Issue 11News from the Architectural Association

AARCHITECTURE

Letters for Monica Pidgeon PG 14

Post-notes to the Enzo Mari Autoprogetazione Revisited Student Workshop PG 2

The question of good design can only apply if there is a clear application for its existence.

Recent Members’ Events and Trips PG 12

LA in 2009 PG 6

Fireworks PG 5

AARCHITECTURENews from the Architectural AssociationIssue 11 / Spring 2010www.aaschool.ac.uk

©2010All rights reservedPublished by the Architectural Association, 36 Bedford Square, London WC1B 3ES

Contact:contribute@aaschool.ac.ukNicola Quinn +44 (0)20 7887 4033

Please send your news items for the next issue to news@aaschool.ac.uk

EDITORIAL BOARDAlex Lorente, MembershipBrett Steele, AA School DirectorZak Kyes, AA Art Director

EDITORIAL TEAMNicola Quinn, Managing EditorWayne Daly and Claire McManus, Graphic DesignersScrap Marshall, Student Editor

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTSSue BarrEd BottomsValerie BennettLuisa MillerCharlotte Newman

Printed by Cassochrome, Belgium

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

CONTRIBUTORSFrederik Bojesenfrederik@bojesen.dk

Ema Bonifacicema@aaschool.ac.uk

Valentin Bontjes van Beekvalentinbvb@yahoo.co.uk

Stefano Branca sbrancaz88@hotmail.com

Mollie Claypool mollie.claypool@gmail.com

Braden Engelbraden.r.engel@gmail.com

Korey Krommkoreykromm@hotmail.com

Oliviu Lugojan-Ghenciu olgv.tm@gmail.com

VERSO

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2 Post-notes to the Enzo Mari Autoprogetazione Revisited Student Workshop 5 Bernard Tschumi: First Works Fireworks6 LA in 20099 The Student Forum and Participation10 London’s Shadows 12 Recent Members’ Events and Trips14 Letters for Monica Pidgeon16 First Works: Emerging Architectural Experimentation of the 1960s and 1970s19 AA Bookshop Spring Highlights20 New from AA Publications22 New from Bedford Press23 News25 News Briefs

AARCHITECTURE ISSUE 11

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AA Workshop, 21–25 September 2009

The question asked from the outset of this project was: in what way would the role of the architectural students differ from the role of the artist, on a practical level and in terms of public evaluation. In other words, how can an exhibition contribute to an education of second, fourth and fifth year students in a school of architecture? The main aim – I thought – would be an opportunity to place something in the public realm. Nothing more! Certainly I hoped that a task of construction would provoke some thought about design, utility and the ability to understand ‘the build’, as a benchmark for a didactic discourse. However, I was concerned mainly with my role of directing the outcome, and far less with the possibility of handing ascendancy of the show over to the students, for better or for worse. In many ways, that was exactly what happened, very much to the credit of the students. This student workshop was held in conjunction with the Enzo Mari exhibition, the focus of which was his 1974 book, Autoprogettazione. Focusing on Mari’s self-empowering instructions of his easy-to-assemble furniture, students were asked to react to the initial material presented and a brief, all in the timeframe of 96 hours. The results of the workshop were displayed in conjunction with the AA exhibition and became part of the exhibition catalogue. The AA provided one room for all three students to work in, the material for the construction of one piece of furniture and a budget of £200 per student. The students were asked to get the Enzo Mari Autoprogettazione book, choose one piece of furniture and construct the piece as instructed, and then fabricate the same piece again but alter the instruction by a ratio of either 30% or 70%.

Korey Kromm (one of the student contributors) was asked to respond to the workshop/exhibition. He added that the questions I posed to Enzo Mari for the exhibition guide seemed to be well-intended, but were not actually fully answered by Mari!

Korey had the following to say: I, like you, choose to think that the most productive part of the Autoprogettazione project lies in a reflection on how one learns, in this case, to build one’s own furniture. I built two versions of one of Mari’s tables, using different materials for each. Mari’s project is fascinating because it takes some of the design decision-making away whilst intensifying the effect of other decisions. It collapses design parameters – like what rules govern its form, and how to join the pieces together – but puts more emphasis on design decisions that seem to be more quantifiable, like cost and material standardisation. The result is an object that can be digested thoroughly by the spectator, and additionally defended by the designer regarding the decisions taken. Since the show, I have had two friends ask for my drawings to make the same table I had. Both friends have sent me a picture of the table without me asking for it. One friend had built the table exactly to Mari’s instructions, but had painted it red to match a vase that now sits on top of it. The second friend extended the top surface to fit into a corner of his room. The variables of construction were dependent upon the individual spaces, and the reasons for ‘designing’ the tables were quite clear. Looking at the photographs in my inbox, I realised that perhaps these ‘designed’ inaccuracies were Mari empowering the non-designer to design, that Autoprogettazione is actually realised in the individual manipulations of each object built. That being said, how do you, as a tutor, teach a student to rationalise a design? What is the benefit of rationalising a design? Can good design transcend any kind of reasoning? If so, when?

My Response: The content of discourse clearly was a design intention, something that Mari called ‘… a fragment of ideas useful to design as a discipline’. To comment on the Autoprogetazione and design as a discipline, one would need to become a part of it and produce the piece of furniture, as instructed. Not unlike the way students become part of a unit for one year and

Post-notes to the Enzo Mari Autoprogetazione Revisited

Student Workshop By Valentin Bontjes van Beek

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Enzo Mari Furniture Pieces

The Enzo Mari Exhibiton at the AA

A page from the exhibition guide

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subsequently take either a more favourable or less favourable position towards it – indifference is lethal. Once the year is completed a post-rationalisation emerges. To either follow or discard a direction, concisely, is one way of stumbling on a rationale towards design, especially if energy is directed towards the fabrication of something that already exists in drawings. The benefit of a rational design in an academic environment, alongside other reasons, is that it opens discourse. There is less mystery in the design approach. A mystification of any design construct, formally or otherwise, holds particularly young students hostage. A reasonable way for them to deal with this is to mimic a design or alternatively to suffer a sense of alienation. To be able to follow or anticipate a design direction is empowering and arguable – something you wish for in any school of design. The construction of an object - in this case to a utilitarian result – is not so dissimilar from a mathematical equation. The manipulation of an amount on either side has an effect on the balance of the equation. On the one side, you have a sincere desire to overcome the obstacles to the construction and functioning of a piece of furniture; on the other, a sense of irony about the task of building the object itself. The question of good design can only apply

if there is a clear application for its existence. This often varies from the time of conception to the point of application. In the example of the friend who painted the table red to mach the vase one might talk of good design with a temporary delusion of bad taste, but then again this can become something even more highly esteemed, superseding any previous design reasoning or intent.

Valentin Bontjes van Beek is a First Year MasterKorey Kromm is a Fifth Year AA Student

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Enzo Mari Furniture under construction by AA students. Photos Sue Barr

Public Programme, Fireworks, 6 November 2009

Bernard Tschumi: First Works Fireworks

Bernard Tschumi’s Firework Display

The assembled crowd braving the rain. Photos Valerie Bennett

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AA Unit Trips

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LA in 2009 LA [with capitals], Diploma 12‘There is a place where America’s manifest destiny collides into the Pacific Ocean, a place where the feeble Route 66, the roadway of the American dream terminates; this is Dogtown’ said Stacy Peralta in the beginning of the documentary, Dogtown & Z-Boys. He was describing a small area of Santa Monica where skateboarding took life. Los Angeles skateboarding, surfing, muscle cars, drugs, hippies, congested ten-lane highways, infrastructure, infrastructure and more infrastructure. LA lala-land, laid back land. But that’s not a bad thing. LA understands that behind the big professional dream there is nothing, it witnessed the end of the ‘American Dream’, it knows that life is more than a series of goals and achievements. There is plenty of sun there. Los Angeles… a constant holiday… LA… an oversized place with big ideas and big architecture. It’s a robot, a socialist project, the place where NASA lands its spaceships, the name of a religious city and a land of pornography. LA can be whatever you want it to be, LA – the post future city which still dreams of the future.

By Oliviu Lugojan-Ghenciu, a fourth year student

The Carcass of a Modernist Dystopia, Intermediate 5London to Los Angeles and back: a Banhamesque, freewheeling trip across the urban landscape of diluted Hollywood culture. No discussion of LA is complete without the dreaded yet omnipresent Hollywood icon flashing in our familiar neon lit memories. This ‘Sign’– the fulcrum of the city’s realities and disillusions, Bertolt Brecht wrote in 1942:

‘Every day, to earn my daily bread I go to the market where lies are bought Hopefully I take up my place among the sellers. Hollywood.’ – Poems 1913–1956

This pillar of twentieth century society has evolved, extolling the Brecht lament: Lies. Lies that were once and still are being peddled as products of evasive intent accompanying both the cineastes and average spectators through their quotidian understanding of escape. The sign: a magnet for American dream seekers envisaging their idealised Arcadian city. However we have witnessed the shadow of these great ‘American expectations’. Even with their film industries and their multinational corporations as fertile as ever, the land at the feet of Mount Olympus,

Hollywoodland, is characterised by paradox and absurdity. The lack of homogeneous form throughout the expanses of the low-rise residential dwellings of our American dreamers breaks the urban plan of Georgian subdivisions into individual plots of protection. Each dwelling buys into a mass-produced fantasy of unique domesticity featuring all forms and styles; the affordable means of reaching their Hollywood dream. From the primordial pioneer settlements in Venice Beach to the real estate bonanza of the 20s through the big-time speculators of ‘The City of the Future’, LA, its residents, homes and dreams are woven into the intricate textures of this renowned western symbol: Hollywood.

By Stefano Branca, a third year student

LA Point of Departure, Intermediate 1Los Angeles, the city of asphalt, was the arrival and departure point for Inter 1’s road trip across the western states of the US in the search for the archetype of car-chitecture – the drive-thru. Driving in a convoy of assorted vehicles – RVs, SUVs, compacts and the ubiquitous Mustang, burgers were both eaten and given away in Barstow, money and reality were lost in Las Vegas and nomadic cities were found in Quartzite. Gas stations, diners, motels, coffee shops, burger joints, dead cinemas, dead roads… car culture in the states was pursued relentlessly across the interstate highways for nine days. Accommodation was provided by RVs; Recreational vehicles, C Class, sleeps eight … motorised caravans, homes on wheels, mechanisms for exploring the American landscape. Vehicles treated with pride and derision: in the instant desert city of Arizona a common bond was created with the tens of thousands of Americas retirees exploring the American continent whilst the residents of Venice Beach in LA saw Inter 1’s arrival in these white beasts as a violation of both the eyes and precious parking laws, causing confrontation and restless sleep. As unit members dropped the vehicles off at ‘Campworld’, their temporary holding pen in Los Angeles, and expelled the ‘grey’ and ‘black’ water from the guts of their strange ‘homes’, questions of the highway, car culture and the ‘America Dream’ were left unresolved, awaiting further dissection in the heart of London’s own car culture, the congestion zone of Bedford Square.

By Scrap Marshall, a third year student and student editor of AArchitecture

Diploma 12, Highway 101, Los Angeles. Photo Tom Lea

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AA School Life

The Student Forum and Participation

By Frederik Bo Bojesen

The other day somebody told me that students of architecture, statistically speaking, are the hardest working across the different fields of study. Perhaps that would explain why the people in charge of the recent vote on the director’s position needed to stalk the corridors of the AA interrogating the students they met as to whether they had voted; approximately 60% of the undergraduate school student body ultimately participated in the decision of who should be the director of the AA. It is the notion of involvement that interests me. Are we, the students, living in a time when life is comfortable to the extent that we cannot be bothered to seek renewal and change, when the aim is to become the next starchitect and the means to achieve it a flawless portfolio? In my eyes, the AA is not simply the potential for a flawless portfolio, a sensibility for architectural space, a name on a diploma. It is a space for potential connections, a place of communication dismissing formal boundaries, a place that allows and historically demands students to confront and challenge the norm. A school where the pressure of the curriculum, the uncertainty of the end of year table, competition from fellow students all combines to create a unique set of thoughts and processes but, as importantly, creates a framework where friendships, experiences and experiments can happen.

This is why student participation and involvement is so crucial, and it is in this territory that the Student Forum manoeuvres. The Student Forum is structured as a voluntary organisation acting in the common interest of the student body. We arrange events and support student initiatives, from supporting the recent DRL party in the bar to arranging, planning and executing the end of term parties, co-ordinating student travel bursaries, financially and logistically supporting student initiated sports activities, promoting communication between the council and the student body by active participation and, starting this year, getting involved with student accommodation. To clarify the role and rights of the Forum we are currently working on a new constitution that will help to crystallise its aims, roles, budget and responsibilities. The foundation and aim of the Student Forum is one and the same thing; student participation. Students are the AA. But if studying at the AA becomes simply a series of sprints between deadlines, or a marathon towards a diploma, the AA and its students sacrifice the heart to keep only the head. Get involved, or die trying.

Frederik Bo Bojesen is a third year AA student and a member of the Student Forum.

AA logo in human form AA Panto 1930. Photo AA ArchiveHollywood. Photo Stefano Branco

Intermediate 1, RV Living. Photo Costantino Sambuy

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AA Exhibition, 27 February – 19 March 2010 & AA Staff Projects

Most of the critical attention given to architecture in large cities is directed at the larger built works by the big-name architects. But the inherent ambivalence of London as a city is born of the experiences afforded by its shadows. These ‘shadows’ are the silent pheno-menal events that occur every day behind the noise of London’s iconic architecture. It seems that these blind intervals are more architectural than the most popular buildings themselves. To look to the shadows is to see the city from a new perspective, effectively transforming the artefacts that initially cast the shade.

Coming-Out is Going-In‘Exit’ and ‘entrance’ are traditionally thought of as ‘going out’ and ‘coming in’ respectively. Paradoxically, the orientation based activity of commute is ultimately disorienting. Take the Tube, for example. The underground tunnels pass under and across the historic (sometimes confusing) street network above, which offers a different navigational task on foot to the American grid. But efficiency is not clarity. Perhaps the intervals are simply misunderstood. What if to exit is really to go in (to the ‘street culture’), and to enter is really to come out (of the object, the enclosure)? They are not separate though, they participate in each other, so flatten the interval: coming out is going in. Nolli’s figure-ground blurs into a turgid grey. In the commute any hope for efficiency must be abandoned along with the very idea of being ‘on time’, instead one accepts a dizzying progression of going-in-and-out-and-in-and-out more like a sick joke and more telling of our actual transfer.

Queue TalesFrom the messy congestion of boarding a bus to the surprisingly civil etiquette displayed in an ATM queue, the idea of organising ourselves into a line (sometimes politely, sometimes not) plays a significant role in city life. The word ‘queue’ comes from the Latin cauda, or cōda, meaning ‘tail’. Churchill famously coined the term ‘Queuetopia’ to explain the possible consequences of Britain under Socialist rule, where his Conservatives chose the way of the ladder: ‘Let all try their best to climb. They [socialists] are for the queue’. Climb upward or wait in line. Perseverance or patience? Are there more differences between running a marathon and waiting for hours to get into Wimble-don than simply the speed of the queue? Or, is there really ever a point when in the city we are not part of a queue? Perhaps as more active agents we might avoid the anonymity of the tail (do bulldogs have tails?).

Watching While Being WatchedLondon’s parks, public squares and pavements are

irreplaceable constituents of the city. Simultaneously, we love to watch people while putting ourselves on display. It’s a selfish courtship not without harmful effects. The rain in London brings about a wonderful slow-down of movement. Because of the sea of umbrellas bouncing off each other walkers must compose themselves and step carefully to avoid impaling a passer-by. As a victim, I can admit to silently likening the flow of umbrellas across the street to lily pads or leaves drifting along a river’s current. At this point the street is not really the conduit of transportation it is typically imagined to be, but more a crime scene born out of and undoubtedly yielding more voyeurism. Whether for recreation or self-preservation, the watching and being-watched in the shadow of the parks and street transforms the parks and streets themselves.

Water FoulWalking along the Thames can be quite pleasant, despite the nuisance of the river’s fowl – the gulls and pigeons. You barely notice the architecture behind you when you’re fixed on the disgusting buildings across the river. Squeezed up to the railing to the point of toppling into the brown water, how could one turn around and look up? Instead we stare out, lean on the railing or sit on the bench and watch the pigeons, ducks and seagulls party with the detritus of lunches past. What is truly foul about the Thames waterside in London is not the waterfowl, but the crippling positions in which we are subdued to gaze into a dislocating mirror. Walking on one bank, we can only look to the other, which, accurate or not, becomes the only way of relating to our bank, the reflection of the other. The identity of our side depends on the gaze we direct away from it. How different the perspective of the duck floating in the middle must be. Two approaches: Plato’s Allegory of the Cave and Peter Pan. In both, the shadows are at first taken as reality. But where Plato’s philosophical protagonist retreats to the wisdom and understanding of daylight, Peter chases his mischievous shadow in an effort to finally catch it. Which is most rewarding for today’s students of architecture?

In the Spring term the AA put on an exhibition entitled London +10 exploring the work of Diploma Unit 10, run by Carlos Villanueva Brandt since 1986. The unit experiments with diverse ways of engaging with the city has for the last ten years focused on London. Here Braden Engel muses on the shadows of London.

Braden Engel is a Visiting Tutor in the AA H&T MA programme

London’s ShadowsBy Braden Engel

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A queue waiting at the foot of the Lloyds Building. Photo Braden Engel

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AA Membership & Development

Recent Members’ Events and Trips

Members are shown around the Olympic Stadium site in Stratford by Populous architects. Photo by Camille Steyaert María José López de Heredia guiding AA Members through 130 years of winemaking

tradition at Zaha Hadid’s Viña Tondonia, La Rioja. Photo Maureen Diffley

AA Members enjoy a private view of the David Chipperfield and Jan Kaplický, exhibitions at the Design Museum. Photo by Eva Sopeoglou.

AA Members in front of the old sailing club in San Sebastian. Photo Alex Lorente

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AA Radio

Letters for Monica Pidgeon By Ema Bonifacic

In Memory of MonicaOn Monday 23 November the AA played host to the Monica Pidgeon Memorial Symposium and Reception on behalf of the event organiser, Peter Murray, Chairman of Wordsearch. The AA Radio also caught up with some of the guests and a tie-in broadcast was recorded. Monica, who was the former editor of Architectural Design, passed away in September at the age of 95. The assembled guests in the Lecture Hall were treated to reminiscences and tales of Monica from the likes of Ken Frampton, Michael Manser, Sam Webb, Ed Jones, Barbara Goldstein, Stephen Albert and Victoria Thornton, plus videoed eulogies from Richard Rodgers and Norman Foster. The event was chaired by Peter Murray and followed by a drinks reception in the AA Library. A busy event attended by many big names in architecture was a true testament to her lasting influence in architecture and architectural publishing. An article on Monica appears in the current AA Files (issue 60).

Dargan Bullivant, Barbara Goldstein, Kenneth Frampton, Peter Murray and Su Rogers joined the AA Radio for an informal and inspired conversation about Monica Pidgeon, her life, her work and her friendships. We entitled the radio broadcast ‘Letters for Monica Pidgeon’. The ‘letters’ represent two things: letters of the alphabet and spoken letters of recollections and reflections. Each participant was asked by the AA Radio to choose five letters from the alphabet, each for

a word which they felt described or was important to Monica: the name of a person, of a place, of a project, of a colour she liked, of an object she always kept on her desk, something she liked doing, an adjective describing her character, a season of the year she enjoyed and so on. The letters and words were shared along with the thoughts and memories behind them, coming together in conversation as collective storytelling. The audio recordings Monica Pidgeon herself made of some of the most influential architects of the twentieth century are valuable not only for their content but also for the emphasis they give to the voice, the experience the rhythm and tone of speech which is different to that of a printed page. In this spirit, and the spontaneous spirit of storytelling, this radio broadcast takes us from Bloomsbury to Buckminster Fuller to Berlin, Lunches at L’Escargot, St Anne’s Close, Walter Segal, Jacobsen stools, Saturday afternoon Talks in the garden, Team X and CIAM, Pidgeon Audio Visual, and the Independence, Dedication, Passion and Loyalty of Monica Pidgeon. Recorded on Saturday, November 21, 2009 at the AA. Listen online at www.aair.fm

Ema Bonifacic is an alumna of the AA who has worked on the AA Radio

The AA Radio is the radio station of the students of the AA. Interested in joining or contributing? Get in touch via email (radio@aaschool.ac.uk) or in person – Taneli Mansikkamaki and Umberto Bellardi Ricci, Diploma School.

Monica Pidgeon in the AD Office

A selection of AD Covers

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Rafael Moneo with Francisco Gonzalez de Canales

The audience at Toyo Ito’s lecture. Photos Valerie Bennett

AA Exhibition and Lecture Series, 6 November 2009 – 13 February 2010

First Works: Emerging Architectural Experimentation of

the 1960s and 1970s

Toyo Ito, 9 November 2009Toyo Ito presented an extensive series of projects dating from 1964 to 2009, precisely illustrating the vastness of his architectural aptitude. Rather than focusing on descriptive self-reflection of several of his works, it is perhaps most poignant to look to the origins of his architectural practice, first established as Urbot (Urban Robot) in 1971 and the cultural and architectural conditions surrounding this event. In this excerpt from his lecture, Ito reflects on what he believes was a changing point in Japanese avant-garde architecture enabling the outlining of the beginning of his own architectural practice.

From my point of view, the 1970s were a turning point of the city of Tokyo. Perhaps the technological, utopian visions which had evolved out of the late 1960s could be assigned to the 1970s due to Expo70. A futuristic, technological, utopian vision was integrated by creating various forms of architectural experiments in the 60s. This was later confronted, or encountered, by the political ideology of the student movement that began in the later years of the decade. For example, it was right after Expo70 that I wished to go back to university, but as a result of student revolutions, the universities had been closed. There was no choice but to start my own small practice in Tokyo. I had been involved in the early stages of design for the Expo70 Tower by Kiyonori Kikutake. Earlier

Toyo Ito

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BIOREBOOT: THE ARCHITECTURE OF R&SIE(N)

Giovanni Corbellini. 228 pp, 16 pp col. ills50 x 240 mm, paperback Milan 2010 £25.00

THE ARCHITECTURE OF EMERGENCE: THE EVOLUTION OF FORM IN NATURE AND CIVILISATION

Michael Weinstock280 pp , extensive col. & b/w ills190 x 245 mm, paperback London 2010£29.99

BIOTHING

Alisia AndrasekEssays by Frédéric Migayrou and Lambros Orleans Text in English and French. 144 pp, 72 pp b/w ills150 x 205 mm paperback 2009£23.95

BREATHABLE

Edited by Cero 9Text in Spanish and English 352 pp, extensive col. & b/w ills170 x 215 mm paperback Madrid 2009£48.95

EXHIBITION PROSTHETICS

Joseph GrigelyEdited by Zak KyesConversation with Hans Ulrich Obrist and Zak Kyes.64 pp, b/w ills136 x 185 mm, paperbackJanuary 2010£9

On this page are highlights of books by AA staff and visitors to the AA,selected by AA Bookshop Manager, Charlotte Newman. AA Bookshop features AA publications alongside a comprehensive range of titles from publishers worldwide. AA Members receive 20% disocunt on AA Publications and a 10% discount on new releases featured on the bookshop website www.aabookshop.net

Open Monday to Friday 10am to 6.30pm, Saturday 11am to 5pm.

AA Bookshopaabookshop.netbookshop@aabookshop.netT +44 (0)20 7887 4041F +44 (0)20 7887 4048

schemes were to have a multitude of capsules attached to this tower, but in the final design there were only five small capsules. At the same time there was another influential architect who was not related to Metabolism named Kazuo Shinohara, who designed a project called House in White, built in 1966. In contrast to the Metabolist agenda, his architecture focused on larger isolations or separations, interiority and minimalism. For example, the plan of the House in White is explained through square forms, with a column in the exact middle. There is one off-centre straight line; simple compositions to divide the rooms. I believe Shinohara influenced my generation of architects, as we began to look at utopian views which were realisable through the interior. Perhaps it is the notion of the tendency of the isolated space, a minimal form, whose spirit can be recognised in current architectural practice in Tokyo. My Aluminium House (1971) came out of this period of transition. For me, this building represents not only its functionality or built appearance, but also my personal agenda, the inherited confusions from Metabolism and new changes in terms of a sense of value. It is the chimney-like form of the Aluminium House that represents the capsule. It is in the plan of the house, in the timber, that shows and interiority, with light coming through in the sleeping area. The outside, clad in thin aluminium, symbolises an ephemerality or non-heroic view of the sensitivity surrounding the Aluminium House in comparison to the capsule of Metabolism. The capsule of the Aluminium House is the capsule from the Expo70 Tower that has fallen and landed on the ground, symbolising the end of Metabolism and the beginning of a new architecture.

Rafael Moneo, 27 November 2009In his lecture Rafael Moneo contrasted his first work, the Diestre Transformer Factory (Zaragoza, 1965–1967), with his most recent project, the Northwest Science Building for Columbia University. However, it is in the beginning moments of the lecture that we can look for Moneo’s most valuable statement on his inclusion in the exhibition. It is here that Moneo took to commenting on the importance of the nature of the First Works exhibition, outlined in three distinct comments.

This is a very pertinent exhibition under a three-fold condition. It covers, in a very efficient way, the taste and flavour of the 1960s and 1970s. Today, I’ve found that students and schools of architecture are very reluctant to pay attention to history. To offer the students this very close glance of how things were and what

architects were looking for is an invaluable lesson. I would say it is difficult to believe that one could see a constant sense of what those years were, yet jumping from one architect to another enables us to put the students closer to the meaning of the recent past. What could be said of more direct contact with the protagonists of history and of those times? In the end, it was quite compelling to see each of us employ a different way of writing and of graphic expression with pen and pencil and in the making of models. We enjoyed the days when we could have our own personality and express it with the composition of drawings before buildings were built. Today it is much more continuous between students in both language and representation. I would say the little diversity that happens is both refreshing and rewarding. Now I would like to say something about the value of the first work. I think the very first work has a special meaning for what it is to be an architect. We were left with this reality of possibility, with this encounter which is not any more just thinking or dreaming about what you are able to do. Instead, we were testing our own ability with something that was actually going to be built, transformed into something that changes the scale of the reality in which we were working, from drawings and models into the actual thing. It is difficult to believe that, whatever else architects have forgotten, they have not forgotten what the very first work means. Finally, this brings me to make a comment about the exhibition as a whole. I was talking with Brett [Steele] and Francisco [Gonzalez de Canales], and I said that there is something that changes the meaning of the exhibition in that at the same time you have included both first works and first projects. I would not say that these are the same thing, that where the personality of the architect emerges is where one can find the first work. In my view, this is something that changes the entire meaning of this exhibition, this mixture of first works with first projects.

Lecture selections and transcription by Mollie Claypool, DRL and HTS programme staff

AA Bookshop

AA BookshopSpring Highlights

AA Publications

New and forthcoming from AA Publications

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Minimaforms Experiments in CommunicationTheodore and Stephen Spyropoulos160 pp, extensive col. & b/w ills240 x 200 mm, paperbackSpring 2010978-1-902902-86-9£22.50

This book highlights the work of the design and architecture practice Minimaforms. Founded in 2002 by brothers Stephen and Theodore Spyropoulos, the practice has developed a diverse body of work that explores new forms of interactive communication. Using installations as a primary mode of research, the studio creates public performance-based interventions that engage material and social interaction. The book features recent work developed in collaboration with Krzysztof Wodiczko (a vehicle for veterans), a pavilion produced with the performance artist Stelarc, a video piece with Warp recording artist Mira Calix and thecritically acclaimed light installation in Trafalgar Square, Memory Cloud. Accompanying the projects are texts by Archigram’s David Greene, Stelarc, Krzysztof Wodiczko and Marie-Ange Brayer, among others. The publication accompanies an exhibition at the Architectural Association in February/March 2010.

Books of OMAEdited by Brett Steele and Zak Kyes978-1-902902-84-5 £ tbc

For more than 30 years OMA has been dedicated to a critical architectural project through the thinking, making and production of architectural publications. Books of OMA will survey this oeuvre, while at the same time challenging the twentieth-century legacy of architectural monographs. In so doing Books of OMA engages with the material and technical possibilities of publications today, both as a site for the dissemination and realisation of architectural agendas, as well as their communication. The book is conceived and edited by Brett Steele and Zak Kyes, with newly commissioned texts and extensive unpublished material. Books of OMA will be published following the exhibition staged at the Architectural Association in April/May 2010. A facsimile of one of OMA’s book projects will be published on the occasion of the exhibition by Bedford Press.

AA Agendas 10London +10Carlos Villanueva Brandtc 280 pp, extensive col. & b/w ills253 x 187 mm, paperbackFebruary 2010978-1-902902-83-8 £30

London +10 focuses on London over the last 20 years, interpreting it as a ‘live city’ and speculating on the relationship between the live realm of the city and its urban fabric. In parallel to this central topic, the book includes a number of speculative projects carried out by the AA’s Diploma Unit 10 that have attempted to integrate this realm into the design of alternative urban strategies. The book addresses London by means of themes such as politics, control, crime, sex, integration, events, time, infrastructure, architecture, regeneration and terrorism. These form part of the everyday experience of London and inform the concept of Direct Urbanism. The structure of the book is governed by these specific themes, each one expanded by means of a topical article, a short essay and selected illustrations of related projects. In addition a series of essays by contributors, including the writer Will Self and the journalist Rowan Moore, provide an overview of London, questioning and celebrating the city and generating possible scenarios for its future.

AA Agendas 9Making PavilionsEdited by Martin Self and Charles Walker 160 pp, extensive col. & b/w ills249 x 170 mm, paperbackSpring 2010978-1-902902-82-1 £15

Over the past four years the students of the Architectural Association’s Intermediate Unit 2 have designed and built a series of experimental pavilions. Structured to follow a year in the life of the unit, this book presents the processes of the pavilions’ design and production, from concept ideas to workshop fabrication. Essays by the unit’s tutors, Charles Walker and Martin Self, explain the ambitions and pedagogic basis of the programme, rooted in the idea of experiential learning. Through the voices of students, tutors and anonymous critics, both the educational validity of this innovative design-build programme and its architectural output is explored.

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CONCRETE GEOMETRIES: SPATIAL FORM IN SOCIAL AND AESTHETIC PROCESSES

The Concrete Geometries Research Cluster organised by Diploma 1 Tutors Marianne Mueller and Olaf Kneer is seeking submissions of work from the fields of art, architecture, sciences and humanities that explore the relationship between spatial form and social or aesthetic processes. Submissions may include works of art or design, architectural projects or case studies, urban studies, research papers, scientific experiments and other forms of inquiry that address the objectives outlined. Ten projects and ten texts will be selected by the curatorial board for inclusion in an exhibition, symposium and publication at the AA in 2010. The call is open to students, practitioners and researchers from the fields of Architecture, Art, Design, Urban Design, Geography, Neuroscience, Behavioural Psychology, Spatial Cognition, Social Science, Ethnography, Anthropology and other disciplines concerned with such questions.Deadline for submissions: 12 April 2010Notification of participants: 3 May 2010Exhibition: 12 May – 29 May 2010Public Symposium: October 2010 For further information visit www.concrete-geometries.net or email info@concrete-geometries.net

APPEAL FOR AA ALUMNI STUDENT WORK FOR AA ARCHIVES

The AA Archives are in the process of cataloguing and making available to researchers its holdings of student work, which range from watercolour sketches by Design Class students of the 1870s to the CNC models and digital Rhino files of 2009’s AA Dipl (Hons) students. In order to supplement these holdings and to fill specific gaps within the collections, the Archives have begun to acquire examples of historic student work. Recent examples of such additions include the student portfolio of Walter Fisk, a medal-winning student of the early 1930s, together with the portfolios of Christopher Knight and Stephen Macfarlane, two outstanding students from the immediate post-war years. We have also been extremely fortunate to receive the remarkable student drawings of the brutalist architect Rodney Gordon. Amongst other significant acquisitions are five years of student projects kindly donated by John Toovey (AA: 1951–56), latterly Architect to the London Zoological Society), including work completed for the inaugural year of the AA’s Department of Tropical Architecture. Further donations of student work, from all periods of the AA’s history are very much welcomed, as the Archives are attempting to build up as comprehensive a collection as is possible. The AA Archives Acquisition Policy is available online at: www.aaschool.ac.uk/life For further information please contact AA Archivist, Edward Bottoms: edward@aaschool.ac.uk +44 (0)20 788 4049

REFERENDUM FOR THE DIRECTOR OF THE AA SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE

The School Community’s referendum for the Director of the AA School of Architecture concluded at 5pm on Friday 20 November 2009. The referendum had 68% voter turnout, with 74% of votes in favour of Brett Steele’s reappointment as Director of the School for the next five years. This referendum is a standard procedure of the School and occurs at the end of every Director’s contract. The Director of School’s current contract concludes on 31 July 2010. Pending reappointment, a new contract will be issued, effective 1 August 2010. Questions about the referendum and its results may be directed to the Office of the Company Secretary. With thanks to everyone who participated in this important process.

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Bedford Press

New from Bedford Press

Informal MeetingsRadim Peško40 pp, extensive col. ills165 x 220 mm, paperback with dust jacketFebruary 2010978-1-907414-07-7£8

A group of children playing in the schoolyard forming a perfect circle, an abandoned tricycle drawing an infinity sign, and a gathering of Spongebob plastic cups on the dining table: these are some of the found compositions drawn from Informal Meetings, a collection of photographs by Amsterdam based graphic designer Radim Peško, made during travels and wanderings to different cities between 2001 and 2009. The photographs show poetic glimpses of seemingly unremarkable encounters between space and architecture that suggest their own stories.

Bedford Press was initiated by the Architectural Association (AA), London in 2008 as a publishing imprint that seeks to develop contemporary models of publication practice. Established as an imprint of AA Publications Ltd., Bedford Press is a private press with the dual purpose of establishing an on-site facility for the production of printed matter for AA School and to create a new typology of publications that extends beyond the Architectural Association’s existing programme. This initiative builds upon the AA’s

renowned legacy of independent publishing. The press aims to establish a more responsive model of small-scale publishing, nimble enough to encompass the entire chain of production in a single fluid activity, from initial commission to the final printing. Bedford Press includes a print workshop equipped with a Ricoh Priport DX 4640PD. The products of the press include publications as well as ephemera such as pamphlets, posters and limited edition prints.

In Black & WhiteTom Benson36 pp, b/w ills165 x 235 mm, paperbackApril 2010978-1-907414-06-0£15

Published after the occasion of ‘Tom Benson, Registers and Greyscales’ at Stiftung für konkrete Kunst, Reutlingen in 2006, In Black & White is the fourth in a series of publications by Benson which consider the separation of exhibition and book, employing the publication as a site for reinterpretation rather than replication. Co-published by Bedford Press and Offset Editions.

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John Lyall (AADipl 1973 and former Academic staff ) had his practice’s waterfront regeneration development, The Mill, in Ipswich, featured in the 1 October 2009 issue of the AJ. The project was commissioned by the East of England Development Agency and Waterside Regeneration.

Bronks Theatre (see news briefs AArchitecture Issue 9) in Brussels by MDMA, the practice of Martine de Maeseneer (former Diploma Unit Master) was nominated for the Lensvelt Architecture prize in 2009.

Tom Emerson (Former Diploma Tutor and Former Council Member) together with Stephanie Macdonald was interviewed in the November 2009 issue of the BD magazine about their Offley works project. Tom and Stephanie are directors of 6a Architects.

The building award of the British Construction awards in October 2009 went to The Yellow Building designed by Alfred Hall Monaghan Morris, the practice of Simon Allford (Former Vice President of the AA) and Paul Monaghan (GradDiplCons AA 1989), and the principal engineer was Adams Kara Taylor of which Hanif Kara (AA Member and former Academic staff ) is a director. Meanwhile the conservation award went to St Martin-in-the-Fields of which the principal architect was Eric Parry (AA Dipl 1978 and Former President of the AA) Architects. Eric Parry Architects were also featured in the 3 December 2009 issue of the AJ in a spread about their office scheme in New Bond Street.

Alisa Andrasek (AA DRL Course Master) had a show at the Au Franc Centre in Orléans from 11 September – 22 November 2009. The exhibition presented the work of Biothing, the laboratory created by Alisa in 2001.

The Nottingham Contemporary art gallery was featured in the 12 November 2009 issue of the AJ. The gallery was designed by Caruso St John, the practice of Adam Caruso and Peter St John (AADipl (Hons) 1984, former AA Councillor and former Academic staff ) after they won the design competition in 2004.

Wen Ying Teh (AA Year out student) won the Bronze Medal at the RIBA Presidents Medals for her project, ‘An Augmented Ecology of Wildlife and Industry’. www.presidentsmedals.com/project_details.aspx?id=2360&dop=true

Corpus Christie College Greenhouse in Oxford by Rick Mather (AADipl 1966 and former AA Councillor) Architects was featured in Small Projects Part Two, AJ 21 January 2010. The greenhouse is a frameless glass display box which protrudes from an existing stone wall.

Rafael Contreras Morales, Matei Denes, Julian Jones and Diego Ricalde (all AADRL MArch 2009) had their thesis project shortlisted for an exhibition held by the d3 Natural Systems org in New York, and the project was recently published in the book, Digital Architecture: Passages through Hinterlands www.passagesthroughhinterlands.com/book/index.html

Gianni Botsford (AADipl 1996 and former Academic staff ) talks about his practice’s proposed Garden House in Notting Hill in the January 2010 issue of AJ Specification. The article focuses on the roof of the project.

Another ‘attack’ by guerrilla architect Michael Elion (AADipl 2003) sees Urban Art Project, HALO for Nuit Blanche. HALO was a giant ring of pink light, consisting of a helium inflated ring a few hundred feet in the air above Paris.

Teresa Stoppani (Former AA HTS Lecturer) has contributed an essay to the latest issue of Log (Autumn 2009). Log 17, guest edited by Mark Foster Gage and Florencia Pita, features essays and conversations focusing on relationships between new media and materiality in architecture – with an emphasis on sensation and affect. Teresa’s text – ‘Venetian Dusts’ – mops floors in Venice, immerses itself in Joseph Brodsky’s haptic experiences of the city and in Henry James’s stifling palazzo interiors, to scratch beyond the surface of Jorge Otero-Pailos’s Biennale installation The Ethics of Dust: Doge’s Palace, Venice (2009). www.anycorp.com

Superfusionlab has been shortlisted in the Bexhill-on-Sea RIBA windshelter and kiosk competition along with 9 other practices. Superfusionlab was founded by Nate Kolbe (AA DRL March 2000 and Former Intermediate Unit Master), Lida Vanessa Charsouli, Yas Mostashari and Djordje Stojanovic (all AA DRL March 2000).www.architectsjournal.co.uk/news/daily-news/first-look-at-bexhill-on-sea-windshelter-finalists/5209372.article

Maria Helena Marconell (AA Member) had several of her prints on display in Royal Brompton Hospital Christmas Exhibition in December 2009 and will also have a solo exhibition in the public space at the Chelsea & Westminster Hospital from 23 May – 5 June 2010). A piece of her work is also included in the Saatchi online Showdown. www.saatchi-gallery.co.uk/showdown/index.php?showpic=239767

Eva Eylers (AA PhD candidate), Emanuel de Sousa (AA HTS programme staff and AA PhD candidate) and Kirk Wooller (AA PhD candidate) have published an article in ARCH+ journal (vol. 195, November

SPACEPILOTS

AA member Stephanie Brandt has set up a collaborative practice between architecture and art called ‘SPACEPILOTS’. They recently launched a design-research project entitled ‘Unlocking the City’ with a one-day live event on architecture and the senses (and the matters of sound and light for spatial design and experiences), ‘Sensescapes’, at The O2, The British Music Experience Exhibition [BME]. Unlocking the City is a pilot aiming to involve young people in the making of places and get them to engage with and become excited by their environment by exploring and utilising everyday sound as a design tool for the shaping of places and urban experiences. The next two stages of the project run under the working title of ‘The Listening Project’ and involve Soundmaps and Audio Guides - initially, in the form of case studies, commissioned by the educational department at the BME an the O2 together with 40 students of Chelsea College of Art and they focus on the area around the O2. They are now in the process of developing these ideas into: a) a functional, interactive online map and sound guide for London (or an area of London) that will allow young people to explore, share and develop ideas about the ways everyday sounds are influencing our perception of landscapes. Schools and pupils aged 14–17 will be able to submit and download different kinds of data in order to explore how everyday sounds can influence our perception of environments by recording aural landscape scenarios in both sonic and visual formats.

b) Aural Structures, built pilots/intervention in the public realm in London, which they hope to realize later this year. Overall ‘The Listening Project’ aims to provide an informal learning tool and critical instrument for young people to reflect and contribute to the future development of our environments. They are currently seeking collaborators and funding that will help to investigate and develop these approaches further. You can find more details about the project and its stages at: www.spacepilots.net/projects/unlocking-the-city-01

SARCHA

Maria Theodorou (who gained a PhD in Histories and Theories of Architeure at the AA) initiated SARCHA (School of ARCHitecture for All) – an open and independent structure – in Athens in 2006. SARCHA’s commitment is to identify issues of concern within the field of architecture and city conditions and to systematise what appears to be a loose set of questions and research orientations among its associates and within a wider and diverse ‘public’. CCR – ΠKΠ: CityCommonResource – ΠόληKоινόςΠόρоς is SARCHA’s 2010 programme and it addresses architecture’s relation to the economy, in its broadest sense. SARCHA is seeking to work out a framework of ‘nomē’ (management) for the contemporary city by exploring the urban accumulation of resources and their common administration. For further information please see www.sarcha.gr Those interested in becoming involved should contact Maria at info@sarcha.gr

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Contemporary Site-specific Art published by Lambert Academic Publishing (8 December 2009). This research publication concerns the latest forms of site-specific and digital art that have emerged from artists’ interest in new relationships between physical and virtual spaces, as inspired by the contemporary interdisciplinary understanding of space as an uncontrollably changing informational substance.

Peter Higgins (AADipl 1973), has received an RDI from the RSA, a highly regarded honour in the design world which only a handful of architects (including Norman Foster) have ever won.

Victor Orive (AA DRL MArch 2007) was awarded the third prize in the first edition of the Premio Fundamentos. Herramientas de la Arquitectura held by Revista Arquitectura of the Colegio Oficial de Arquitectos de Madrid Coam. The award ceremony took place on the 16 December 2009 and an accompanying exhibition featuring the shortlisted submissions as well as the winners ran until the end of January 2010 at Fundacion Coam in Madrid.

‘The What Where When’ is a new website created by Claire McManus (AA Graphic Designer) listing some of London’s less celebrated creative events, including exhibitions, films, gigs, opportunities, private views, releases, talks and workshops. www.thewhatwherewhen.org

Christina Doumpioti (MArch EmTech 2008 and EmTech Studio Master) and Evan Greenberg (MSc EmTech 2008 and EmTech Course Tutor) were invited for the Elegant Ecotones workshop at the University of Bologna on 11–12 February 2010. Christina and Evan were guest tutors and jurors, as well as giving a lecture covering current EmTech

research on active systems in nature and architecture.

The book 311 Methods by Arelier d’Architecture Pierre Hebbelinck - Pierre Hebbelinck and Pierre de Wit Architectes, published by the AA to accompany the Exhibition in May 2009, has been made laureate of the Fernand Baudin Prize, a concourse of the best books published in the French-speaking part of Belgium (or, in this case, by a Belgian designer).www.prixfernandbaudinprijs.be

Angeliki Koliomichou (AALU MA 2007) presented her MA project on Urban Morphology and Transformation at the 16th International Seminar on Urban Form (ISUF 2009) co-hosted by South China University of Technology and Guangzhou Urban Planning Bureau, in Guangzhou, China, 4–7 September 2009. www.urbanfrom.org

Mollie Claypool (AA MA H&T 2009 and DRL and HTS programme staff ) presented her MA dissertation research, ‘The [dis]Appearance of the Architectural Object: Narratives of the Subject in Projects of the City’, at the Architectural Humanities Research Association’s (AHRA) Annual Post-graduate Research Conference in late 2009.

ecoLogicStudio (Claudia Pasquero and Marco Poletto (Unit Masters Intermediate Unit 10)) has been recently shortlisted for the competion ‘oxigen italia’ by Abitare Magazine, results were published in the December 2009 issue. Their Studio Profile was published in the AD, they are currently submitting a planning application for AqvaHouse in Turin (a refurbishment for a 4 story housing complex in Turin, featuring a 3D facade/roof system working as a water collector and vertical garden) and

have been completing a workshop and exhibition for Linz University.

AA Intermediate Unit 10 students exhibited their first term work coral gardens in the shelter gallery in Dubai. The exhibition featured the students’ project, an on-site installation and a series of critical movies about Dubai. It was featured in the UAE paper The National and on Abitaire.www.thenational.ae/apps/pbcs.dll/article?aid=/20091221/national/712209909,www.abitare.it/events/coral-gardens

Lorens Holm (former General Studies tutor) has published a book with Routledge entitled Brunelleschi, Lacan, Le Corbusier: Architecture Space and the Construction of Subjectivity. It is a development of his PhD research which he did with Mark Cousins as part of the London Consortium. The book interprets the fifteenth century demonstration of perspective for today by putting it in relation to contemporary theories of subjectivity. It explores a link between Architecture and Psychoanalysis that has not hitherto been elaborated, and opens the way for the Lacanian critique of architecture.

Kit Powell-Williams (AADipl 1975) has won an open European competition for a new footbridge at Aveiro, Portugal. In June 2009, The Câmara Muncipal de Aveiro launched a competition for a new 40m span footbridge across the Canal Central as the centrepiece of a ‘sustainability park’ which will be developed over the next 3 to 4 years. The competition submission was made with Buro Happold and the project is co-financed by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) – Operacional Programme Maiscentro. The footbridge is expected to be opened by June 2011.

2009). The article discusses the recent AA PhD Dialogues 2009 Ideology in Transparency symposium and reflects upon issues raised during the event and their implications for architectural practice.www.archplus.net

Nuria Alvarez Lombardero (Unit Master Intermediate Unit 8) gave a paper entitled ‘Understanding Gendered Boundaries of Modern Urban Planning’ at the Urbanism & Urbanisation Symposium at the Catholic University of Leuven in the autumn of 2009. She also presented her research work at the third Research Seminar on Urbanism in the ETSA Barcelona (UPC).

X-Architects, the practice of which Farid Esmaeil (AA Member) is one of the principal architects won the 2009 Middle East Architect Award for the best Mixed-Use project of the year with their project ‘Xeritown’, an urban complex designed to work in harmony with the landscape and natural environment through site specific and climate sensitive architecture and planning. Their projects ‘Ain Al Fayda’ and ‘Al Nasseem’ also received the Estidama Excellence Award from the Abu Dahbi Planning Council during the World Future Energy Summit on 19 January 2010, and the practice won the Mohammed Bin Rashid Best Business in Consultancy Award.

Ahmad Sukkar (AA DRL MArch 2006) participated in the Syrian Architecture Awards Exhibition in Istanbul, 9–11 Nov, 2009 with two entries: the first was his AA DRL TEN Pavilion entry entitled ‘Voronoi Pavilion’, 2007; the second was his entry to Sham Spiritual Oasis entitled ‘Dal Lam Ra’ Universal Sections in Sham Spiritual Oasis: A Probe in the Epidermis of the Landscape and the Depth of the Self”, 2008. He was a finalist for the former

and the latter received a citation. The exhibition was held at the Istanbul Technical University and the organisers were the Order of Syrian Engineers and Architects and the Chamber of Architects of Turkey Istanbul Metropolitan Branch.

Nate Kolbe (AA DRL MArch 2000 and Former Intermediate Unit Master) lectured at the Muenster School of Architecture on ‘Digital Fabrication: Design to Production’. The lecture took place on 10 November 2009 and was part of a series of lectures on Digital Architecture.

‘atmos’, the practice of Alex Haw (Former Diploma Unit Master) is one of the participants in THE CLOUD, a vast collaborative project to build a new spatial communications platform for the London Olympics in 2012. It proposes a giant aerial cluster of transparent occupiable inflatable spaces saturated with intelligent LED technology, fed by real time information from all over the world. Related atmos projects included an installation of a new version of Weather Projection (synchronous social sunlight) in London in January 2010 and a performance of Lumiskin (luminous responsive enclosures) in February 2010.

Phillipe Rahm (Former Diploma Unit Master) directed the Nantes Symposium of Copenhagen 2009 about Climate and Architecture on 10 December 2009 at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, School of Architecture in Copenhagen in the frame of the Climate change conference, COP15 organised by the United Nations. Phillipe Rahm Architects also had work exhibited at the Pompidou Cantre from 16 December 2009 – 1 February 2010, the Daniels, Toronto from 26 February – 26 March 2010 and has work on display at the Guggenheim, New York in ‘Contemplating The Void: Interventions In The Guggenheim Museum’ until 28

April 2010. Philippe also had a solo exhibition at Architekturgalerie am Weissenho in Stuttgart from 10 February – 4 April 2010, and gave lectures at La Chaux-de-Fonds in Switzerland (23 February 2010), INSA: Institut Nationale des Sciences Appliquées de Strasbourg (24 March 2010), ENSA: Ecole Nationale Supérieure d’architecture de Normandie in Rouen (1 April 2010) and the Architecture Society of the University of Cambridge (20 April 2010)www.en.cop15.dkwww.guggenheim.org www.centrepompidou.fr www.daniels.utoronto.cawww.weissenhofgalerie.de

AA students, staff and graduates participated in a major international conference and publication documenting the condition of contemporary architecture and urbanism. Theodore Spyropolous and Yusuke Obuchi (DRL co-directors) presented Adaptive Ecologies, illustrated with current and recent DRL thesis design projects related to a four-year ‘parametric urbanism’ design agenda explored by the programme. Other AA participants include Patrik Schumacher (DRL co-director), whose project for a new Istanbul Masterplan was presented; and the ‘Stop City’ project by Pier Vittorio Aureli (Unit Master Diploma Unit 14 and Histories & Theories tutor). Work by frequent AA visitors Hernan Diaz Alonzo, Bil Macdonald, Jesse Reiser, was also included as was the work of Ben Van Berkel (AADipl(Hons) 1987 and former Academic staff ), Bill Dunster (Former Academic staff ), Yosoke Hayano (AA DRL MArch 2003) and Alejandro Zaera-Polo (Former Diploma Unit Master).

Eugenia Fratzeskou (AA Member) has had a book Visualising Boolean Set Operations: Real and Virtual Boundaries in

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Naiara Vegara (AADipl 2009) had her fourth year project published in the Mexican magazine Tomo Arte, Arquitectura y Diseno. The project entitled ‘The Aura of Corviale’ consists of a church in Corviale in the outskirts of Rome. The aim of the project was to create a path guided through contrasts of gradients of light and material qualities in order to submerge the passers by into their own world where time adapts to a personal rhythm of experiencing space.www.tomo.com.mx/2009/04/29/arquitectura-naiara-vegara Carlos Teixeira (H&U GradDiplDist(AA) 1994) will have a project entitled ‘Spiral Booths’ built for the V&A Museum’s 1:1 Exhibition in June 2010. ‘Spiral Booths’ is an open platform for theatre and dance composed of six booths and a spiral staircase, all of them working like a condenser of performances that fragments the stage into six, and breaks the performance space’s continuity, thus creating new relations between public and artists. It aims to mix a singular, intricate architectural space with the freedom of activities to be programmed within it; be they experimental or didactic, traditional or contemporary, conventional or avant-garde.

Eleftherios Ambatzis (AADipl 2009) recently collaborated with Jose Paixao in the design of a porcelain tureen with silver handles that was exhibited in Porto and will tour Europe. The project was commissioned by Hotel Infante Sagres in Porto, Portugal and was exhibited in Sao Bento metro station. The hotel invited a group of architects and artists to come up with a personal vision for a set of silver handles of a given tureen. Their proposal was inspired by the trip Portuguese ships took to China and the climax of their journey when circling the cape.

Winyu Ardrugsa (AA PhD Candidate) presented a paper entitled The New Thai Parliament as ‘Mount Sumeru’: The ‘State of Exception’ as a Paradigm of Architectural Practice at the 3rd Samaggi Academic Conference at Imperial College London. The event was organised by Samaggi Samagom, the Thai Association in the UK, in collaboration with Imperial College Thai Society on 30–31 January 2010. The paper investigates the recent winning design of the Thai parliament arguing that the proposal’s return to a religious cosmological concept for its spatial and formal organisations runs the risk of constituting an undemocratic architecture.

Flooding Jakarta Sinking Indonesia: a prototype study for water disaster emergency shelter, 2009, a project by a team including Denny Husin (AA MA H&U student) was exhibited at the Indonesian Young Architects (AMI) Workshop 2009 and the Jakarta Architecture Triennale (November 2009). The project tries to experiment with flood issue in an urban setting, in a capital city of a maritime country. All in all it is an experiment of precaution ‘habitation’ regarding the occurrence of sea level rises within next 25–50 years.

Elizabeth Hatz (AA Dipl 1977 and former AA Councillor) is the curator of ev+a 2010, the largest international art event in Ireland from 13 March – 23 May in Limerick, Ireland. The show is spread all over the city and this is the first time that this annual event, which has been running for over 30 years, is curated by an architect. www.eva.ie

Liam Young (Unit Master, Intermediate Unit 7) and Darryl Chen (MA H&U (Dist) 2004) have been selected to exhibit their Where the Grass is Greener project for ‘Unplanned’ at the Superfront gallery in LA, from 25

March. Darryl also presented research at the Belfast Exposed gallery on the subject of Solving Conflict Through Urban Design, 8 April. www.tomorrowsthoughtstoday.com

Jan Pietje Witt (AA Dipl 1999) was included in the exhibition BDA Architektur Werkschau 2009 in the Hamburgmuseum (Aug – Sep 2009) as well as in the model exhibit Neue Neue at the Deutsche Architektur Zentrum in Berlin (Sept – Nov 2009).His office Studio Witt Architecture & Design showed recently completed housing schemes.

Nick Puckett (former First Year Studio Master and DRL MArch 2004) showed the Xiamen Energy Masterplan Model as Part of the Post Oil Cities Exhibition at the IFA Gallery in Stuttgart Germany (February – March 2010) The project, developed with CHORA as part of their Taiwan Strait Incubator, is an interactive 4m x 4m model which acts as an interactive diagram and planning tool for the scheme. www.ifa.de/en/exhibitions/dt/rueckblick/2009/post-oil-city

Brett Steele (AA School Director) was awarded an Honorary Fellowship by RIBA at its annual awards ceremony in February 2010. Given as recognition for Brett’s contribution to contemporary architectural education, the selection panel highlighted his role not only in providing a vision for the future of the AA but also in building upon its legacy.

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Berlin-based nOffice the architectural studio of Markus Miessen (AADipl (Hons) 2004 and former Intermediate Unit Master) has been commissioned to build a library and mediateque in North-East Brazil. The office is currently working on two galleries and a private art collection, as well as a series of international cultural projects. In November, nOffice launched the Performa Hub, Performa Biennial’s central meeting space at the new Cooper Union building in Manhattan. studiomiessen.com www.nOffice.eu

Steve Hatzellis (AADRL MArch 2003) set up WSH Architects in Melbourne Australia in 2004. Last year the practice was awarded the Ideas 2009 Emerging Designer award and the Ideas 2009 Commendation for the Monash University Architecture school project.

Jorge Ayala, Hossein Kachabi (both AA LU MA 2008) and Minjoo Baek (AA LU MA 2009) with tutor Eduardo Rico (AA LU MA 2003 and LU Tutor) were invited to the Creative Nature Workshop in Xi’an, China organised by The University of Southern California in Collaboration with Xi’an International Horticultural Expo 2011. The workshop took place from 24–31 January 2010 in Xi’an, China. This AALU garden design is currently under construction and will be completed in the next 6 months.

The final year project of Fadi Mansour (AA Dipl 2009) is being published in an upcoming edition of AD entitled Post-Traumatic Urbanism. A project for Beirut entitled Re-framing the City: A Monument of Radical Neutrality polemically reinterprets the Green Line in Beirut as a continuous sectional void giving the possibility for a public infrastructure under the patronage of the Lebanese University that works twofold, in order to establish a new

co-existence of the different existing factions.www.post-traumaticurbanism.com

‘cocoarchitects’ the office of Daniel Coll i Capdevila (AADipl (Hons) 2005 and former EmTech tutor) won the first prize for the Moulin Rouge Competition in Paris.

David Lloyd (AADipl 1974) was recently given a Design Award by the Hertfordshire branch of the RIBA for the Drama Centre his practice designed last year at Parmiter’s School in Hertfordshire.

David Dobereiner (AADipl 1954) gave a slide lecture to the Ecocity 2009 Conference in Istanbul last December. It was a 20 minute summary of his book The End of the Street: Sustainable Growth within Natural Limits and was followed by a lively discussion.

Anna Del Monaco (AA Member) has edited a book entitled Corviale Accomplished: A Research for Corviale. Function and Disfunction of Social Housing. The book is published by Luglio, and its research was directed by Lucio Barbera and Richard Plunz. The public building of Corviale is known as a great scandal, problem and myth of modern urban architecture and the book is the result of comprehensive research about its history, authors and identity, developed in partnership by the Faculty of Architecture ‘L. Quaroni’, Sapienza University of Rome, and the Urban Design Programme, Columbia University of New York, with the support of the Lazio Region and the collaboration of the Agenzia Territoriale Edilizia Residenziale (Regional Agency for Public Housing). www.editricesapienza.it/catalogo/schedapubblicazione.aspx? idpubblicazione=109

From 31 January – 6 February 2010 Kristof Crolla (AA DRL MArch 2007 and former D_lab tutor) was invited by the Royal Institute of Technology, School of Architecture in Stockholm to both lecture and teach the 11th edition of his ‘International Workshop Series’. The workshop, entitled ‘Digital Design and Fabrication in Architectur’, kicked off a 4th year design studio by Prof. Ulrika Karlsson and Daniel Norell and focussed on the application of algorithmic design in architecture.

A book of photographs by Mark Pimlott (AADipl(Hons)1985), In Passing, is due to be published in Spring 2010 by Jap Sam books. The book was designed by Joost Grootens and is supported by the Fonds BKVB. Mark will exhibit his work at Projektraum-Bahnhofstraße25, in Kleve, Germany, from 17 April – 9 May 2010.

Eugene Soler (AAIS Student) has won the Japanese 44th Central Glass Design Competition 2009 with a project entitled Carpet Bombing – Iraqi Markets which looks to heal the wounds of a devastated landscape by introducing the concept of the Persian carpet, in the form of mosaic or painted tiles suitable for pedestrian and urban surfaces. The proposal was shortlisted along with six others and presented in public in Tokyo in front of 200 people. The theme of the competition was ‘Community Gathering’.

A sketch made by Marcelo A. Espinosa Martinez (AA DRL MA 1999 and H&T PhD 2007) for an Architecture Museum Competition in Monterrey, Mexico in 1995 was selected as finalist in the 1er Premio Fundamentos Tools for Architecture organised by Revista Arquitectura of the COAM in Madrid, Spain. It was also part of an exhibition held at the COAM in Madrid from December 2009 – January 2010.

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The Public Occasion Agency (POA) has been established as a framework for a self-determining public programme at the AA. The POA systematically collaborates with various parts of the wider AA community to actualise a wide, but always focused, range of events. As part of the POA’s institutional enterprise, each event is accompanied by two paper publications, one preview and one review, forming the ongoing public archive of the Public Occasion Agency.