Actually I want to be a fly. I don’t want to be crawling around in dirt.

Could you draw a self-portrait?

Diploma 3: One:One (Marco Vanucci, Daniel Bosia and Adiam Sertzu)

Marco: The unit was set up as a partnership while we were working at AKTII, an engineering firm, where Daniel, Adiam and I were working in the Parametric Applied Research Team. I’m currently running my own architectural firm – OPENSYSTEMS Architecture in London, and Daniel and Adiam are working at AKTII p.art team, respectively as Director and Associate. At AKTII we worked together on creating an interface between architecture and engineering, in an endeavor to create a new form of design practice. So the idea of setting up a unit at the AA was to bring back to academia the world of real practice and vice versa; to make a fertile exchange between the two worlds.

Tea must remain the same temperature from start to finish. 39

What would you say are the challenges that you face? We try to bring new concepts; the novelty is something that needs to be understood. We teach an approach, a design method, more than anything else. It is not necessarily connected to a style or to an aesthetic output, but it’s more to do with thinking systematically. We understand design as the organisation of matter.

Could you draw your unit?

How is it going so far? Things are going well so far. Students bring new ideas to the table. We try to help them developing their own ideas and we enhance them through our design methodology.

What is your agenda? The agenda focuses on 1:1 – real prototyping. We think that in the context of cross-fertilisation between academia and practice, prototypes can really help to unlock innovation for the design industry.

How do you work?

We divide the year into three phases. The first term is more to do with learning the tools and opening up to new possibilities by playing with computation and digital and physical form-finding. In the second term we will look into a real scenario – our site is Hudson Yards in New York: it presents a great dichotomy between a privately owned piece of land with the will to transform it into a public space. In the third term we will work on full-scale prototypes.

What are you looking for in a student? We are looking for keen, open-minded and ambitious individuals; students who are interested in getting their hands dirty with material and have the ambition to go to real practices tomorrow and incorporate the knowledge they gained at school.

3 For more information on the new units in the the in units new on the more information For undergraduate school please visit: www.aaschool.ac.uk/study/undergraduate 25m just won’t do. 40 Inscribing Sites

Alejandra Celedon, a current PhD candidate at the AA, ponders the role of paper when we inscribe a site through drawing. 1973. Transparentized 1973. paper, pencil, and colored pencil on wall, x 160 Neighbourhood 90”(406.4 228.6x cm).The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Gift ofFrederic J. Byers III, Dorothea 2013 © 1978. Rockburne Artists/ Rights Society (ARS), New York

Architecture’s ultimate monopoly is the as Architecture, all has revolved around realm of projection, to construct lines (and inside) paper. As the site of the between interiors and exteriors. From drawing, writing, planning, plotting and the napkin sketch to the detailed drawing, inscribing, the paper has been thus the it is neither about construction nor about place where architecture could be itself. the future life of buildings; everything The definition of an outline (a form) comes down to drawing and only drawing. inescapably sets forth a conjecture about A division line, between ‘the art of building’ a territorial organisation that will develop and ‘the art of drawing’, emerged along the in time, a narrative. By defining limits and development of orthogonal projections. inscribing the land, the drawing positions Such separation was only confirmed itself in relation to a site. The act of marking when architecture established as a taught a surface first establishes a position within discipline. Since architecture exists indeed a disposition in which the paper, as both

Architecture is like a cup of tea. 41

canvas and site, and the mark, as inscription is now calling for frontiers and limits to and footprint, become one. It is not a figure/ the infinite and indiscriminate ‘urbanisation ground relationship, but one in which the of life’. Then lines and traces can be thing marked (the paper site) and the mark seen as a possibility to confront the city. (the drawing) shape each other in a back- The impression of a plan on a paper sheet and-forth movement from inside to outside. problematises the drawing of a building as The drawing and its site convoke on the the precondition for the production of a site; paper. Here, the word ‘site’ might refer to in other words, the site is no longer the the actual material flat sheet on which the precondition for the existence of a building. lines are outlined, but likewise to the real The plan imprint singles out the possibility material ground in which a building is to be of a certain friction between a figure and inscribed. Furthermore, the ‘site’ becomes a ground, between the ‘mark’ and the a discursive territory where the drawing ‘marked’, a confrontation amid the forces draws (and writes). The paper as site is thus inside the lines from those left outside. endowed with a rhetorical and pedagogical Positioning the drawing is an act of function, beyond its own materiality. topography (from topos ‘place’ and graphi However abstract this site might ‘writing’) and as such has the possibility be, the paper materialises the most essential to be critical. This critical potential resides architectural gesture, that of inscribing in walling boundaries between interiors a site. The act of drawing is reduced and exteriors, constructing frontiers here to a ‘trace on a paper’. By abstracting between private and public, building drawing to its minimal and archetypical borders between bare life and civic life, expression a search for the essential and eventually diluting the frontiers, instrumentality of the discipline is opened boundaries and borders between the paper up. Yet, at the same time (and paradoxically), and the city itself. The paper is not a tabula it addresses a territorial domain beyond rasa white sheet, it is not a virgin surface. its scope, that of the paper sheet. The On the contrary it is a written and drawn word ‘type’ in Greek meant ‘imprint, (and rewritten and redrawn) saturated page. impression’ (typos), which closely relates In these terms, the relevance of the paper to the meaning of character insomuch as is not located in the border that separates ‘marking, engraving,’ as the distinctive sign and outlines the building but in the fact of something. In the Encyclopédie Méthodique that the drawing might engender the paper Quatremère di Quincy traces the meaning – as site, and that architecture not only of the word ‘plan’ to the ‘ichnographia’, draws on paper with lines, but draws on

where ‘ichne’ means the impression of a the site with walls. footprint. In turn, in the entry ‘ichne’ of the Encyclopédie of Diderot and d’Alembert the term is related to ‘trace’ and ‘vestige’. ‘Ichnographie’ signifies ‘the plan or track formed as a ground for the base of a corpus supported’. From ‘ichne’ and ‘graphein’, the drawing of a plan refers to the description of the imprint of the trace that a work leaves on paper. Does this reduce architecture into the mere repetition of types? What if paper superseded its own site and escaped its own canvas for that of the city? Then ‘lines and angles’ (lineaments) would be traced directly there. The paper, becoming the city itself,

Information about the work of PhD candidates candidates about PhD work of the Information can be seen http://pr2013.aaschool.ac.uk/phd at You can’t forget the sugar. 42 A History of Architecture in Five Minutes (Friday 8 November, 2013 – between 13.30–13.35)

Maarten Lambrecht, a student on the MA in History and Critical thinking, recalls his part in the recent recitals at Open Week.

All I need now is paper. It’s the last day that actually matter? In the end, does it not of the Open Week, and my turn to do all come down to the most basic and also a recital. But before I go on, bringing an most complex question ‘What do I like’? end to the series of recitals held by students To explain this over-simplification of the MA History & Critical Thinking, I need to refer back to my recital for a I hurry and quickly print 15 A4’s, to be cut moment. By reading contradictory passages in thirty A5’s. On the front of each paper from Towards a New Architecture and it says ‘PARTS’, on the back ‘A History Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture of Architecture in 5 Minutes’. Nothing I tended to explain how writing is purely a special, but these pieces of paper will signifying practice which can be applied to turn out to be essential for the recital. completely opposite ideologies. This makes Considering the goal of the whole exercise apparent that there can never be one text is for the audience to, literally, write a to dominate history. There is, just as well, history of architecture. In my15 minutes not one definitive way to construct history. of recital fame I’ll therefore try to point We need to know that there is no ultimate out to the audience how we can achieve origin, no fixed starting point, and there is this – how the construction of a history no basic need anymore for a chronological of architecture is, especially for architects, structure, nor an all determining linear not so difficult to understand. Because causality. Out of all these considerations, when we understand parts and the whole, I propose a history of ‘parts’. It is a history do we not also understand words and the wherein the parts only signify themselves. text? Isn’t history not just text written on a As a result, there is a clear difference piece of paper which leaves traces for new among the parts and, thus, a clear history history? It should be clear that history can’t as a whole. Concretely, this led to the exist without paper because it is built with it. construction of ‘A History of Architecture From witnessing the event itself to in 5 minutes’. For this experiment I asked the first ideas of the historian, sooner or the members of the audience to formulate later they’ll all become words, written, in five minutes an answer to the question on paper. A simple A5 in this case, a small ‘What do I like to say about architecture?’. part in a giant construction. But then, what The result is, indeed, an overly simplistic, to write on this little piece of paper? Does perhaps irrelevant, delirious representation

Joshua Harskamp, Intermediate 2 43 ExcerptHistory from ‘A of Architecture in Minutes5

of history, a cadavre exquis, but it is in to the one who occupies the last place my opinion a perfectly valid history of in the production process. To construct architecture where anyone is part of it. a historical event, therefore, really means

What is left now, are 26 pieces of A5 to understand its presentation. In this sense, paper. Thus, I present here before you piece an event constructed with the purpose of A of the evidence, black on white. These presentation almost automatically becomes pieces of paper are the crucial evidence history. Almost, because I would argue brought together in order to form an image there is, especially in an age dominated of the event ‘A History of Architecture by media, another aspect which we can not in 5 Minutes’. The first step to create such neglect. The presentation of history needs an image is thus setting up a paradigm to be published. Even more, history wants to and, more importantly, presenting it as be published. Because if there’s no published valid. After all, history is mostly about image of the event, it might just as well not presentation. That’s why, at the end of the have happened at all. History, especially day, it is the historian who makes history. one constructed in five minutes, wants to Even though the audience was asked become an image amongst images. And it to write history, it is the historian who is you, by looking at it, at this very moment, ultimately decides on the form in which who has voluntarily accepted it as such. it will be presented to the world. This is the power of manipulation that belongs

To find out more find MA on the History in and Critical To Thinking visit www.aaschool.ac.uk/hct Paper Sketch 1 44 AA Publications

Third Natures Colquhounery: Cristina Diaz Moreno and Efrén Garcia Alan Colquhoun from Bricolage to Myth Grinda Edited by Irina Davidovici 160 pages, 340 x 240 mm c 200 pages, 160 x 200 mm Extensive col & b/w ills, paperback Col & b/w ills, paperback February 2014 February 2014

978-1-907896-48-4 978-1-907896-52-1 £35 c £25

Published in tandem with the exhibition Colquhounery is a commemorative of the same title at the AA School in volume celebrating the life and work January 2014, Third Natures presents of the architect and architectural historian the work and ideas of Spanish architects Alan Colquhoun, who died in December Cristina Diaz Moreno and Efrén Ga Grinda, 2012. Testimonials from friends, colleagues and their Madrid-based studio AMID. and students are gathered together cero9. Conceived as a micropedia, the alongside original photographs, sketches, book alphabetically arranges the terms letter transcripts, biographical and archival that represent architecture’s Third Nature. data tracing Colquhoun’s career as an Comprised of entries by AMID.cero9 architect, writer and educator on both sides and invited contributors, the resulting of the Atlantic. Launched in tandem with publication is a constellation of objects a celebratory AA event, this anthology and ideas that – through form and represents a collective effort to remember content – present a cumulative way of the work and the man responsible for some seeing the world. of the most penetrating and clear-sighted architectural criticism of the last 60 years.

am i architect?

teaching paper to speak? further on AAFor information order, or to Publications www.aaschool.ac.uk/publicationsvisit: 45 Bedford Press

All Possible Futures Real Estates: Life Without Debt Edited by Jon Sueda Edited by Jack Self & Shumi Bose 112 pages, 200 x 130 mm c 144 pages, 173 x 110 mm Col ills, softcover Col ills, softcover February 2014 April 2014 978-1-907414-35-0 978-1-907414-37-4 £15 £ tbc

All Possible Futures accompanies an Neoliberalism as a wealth redistribution

exhibition that explores speculative work imperative has made property ownership created by contemporary graphic designers. impossible or unprofitable for much of The scope of work encompasses everything society. Whether in the form of mortgages from self-generated provocations, to or rent, we are consigned to living in experimental work created in parallel with conditions of perpetual debt. Real Estates client-based projects, to unique practices explores the moral, political and economic where commissions have been tackled ramifications of property and ownership with a high level of autonomy and critical in neoliberal debt economies, and asks what investigation. The work highlights different role the architect might play in addressing levels of visibility and publicness within the these issues. Includes essays by Pier Vittorio graphic design process. Some projects were Aureli, Neil Brenner, Mark Campbell, made for clients and exist in a ‘real world’ Mario Carpo, Keller Easterling, Ross Exo context, while others might otherwise Adams, Peer Illner, Sam Jacob, Roberta have gone unnoticed: failed proposals, Marcaccio, Roland Shaw, Brett Steele, experiments, sketches, incomplete thoughts. Urban-Think Tank, Wouter Vanstiphout, Eyal Weizman, Finn Williams.

Bedford Press AA of an is imprint Publications. www.bedfordpress.org further visit: For information to curl into croissant 46

than two dates to be announced in Published & Exhibited advance in due course. As in previous AA News years, Mi-Voice Electoral Services Immanuel Koh (AA DRL MArch have been approved as scrutineers for 2010) showcased recent experimental the election, and will provide online work at the Victoria & Albert Museum and telephone support to members on 7 December, with a digital design requiring assistance with their ballots drop-in session at the V&A’s Sculpture Council and/or supporting information. Gallery entitled Generative Glass. Koh explored the aesthetical, structural Timetable for the nomination – The results of the election will and assembly logics of glass using and election of officers and council be announced no later than 5pm new computational and interactive for the 2014/15 session: on Monday 5 May 2014. fabrication production processes. http://immanuelkoh.com At a General Meeting held on Questions regarding the timetable 16 December 2013, the Council agreed for the periods of nomination and Francisco González de Canales a resolution setting out the procedures election, or the eligibility and (Inter 8 Unit Master and HTS and timetable for the election of service requirements for members Diploma Tutor) curated ‘RAFAEL Officers and Council for the 2014/15 seeking nomination to the ballot MONEO: Theory Through Practice, Council session. As in previous years, may be directed to the Secretary at Archive Materials (1961–2013)’ at it was agreed to open the periods of 0207 887 4047 /4018 or the The Fundación Barrié, A Coruña, nomination and election on a slightly [email protected]. Spain. This is the first comprehensive early timescale than that set out in retrospective of the work of the the AA’s by-laws. The earlier timing architect Rafael Moneo (Pritzker allows for a period of handover Prize 1996, RIBA Gold Medal 2003). between the incoming and outgoing The exhibition will run until Councils, which is important for new 30 March 2014. members of Council whose experience of governance in a large and complex The new issue of the academic charitable organisation may be limited. journal RevistArquis includes As always, and as set out in the by-laws, Mark Cousins’ (Head of AA HTS) Council members elected for the lecture ‘Technology and Prosthesis’, 2014/15 session will act in a ‘shadow’ and Robin Evans’ (former AA Tutor) capacity until they formally take their article ‘In Front of Lines that Leave seats on 1 June 2014. Nothing Behind’. Both were translated into Spanish by Valeria Guzmán- The following is the timetable as Verri (AA PhD 2010). The issue also agreed by Council by resolution on features papers by Doreen Bernath 16 December 2013: (Course Tutor in AA HTS & AA DRL Lecturer) and Robert Stuart-Smith – Council’s ‘house list’ will be (AA DRL Studio Master). reviewed and agreed at the Ordinary http://revistas.ucr.ac.cr/index.php/ General Meeting scheduled for revistarquis Monday, 3 March 2014. Vanessa Norwood (Head of AA – The period of open nominations Exhibitions) has contributed an essay (during which time any member of to The Architect’s Guide to Effective the AA may propose themselves or Self-Presentation by Andreas Luescher, another AA member for election) will released October 2013. begin on Tuesday 4 March 2014, and conclude at 5pm on Tuesday 18 March An interview with Mond Qu 2014. Nominations will be requested in (AADipl(Hons) 2013) was featured writing to the Secretary, who will carry in online magazine Indechs, where he out the necessary checks in relation to discussed his Diploma Honours project the eligibility and service requirements ‘Aditnálta: An Island dispersed across as set out in By-laws 35–37. the internet’. www.indechs.org/2013/10/theme-week- – The period of election will open at realfiction-architect-mond-qu.html 10am on Monday 24 March 2014 and close at 5pm on Friday 2 May 2014. AA graduates Conrad Koslowsky, Voting by both electronic and paper Frederik Bo Bojesen, Yannick ballots will be available to members, Guillen (all AADipl 2013) and Scrap as in years previous. On-site voting Marshall (AADipl 2012) along with will also be available at the AA’s photographer Lisa Stinner-Kun Bedford Square facility on no fewer curated the Second House First

on white saucer cantilevered to creak under foot 47 exhibition at the RAW Gallery of Fabrizio Matillana (AADipl 2010) Alberto Moletto (AA MSc SED 2009) Architecture and Design in Winnipeg, was part of the prize-winning team won the competition for a Regional Canada. Running from 13 September at this year’s Teambuild competition, Archives Building of the North of to 27 October, Second House an intense multidisciplinary Chile, to be built near Iquique in Chile. First explored the tension between competition for young professionals two contrasting forms of domestic that takes place over one weekend. Robin Monotti Graziadei (AA MA dwelling: the vernacular architecture www.teambuilduk.com H&T 2000) with his practice Robin of the cabin and the ubiquity of Monotti Architects won both the the suburban house through an Sushant Verma and Pradeep European Property Award for Best exploration of the cottages and cabins Devadass (both AA MArch EmTech Architecture Multiple Residence in that surround the lakes of Manitoba. 2013) of ratLAB, were awarded the Ukraine 2013/14 and was first amongst http://rawgallery.ca MAK Schindler Artists and Architects- 900 entries in the Interior of the Year in-Residence Programme scholarship. in Ukraine award 2013. Both awards Jack Hudspith (AA 5th Year Submitting an extension of their were given to RMA’s project Yacht Student) and Max Hacke (AA MArch thesis, ‘adaptive[skins]’ as a House in Crimea. Dipl 13) participated in group proposal, the team have been given exhibition ‘Futures in the Making’ the chance to realise the project during Scenario Architecture, the practice at the Architecture Foundation which the 2013/14 academic year while of Ran Akory (AA Media Studies ran from 4 October to 13 November. working from the MAK Centre for Consultant) and Maya Carni www.architecturefoundation.org.uk/ Art and Architecture in Los Angeles. (AADipl 2007) had their extension programme/2013/futures-in-the-making www.makcenter.org/mak_residency_ of Canfield Gardens site shortlisted program.php for the Camden Design Council ‘Subject, Theory, Practice: An www.rat-lab.org 2013’s ‘Best householder conversion, Architecture of Creative Engagement’ alteration or extension, large or small’ a film by Madam Studio (Adam Rebecca Spencer (AADipl 2013, and the New London Architectures’ Nathaniel Furman (AADipl.(Hons) current AA Councillor) is teaching as ‘Don’t Move, Improve’ 2013 awards. 2008) and Marco Ginex (AA Dipl. a Visiting Professor for one semester 2009) was chosen to be shown as one at the Tecnológico de Monterrey ‘Critical Juncture’, a symposium in of the 25 films at this year’s prestigious (ITESM) Cuernavaca Campus in celebration of the work of architectural New York Architecture & Design Mexico, leading a History & Theory critic Joseph Rykwert (AA Honorary Film Festival in October 2013. Class, a Projects Class (Unit) and Member) took place on 21–22 February http://adfilmfest.com/portal/1483 an Introduction to Architecture class. 2014. Curated by Trevor Boddy, Yasmin Shariff (AA Councillor) and Maria Cox (AA Materials Shop) In October 2013 Robert Taylor Manuel Cuadra and held at the Victoria exhibited work at the Victoria & (AADipl 2013) was selected as a runner & Albert Museum and the AA, the Albert Museum as part of ‘Type up at the 2013 Global Architecture symposium will reflect upon key points Tasting’ at the London Design Graduate Awards for his Diploma 5 within Rykwert’s six decades as a critic, Festival 14–19 September. Participants Project ‘Ahmedabad, Golden Temple examine the state of criticism today experimented with typography, of Trash’. in a changing media landscape, and exploring its expressive qualities www.architectural-review.com/ar-awards/ project how it may reinvent itself for while learning about type. global-architecture-graduate-awards/ the twenty-first century. gaga-2013 www.vam.ac.uk/whatson/event/3101/ date/20140222 Careers & Prizes Vikrant Tike (AA PostGradDipl AAIS 2010) and Marie Isabel de Monseignat Mike Weinstock (AA MArch Building Design’s Architect of the Year (AADipl 2008) have been appointed EmTech Course Director) was 2013 Awards were held on 2 December, as design tutors for the 2013/14 BA keynote speaker at the 12th meeting with AA President Sadie Morgan’s Interior and Spatial Design course of AESOP (Association of European practice De Rijke Marsh Morgan at UAL Chelsea College of Art Schools of Planning) Confronting going home with the Education and Design in London. They will Urban Planning and Design with Architect of the Year award (Nursery be teaching DRS01 ‘ENTER- ACT’, Complexity: Methods for Inevitable to Secondary) and the Shueco Gold a design research studio where the Transformation, which took place Award, a prize for overall Architect focus will be on students creating tools on 16 January at Manchester School of the Year. Former AA Councillor & that will generate spatial interactions of Architecture. Unit Tutor David Adjaye was awarded and events. International Breakthrough Architect http://baisd.wordpress.com/drs-01/drs-01 of the Year for his practice Adjaye Associates’s work in Qatar, Gabon AA SED MArch student Leo Sooseok and India, and John Whiles (AADipl Kim has won first prize for the Venice 1973) won Education Architect of the Biennale Pavilion competition hosted Year (6th form to university) with his by Arch Triumph, designing a new practice Jesitco + Whiles. Art Gallery, Museum and Library that would float in the lagoon off Saint Mark’s Square.

and sway with my weight 48

Obituaries the AJ Women in Architecture Jury contribution to architectural practice ‘for her outstanding contribution to was as an Associate and Project Edward (Ted) Fawcett OBE, founder the status of women in architecture’. Manager for Leo A Daly in Los of the AA’s Garden Conservation Having studied at the AA from 1972 to Angeles from 1985–2003, where course, died on 19 October 2013, aged 1979, Findlay formed the architectural he was responsible for managing 93. Here he is remembered by former practice Ushida Findlay in Tokyo in a number of monumental, well- head of the course David Jacques: 1986 with her then-husband Eisaku known Southern California projects Edward Charles Richard Fawcett Ushida. There they found recognition such as the Cathedral of Our Lady came to prominence in 1969 when with a series of idiosyncratic and of the Angels by Rafael Moneo, he was appointed the National Trust’s inventive buildings such as the Truss the Los Angeles Convention first Director of Public Relations. Wall House (1993) and Soft and Hairy Center Expansion by Pei Cobb Freed, He was responsible for expanding House (1994). The practice relocated and the John Spoor Broome Library the membership greatly, and taking to the UK in 1999, with Findlay as at CSU Channel Islands by Norman the measures (including the shops) Principal Director, working on notable Foster. Nick’s ability to organise for handling a huge increase in visitor projects such as the RIBA Nominated vastly complex projects, negotiate numbers, especially to its gardens. Grafton New Hall (2002) and Pool diplomatically and inspire a team Retiring in 1984 with an OBE, he House 2 (2009). Her most famous of collaborators brought these pursued his great private interest project came in 2012 when she worked projects to spectacular realisation. in historic gardens, getting involved as delivery architect for Anish Kapoor’s On a smaller scale, Nick collaborated at Chiswick, Osterley and in the monumental ArcelorMittal Orbit for with his wife Cory on the design of Garden History Society. the London Olympics. She was also their mountaintop home in Malibu His wife Jane, who was teaching made an Honorary Fellow of the Royal and renovations of houses and St on the AA Building Conservation Incorporation of Architects in Scotland Aidan’s Episcopal Church in Malibu, course at the time, suggested to (RIAS) on the 11 September 2013. all designed by architect A Quincy Alvin Boyarsky, AA Chairman, She is survived by her two children Jones. In 2003, Nick found his true that Ted might run a complementary Miya and Hugo Ushida. calling as professor of architecture at course in historic garden conservation. Woodbury University, and served as Garden history and garden Former AA Member Francis Golding Interim Chair of the Undergraduate conservation were rapidly expanding died following a tragic fatal cycling Program the semester before he passed topics, and the course, starting in 1986, collision in central London on 6 away. He founded Woodbury’s study was the world’s first of its sort. As November 2013. A respected planning abroad program in China, taking with Building Conservation, the course consultant, Golding advised on some the time to learn basic Chinese so he was one day per week over two years. of London’s most famous buildings could communicate more effectively, Ted’s extensive network in that world of the twenty-first century including and then started another such program paid off in the huge variety of lecturers, Jean Nouvel’s One New Change, in India, where his students researched and the course thrived. Rafael Vinoly’s 20 Fenchurch Street how water conservation could inform By the late 1990s it was clear that and extensively with Rogers Stirk architectural design. He was inducted the course needed accreditation, and Harbour & Partners on One Hyde into the Woodbury University Faculty it first became a Postgraduate Diploma Park, The Leadenhall Building and Hall of Fame in August 2013. He is and then an MA. Meanwhile Ted the soon to be completed World the author of Places of Worship retired again, aged 80, handing over Conservation and Exhibitions Centre (John Wiley & Sons, Inc). to David Jacques. at The British Museum. Golding Ted stood for an important had previously been Secretary of the The AA also sadly learnt of the passing shift in the status of garden history Royal Fine Art Commission in the late away of several Members and and conservation from an amateur 1990s and was awarded an Honorary Alumni within recent months: pastime to a professional discipline. Fellowship of the RIBA. Architect, Painter and Photographer Possessed of great charm and powers Robert Gerald Boot (AADipl 1960 of persuasion, Ted inspired not only The family of AA graduate and RIBA and AA Life Member since a generation at the National Trust architect Nicholas Roberts (AADipl 1996) passed away earlier this year on but also on his course. Scores of his 1972) wishes to inform the AA 1 February aged 66. Architect and AA students currently occupy positions Community that he passed away on Life Member since 2003 Ronald Jones in English Heritage, the Lottery Fund, 21 September 2013. Nick was the son (AADipl 1956) died aged 79 on 14 local authorities, consultancies and of Cambridge architect David Wyn October 2013. Architect and partner at academia; others are authors of note. Roberts, a professor of architecture London practice Tripe and Wakeham, He is survived by his wife Jane. at Cambridge University, and Nick’s David Nicholson (AA Dipl 1952 RIBA) mother Margaret MacDonald Baird died aged 90 on 10 October 2013. The AA was shocked and saddened was also an architect. Nick graduated Caroline Mary Collins (AAGradDipl to learn of the death of the much from Cambridge University in GardenCons 1994) died 11 June 2013. loved and admired Scottish architect 1969 and the AA in 1972. Several AA Alumni Member Eric Le Fevre Kathryn Findlay (AADipl 1979) who years after graduating, Nick moved (AADipl 1957) died 28 July 2013 passed away Friday 10 January 2014. permanently to Los Angeles where aged 86. AA Alumni Member Tragically, only hours before her death he practised architecture and met Howard Grant Foster (AA Dipl 1952), it was announced that she had been his future wife, architect Cory born 26 June 1928, also died this year. awarded the 2014 Jane Drew Prize by Buckner. Nick’s most significant

to crumble and snow onto tiled floors five metres below Next Issue’s Theme

Language

Contributions to [email protected] School Announcement

New Application Deadlines

Undergraduate Early: 18 November 2013 Undergraduate Late: 27 January 2014

Graduate Optional Early-Offer: 28 November 2013 Graduate Early: 31 January 2014 Graduate Late: 14 March 2014

As has always been the case, applications received after the deadlines will be accepted at the discretion of the school. – Graduate students who take advantage The undergraduate scholarship deadline of the Early Offer option will receive an has also been moved forward. Applicants offer in January/early February, providing who applied by 18 November 2013 security of a place in the school and will be given priority. However, the AA allowing those who need funding time to is committed to giving as many talented apply for external scholarships/grants. students as possible the opportunity – The AA will be able to announce to study, and due to the changes, for the the outcome of scholarships and 2014/15 academic year we will continue bursaries earlier. to review all applications based on merit. – International students who require a visa Various benefits for applicants are: will have additional time to ensure that – A majority of undergraduate applicants all finances/documents are prepared and will be interviewed and receive an offer ready for a CAS to be issued mid-year. This earlier, allowing more time to focus on takes some of the pressure off the often preparing for life in London and at the AA. stressful visa application process. Student Announcement

MISS 2014

Celebrating Fantastic Women in Design

MISS will kick off 2014 with Ellen van Loon. On 5 February, Ellen will guide us through her ‘Perfect Night In’ and will talk us through the cultural fragments MISS is the platform that celebrates that have been influential in her life – femininity and self-expression in with popcorn. On 24 February, MISS will design. By hosting events and launching celebrate Eva Franch I Gilabert. While publications at the Architectural cooking her infamous paella, Eva will Association in London, we initiate the discuss the potential of food as a medium missing dialogue on the female character for conversation. in the field of design and challenge the cultural stigma embedded within MISS was founded by Vere van Gool the profession. and Mary Wang.