Spring Week3 - Architectural Association School of Architecture

AA PhD Programme: Doctoral
Research Public Presentations
Dr Nerma Cridge
Drawing the Unbuildable
Tuesday 8 May, 1.00 Lecture Hall
Starting with the premise that many
highly important architectural projects
are not simply unbuilt, but rather
unbuildable, Nerma Cridge will define
the category of the unbuildable. Both
the unbuildable and the buildable will
be revealed as working distinctly but,
pertinently, not in opposition to one
another. The discussion will focus on
case studies from the peak period of the
unbuildable – post-revolutionary Soviet
Union – including Tatlin’s Tower and
the Palace of the Soviets. Speculations
on El Lissitzky’s Cloud Stirrups will form
the basis for the examination of the
notion of an architectural series.
The lecture concludes with outlining
possible new directions of research,
beyond the scope of the PhD thesis.
Dr Tania López Winkler
The Detective of Modern Life
Wednesday 9 May, 1.00 Lecture Hall
This doctoral thesis proposes an alternative
approach to examine modern life
and 19th-century London by using the
register of the literary figure of the English
private detective – from which the clue
is extracted as a semantic device.
Modernity is often examined with the
figure of the Parisian flâneur as a pivotal
component. From Baudelaire’s essay
‘The Painter of Modern Life’ and Walter
Benjamin’s The Arcades Project, this
figure has become central in scholarly
discussions about modernity and how
the 19th-century city reconfigured
human experience. The lecture will
discuss how the Private Detective genre
shaped the final outcome, introduce
the main propositions and arguments
of the thesis and outline possible future
lines of enquiry.
Book Launch
Lucy Bullivant
New Arcadians: Emerging UK
Architects
Tuesday 8 May, 6.30
AA Bookshop
Young architects in the UK are making
a name for themselves, not just because
of the buildings they design, but also
because of the ethos they share – one
that embraces concern for the environment
and makes a virtue of limited
budgets. In New Arcadians (published by
Merrell), author, critic and curator Lucy
Bullivant profiles cutting-edge UK-based
practices, presenting recent key projects
as well as interviews with the architects.
Complete with an introduction exploring
key trends in contemporary British
architecture and full biographies of all the
featured practices, the book is an excit-
ing overview of the work and attitudes
of the rising generation of UK architects
who are reinvigorating the profession.
Landscape Urbanism Lecture Series
Lucy Bullivant
Masterplanning Futures
Wednesday 9 May, 6.00
New Soft Room
In the past, urban masterplans have
been all-encompassing, fixed blueprints
realised as physical form through
conventional top-down processes.
These frequently disregarded existing
social and cultural structures, while the
old modernist planning model zoned
space for home and work. At a time
of global urbanisation, these models
are being replaced by more adaptable,
mixed-use plans dealing holistically
with the physical, social and economic
revival of districts, cities and regions.
Through today’s public participative
approaches, multidisciplinary research
and use of technologically enabled tools,
the generative strategies, feedback
loops and seed project/network-driven
functionality of contemporary masterplanning
instruments can give cities a
greater resilience and capacity for social
integration and change in the future.
Lucy Bullivant will draw critically on
the research findings for her new book,
Masterplanning Futures (Routledge,
July 2012), which analyses the ideals
and conceptually advanced methodologies
of different species of international
masterplans, and their role in many
different urban contexts in both the
developed and developing world. These
encompass landscape-driven imperatives;
synergies in goals of social equity
and urban expansion, for ecological
systems and organic urban growth.
Landscape Urbanism Lecture Series
Pierre Bélanger
Landscape Infrastructure:
Urbanism beyond Engineering
Thursday 10 May, 6.00
New Soft Room
Responding to the inertia of urban
planning and the overexertion of civil
engineering, there is an urgent need for
the redesign of urban infrastructures and
for the rethinking of the performance of
urban economies. Putting into question
the conventional capacities of any single
discipline to address the magnitude
of urban challenges and ecological
complexities today, the contemporary
convergence of landscape and infrastructure
proposes a series of systems
and strategies for contemporary urbanisation
where the synthesis of biophysical
processes can be deployed across the
footprint of urban regions and across
the lifespan of service utilities in order to
bridge the economic and ecologic divide
of industrial economies. Stemming from
the failure of 20th-century environmental-
ism, the cultivation of current and historic
affiliations between ecology, engineering,
and geography provides fertile ground
for the reclamation of infrastructure as
design discourse and as design practice
for the next generation of post-carbon
public works in the 21st century.
Pierre Bélanger is a Landscape
Urbanist and Associate Professor at
the Harvard Graduate School of Design.
His academic research and public work
focus on the convergence of urbanism,
landscape and ecology in the interrelated
fields of planning, design and engineering.
Bélanger is editor of the Landscape
Infrastructures DVD (Canadian National
Research Council, 2009) and his most
recent publications include ‘Urbanism
beyond Engineering’ (Infrastructure
Sustainability & Design, 2012). Bélanger
is a recipient of the Professional Prix de
Rome, awarded by the Canada Council
for the Arts.
Symposium
Translate the Intangible
Organised by PhD in Architectural
Design Candidates
Friday 11 May, 10.00 Lecture Hall
Translate the Intangible addresses the
challenges of communicating dynamic
aspects of contemporary design
methodologies through static mediums
such as text and images. As current
design-oriented fields have amplified
the implementation of computational
and generative tools for various motives,
the process of documentation and
representation of the design process
has become more difficult to express.
Translate the Intangible brings together
a multi-disciplinary group of leading
practitioners to discuss the challenges
involved in expressing the process in
their work and propose new perspectives
to address this.
Guest speakers: Branko Kolarevic
(University of Calgary), Mark Sarkisian
(SOM San Francisco), Greg Lynn (Angewandte
Wien & UCLA A+UD), Axel Kilian
(Princeton University), Luca Dellatore
(ARUP), Hod Lipson (Cornell University)
Organised by Merate Barakat, Elif
Erdine and Ali Farzaneh, the symposium
will also serve as a platform for the PhD
in Architectural Design students to present
and discuss their individual research.
Schedule:
10.00 Coffee
10.20 Introduction, Michael Weinstock
10.30 Session 01: Spatial Cognition
and Performative Systems
Moderators: Merate Barakat, Urban
Sonic Networking: Urban Design
through Acoustic Sensory; Kensuke
Hotta, Programmable Architecture:
Towards Intelligent Architecture
Speakers: Luca Dellatore, Hod Lipson
12.30 Lunch
1.50 Afternoon session opening,
Brett Steele

2.00 Session 02: Design(innovation)
= f (nature, fab, material)
Moderators: Francisca Aroso,
Fabrication-based Design of Adaptable
Transitional Spaces; Arturo Revilla,
Processcity: Towards a New Territorial
Performance of the Urban Border
Speakers: Axel Kilian; Branko Kolarevic,
4.00 Break
4.30 Session 03: Generative
Techniques for System Design
Moderators: Ali Farzaneh, Mathematical
Models and Digital Morphogenesis of
Urban Tissues; Elif Erdine, Generative
Processes in Tower Design: Algorithms
for the Integration of Tower Subsystems
Speakers: Greg Lynn, Mark Sarkisian
6.30 Roundtable discussion
Building Conservation Open Lecture
Barbara Van der Wee
Victor Horta and the Restoration
of his Buildings
Friday 11 May, 2.00 New Soft Room
Two talks will take place, from 2.00–3.30
and 3.45–5.00.
Barbara Van der Wee has been
Associate Professor, Research Group
Architectural History and Conservation
Raymond Lemaire International Centre
for Conservation at the Katholieke
Universiteit Leuven since 1999. She
has specialised in her career in
19th- and 20th-century heritage,
especially in buildings which are
protected as ‘monuments’.
Forthcoming
Members’ Trip to Madrid
Friday 18 to Sunday 20 May
Tickets still available – for full details, see
www.aaschool.ac.uk/membership/
benefits/events.php
Exhibitions run to Saturday 26 May,
Monday to Friday 10.00–7.00, Saturday
10.00–3.00, unless otherwise stated.
Bas Princen
Photography, Landscape, Image
AA Gallery
Award-winning Dutch photographer
Bas Princen’s work has become
increasingly familiar: images that blur
the artificial and natural, where the
real and imagined are hard to separate.
Less known – and never previously
exhibited – are the A5 booklets Princen
makes, consisting of a series of reference
images. The booklets are between
24 and 32 pages long and contain
images downloaded by Princen from
the internet of famous or completely
unknown or already long-forgotten
scenes and objects involving landscape
and architecture, their low resolution
disallowing reproduction any larger
than 6 x 9 cm.
Simple and handmade, the booklets
can be replaced quickly or adjusted by
reprinting on standard A4 paper, folded
and stapled. They also form dummies for
new books Princen plans to make and
act as placeholders for photographs still
to be taken. These dummies – or
maquettes – are used by Princen to test
possible dialogues and formal arrangements
of future photographs. The
maquettes guide and direct his view,
making it possible to compress compositions
and subjects taken from several
reference images into one new individual
photograph. These maquettes are exhibited
alongside Princen’s photographs,
making manifest the process of thinking
to making.
Zak Kyes Working With …
Can Altay, Charles Arsène-Henry,
Shumon Basar, Richard Birkett,
Andrew Blauvelt, Edward Bottoms,
Wayne Daly, Jesko Fezer,
Joseph Grigely, Nikolaus Hirsch,
Maria Lind, Markus Miessen,
Michel Müller, Radim Peško,
Barbara Steiner
Front Members’ Room
Zak Kyes is the recipient of the 2010
INFORM Award, the annual accolade
presented to graphic designers who
develop a practice within the context
of applied and contemporary art. The
award was marked by a solo exhibition
– ‘Zak Kyes Working With …’, originating
at the Museum for Contemporary Art
Leipzig in collaboration with the AA and
the Graham Foundation, Chicago, where
the show travels to in June. Curated with
Barbara Steiner, the exhibition brings
together a range of works by Kyes and a
host of collaborators including architects,
artists, writers, curators, editors and
graphic designers, presenting contemporary
graphic design as a practice that
mediates, and is mediated by, its allied
disciplines.
A Swiss-American who lives and
works in London, Kyes has developed
a graphic design practice that includes
publishing, editing and site-specific
projects for and in collaboration with
cultural institutions. In 2005 he founded
the design studio Zak Group and in
2006 became AA Art Director, where
he co-founded Bedford Press, an imprint
that seeks to develop new models for
contemporary publishing.
This project is supported by the
Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia.
A related catalogue will be published
by Sternberg Press later this month.
Intermediate Unit 7
Eastern Promises: Incubator
Galleries
AA Bar
Eastern Promises: Incubator Galleries
shows AA Intermediate Unit 7’s work
in progress and engages with its evolving
agenda, methods, processes and
products. It reveals the unit’s interest
in design infrastructures as transfers
between urban systems as well as its
current focus on new hybrid typologies
that exploit the clashes between culture
and commerce in post-Soviet Moscow.
Diagrammatic diagnostics and graphic
condensations are presented in the
‘Moscow Catalogue’, which suggests
mediations for the city’s paradoxes,
such as deconstruction/reconstruction,
dispersal/concentration and concealment/revelation.
Selected urban strategies and design
prototypes include layered generic
frameworks that organise specific
cultural and commercial fragments;
compressed megastructures that deploy
as filing and display mechanisms; and
thickened façade interfaces that collect
surfaces, images and atmospheres.
The display includes interactive archives,
expansive matrices and controlled
highlights to juxtapose concepts and
artefacts, narratives and drawings,
diagrams and images.
Bank Holidays
AA premises will be closed on the
following Bank Holidays this term:
Monday 7 May (Week 3),
Monday 4 June and Tuesday 5 June
(Week 7).
Nicholas Boas Scholarship
Final Call: Wednesday 9 May
This travel scholarship, established in
memory of former AA student Nicholas
Boas (1975–1998), allows AA students
to spend three weeks in Rome in July.
The recipients will be based at the British
School at Rome, where generations of
artists and scholars have researched
the history, art and architecture of Italy.
All expenses for the trip are generously
taken care of by the Nicholas Boas Trust
and any currently registered AA student
may apply by submitting a short written
paragraph stating why they wish to travel
to Rome and what interest they intend
to pursue while they are there.
The successful candidate will be
expected to produce a small body of
work as a result of their visit – sketches,
photographs or the basis of a project.
Please email applications to Belinda
Flaherty at belinda@aaschool.ac.uk –
these should include the name, address,
telephone number and email address of
the applicant. Shortlisted applicants will
be asked to attend an informal interview
to discuss their current work and their
ideas for a Rome visit. For further information,
please contact Belinda Flaherty
at the email address above.

Juries
Diploma Unit 3, Tuesday 8 and
Thursday 10 May, 2.00–5.30 (both days)
32 Second Floor Back
Forthcoming:
Intermediate Unit 2, Friday 18 May,
10.00 32 Second Floor Back
Intermediate Unit 3, Monday 21 May,
10.00 32 Second Floor Back
Intermediate Unit 6, Tuesday 15 May,
10.00 Lecture Hall
Intermediate Unit 8, Friday 18 May,
10.00 32 First Floor Back
Intermediate Unit 9, Friday 18 May,
10.00 Studio 1
Intermediate Unit 10, Monday 14 May,
10.00 Lecture Hall
Intermediate Unit 13, Wednesday
16 May, 10.00 32 Second Floor Back
Diploma Unit 2, Tuesday 22 May, 10.00
37 First Floor Front
Diploma Unit 5, Friday 18 May, 10.00
Rear Second Presentation
Diploma Unit 6, Friday 18 May, 10.00
Lecture Hall
Diploma Unit 11, Thursday 17 May,
10.00 Lecture Hall
Diploma Unit 16, Wednesday
16 May, 10.00 Lecture Hall
Diploma Unit 17, Wednesday
16 May, 10.00 37 First Floor Front
AA Bookshop May selection
This month’s selection of new titles from
AA Bookshop can be ordered online at
aabookshop.net. Members receive
a 20 per cent discount on the month’s
featured titles and up to 50 per cent
discount on selected special offers.
To contact the Bookshop, please email
bookshop@aabookshop.net or
telephone 020 7887 4041. The new
AA Bookshop is open at 32 Bedford
Square.
AA Undergraduate Bursary
Application Forms
These are available now for current
students for the 2012/13 academic year,
from Sabrina Blakstad in the Registrar’s
Office. Completed applications must be
returned by Friday 11 May.
Bank Holiday
AA premises closed
11.30 History and Critical Thinking
MA Dissertation Seminar
Marina Lathouri
32 FFB
1.00 Doctoral Research Presentations
Dr Nerma Cridge
Drawing the Unbuildable
Lecture Hall
2.00 Jury
Diploma Unit 3
Day 1 of 2: see Thursday
32 SFB
2.00 Sustainable Environmental
Design
Embodied Energy
Christian Dimbleby
36 SFB
4.00 Sustainable Environmental
Design
Adaptive Thermal Comfort
Fergus Nicol
36 SFB
6.30 Book Launch
Lucy Bullivant
New Arcadians: Emerging UK Architects
AA Bookshop
11.30 Sustainable Environmental
Design
MSc / MArch Dissertation Research
Programme staff
33 FFB
1.00 Doctoral Research Presentations
Dr Tania López Winkler
The Detective of Modern Life
Lecture Hall
6.00 Landscape Urbanism Lecture
Series
Lucy Bullivant
Masterplanning Futures
New Soft Room
2.00 Jury
Diploma Unit 3
Day 2 of 2: see Tuesday
32 SFB
6.00 Landscape Urbanism Lecture
Series
Pierre Bélanger, Harvard GSD
New Soft Room
8.00 Sustainable Environmental
Design
Visit to research buildings in Nottingham
Meet at front of the AA. Coach will leave
at 8.30
10.00 PhD Symposium
Organised by PhD in Architectural
Design Candidates
Translate the Intangible
Lecture Hall
10.00 Building Conservation/Year 1
Medieval Sculpture
Veronica Sekules
11.50 Quinquennial Inspections
Andrew Shepherd
33 FFF
10.00 Building Conservation/Year 2
Voysey
Clyde Binfield
11.50 Repair of Modern Materials
Tony Walker
33 FFB
2.00 Building Conservation/Years
1/2
Victor Horta and the Restoration
of his Buildings
Barbara Van Der Wee
New Soft Room
AA Members can access a black and
white and/or larger print version of
Events List by going to the AA website
at aaschool.ac.uk. For the audio
infoline, please call 020 7887 4111.
Events List online:
www.aaschool.ac.uk/eventslist
Email: eventslist@aaschool.ac.uk
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