Architectural Association

School of Architecture

Prospectus
2023–24

Taught Postgraduate
Programmes and
PhD Programme

AA
AA Prospectus 2023–24
Edited and produced by AA Welcome 4
Introduction 8
Communications Studio

Architectural Association
36 Bedford Square
London WC1B 3ES
Taught Postgraduate
T +44 (0)20 7887 4000
Programmes 12
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Photography by Photographs from

the AA Photographic Collections
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2 3
Welcome Welcome to 2023–24 at the
Architectural Association (AA).
These pages describe a wealth
of pathways into architecture,
one of the oldest professions.
The AA has educated leaders in
this field for well over a century,
but we have always extended
beyond the confines of our ever-
evolving profession. The process
of architectural qualification is
long, and while our work may
seem practical and even useful,
architecture is also instrumental
in shaping the wider contexts for
everything we do. As a result,
we need a much more complex
understanding of the world if
we are to contribute something
meaningful to it. By cultivating
broad curiosity and actively
engaging with the environment
around us, we can add some
intelligent delight.
The AA provides a platform for
new voices to be heard and new
approaches to be tested. Located
at 36 Bedford Square, the school
sits at the heart of one of the
world’s most cosmopolitan cities,
and behind our black door is a
space for experimentation by
students and staff alike. This is a
place to try almost anything, to
take risks and to reckon with
failure as well as success.
We come together within the
school in both structured and
chance encounters. The AA, like
London, is a site for multiple,
layered conversations that take
place across a multitude of scales,
Ingrid Schroder from the intimate and material to
the global and conceptual.
AA Director 4 5
We make the space for collective
action and welcome creative
outliers, understanding that
bigger and more urgent questions
emerge from ongoing debate. The
conversations that start here or in
our Hooke Park woodland facility
resonate worldwide through our
community. They proliferate and
are carried forward to the many
international locations that our
students and staff call home.
While we know architecture has the
potential and the responsibility to
shape the world for the better, we
also understand that its definitions
are fluid and the world we inhabit is
increasingly changeable. The range
of topics and methods outlined in
this prospectus describe an area
of study that is one of the very last
comprehensive interdisciplinary
forms of education. This equips
students with the intellectual
agility to embrace the unknown
challenges that lie ahead.
Our international and multi-
generational community has the
rare opportunity to support,
promote and realise architectural
ideas with the potential to effect
real change.
All of this starts in our labyrinth of
spaces in central London, whose
scale obliges us to converse with
one another. These spaces enable
everyone to be heard. We come
together in the bar and on the
terrace, in the Lecture Hall and in
the studios. Most importantly, we
are in a public space. We are part
of the city. There is no bell to ring,
lock to turn or log to sign. Our door
is open.
Sarah Cope, Collage of Parts, HU MArch, 2023. Lola Lozano Lara, República de Ecuador no 109, Mexico City, from
the PhD thesis ̒ Vecindad: Redistribution of Domestic Space in
6 Mexico City 1519–2021', 2023. 7
 Introduction
The Architectural Association
The AA is the oldest independent
school of architecture in the UK.
It was founded in 1847 as a student-
centred collective that aspired to
radically transform architectural
education. Since then, it has
fostered an environment that
encourages students to speculate
without limitations, take risks
with confidence and cultivate
individual, radical research that
shapes the future of the discipline.
The identity of the AA is informed
by the contributions of its
students, through its structure as a
participatory democracy and as a
result of their critical engagement
with cultural discourse in London
and beyond.
Today, the AA comprises
approximately 1,000 full-time
students, 8,000 members, 290
tutors and 130 administrative staff.
It occupies ten Georgian houses in
central London – eight in Bedford
Square and a further two on nearby
Montague Street – as well as a 350-
acre woodland site at Hooke Park in
Dorset. The school offers a broad
range of flexible, self-directed
programmes that empower students
and staff to challenge established
methods within contemporary
architectural education and
professional practice.
Prospective students can apply
for the Foundation Course (AA
Foundation Award in Architecture);
the Intermediate Programme (years
one to three of the five-year course
in architecture) leading to the
award of BA(Hons) in Architecture
(ARB/RIBA Part 1); the Diploma
Programme (years four and five
8 9
of the five-year course in
architecture) leading to the award
of MArch and the AA Diploma
(ARB/RIBA Part 2); and nine Taught
Postgraduate Programmes leading
to MA, MSc, PG MArch, MFA and
Taught MPhil awards, as well as the
PhD Programme.
We also accept applications
throughout the year for two RIBA
Part 3 courses and a range of
Visiting Schools that take place
around the world, as well as a
Summer School held at Bedford
Square each July. Research develops
elsewhere in the school within
two AA Residences, Ground
Lab and Wood Lab, which were
established in 2019. Together, these
courses, programmes and initiatives
allow students from different
backgrounds and with varied
interests and ambitions to find their
own path through the school.
The AA curriculum is enhanced
by the Public Programme,
which focuses on the unique
opportunities and challenges of
the present through a series of
lectures, exhibitions, workshops,
symposia and book launches, and
by the Communications Studio,
a media, publishing and graphic
design studio. This year’s Public
Programme, which is free to attend
and welcomes students, staff and
the general public, will include
exhibitions of the life and work of
MJ Long, who was the architect of
the British Library; Chronograms
of Architecture, inspired by the
diagrams of Charles Jencks; models
of the many premises that the
Warburg Institute has occupied
over time; and a multi-screen film Our programmes, public events
project by Noemi Blager that looks and publications exist alongside
at how we can do A Lot with Little. spontaneous discussions,
These exhibitions will shape themes unexpected encounters and
for our termly lecture series, which vibrant exchanges that take place
this year will explore the gendering throughout the academic year. This
of space and objects, the role that confluence of activity keeps the AA
smaller educational institutions can in a constant transformative flux
play in knowledge production and that permeates the spaces of the
dissemination, and the practices school, and the projects, ideas and
that engage with social enterprise ambitions of the students.
and promote environmental
sustainability. This year, every unit
and programme within the school
will come together during Climate
Matters week in Term 1 for a series
of lectures, workshops and an
exhibition that will encourage the
AA to think collectively about how
we, as architects, can mitigate our
impact on the planet.

Publishing and cultural production

are integral to AA life, and the
school engages with a number of
digital and print-based initiatives
including the creation of new
AA Publications that disseminate
architectural discourse to a global
audience; AA Files, the school’s
journal of record; the student-led
AArchitecture magazine; and AirAA,
a podcast and media platform.

Taught Degree Awarding Powers (TDAP)

and Office for Students (OfS)
The Architectural Association (AA) School of Architecture is a private
Higher Education Provider with Taught Degree Awarding Powers. The AA
is an Approved Provider registered with the Office for Students (OfS)
and a Tier 4 Sponsor Institution registered with UK Visas and Immigration
(UKVI). The AA is an Approved Institution and Affiliated Research Centre
of The Open University (OU), UK. The OU is the awarding body for
research degrees at the AA. 10 11
Taught Postgraduate The AA offers nine full-time Taught Postgraduate Programmes: advanced
studies for students with prior academic and professional experience.
The degrees offered include MA (12 Months), MSc (12 months), MArch (16
Programmes months), MFA (18 months) and Taught MPhil (18 months) options for a
range of topics.

Architecture and Urbanism (DRL) Landscape Urbanism

MArch
Architecture and Urbanism
(Design Research Laboratory:
DRL) interrogates the broader
relationships within and beyond
architecture by considering the
futures of living, work and culture
through advanced methods
in design, computation and
manufacturing.
Design and Make
MSc/MArch
Design and Make is based at the
AA’s woodland campus at Hooke
Park in Dorset. The programme
explores design at the point of
physical production, demonstrating
a vision for architectural education
in which making is central to the
design process.
MSc/MArch
Landscape Urbanism investigates
the role that designers can play
when confronted with policies and
regulations relating to landscapes
and territories across the globe.
Spatial Performance and Design (AAIS)
MA/MFA
Spatial Performance and Design
(AAIS) explores alternative
methods of collaboration between
multiple creative professions.
Sustainable Environmental Design
MSc/MArch
Sustainable Environmental Design
engages with real-life projects that
aim to improve the environment in
cities and develop environmentally
sustainable architectures.

Emergent Technologies and Design Architecture and Urban Design

MSc/MArch (Projective Cities)
Emergent Technologies and Design Taught MPhil
investigates new synergies of The Taught MPhil in Architecture
architecture and ecology through and Urban Design (Projective
the intersection of computational Cities) examines multi-scalar
design and fabrication. questions that arise at the
intersection of architecture, urban
History and Critical Thinking design and planning.
MA
History and Critical Thinking is a
platform for engagement with
the contemporary through critical
analysis of history and the politics
of historiography.

Housing and Urbanism

MA/MArch
Housing and Urbanism addresses
the complexities of urban
transformation through design
learning and investigation, focusing
on the politics and practicalities
that shape cities.
12 13
MArch Programme Head: Course Tutors: Technical Tutors:
Theodore Spyropoulos Apostolos Despotidis Danae Polyviou
Architecture And Urbanism (DRL) Mostafa El-Sayed Albert Taylor-Williamson
Founder: Octavian Gheorghiu Edoardo Tibuzzi
Patrik Schumacher Elizabeth Konstantinidou
Evangelia Magnisali
Course Masters: José Pareja Gómez
Pierandrea Angius Klaus Platzgummer
Shajay Bhooshan Marcena Poppe
David Greene Angel Tenorino Castillo
Nassia Inglessis Ashwin Shah
Tina Tsagkaratou
Programme Co-ordinator: Carlos Andres Lora Yunen
Nerma Cridge
The Design Research Laboratory (DRL) is a 16-month design research
programme that leads to a Master of Architecture and Urbanism (MArch)
degree. Our lab has been at the forefront of design experimentation for
the past 20 years, pioneering new methods in design, computation and
manufacturing. The programme is based on an evolving framework of
three-year research cycles that interrogate architecture and urbanism from
the city-scale to the nanoscale. DRL is led by innovators in architecture,
design and engineering, and pursues an interdisciplinary approach to
design that extends beyond architecture, fostering collaboration with
companies such as Ferrari, Festo, AKTII, Reider and Odico Robotics.
The lab is a space of co-operation and curiosity, and develops the next
generation of architects who will actively engage with and influence the
field. DRL graduates have gone on to establish offices, lead advanced
research groups and teach at schools worldwide.

PROGRAMME STRUCTURE
Four terms of study are divided
into two phases. Phase 1, a three-
term academic year beginning
each autumn, introduces design
techniques and topics through
a combination of team-based
studio work, workshops and
seminar courses.
In Phase 2, which begins the
following autumn, teams
develop their Phase 1 work into
a comprehensive design thesis
project. At the end of January,
these projects are presented to
a panel of distinguished visiting
critics. In the past, these have
included Alisa Andrasek, Caroline
Bos, Mark Cousins, Hernán Díaz
Alonso, Molly Wright Steenson,
John Frazer, Zaha Hadid, Michael
Hansmeyer, Ariane Koek, Rem
Koolhaas, Marta Malé-Alemany,
Wolf Prix, Ali Rahim, David Ruy,
Brett Steele, Ben Van Berkel
and Winka Dubbeldam, among
many others.
Spyropoulos Studio
Research Agenda: The Elemental
Project: Metaxis
Team: Carole El Danaf, Jayanaveenaa Periyasamy, Panayiotis Ioakim, Yifan Yang
Photo credit: Yifan Yang
Becoming a Silkworm, 1:1 prototype installed on the AA terrace exploring the
construction of the space through a single line.
14 15
PHASE 1
Design Research Agenda:
Social Ecologies
Our current agenda explores
expanded relationships within and
beyond architecture by considering
the future of living, work and
culture. The aim of the research is
to diversify the field within which
architecture can operate, by using
behaviour as a conceptual tool to
synthesise the digital world with the
material world. We use advanced
computational development
to create architectural systems
that are adaptive, generative and
behavioural, challenging current
design orthodoxies through
novel tools for printing, making
and computing.
DRL explores architecture that is
mobile, transformative, kinetic and
robotic, expanding the remit of the
discipline and pushing the limits of
design within the larger cultural and
technological realm.
Design Workshops:
Simulating the Real
Term 1
Tutors:
Pierandrea Angius
Shajay Bhooshan
Apostolos Despotidis
Mostafa El-Sayed
Nassia Inglessis
Angel Tenorino Castillo
Tina Tsagkaratou
Four design workshop modules
highlight how computational and
material prototyping can be used
as both an analytical methodology
and a primary mode of design
production and representation.
Each five-week module focuses on
a specific set of methods and an
intended design output, introducing
students to a range of concepts
and techniques that can be further
developed in the year-long Phase 1
and Phase 2 studio projects.
Core Seminars:
Design as Research
Term 1
Tutor: Theodore Spyropoulos
Using design as a form of research
raises a series of questions relating
to wider technological, economic
and cultural contexts. This seminar
will explore how associating design
with forms of research impacts
architectural practice. The seminar
is supported by an overview of
computational approaches to
design and processes, and students
will survey computational work in
art, music, new media, science and
other aspects of contemporary
discourses through weekly readings
on software technologies and
16
design systems. Groups of students
will make weekly presentations
related to the readings and provide
analyses of selected projects.
Constructed Histories:
Technocentric History
of Design
Term 2
Tutor: Shajay Bhooshan
This seminar traces concise histories
of the built environment that have
been influenced or empowered by
geometric abstraction. The goal is
to understand these histories as
the outcome of processes of
additive manufacture using bricks
and stone, which are informed
and influence the mathematical
principles of graphic statics
and stereotomy.
Phase 1 Prototyping Workshop:
Responsive Systems
Term 2
Tutor: Apostolos Despotidis
This workshop introduces students
to prototyping and physical
computing. Students will learn to
use the Arduino platform, while
exploring various fabrication
processes to shape their ideas.
In Phase 2, these techniques will
serve as essential skills during
prototype development.
Behaviour: Examining the
Proto-Systemic
Term 2
Tutor: Theodore Spyropoulos
This seminar course engages with
experimental forms of material
and computational practice
from a behavioural perspective.
Students will examine experiments
that have been conducted since
the early 1950s in the form of
maverick machines, architectures
and ideologies, and will consider
the impact of cybernetic and
systemic thinking in relation to
seminal forms of prototyping and
experimentation. Their findings will
be communicated through team-
based presentations that function
as case studies, informing students’
own studio experimentation.
Software Platforms: Maya,
Rhino, 3D Studio, Processing,
Arduino, Unity, Scripting
Term 1–2
Tutors: DRL staff
These workshops introduce
several digital tools and software
systems, providing students
with the foundational skills
required to construct and control
parametric models and interactive
presentations. Subsequent sessions
will cover advanced scripting,
programming and dynamic
modelling techniques.
17
 Synthesis: Project Submission,
Writing and Research
Documentation
Term 1–2
Tutors:
Nerma Cridge
Klaus Platzgummer
Carlos Andres Lora Yunen
In weekly sessions, students will
review the basics of writing and
research in relation to their course
submissions. Presentations will
introduce the resources available to
students and provide guidance on
the preparation of thesis abstracts,
writing styles and issues related to
essays, papers and project booklets.
PHASE 2
Angius Studio:
Mobile Architecture
The studio re-examines the
opportunities offered by the
hybrid design territory situated
between the human body and
the minimal spatial construct for
the living and the moving. We
revisit Yona Friedman’s vision of
a ‘mobile architecture’ in relation
to the post-war concept of
‘Existenzminimum’. The aim is to
contextualise these ideas within
a projection of the near future
wherein limited resources and
climatic shifts drive new paradigms
for the built environment. The
studio’s research focuses on
programmatic overlays and multi-
potent spatial interfaces, and
we experiment with amphibious
environments to test different
adaptive and transformational
qualities. Large-scale interventions
speculate on the concept of ‘soft recognition for an interaction- Prototyping Workshop:
infrastructure’ as a strategy to led experience. Adaptive Systems and Structures
enable dynamic, distributed and Term 1
self-sufficient human inhabitation. Spyropoulos Studio: Tutors:
Elemental Pierandrea Angius
Bhooshan Studio: Shajay Bhooshan
Participatory Agency The studio challenges the fixed Apostolos Despotidis
and finite orthodoxies of building Mostafa El-Sayed
The studio explores the creation of design for a latent and unknown Nassia Inglessis
architecture and urbanism through world. Within the contemporary Patrik Schumacher
participatory mechanisms. Its design condition, new conceptual terrains Theodore Spyropoulos
research builds on prior experience are emerging that raise questions
in computer-aided geometric of agency and intelligence within This five-week workshop, held
design, robotic fabrication and the ecology of our environment. at the midpoint of Phase 2,
industrialised construction. These The studio’s work explores interrogates the spatial, structural,
technologies of physical realisation environmental phenomena that material and environmental systems
provide the substrate for a gamified, help to sustain life – from growing of each team’s thesis project
stakeholder participation framework architectural skins with bacteria and in detail. The workshop places
to operate upon. Together, they fusing sand into glass infrastructures emphasis on the use of modelling
create spaces and governance on-site, to examining seaweed techniques that can feed back into
mechanisms to host and regulate ecosystems and crystalline and the testing and development of
online communities, in anticipation biofilm constructs. larger-scale proposals.
of their physical realisation. These
cyber-physical platforms bring
together the social, exploratory and
network-effect benefits of online
metaverses with the effective use of
digital technologies.
Schumacher Studio:
Cyber-Urban Incubator
The studio investigates the
metaverse as a set of 3D virtual
platforms which facilitate social
and economic activity through a
persistent, user-owned real-time
platform, weaving together the
digital and physical worlds. The
studio challenges the foundations
upon which a virtual-native city
should be developed, with the
goal of establishing itself as a
dense, legible, information-rich
environment capable of facilitating
orientation, navigation and
18 19
Staff Bios
Pierandrea Angius holds a PhD in Building Technology
from the Polytecnico of Milan and is a graduate of the
Architecture and Urbanism (DRL) programme at the
AA. He is a former associate at Zaha Hadid Architects
and currently works for Ferrari. He has taught on the
DRL programme for more than a decade.
Shajay Bhooshan is an MPhil candidate at the
University of Bath and a research fellow at ETH
Zürich. He is a senior associate at Zaha Hadid
Architects, and heads the research activities of the
practice’s Computation and Design (co|de) group.
Klaus Platzgummer holds an MArch from ETH
Zürich and an MA in History and Critical Thinking
in Architecture from the AA. He is a teaching and
research associate at the Department of Architectural
Theory, TU Berlin.
Patrik Schumacher is an architect and architectural
theorist who promotes parametricism. He studied
philosophy and architecture in Bonn, Stuttgart
and London, and holds a PhD in cultural science
from Klagenfurt University. He is a partner at Zaha
Hadid Architects.

Angel Tenorio Castillo is a senior associate and project
leader at Heatherwick Studio. Since joining the
practice in 2014, he has played a central role in projects
including Coal Drops Yard and Maggie’s Yorkshire, the
studio’s first healthcare and timber building.
Nerma Cridge received her PhD from the AA in 2012
and gained an MSc and Diploma in Architecture
from the Bartlett School of Architecture (UCL). Her
research publications include a monograph based on
her PhD thesis on the Soviet avant-garde, Drawing
the Unbuildable (2015).
Apostolos Despotidis is a registered architect in the
UK and Greece, and is currently an associate partner
at Foster + Partners; he has been a tutor at the AA
since 2013. He is a graduate of the Architecture and
Urbanism (DRL) programme at the AA, and holds
an architecture and engineering degree from the
Aristotle University of Thessaloniki.
Mostafa El-Sayed is the cofounder of Automata
Technologies and previously worked as a member of
the Computation and Design (co|de) group at Zaha
Hadid Architects. He is a graduate of the Architecture
and Urbanism (DRL) programme at the AA, and of the
American University of Sharjah.
Theodore Spyropoulos is the Head of the
Architecture and Urbanism (DRL) programme at the
AA and is a resident artist at Somerset House. He
directs the experimental design studio Minimaforms,
whose work has been exhibited at the Museum of
Modern Art (MoMA), Barbican Centre, Onassis
Cultural Centre, MoCA Taipei, Somerset House,
Museum of Tomorrow, Detroit Institute of Arts,
Deutsches Filminstitut & Filmmuseum, Leonardo Da
Vinci Museum of Science and Technology, and
the ICA.
Tina Tsagkaratou is a director at the architectural
practice ASPA KST. She received a diploma in
architecture from the Aristotle University in
Thessaloniki, and is a graduate of the Architecture
and Urbanism (DRL) programme at the AA. She has
previously worked at Zaha Hadid Architects and
Foster + Partners.
Albert Williamson-Taylor is an active member of the
steering committee for the Council for Tall Buildings
and is the cofounder of design-led structural
engineering firm AKTII.

José Pareja Gómez is a graduate of the Architecture

and Urbanism (DRL) programme at the AA. He
is an associate at Zaha Hadid Architects, and has
lectured within a diverse range of technological and
architectural forums in Latin America and Europe.

David Greene, born in Nottingham, England in 1937,

had a typical English provincial suburban upbringing
before moving to London to begin a nervous,
nomadic and twitchy career: from big buildings for
developers to t-shirts for Paul Smith to conceptual
speculation for Archigram, which he founded with
Peter Cook.

Nassia Inglessis is the founder of Studio INI, a practice

that brings together scientific research and design-
engineering experimentation with public engagement
through installations and kinetic architectural modules.
She holds an MEng from the University of Oxford and
has developed research in the MIT Media Lab.

20 21
MArch/MSc Programme Heads:
Kate Davies
Design and Make Emmanuel Vercruysse

Studio Tutors:
Wyatt Armstrong
Sam Turner Baldwin
Will Gowland

Technical and
Dissertation Tutor:
James Solly

Thesis Tutor:
Simon Withers

Design and Make is based at the AA’s satellite campus at Hooke Park –
a rich context which serves as an immersive laboratory for architectural
research. Students study within a working forest and inhabit a unique
environment in which landscape, studio, workshop, forestry and 1:1
fabrication are interwoven. This landscape is critical to the design
process, providing both our material library and our site, and students’
experimental constructs are nested into the tissue of the working forest.
Hooke Park campus acts as a perpetual prototype for new
approaches to building, unbuilding and rebuilding. Design and Make
invites its students to draw inspiration from the possibilities and
challenges involved in work that contributes to the making of a place as
well as a space.
In the face of urgent, global environmental concerns, trees
offer an essential source of future building material. Design and Make
students investigate how forest produce and other locally-sourced
materials can be used sustainably, both to build projects and drive new
forms of research. We materialise our built work through curiosity, craft
and creativity, and encourage a speculative attitude to design. Student
projects use physical engagement with our site and the alchemical act
of making as catalysts for the imagination, and we relish the unexpected
revelations that these can offer.
The campus contains a diverse array of resources for design and
fabrication. We use a hands-on approach and students are expected
to spend most of their time in the workshop, developing an in-depth
material understanding. We deploy technologies such as 3D scanning,
advanced modelling, robotics and CNC production to augment traditional
craft knowledge, developing agile ways of negotiating between
computational and physical methods.
The Design and Make 2022–24 cohort assembling robotically
This forest laboratory is a space of intense investigation, a wild- fabricated column components for the Wakeford Lecture Hall.
wood of creativity and a home for architectural adventurers. 22 23
PROGRAMME STRUCTURE
Design and Make students use
the act of making to develop
their research and design. They
are encouraged to work at full
scale, making the most of the
opportunities presented by the
Hooke Park setting.
Both the MArch and MSc
programmes are structured
around a series of hands-on studio
projects that increase in scale and
sophistication throughout the
year, leading to the production
of small-scale and bespoke
architectural fabrication (MArch) or
1:1 architectural prototypes (MSc).
These projects are complemented
by seminar courses and workshops,
and by lectures and events across
Hooke Park and Bedford Square.
The MArch and MSc courses
share taught components in the
first two terms, after which the
programme bifurcates, with the
MSc students completing their
project and dissertations for
submission in September. The
MArch students also submit their
thesis in September and continue
with project construction and
documentation until January.
In this way, the first term sets the
agenda for the year by introducing
the theoretical and technical
context of the work, alongside
key design methodologies and
fabrication practices that are
central to the programme. Students
learn the fundamentals of timber
technology, familiarise themselves
with the theoretical foundations
of design-and-make practices,
build their core fabrication skillset,
begin exploring through making
and develop a clear field of design
enquiry. Term 2 and 3 build on
this with the development of an
individual or small group design
research project that results in a
well-documented built prototype.
In Term 4, students develop
their final design portfolio and
written thesis.
Design Studio
In Term 1, two core studios –
Design Induction and Fabrication
Methods – introduce students
to Hooke Park’s unique context
and equip them with the abilities
necessary to engage with the
diverse set of physical and
digital fabrication tools and
methodologies on offer.
The Fabrication Methods studio
runs through Term 1 and 2, and is
structured around a group-build
project within tightly defined
design parameters that align with
the strategic plan for the campus’
development. Students begin
hands-on work and develop the
fabrication skills and tools to
support their individual interests
while having the opportunity to
work as a team.
In parallel to this, the Design
Induction (Term 1) and Design
Research (Term 2) studios enable
students to define the focus of
their own design and research
projects, leading to individual or
small group build projects through
the Design and Make studio
24
in Term 3 and 4. The emphasis
here is on making, as we allow
sufficient time for rigorous testing,
prototyping and experimentation,
and encourage risk-taking, trial and
failure. The principle of iterative
design is fundamental to the
Design and Make ethos. Designs are
developed through prototyping,
mock-ups and physical testing in
collaboration with engineering
consultants and specialist builders.
The form of the cohort’s final built
output depends upon students’
interests, skill level and whether
they choose to work individually
or in small teams. This may result in
prototypes, small-scale structures,
sculptural or furniture elements,
larger discrete components for
buildings in line with campus
development, or even the repair
or revision of existing buildings.
In this way, students’ collective
work contributes new layers to
the campus.
Students also learn strategies
for documenting and presenting
process-based research. This
informs the development of the
Fabrication Log: a working record
of each individual’s design process,
which becomes a companion
to built work throughout the
year. The Fabrication Log
includes working notes, sketches,
photography and film.
Seminar Courses
Two seminar courses, Making as
Design and Timber Technologies,
take place in Term 1, and Force,
Form, Material is held in Term 2.
These courses complement the
Design Studio by situating the
Design and Make programme and
the students’ research within a
broader cultural and technical
context. Together, they provide
the theoretical foundation of the
programme and introduce various
fields of knowledge relevant to
the design of experimental timber
prototypes. MArch students
undertake the Making as Design
essay in Term 1, which functions as
an early exploration of thesis and
dissertation content and allows
students to begin to articulate their
intellectual position. MSc students
undertake the Timber Technologies
essay in Term 1, which functions
in the same way. In Term 2, all
students begin to define the focus
for their thesis or dissertation
which is developed through Term 3,
with a dedicated write-up period
in Term 4.
25
Thesis/Dissertation
The thesis (MArch) and dissertation
(MSc) provide a framework
within which students develop an
intellectual position by constructing
critical arguments and investigations.
These provide the research that will
inform, support and instruct the
students’ built projects. Research
topics within students’ written work
can encompass individual interests
in material behaviour, bespoke
fabrication technologies and
workflows or alternative forms of
design practice.
All these components are
supplemented by extracurricular
provision, including workshops,
talks, field trips, visits and practical
introductions, as well as AA Public
Programme lectures streamed live
to Hooke from London.
26
Staff Bios
Kate Davies’ work explores the complexities of
contemporary landscape, from landscapes of
extraction, manufacturing and logistics to remote
territories, wilderness and ancestral homelands. She is
cofounder of nomadic design studio Unknown Fields
and art and architecture collective Liquid Factory. She
is Head of Hooke Park.
Emmanuel Vercruysse is a designer and educator
whose work interrogates the processes involved
in design thinking. His research investigates
interrelationships between the made and the drawn,
considering making as central to the act of design.
He is Head of Physical Production and Academic
Resources at Hooke Park.
Will Gowland graduated from the AA on the Baylight
Scholarship. He is cofounder of the architecture
practice Built Work. He teaches survey, animation and
digital capture techniques to document, explore and
curate the unique output of Design and Make, and
guides the design and delivery of full-scale prototypes
and structures.
James Solly is a director at Format Engineers, and
is interested in the application of computation in
engineering practice as an extension of current
design strategies and as a tool for streamlining
collaboration between designer, engineer and
fabricator. He works on projects that require
physical testing or intelligent fabrication systems to
calibrate engineering simulations.
Wyatt Armstrong is a designer and maker. His
interests in wellbeing, technology, material processes
and craft knowledge inform his work. Within Design
and Make, he supports the transition from design to
production of advanced architectural elements.
Sam Turner Baldwin is a designer and maker. Having
first gone to sea in his late teenage years aboard
historic sailing vessels, he developed a unique skillset
in maritime rigging and wooden boatbuilding.
His current work combines these tacit skills with
contemporary making processes and computation.
Simon Withers has a background in architecture,
fashion and electronics, and is the lead of Captivate:
Spatial Modelling Research Group at the University
of Greenwich.
Design and Make 2022–24 cohort: test assembly of key components; the augmented
natural geometry of the beech tree and engineered glue laminated transition module. 27
MArch/MSc Programme Head:
Elif Erdine
Emergent Technologies and Design Milad Showkatbakhsh

Founding Director:
Michael Weinstock

Studio Tutors:
Paris Nikitidis
Felipe Oeyen
Lorenzo Santelli
Álvaro Velasco Pérez
Fun Yuen

emtech.aaschool.ac.uk

The Emergent Technologies and Design (EmTech) programme is open to

architecture and engineering graduates seeking knowledge and skills in
architectural design science, who want to experiment with how these can
be applied within new production paradigms.
We investigate new synergies of architecture and ecology at the
intersection of computational design and advanced fabrication, with
a focus on the potential these offer for new architectural, urban and
ecological design solutions within emerging biomes. The programme
stimulates critical thinking through research-driven design projects
developed in a rigorous and creative studio environment. Our projects
develop iteratively through hypothesis, experimentation, fabrication and
evaluation; students reflect upon this work in verbal presentations and
group discussions, and document their findings in analytical papers.
The programme has two distinct phases: the Studio and the
Dissertation. Both phases are supported by the research of the
programme team and the expertise of EmTech alumni and research
colleagues in practice and industry.
Design research is central to the programme’s agenda, and our
work develops from the understanding that nature and artifice are
connected; that the cultural production of artefacts and systems exist as
part of other active systems, and that these systems are subject to change. Ongoing Design and Build research on the use of OSB as a material system, a
collaboration between EmTech and Grimshaw Architects, Projects Review, 2023.
We acknowledge that the causality of change is complex and multi-scalar,
and that its dynamics are disrupted and accelerated by human activity. We
are concerned with the consequences of those changes within society and
the natural world. 28 29
PHASE 1
The Studio
The Studio comprises workshops,
seminars, electives and design
projects led by EmTech staff and
associated researchers. It provides
comprehensive engagement with
design science and introduces
students to the wider community
of design researchers in
London practices. The Studio
enables students to formulate a
detailed proposal for an original
architectural inquiry that they will
later pursue in the dissertation.
WORKSHOPS
AND SEMINARS
Induction:
The Boot Camp
This two-week workshop provides
a comprehensive introduction to
the core skills and techniques of
algorithmic thinking, geometry,
digital design and fabrication. It
focuses on the development of
associative geometric models
and the relations between digital
morphogenesis and material
realisation. The Induction Boot
Camp concludes with the
fabrication and digital modelling
of material systems that resolve
problems of parametric control,
material behaviour, structural
integrity, precise dimensional
control and spatial organisation.
Design and Technology
This seminar builds on the
techniques and methods explored
in the Boot Camp, enabling
students to develop proposals
using advanced computational
design, analysis and fabrication
strategies. It uses analytical
tools as methods for generative
design and explores a variety
of computational workflows,
concentrating on experimentation,
analysis, evaluation and decision-
making processes. A range of
computational form-finding and
analysis methods are introduced
alongside the basics of C#
programming and advanced digital
fabrication techniques.
Critical Discourses
EmTech’s design method
draws upon knowledge from
architecture, social and natural
sciences, computation and
evolutionary theories. Each of
these disciplines contains its
own historical trajectories and
canons, both written and built,
yet these trajectories occasionally
intersect, overlap and concur. This
seminar provides a shared space
for discussion in which students
engage with historical narratives,
empowering them to situate their
work within existing fields
of knowledge.
30
Natural Systems
and Biomimetics
The course develops students’
understanding of how biology
can be used as a model for
material, mechanical, spatial and
computational systems. It begins
with an introduction to the ways
in which organisms have evolved
through form, materials and
structures in response to different
contexts, before examining
research projects that harness
principles of engineering and
logical and organisational design
that have been abstracted from
nature. Students will develop a
study of a natural system, exploring
its interrelations and conducting an
abstraction of its design principles.
Emergence and Evolutionary
Computation Seminar Course
Evolutionary algorithms have been
used extensively in recent years to
mimic the principles of evolutionary
science, solving real-world problems
through search and optimisation
procedures. These algorithms have
provided an efficient problem-
solving technique within a range of
fields – from economics to politics
and from music to architecture – in
order to find solutions for problems
whose objectives conflict with one
another. This seminar introduces
students to the key principles
of multi-objective optimisation
and builds an understanding of
how these are applied in design
practices. This enables students
to integrate generative design
workflows and deep learning
methods into their own work.
DESIGN PROJECTS
Design 1:
Digital and Material Fabrication
This project highlights how
physical and digital computational
techniques can be used to adapt
different material systems to
specific climatic contexts. Students
use digital models to respond to
various environmental parameters,
and create physical models that
integrate material behaviour and
robotic fabrication processes.
The purpose of the project is to
design and develop computational
workflow techniques, and to
analyse and fabricate material
systems within the EmTech
research agenda.
Design 2:
Ecological Urban Design
In this project, students create
experimental designs and system
logics for settlements situated in
extreme climates. We develop
designs for a land-water entity
that supports both production
and inhabitation, integrating
infrastructures and networks with
patterns of dense or distributed
inhabitable blocks, alongside
productive landscapes with their
own networks.
31
ELECTIVE
Climate and Ecological
Systems in Design Science
The scientific method is an
evolving set of procedures based
on systematic observations and
measurements, forming hypotheses
from those observations,
testing hypotheses through
experimentation, and modifying and
further testing them in response.
The aim of the process is to arrive at
a point where there is no difference
between the hypothesis and the
observed results of the experiment.
The course introduces scientific
inquiry into students’ design and
design research practices.
PHASE 2
The Dissertation
The Dissertation Research Studio
extends students’ research skills
through collaborative dialogue
with EmTech’s community of
postdoctoral researchers and PhD
candidates. We are active within
two main fields of design research:
dynamic material systems with
advanced fabrication (including
augmented and virtual reality, and
robotic techniques), and ecological
urban design in emergent biomes.
Students explore theoretical
discourse, science and case studies
that relate to their chosen topic
and set out the methods through
which they will develop their Design
Proposal, which unfolds through
iterative design cycles.
Design and Build
Design and Build is a collaborative
student project and makes an
essential contribution to the
culture of EmTech. The project
runs throughout the year alongside
the Studio and the Dissertation,
and provides opportunities to
design and deliver a built project
within real-world material,
structural, fabrication and assembly
constraints. This enhances students’
design, computational and analytical
skills, many of which are applicable
within professional practice. Our
Design and Build projects have been
published internationally in the
architectural press since 2001 and
have received industry awards.
32
Staff Bios
Elif Erdine is an architect and researcher. Her
PhD thesis focused on the integration of tower
subsystems through generative design methodologies,
informed by biomimetic analogies. Since 2010 she
has taught and co-ordinated various AA Visiting
School programmes. Her research interests lie in
the integration of computational design, geometry
rationalisation, material behaviour and robotic
fabrication techniques.
Paris Nikitidis is a developer, computational gameplay
and interaction designer, and XR specialist with a
degree from the Bartlett School of Architecture (UCL)
as well as an MSc in Architectural Computation and a
Diploma from Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. Paris
is currently employed by Grimshaw Architects.
Felipe Oeyen holds a BArch from the University
of Buenos Aires and is a graduate of the EmTech
programme. He has served as a teaching fellow at the
University of Buenos Aires. His main research interests
are in computational design, digital fabrication and
participatory design processes that can have a positive
impact on local communities.
Lorenzo Santelli is a chartered architect and structural
engineer. Since he graduated from the EmTech
programme in 2015, he has been part of Eckersley
O’Callaghan’s Structural Glass Team, Digital Design
Group and Glass Technology Group.
Milad Showkatbakhsh is an architect and
researcher specialising in design technology. His
PhD thesis,‘Homeostatic Urban Morphologies’,
examines the application of biological principles of
intelligence in architecture and urban design through
computational processes. He co-leads the AA Visiting
School Istanbul and AA DLAB, and is a cofounder
of Wallacei, an AI-powered optimisation engine for
Grasshopper3d.
Álvaro Velasco Pérez is an architect and holds a PhD
from the AA, where he previously gained an MA in
History and Critical Thinking in Architecture. His
research deals with modes of life that modernity
defined itself in opposition to and, at the same time,
develops projects to incorporate.
Michael Weinstock is an architect, researcher and AA
alumnus who has taught at the school since 1989. His
research interest lies in exploring the convergence
of the natural sciences with architecture. His body
of published work includes The Architecture of
Emergence: The Evolution of Form in Nature and
Civilisation and Emergent Technologies and Design:
Towards a Biological Paradigm for Architecture.
Fun Yuen gained her master’s from the AA,
graduating from the EmTech programme in 2019.
Her interests include solving multiscalar parametric
design problems and optimising fabrication
processes. She obtained a joint bachelor’s degree in
Computer Science and Creative Media.
33
MA Programme Head:
Marina Lathouri
History and Critical Thinking
Course Tutors:
Tim Benton
William Or
John Palmesino

Workshop Tutor:
Doreen Bernath

Collaborator:
Claudia Nitsche

History and Critical Thinking (HCT) offers a platform from which to

investigate contemporary issues through systematic historical enquiry.
At stake in the writing of history is a political engagement with the social,
material and environmental exigencies of the present. While theoretical
reflection on historiography can inform the analysis of contemporary
architectural and spatial thinking, specific histories also remain valid sites
of investigation. The ambition of the programme is three-fold: to provide
the conceptual tools and resources to interrogate architectural histories
and question how social, political, economic and institutional structures
shape accounts of the built environment; to develop an understanding
of contemporary discursive and material organisation from a historical,
critical, crossdisciplinary and transnational point of view; and to highlight
how architecture is entangled with other critical spatial practices and
alternative forms of knowledge-production and dissemination.
A programme of lectures, seminars, open debates, group readings
and writing workshops enable HCT students to expand their disciplinary
knowledge in a broad cultural arena and from a variety of viewpoints.
We engage with philosophical texts and critical theories, and reflect on
political form within spatial, graphic and visual contexts. Students work to
identify the links between material organisation, architectural agency and
writing, and consider how these can all be used to address the historic
plurality of lived worlds. Writing is central to the programme as a cognitive,
transformational and collaborative form of communication. We explore
different modes of writing and also consider the communicative impact
of drawings, photographs, film and literature. Students are encouraged to
explore, adopt and adapt elements of other disciplines and practices in
their own writing, while preserving their own voice.
The historical and theoretical understanding that HCT graduates
gain throughout the programme allows them to pursue doctoral studies,
to develop their careers in other fields such as curation or journalism, or to
become involved in research and teaching in architecture. 34 35
PROGRAMME STRUCTURE
The programme takes place over
12 months: students complete
six courses during Term 1 and
2, after which they attend the
Thesis Research Seminar and
produce a written thesis in Term
3 and 4. Courses examine specific
histories and interrogate forms of
architectural knowledge, modes
of representation and techniques,
institutional and educational
practices, as well as spaces, subjects
and norms of use. Historians, critics,
philosophers, architects and artists
contribute to the programme
through the HCT and PhD Debates
and Open Seminars, which this year
will reassess architectural histories,
objects and methods through a
feminist lens.
HCT also provides research facilities
and supervision to research degree
candidates (MPhil and PhD)
registered under the AA’s joint PhD
programme, a crossdisciplinary
initiative supported by all the Taught
Postgraduate programmes.
Writing Histories
Term 1
Tutor: Marina Lathouri
This course addresses aspects of
historical research and writing.
By working through languages,
concepts and methods, the aim
is to question canonical histories
of architecture and to define a
framework of critical thinking
within which social and economic
realities, ideologies and structures
of power, material technologies
and formal considerations
are intertwined. Students will
interrogate an identifiably
architectural vocabulary that is
crafted to designate specific spatial,
formal and material organisations of
social structures, and will critically
reflect upon the ways in which that
vocabulary is adopted, modified,
interpreted and contested in
relation to changing scales, scopes
and locations of modernisation.
Historical Evidence
and Representation:
Architecture Photography
Term 1
Tutor: Tim Benton
This course highlights how
photography has represented
and shaped the development
of architecture, with a focus on
the interwar period. It includes
practical sessions that demonstrate
the workings and limitations of
different forms of camera. We
will investigate how architectural
photographs are constrained by
architectural spaces, available
viewpoints, obstructions,
distractions and light sources. We
will also try to determine the point
during the design process at which
architects think specifically about
the photographic publication of
their work.
36
Writing Architecture:
Intertwined Practices
Term 2
Tutor: Marina Lathouri
This course traces the formation
of disciplinary knowledge in
architecture. It begins with a close
examination of early Western
architectural writings and how they
conceptually and visually describe
the object of architecture and the
city, as well as the practice and
responsibilities of the architect.
Sessions focus on the search
for origins, language and the
growth of national histories;
the question of race in the 18th
century; the professionalisation
of historical research and teaching
in the 19th century; processes
of colonisation and planning;
and the role of drawing and
various modes of graphic and
visual representation. The course
highlights the historical terms
needed to build an understanding
of the agency, technologies and
formats of architecture.
Architecture Agents
and Economies
Term 2
Tutor: William Orr
Architecture currently faces an
accelerating set of cultural, political,
ecological, professional, economic
and even existential challenges; in
response, new modes of practice
and production are expanding the
discipline in diverging directions.
This course will develop a theoretical
and historical perspective upon
architecture as a dynamic social
institution which is simultaneously
determined by external forces
while constructed and reproduced
from within, considering the tools
that might be used to define and
understand it. The course will
focus on the changing disciplinary
landscape of the last 50 years, and
draws upon texts from sociology
and political economy as well as the
unexpected contradictions found
within architectural discourse itself.
Climate Peace
Term 2
Tutor: John Palmesino
Architecture is baffled by the rise
of a new climatic regime and the
magnitude of the technosphere.
From within, these phenomena
appear to be the result of multiple
human projects, designs, actions
and processes that are within
the remit of our control and our
capacity to act. From the outset,
humans are only a component of
this regime; we are drawn into its
functions and work to sustain it.
This seminar investigates specific
conditions wherein this inversion
of agency affects narratives of
modernisation and an appreciation
of the deep interconnectivity
between architectural development,
rapid urbanisation and the human
impact on the Earth System.
37
 Thesis Research Seminar
Term 3
Tutor: Marina Lathouri with
staff and guest critics
The thesis is the largest and most
significant component of students’
work within the MA programme.
This seminar helps students select
their topic, organise their research
and develop their central argument.
Critical method and historical
analysis are equally important within
each individual research project.
The seminar establishes a set of
resources and questions regarding
the ‘production’ of history and
the accountability of research and
writing, which is shared among
the students. This allows them to
define and test their own ideas,
methodologies and ambitions.
At the end of Term 3 the thesis
outline is presented and discussed
with tutors and invited critics.
The Thesis Research Seminar
begins with the Critical Writing
Workshop, which is composed of
two elements: a series of analytical
readings that demonstrate the use
of distinct conceptual frameworks,
literary characteristics and stylistic
qualities, and a series of short
writing exercises that are edited
and formatted with the intention
of creating a small collection
of publications.
Thesis
Term 4
Tutor: Marina Lathouri
with programme staff
In Term 4, students develop and
finalise their individual 15,000-
word thesis independently.
During the summer term, students
receive support and guidance
to refine their writing and ideas
through formal presentations to
internal and external critics, and in
individual tutorials. A presentation
of final theses to HCT staff and
guests, as well as new students to
the programme, concludes and
celebrates the work of the year.
PhD and HCT Debates:
Writing-With – Feminist
Architecture Criticism
Tutor: Marina Lathouri
and guest speakers
The PhD and HCT Debates are a
venue for exchange of ideas and
arguments. Guest speakers are
invited to attend, creating a process
of thinking-in-common which is a
pedagogical practice distinct from
the seminar or the lecture. The
sessions are open to the school
community. The aim of this year’s
series is to bring together female
voices in architectural history
and criticism, and to create space
between writing as a practice of
collective doing and making,
and ecological and political realities.
Writing-With suggests knowledge-
sharing and thinking in common.
Presentations by guest speakers
and roundtable conversations will
be interspersed with writing and
publishing workshops, resulting
in the production of a small
printed publication.
38
Staff Bios
Tim Benton is professor of art history (Emeritus)
at the Open University and has served as visiting
professor in the Department of Art History and
Archaeology at Columbia University, and at the
Bard Graduate Center. He has cocurated several
major exhibitions including Art and Power (Hayward
Gallery), Art Deco 1910–1939 (V&A) and Modernism:
Designing a New World 1918–1939 (V&A).
Doreen Bernath is an architect and a theorist
trained at the University of Cambridge and the AA.
She is currently executive editor of The Journal
of Architecture and a cofounder of the research
collective ThisThingCalledTheory. She teaches
Diploma 22 at the AA and is a director of studies in
the PhD programme and a lecturer in History and
Theory Studies.
Marina Lathouri studied architecture and philosophy
of art and aesthetics. She has lectured at the University
of Cambridge and has been visiting professor at the
Universidad de Navarra and the Universidad Católica in
Santiago. Her current interests lie in the conjunction of
historiography and politics, writing in architecture, city,
land and political philosophy. She is the author of City
Cultures: Contemporary Positions on the City and has
published numerous articles.
Claudia Nitsche is an architect, educator and
researcher. Since 2020 she has been a PhD candidate
at the AA. She has taught architectural history and
theory at the State Academy of Art and Design in
Stuttgart, and has worked for several architecture
offices in Germany and Switzerland.
William Orr is a theorist and historian. In 2019 he
completed a PhD at the AA, where he now teaches
in History and Theory Studies and as a supervisor in
the PhD programme. His research examines shifts in
disciplinary and professional ideology from the 1960s
to the present.
John Palmesino is an architect, urbanist and founder
of Territorial Agency. He coleads Diploma 4 at the
AA with Ann-Sofi Rönnskog, has previously led the
research of ETH Studio Basel and the Jan Van Eyck
Academie Maastricht, and is a founding member of
multiplicity, an international research network based
in Milan.
39
MA/MArch Programme Heads:
Lawrence Barth
Housing and Urbanism Jorge Fiori

Staff:
Anderson Inge
David Kohn
Dominic Papa
Elena Pascolo
Irénée Scalbert
Anna Shapiro
Stephen Sinclair
Francesco Zuddas

hu.aaschool.ac.uk

Housing and Urbanism (HU) focuses on the key contemporary issues that
drive urban transformation, and the role of architecture in supporting
critical change. Each year, the programme identifies the most urgent
challenges confronting cities worldwide, taking these as the starting point
for studio work, lecture courses and student research. Design learning
and investigation form the core of our programme, with the broader aim
of deepening students’ grasp of the politics and practicalities that shape
today’s cities. Students develop projects strong enough to initiate or
contribute to the positive transformation of urban areas. We work across
a range of scales, from detailed plans of contemporary housing to the
mobility infrastructure of the regional metropolis. Our aim is to nurture
graduates with outstanding design leadership skills and critical judgement.
The programme offers 12-month MA or 16-month MArch options,
and its curriculum focuses on design-led research that develops into
individual theses. The central element of the coursework is driven by a
collaborative Design Workshop during the first two terms, supported by
lectures and seminars that inform students’ design work and broaden their
scholarly understanding of urban trends and histories. The final term is
devoted entirely to students’ individual design thesis development
and completion.
Each year, HU focuses on a set of research themes which organise
the programme’s workshops and international collaborations. We
investigate the foundations of urban resilience and complexity, and Yasmina Aslakhanova, Aisana Baimakhanova, Continuity, Variation and Urban Grain,
HU Design Workshop collage, 2023.
research how design excellence supports decision-making involving both
government and private actors across multiple sectors. The programme
examines the opportunities for leadership, responsibility and innovation
that arise within the current urban situation, and demonstrates the role
that architecture can play to encourage ambitious work by political actors
and civic leaders. 40 41
COURSES
Design Workshop
Term 1–2
Sitting at the core of the HU
curriculum, this course teaches
students to investigate, explore
and respond to the urban process
through design reasoning.
Students work in teams, in close
collaboration with staff, and
are introduced to a specific but
complex set of challenges faced
in London today. Through these,
they learn to understand, envision
and initiate urban transformation
and implement these principles
within their own projects. The
course highlights how an argument
can be made through design, and
explores methods of comparison
and evaluation. Students develop
research, drawing and writing
skills, and are encouraged to work
collaboratively and discursively.
Critical Urbanism
Term 1–2
This course establishes the
conceptual and theoretical
foundations from which architecture
can contribute critical synthesis to
the urban process. Students learn
how the discipline incorporates
lessons from a range of fields –
from geography and engineering to
politics and sociology – and draws
these together into a reflection on
urban form. They investigate cases
that demonstrate how a project can
provoke a critical and transformative
response to the existing city, and
consider how these lessons can be
applied in their own design work.
Cities in a Transnational World
Term 1–2
There is a social and economic
context to housing and urban
change, and this course introduces
students to the key themes and
debates that the social sciences can
contribute to our understanding
of this context. The course places
emphasis upon policy, planning
and urban governance, enabling
students to understand how
developments are shaped by
transnational economic forces
and political debates.
Housing Form
Term 1
There has been renewed interest
in architect-designed mass housing
over the last three decades. While
the exterior of these houses has
dominated architectural focus,
the interior of dwellings has been
relatively neglected. Housing is
not constituted as an envelope
to receive typical unit plans, and
form and experience cannot be
conveniently dissociated from one
another. On the contrary, the most
committed architects conceive of
housing form from the inside out
to generate meaningful experience.
This course will review successful
housing projects built in the last
100 years and consider what
constitutes excellence in the field.
42
Cities in Transition:
Actors and Initiatives
Term 1
Urban transformations take place
through specific development
initiatives in which key actors
develop a vision, draw together
resources and plot a process to
materialise change. This course
studies such initiatives, explores
how their character has changed
throughout history and examines
how successful examples are carried
out in the present day. We use
case studies to investigate the role
of design in these processes, and
introduce students to the long-term
strategies and visioning documents
which support a specific localised
project. The focus is on complex,
mixed-function projects that raise
questions of social value, economic
viability and material delivery.
Urbanity and Democracy
Term 1
Urbanism is much more than the
design of cities – it is instead a
way of organising our knowledge
of them, to understand their
governance and their collective
transformation. Urban institutions
arose alongside the forms of
modern democracy, and this course
studies the genealogy of urbanism
in the context of this connection.
Urbanism is organised and pursued
through the associational life of
the city, and is directed towards
specific problems and challenges
that demand a practical and
political response. We explore how
the spatial form of the city can be
studied through this pragmatic lens.
Urban Form
Term 2
Since WWII, the nature of cities
has been a subject of growing
confusion brought about by changes
in demography, technology and
development. This uncertainty
has been matched by a prolific
inventiveness by architects. This
course reviews seminal works of
the last 70 years, not always well-
known, which address the fabric of
the city in which they are situated
in polemical and memorable ways.
The course complements the
Housing Form seminar in Term 1, and
considers the criteria for excellence
in an architect’s contribution to the
building of cities.
Domesticity
Term 2
The inner life of the dwelling
is a scene of constant tension,
speculation and evolution.
While the ideal of the family
continues to stand at the heart
of this turbulence, a broad and
increasing range of alternative
living modes are emerging in the
present day. It is important that
the design and development of
these new patterns of shared
living – encompassing assisted
care facilities, services residences
and beyond – are evaluated. This
course explores the history and the
contemporary challenge of housing
design and transformation.
43
 City, Territory and the Study Trip and
Climate Crisis Workshop Abroad
Term 2 Term 2–3

This course explores how the Each year, HU studies exemplary

climate crisis has reshaped and
refocused the dynamics of city-
building in the early 21st century.
In the present day, growth is
being challenged in a variety
of ways, and new institutional
arrangements are being forged
to emphasise adaptation, reuse
and reorganisation. Students
review literature and undertake
comparative studies of urban
projects to explore questions
relating to a range of material
aspects of urban development,
from water, energy, mobility
and food to the organisation of
neighbourhoods and changing
views of social action.
projects abroad during Term 2,
with a short visit to a European
city. These studies complement
our engagement with London as
a laboratory of transformation.
Then, at the beginning of Term 3,
we collaborate with a host city and
university abroad, over the course
of a 10-day workshop. This gives
students an opportunity to work
intensively on a live project in the
context of specific governmental
and design challenges. Xueli Jiang, The Learning City, HU MArch thesis, 2023.

Thesis Seminar
Term 3

By the end of the second term,

students will have decided upon
an area of design research for their
thesis. During Term 3, students
present initial research within
seminars grouped around shared
thematic interests. These seminars
enable peer-based learning
and discussion to complement
rigorous individual research and
design development.

44 45
Staff Bios
Lawrence Barth is an urbanist. He has consulted
internationally on urban strategy for cities, architects
and landscape architects, and has led planning
and design projects for contemporary knowledge
environments. He has lectured and published in
urbanism, politics and sociology, and served on juries
for international design competitions.
Jorge Fiori is a sociologist and urban planner. He has
worked in institutions in Chile, Brazil and England,
is a visiting lecturer at several Latin American and
European universities, and is a consultant to several
urban development agencies. He researches housing
and urban development, focusing on the interplay of
spatial strategies and urban social policy.
Stephen Sinclair is an architect and restaurateur.
The adaptation of buildings and spaces is central
to his practice, fourth_space. He acts as design
advisor for housing and estate regeneration and
hosts Negroni Talks, a discussion platform for design,
government and urban development.
Francesco Zuddas holds a PhD in architectural history
and codirects the practice urbanaarchitettura. He
has been a visiting research scholar at Columbia
University. His research focuses on the relation
between higher education and urbanism, and his
writings have appeared in AA Files, Domus, Oase,
San Rocco, Territorio and Trans.

Anderson Inge is an architect who has combined

practice with teaching for more than 25 years. After
studying architecture and structural design at MIT,
he retrained mid-career in sculpture at Central Saint
Martins. His teaching focuses on the integration of
structure in building design.

David Kohn is an architect and educator. He taught at

the Cass School of Architecture from 2003–13, was
visiting professor at KU Leuven from 2014–16 and
was external examiner at the University of Cambridge
from 2016–19. His practice is currently working on
major projects for the ICA, New College, University
of Oxford and Hasselt University.

Dominic Papa is founding director of Studio

Woodroffe Papa. He has completed projects
worldwide, including in Europe, China, Singapore and
New Zealand, covering briefs from masterplanning,
multi-residential housing and offices to next-
generation knowledge environments. He lectures
internationally and sits on several design review
panels in London.

Elena Pascolo has trained and worked in London

and South Africa on large-scale housing and urban
regeneration projects. Her research interests focus
on the development of spatial tools to structure
complex urban strategies, and on the role of
institutions in promoting urban transformation.
She has participated as a design tutor in numerous
international workshops on urbanism.

Irénée Scalbert is an architectural critic. He has

held academic posts in schools of architecture in
Europe, North America and Asia, and has published
widely on housing and architectural theory. He is the
author of several books, including a recent collection
of essays titled A Real Living Contact with the
Things Themselves.

Anna Shapiro is a partner at Sheppard Robson where

she codirects the masterplanning and urbanism
group, and is responsible for a range of projects
covering themes from housing, regeneration,
biomedical and educational clusters to retail-led
integrated environments. She has lectured and
served on juries worldwide, and has published on
current issues in housing.

46 47
MArch/MSc
Programme Heads:
Landscape Urbanism José Alfredo Ramírez
Eduardo Rico

Staff:
Sheng-Yang Huang
Daniel Kiss
Carlotta Olivari
Clara Olóriz Sanjuán
Elena Luciano Suastegui

The Landscape Urbanism (LU) programme leads to either an MArch (16

months) or MSc (12 months) degree. It explores the role that design
and designers – specifically architects, landscape architects and urban
designers – can play when working within the field of policymaking.
Contemporary planetary urbanisation is structured by policies
that respond to the dominant capitalist system governing our societies,
economies and ecologies, which in turn have been shaped by human
relations of power, production and environment-making. LU explores
design within and beyond normative aesthetic and performative
proposals, as we confront the processes, landscapes and territories of
planetary urbanisation and the environmental, racial, socioeconomic
and health-related crises they have triggered. In this context, we design
mechanisms that shape progressive policies, through which we can
orchestrate and negotiate political and economic frameworks to avert the
contemporary ecological crisis.
LU looks beyond the design of single buildings or pieces of urban
design to instead develop spatial policies that directly impact urban and
rural landscapes. We design strategies and models, innovative regulatory
plans and visual decision-making tools that integrate design within world-
ecology frameworks and planetary urbanisation processes.
We work to enhance the design discipline by increasing its
relevance within wider conversations, movements and debates such as
the environmental justice movement, climate policies and the urban-rural
divide. LU believes that design has a unique capacity to propose new Antonio José Garaycochea, Jegan Muralidharan, Khusboo Prashant, Planet of Fields, LU, 2023.
solutions that can help to avert contemporary crises. 48 49
Design and Policy in the Capitalocene PROGRAMME STRUCTURE
The programme explores the role design can play in the implementation Territorial Formations:
of progressive policies targeting the ecological emergency within the Design Studio
Capitalocene. It is vital that architects, landscape architects and designers Term 1
support a socially just restructuring of the world by familiarising ourselves
with projects, debates and movements such as the People’s Green New The Term 1 design studio provides
Deal, the Degrowth Scholarship, decolonisation and reparations. We students with an understanding of
work with progressive economic think-tanks such as Common Wealth, the planetary urbanisation processes
John Muir Trust and Real Trust Farming, and with experts and stakeholders and contexts such as land grabs,
from fields including political science, ecological economics and agrarian land speculation, geomorphological
studies, among others. processes and environmental
LU’s expertise in visualising, mapping and promoting spatial emergencies, as well as the
understanding of socioecological systems is crucial to this work. The landscape techniques that inform
programme develops proposals for policy design by exploring different the LU project methodology. These
design-research projects, such as: sessions reveal the processes and
dynamics behind current modes
• The agrarian question and the impact of agroecological models being of planetary urbanisation, enabling
implemented in the UK landscape, to explore alternative forms of students to imagine, design and
urbanisation. project unconventional forms of
• Alternative land and asset ownership, and occupancy models such as territorial organisation and to offer
Public Common Partnerships (PCP) or Community Land Trusts (CLT) alternative scenarios to current
that offer radical alternatives to mainstream urban developments such models of urbanisation. These
as Private Public Partnerships and new enclosures in the UK. alternative models and scenarios
• Exploration of urban life away from the use of private cars, and research rely on the capacity of landscapes
into alternative forms of mobility based on people, mass public to host, resist and modulate the
transport and the creation of healthy and fair environments for citizens. struggles and contradictions
• Transformation of urbanisation processes by reducing the working between environmental and socio-
week to four days, considering the implications of a three-day political forces that exist within
weekend in rural and urban landscapes. specific territories.
Carto-genesis:
Design and Research Studio
Term 2
The Term 2 design studio
enables students to develop the
basis for a research-by-design
thesis. We provide a research
methodology, and thesis topics
align with the overall agenda
of the year. Students’ research
considers geomorphological
processes and social and territorial
formations, and explores historical
and contemporary forms of
50
cartographic representation such as
maps, videos, simulations, dynamic
cartographies, webapps and more.
These methods are the main
tools through which we design
and project alternative forms of
territorial organisation. Students
will develop detailed designs
of landscape and architectural
typologies, spatial policies,
organisational territorial models,
regulatory plans and visual decision-
making tools that form part of the
final dissertation.
Design Thesis
Term 3–4
Students develop their dissertation
over the final two terms of the
programme. They will explore
modes of documentation that
extend beyond the fixity and
stability of master planning,
allowing their proposals to operate
protectively and subversively.
After research into cartographic
production – encompassing forms
such as atlases, cartographies,
interactive tools and digital
simulations – students produce
a design manual for territorial
organisation, followed by a detailed
design development of a given
scenario. This manual will describe
the procedures and guidelines
that drive their project, suggesting
ways that its principles could be
extrapolated within other similar
territories. Students also develop
project scenarios that set out
the specific outcomes of their
proposal within a given context and
timeframe in the UK.
51
COURSE COMPONENTS
Workshop 1:
World-Ecology and
Policy Design
Term 1
This workshop highlights the intrinsic
relationship between policymaking
and design, and enables students
to understand how these processes
have shaped most of the landscapes
we inhabit. Students will visualise
both the impact of existing policies
and the damage they cause. Finally,
they will sketch future scenarios that
describe how alternative policies can
build fair and equal landscapes for
the benefit of local communities.
This enquiry is supported by a series
of workshop sessions focusing
on visualisation techniques, to aid
students’ development of city and
hinterland portraits.
Workshop 2:
Social Formations
Term 1
This workshop develops students’
understanding of the processes
that drive contemporary planetary
urbanisation. Sessions explore
cartographic techniques and ways
in which students can visualise the
multiple forms of socio-economic
and political organisation and
spatial configurations that current
models of urbanisation produce.
Alongside this, students will also
learn to diagram and use knowledge
about how communities have
impacted landscapes and organised
themselves in groups such as
trade unions, local associations,
guilds and co-operatives. We will
examine how these practices have
unfolded throughout history and
contrast them with the mainstream
transnational conglomerates,
agribusiness and extractivist
corporations shaping planetary
urbanisation in the present day.
The workshop is supplemented
by a series of GIS and Java training
sessions which help students to
develop their cartographies and
web apps.
Workshop 3:
Engage
Term 1
In this workshop, students develop
a web platform that disseminates
proposals and offers a way to
engage different stakeholders
in the development of a project
linked to Green New Deal policies.
The workshop is supported by a
series of introductions to scripting
languages and other technologies
that will aid the development of
the platform.
52
LU History and Theory
Seminar: Models, Methods
and Concepts
Term 1
This lecture and seminar-based
course is concerned with the
ways in which the intersections
and interactions of landscape
and urbanism have been thought,
modelled, designed and analysed.
This material introduces students
to different ways of engaging with
these matters, enabling them to
build an understanding of the
potentials and problematics of
landscape urbanism. This, in turn,
supports students’ practice and
development, and informs their
work in other studios, workshops,
field trips and seminars.
LU History and
Theory Seminar:
The Rhetoric of Mapping
Term 2
This seminar focuses on key points
and practices in the historical
development of cartography
and its use as a representational
device. We explore methods of
mapping in terms of their uses,
implications and potentials, and
this enquiry informs the creation of
a cartogenetic manifesto by each
student, as well as the writing of
their final project thesis.
World-Ecology and
Policy Design
Term 2
The seminar introduces students
to the concepts, methods and
techniques of policymaking. It
brings together expertise from
design and social sciences to
highlight the possibilities of
policymaking as a spatial practice.
Students will examine how policies
design landscapes in lecture-based
sessions which are followed by
practical workshops. These sessions
will begin by showing students
how to dissect policy documents,
academic publications, reports,
manuals and evidence-based data.
Subsequent workshops will provide
the opportunity for students
to design policy memos: official
documents that synthesise key
information such as the necessity
of the policy, the challenges it
addresses, the evidence that
supports it and the potential
benefits it will bring. Students
will identify and explain the main
scales, background, constituencies,
processes and instruments that
design a landscape, and will develop
a critical position supported by
graphic evidence.
Research Methods Seminar
Term 2
This seminar explores different
research methods used across
the AA’s Taught Postgraduate
Programmes during eight sessions
in Term 2.
53
Staff Bios
Sheng-Yang Huang is a PhD candidate in architecture
and digital theory at the Bartlett School of
Architecture (UCL), supervised by Mario Carpo and
Frédéric Migayrou.

Daniel Kiss graduated with an MArch from the AA’s

Landscape Urbanism programme. He is interested
in architectural, landscape and geospatial visual
communication of human-influenced environmental
domains and their sociopolitical relations, using
different methods of visualisation.

Carlotta Olivari is an architect and research fellow at

AA Ground Lab; she graduated from the Landscape
Urbanism programme in 2021. She has worked as a
landscape architect with Elisa C Cattaneo, Pasquali
Giaume Architetti Associati, and as a teaching assistant
at Politecnico of Turin and Politecnico of Milan.

José Alfredo Ramírez is an architect and cohead of

AA Ground Lab where he develops projects that
highlight the impact of design within policy-making.
He is the head of the AA Visiting School in Mexico
City, and has taught workshops and lectured
internationally on the topic of landscape urbanism
and the work of Ground Lab.

Eduardo Rico studied civil engineering in Spain

and graduated from the AA’s Landscape Urbanism
programme. He has been a consultant and researcher
in the fields of infrastructure and landscape in Spain
and the UK. Currently he develops participatory
models and has taught at Harvard University (GSD)
and the Berlage Institute.

Clara Olóriz Sanjuán is a practicing architect who

received her PhD from the ETSA Universidad de
Navarra and the AA. She has worked for Foreign
Office Architects, Cerouno and Plasma Studio. She is
the author of Landscape as Territory, a reflection of
recent Landscape Urbanism projects, and is cohead of
AA Ground Lab.

Elena Luciano Suastegui is a geoscientist and

landscape urbanist. She is currently working in
academic environmental research and its translation
through territorial design for the AA Ground Lab. She
is interested in issues related to soil, agency and the
verticality of territories.

54 55
MA/MFA Programme Head:
Theo Lorenz
Spatial Performance and Design (AAIS)
Programme Research
and Development:
Tanja Siems

Studio Masters and Tutors:

Argyris Angeli, Mona Camille,
Nerma Cridge, Pierre Nedd,
Heiko Kalmbach, David
McAlmont, Kyriaki Nasioula,
Patricia Okenawa, Thomas
Parkes, Yoav Ronel, Noa Segev,
Hila Shemer, Joel Walkling,
Renaud Wiser

The AA Interprofessional Studio (AAIS) explores practices of spatial

performance and design that reach beyond standard definitions of
architecture and performance. Spatial performance focuses on design and
performance, using live projects and engaging with networks spanning
different disciplines to explore how creative practitioners work and how
design functions in specific contexts. The studio offers 12-month MA or
18-month MFA options within a learning environment that encourages
students to build connections within and between different creative fields.
Individuals who work in the creative industries often define their
work as multidisciplinary; AAIS responds to this by encouraging students
to develop new methods of collaboration. Participants in the programme
research, design and produce a series of genre-defying spatial performances
and installations through which they examine the ways in which creative work
and design overlap during the development of projects and events.
AAIS explores the boundaries between art, architecture and
performance to reveal unseen networks between professions, products and
methodologies. The studio operates as an interdisciplinary creative office for
knowledge exchange, allowing students to develop a language with which
to communicate between creative disciplines. We work with visual art, the
performing arts, design and media practices, and our aim is to challenge
rather than uphold the accepted divisions between these disciplines.
We create pathways for students to develop new skills and
techniques. The programme has established connections to other
institutions, academics and practices working within a wide range of
creative disciplines; these contribute to the programme through lectures,
seminars, exercises, tutorials and talks. Alongside this, AAIS students create
real-world projects within a range of fields that shape the work of the
Partida performance as part of the AAIS 2023 New Graces festival
year and enable public participation. They are encouraged to demonstrate at the Teatro Aberto in Lisbon. Photograph by Alexia Radounikli.
creative independence within the wider context of a collaborative studio. 56 57
The Estranged Gaze of Compassion
The AA Interprofessional Studio
(AAIS) concludes its series of
investigations into identity this
year by focusing on the theme of
compassion. We will use intellectual
empathy as our predominant
methodology, and will draw
inspiration from Berthold Brecht to
investigate and apply the concept
of ‘alienating theatre’ to our work.
Alienating theatre challenges
conventional storytelling methods,
prompting the audience to
critically analyse performances and
encouraging intellectual engagement
and empathy.
We recognise the essential and
enabling role that compassion and
understanding can play in creative
collaboration. With intellectual
empathy as a guiding principle,
students will be encouraged to think
critically while considering diverse
perspectives from an empathetic
point of view. Through this, they
will gain an applied understanding
of the social, cultural and political
dimensions associated with
performative work.
The programme has a rich history
of collaboration with institutions
throughout the UK and across
Europe, creating a network of inter-
cultural exchange. Past
collaborations have included
partnerships with Trinity Laban;
The Place; Matadero Madrid; Las
Heras in Girona, Spain; Teatro
Aberto in Lisbon, Portugal; DQE in
Cologne, Germany; and the Krakow
Design Biennial, among others. For
2023–24, we will collaborate with
the Shoreditch Arts Club in London
and the Marseille Modulor and
Ora Ito (MAMO) in France. These
partnerships offer students the
opportunity to engage with diverse
artistic and creative communities,
expanding their sphere of creative
knowledge and encouraging the
exchange of creative ideas between
different sites and cultures.
58
PROGRAMME STRUCTURE
PHASE 1
From Term 1 to Term 3, students
develop work in the design studio
supported by seminar-based
learning about the history and
theory of interdisciplinary and
interprofessional collaboration.
The group then organise and realise
a series of applied events and
installations that make use of the
creative networks and collaborative
practices they have developed, and
which encourage participation from
a public audience.
PHASE 2
The second phase of study focuses
on the production of an individual
thesis, either in written form in
Term 4 (for the MA degree) or
through applied practice during
Term 4–5 (for the MFA degree),
supported by lectures, seminars,
talks, symposia and workshops.
59
Staff Bios
Argyris Angelis works in architecture, fine art,
performance and education. He cofounded
GesamtAtelier and works with Collective Cleaners.
He holds degrees in Architecture and Engineering
from the National Technical University of Athens, a
BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago,
and an MFA from AAIS.
Yoav Ronel completed his PhD in the Department of
Hebrew Literature at Ben Gurion University. He was a
postdoctoral fellow at the University of Cambridge in
the Department of Middle Eastern Studies and is now
a research fellow at Bar Ilan University. He teaches at
the at Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design and at Ben
Gurion University.

Mona Camille is a set designer and artist, and has
studied architecture in Germany and spatial design
for performance in London. Her recent work includes
designs for Theatre503, Studio Goodluck, Chinese
Arts Now Festival and the Prague Quadrennial, and
her artwork has featured in the Seychelles Biennale of
Contemporary Art.
Nerma Cridge received her PhD from the AA in 2012
and gained an MSc and Diploma in Architecture
from the Bartlett School of Architecture (UCL). Her
research publications include a monograph based on
her PhD thesis on the Soviet avant-garde, Drawing
the Unbuildable (2015).
Heiko Kalmbach is a filmmaker, video artist and stage
director. He cofounded Spoonfilm and Naturaleza
Humana, and his work has been presented at a
number of international festivals. He teaches Spatial
Media Design and Scenic Design at TU Berlin.
Theo Lorenz has taught at the AA since 2000 and has
led the AAIS since 2008. He is a registered architect in
England and Germany, as well as a painter and media
artist. He is interested in the relationship between
digital and physical space, and in the associations
between subjects and objects.
David McAlmont is a singer, recording artist, lyric
consultant, singing teacher and workshop facilitator.
He holds a degree in History of Art from Birkbeck
University of London.
Noa Segev is an architect and designer. She studied
at the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design, and
graduated from the AAIS programme with an MFA in
2019. Her work explores how architecture intersects
with other creative disciplines, and she teaches at the
Bezalel Academy.
Hila Shemer is an architect, researcher and
architecture critic. She graduated from the AAIS
programme in 2018 and holds a BArch from the
Bezalel Academy, where she has also mentored and
taught since 2010.
Tanja Siems is an urban designer and infrastructural
planner, and the director of interdisciplinary practice
T2 Spatialwork. She cofounded the AAIS programme
and is a professor of urban design at the Bergische
University, Germany.
Joe Walkling is a graphic designer who runs a creative
studio in East London. He worked for 15 years as
a performer with companies and choreographers
in the UK and Europe, and he continues to apply
choreographic thinking to his design work.
Renaud Wiser is an independent choreographer.
He has worked as a dancer with the Gothenburg
Ballet and Rambert, and is a founding member of
New Movement Collective. His practice focuses
on alternative methods of collaboration between
creative professions.

Kyriaki Nasioula is an architect, choreographer, dancer

and educator. She is a cofounder of Gesamt Atelier,
an interdisciplinary artists company that works on
the conception, design and realisation of installations
and interactive audio-visual environments that
incorporate audience engagement.

Pierre Nedd, known as Mista Pierre, is a DJ and

producer for nightclubs, residencies and special events
worldwide. He holds a BSc(Hons) in Computer Science
and Media from the University of Hertfordshire.

Patricia Okenwa is a choreographer, dancer and

founding member of New Movement Collective. She
has choreographed works for various festivals and
companies, including the opera short film Ariadne,
Glitch for RenaudWiserCompany and Hydrargyrum
for Rambert.

Thomas Parkes is a creative technologies specialist

and practitioner. He is a systems designer for
creative technologies, and facilitates exhibitions,
live broadcasts and projects using audio-visual
technologies. He is Head of Audio-Visual at the AA.

60 61
MArch/MSc Programme Heads:
Paula Cadima
Sustainable Environmental Design Simos Yannas

Staff:
Nick Baker
Gustavo Brunelli
Herman Calleja
Joana Gonçalves
Mariam Kapsali
Byron Mardas
Jorge Rodríguez Álvarez

sed.aaschool.ac.uk

The Sustainable Environmental Design (SED) programme leads to either

an MArch (16 months) or MSc (12 months) degree. SED delves into real-
life projects sited within a broad range of climates, building types and
urban morphologies. The programme works to develop architecture that
contributes to carbon-neutral futures and promotes inhabitant comfort,
Zeel Dhangharia, Marine Havens: Transforming Oil Platforms into Habitats for Climate
health and wellbeing. Our educational approach is research-led, evidence- Resilience in the Tropics. Cross section with environmental strategies and
based and practice-oriented. 62 north visualisation of final design project. SED MArch Dissertation, 2023. 63
PROGRAMME STRUCTURE
The programme consists of two
consecutive phases. In Phase 1
(Term 1–2), students undertake
experimental fieldwork and
conduct computational studies
within group projects. The
ongoing SED research agenda
Refurbishing the City provides
briefs for case studies of buildings
and outdoor spaces around
London and other major cities.
We examine historical data and
projections that demonstrate
climatic variability in a range of
contexts, and use fieldwork to
determine how the morphology
and materiality of cities can interact
with sun, wind and human activity,
creating unexpected conditions
and microclimates. Students use
data collected during this work to
calibrate computational models and
simulations, and are encouraged to
view challenging climatic conditions
as creative opportunities. These
studies provide the starting point
for the design research on mixed-
use building programmes that takes
place in Term 2. Students develop
their design briefs with input from
seminars that highlight progressive
environmental design research
and practice.
In Phase 2 (Term 3–4), students
develop individual MSc and MArch
dissertation projects focusing on
zero-carbon research that benefits
local communities and engages
with global issues. MSc projects
explore the architectural potential
of this research across a range of
climatic zones and building types.
MArch research culminates in a
specific application for a given site
and design brief. Both must follow
the SED research methodology
by systematically assessing the
outcomes of their projects against
local and international standards
and benchmarks. Since the
programme’s first cycle in 2005–6,
more than 500 dissertation
projects have been completed on
sites spanning 60 countries and
150 cities, predominantly within
the tropics north and south of
the equator. These projects now
form part of a growing SED archive
that has so far been published in
books, journals and conference
proceedings. The school-wide
Climate Matters activities in Term 1
will provide opportunities to share
our climate studies and research
with other parts of the AA.
64
PROJECTS AND
WORKSHOPS
Refurbishing the City:
Building Studies
Term 1
London is our laboratory for the
first project, in which buildings of
architectural and environmental
interest within the city are
examined through case studies.
The project is introduced in the
first week of the academic year
and represents the main piece of
work for Term 1. It is a project in
which MSc and MArch students
work together in mixed groups of
three to four students, drawing
upon expertise from throughout
the SED programme and using
methodologies and empirical data
from our extensive archive of
building case studies. The project
combines exploration of theoretical
principles, hands-on empirical work
and systematic analytical studies to
provide insights into how buildings
perform climatically. Students
consider the environmental
conditions each building creates;
how these compare with historical
and contemporary precedents,
standards and benchmarks; and
how we might improve energy
use, reduce embodied carbon and
increase occupants’ comfort.
Refurbishing the City:
Design Workshop
Term 2
The knowledge, skills and insights
gained from Building Studies in
Term 1 provide a starting point from
which students formulate their
own design research briefs. These
briefs offer them the opportunity
to apply the skills and knowledge
they have developed so far within
a collaborative design project. The
project is introduced in the first
week of Term 2 and is the main
piece of work for the term.
Dissertation Project
Term 3–4
The dissertation project is a
significant piece of work that
reflects the research agenda of the
SED programme as well as students’
own personal interests, individual
skills and plans for the future.
Dissertation research is undertaken
individually, and provides the
opportunity for in-depth
exploration of climatic conditions,
urban morphologies, contemporary
and vernacular building precedent
and specific issues relating to
students’ chosen subject. Fieldwork
often forms part of the data
collection process, alongside
computational studies, generative
processes and environmental
assessment. Weekly tutorials
and regular reviews support the
dissertation research.
65
LECTURES AND SEMINARS
Adaptive Architecturing
Term 1
To develop local, architectural
solutions to global environmental
issues, it is important to understand
how cities and buildings can be
adapted to respond to recursive
climate cycles, and the circadian
rhythms and activities of
inhabitants. This course combines
these influences to introduce a
generative framework for adaptive
architecture that works in symbiosis
with the city. The course introduces
students to lessons learned from
the vernacular architecture of the
past, while also examining the
scientific research that has informed
the development of contemporary
environmental design.
Design for Comfort,
Health and Wellbeing
Term 1
This course addresses key concepts
in building science to provide a
foundation of knowledge that is
relevant to all the courses in the
programme. Concerns such as
heating, cooling, ventilation and
lighting are examined in terms of
inhabitant comfort, health and
wellbeing, as well as energy use.
Environmental Design
Research Tools
Term 1–2
This course introduces students
to the analogue and digital tools
required for environmental design
research. These include on-site
observations and measurements,
analytical operations and
data processing, as well as
computational modelling and
the simulation of environmental
processes in and around buildings.
The course provides the analytical
engines that drive the SED
programme, which are then applied
to project work and dissertations.
Individual tools address weather
data, climate analysis and site
microclimate studies; daylight
simulation studies; airflow and wind
effects in and around buildings;
incidence and effects of solar
radiation outdoors and indoors;
dynamic heat transfer and hourly
simulation of energy balances
of modelled spaces; occupant
thermal and visual comfort studies;
renewable energy generation,
optimisation and harmonisation;
embodied energy in materials; and
lifecycle carbon analysis.
66
Sustainable City
Term 2
This course reviews the parameters
that influence the climates of
cities, and examines how urban
morphology creates and maintains
distinct microclimates that impact
on urban energy use, environmental
quality and inhabitant activity.
Students explore the methods
and tools through which we can
measure urban sustainability and
support circular economies, and
use typological studies to develop
comparative assessments of
density, compactness, building
height, street proportions,
orientation, solar incidence and
other contributors to the energy
metabolism of different cities.
Lessons from Practice
Term 2–3
We invite practicing architects,
engineers and researchers to
present projects from a range
of international contexts that
demonstrate their design
philosophy, environmental research
and current building practice.
Presentations are typically followed
by roundtable discussions focusing
on evolving environmental standards
and zero-carbon strategies.
Research Seminar
Term 1–3
The seminar provides bibliographical
support and tutorials for the two
individual research papers students
write in Term 1 and 2, and the
dissertation in Term 3 and 4.
67
Staff Bios
Nick Baker is a physicist who spent most of his
professional life working in architecture as lecturer
and researcher at the University of Cambridge. He is
also the author of many research papers and several
publications, including Healthy Homes: Designing
with Light and Air for Sustainability and Wellbeing.

Gustavo Brunelli led the environmental design team

for the London Velodrome, and was head of the
Advanced Building Design division at engineering
consultants HDR | Hurley Palmer Flatt. He is currently
technical director at Atelier Ten.

Paula Cadima is cohead of the Sustainable

Environmental Design programme at the AA. She
has managed research projects on energy efficiency,
renewable energy sources and emerging fields for
the European Commission in Brussels, has chaired
the sustainable architecture working group of the
Architect’s Council of Europe, and is a former
president of PLEA, an international network on
sustainable architecture and urban design.

Herman Calleja practiced as an architect in Malta

and has worked as an environmental designer. He
has worked as head of research and development at
chapmanbdsp, specialising in climate-based modelling
and occupant comfort assessment, and is currently
high performance design lead at SOM Architects.

Joana Gonçalves is a researcher, design tutor and

consultant in environmental design. She was previously
an associate professor at the School of Architecture
and Urbanism (FAUUSP) at the University of São Paulo,
and is currently Vice-President of PLEA.

Mariam Kapsali is an architect at Architype Architects.

She has been a member of the Oxford Institute of
Sustainable Development as a research fellow on
Building Performance Evaluation.

Byron Mardas worked as senior environmental designer

with Foster + Partners, specialising in parametric
modelling and environmental assessment. He currently
works with Bryden Wood London-based architects
and engineers, specialising in sustainable design.

Jorge Rodríguez Álvarez is a cofounder of SAAI, an

international environmental design consultancy. He
has worked as an architect on projects from furniture
design to city planning, and completed his PhD thesis
on the energy performance of cities.

Simos Yannas is the founding director of the SED

programme and former head of the AA’s PhD
Programme. He was awarded a PLEA lifetime
achievement award for his contributions to
environmental design research and teaching. His
publications include Lessons from Vernacular
Architecture, Solar Energy and Housing Design, and
Roof Cooling Techniques.

68 69
Taught MPhil Programme Head:
Platon Issaias
Projective Cities
Programme Head and
Design Studio Lead:
Hamed Khosravi

Course Master, Seminar and

Academic Writing Lead:
Anna Font

Course Masters:
Roozbeh Elias-Azar
Cristina Gamboa
Daryan Knoblauch

projectivecities.aaschool.ac.uk

The MPhil in Architecture and Urban Design (Projective Cities) is an

18-month research and design programme that examines questions at the
intersection of architecture, urban design and planning. The programme
undertakes systematic analysis, design experimentation, theoretical
speculation and critical writing, all of which focus on the contemporary city.
Student projects combine design with traditional forms of research,
while challenging disciplinary boundaries and contributing to emerging
spatial design practice and knowledge. The programme recognises the need
for multidisciplinary understanding and new design research training to
meet the demands of contemporary architectural and urban practice.
Each cohort of students addresses a shared theme which they take
as the starting point for individual research agendas. The current theme
is the Architecture of Collective Living. The ambition of this agenda is
to use comparative analysis to investigate the different organisational,
formal, programmatic and material structures that govern how we live
together, and to develop new design proposals in response to these
investigations. Our intention is to rethink the informal and formal relations
between subjects, spaces, structural and non-structural elements, objects
and protocols of use and occupation in cities; doing so will enable us to
understand specific architectures and the broader political and social
discourses that define them.
Projective Cities has initiated a series of external partnerships
that introduce students to contemporary case studies, encourage design
experimentation and broaden the ambitions of their research. In the
2022–23 academic year, Phase 2 students developed their dissertations
in sites within cities in China, the UK, Canada, the Italian coast and Lake
Chilika, India, while Phase 1 students worked on sites in the UK and beyond,
with a particular focus on drawings and model-making. Distinct urban
and territorial types such as ports, mining sites, markets, holiday camps, Kayen Montes, Total Electric. LIVING OFF THE GRID, Projective Cities, 2022–23.
stadiums, gardens, touristic facilities and riverside developments have
recently framed MPhil candidates' dissertation proposals. 70 71
COURSE STRUCTURE
Five terms of study are divided
into two phases. Phase 1, a three-
term academic year beginning each
autumn, introduces key design and
research methodologies through
studios, seminars and academic
writing modules. Specialised
workshops and guest seminars
supplement the core teaching within
this phase, and Term 3 is dedicated
to the development of individual
dissertation proposals. Phase 2
begins the following autumn and
concludes in March of the second
academic year; during this phase,
candidates conduct an independent
research project that forms their
final dissertation.
PHASE 1
Studio 1:
Parts, Units and Groups:
Analysis of Architectural
Precedents
Term 1
Tutors: Roozbeh Elias-Azar,
Cristina Gamboa,
Platon Issaias, Hamed Khosravi,
Daryan Knoblauch
The aim of this module is to build
students’ understanding of the
case study method, concepts of
fundamental types and descriptive,
formative and analytical diagrams.
Students are given a series of
historic and contemporary case
studies as a starting point; they then
define their preliminary research
interest and study other examples of
collective living through comparative
analyses of architectural precedents.
Seminar 1:
Architectural Theories, Design
and Design Methods
Term 1
Tutors: Anna Font, Platon
Issaias, Hamed Khosravi and
invited guest lecturers
This module introduces students
to architectural theories and
design methods. Seminars focus
on the architectural scale and
introduce several research and
design methodologies, as well
as theories or themes critical to
the programme such as type,
typology, drawing and diagram. This
provides students with a systematic
understanding of disciplinary
knowledge and methodical design
in architecture, as well as a critical
survey of the historiography
and history of ideas framed by
typological reasoning.
Academic Writing 1
Term 1
Tutor: Anna Font
This course introduces students
to academic writing and
complements the content in
Seminar 1. Sessions take place once
a week, and individual tutorials
are given to discuss any writing-
in-progress on days when no
seminars or group sessions take
place. These sessions are also
available to Phase 2 students.
The module’s aim is to familiarise
students with the conventions of
academic writing, the role writing
plays when formulating a research
argument and how writing differs
when examining a case study or
text source.
72
Studio 2:
Scales: From Room to the City
Term 2
Tutors: Roozbeh Elias-Azar,
Platon Issaias, Hamed Khosravi,
Daryan Knoblauch
This module focuses on multi-scalar
investigation of the interdisciplinary
relationship between architecture,
urban design and urban planning.
Studio 2 builds on the concept of
formative diagrams in relation to
fundamental types, using this as
the basis from which to analyse
models of collective living and
forms of sharing. Here, the idea
of type and typology is expanded
to the study of the city. Studio 2
also introduces students to the
conventions, parameters, processes
and limits of urban planning. The
aim is to familiarise students with
concepts of typological conflict
and transformation, and introduce
them to the methodologies used
in urban design and urban planning.
Through this they understand
the sociopolitical, economic,
ecological, spatial and physical
parameters and processes that
inform the development of an
urban plan.
Seminar 2:
Projects of the City
Term 2
Tutors: Anna Font,
Platon Issaias, Hamed Khosravi
and invited guest lecturers
Seminar 2 discusses theories of
the city in relationship to critical
architectural practice and is divided
into two parts. The first explores
the development of disciplinary
knowledge about architecture and
urbanism from the 19th century
to the present day. The second
presents scholarly research in a
series of significant contemporary
case studies. This allows students to
formulate their individual research
propositions for the Thesis-Studio
in Term 3. The aim of the module is
to provide students with a survey of
theories that conceptualise the city
– in particular the contemporary
city – through its architecture and
architectural projects.
Academic Writing 2
Term 2
Tutor: Anna Font
This course complements the
content in Seminar 2. Sessions take
place once a week, and individual
tutorials are given to discuss any
writing-in-progress on days when
no seminars or group sessions
take place. These sessions are also
available to Phase 2 students. The
aim of this module is to enable
students to write literature reviews,
to assess current knowledge and to
position their own writing.
73
 Thesis-Studio:
Representations, Investigations
and Diagrams
Term 3
Tutor: Anna Font, Platon
Issaias, Hamed Khosravi
The Thesis-Studio is a combined
design studio and seminar course
in which students develop their
dissertation proposal and start their
dissertation. The Thesis-Studio
builds on the hypothesis that
critical and speculative projects on
the city – whether practice and/
or theory oriented – manifest
an ‘idea of the city’ that can be
understood through corresponding
typological and social diagrams.
Seminars discuss these ideas and
different historical, theoretical and
epistemological perspectives of
the city, and will examine critical
projects from the recent past,
including exemplary proposals,
representations, theories and
reflections. The studio examines
how diverse readings of the city
can define its formative and
fundamental aspects; its aim is to
introduce students to the ‘idea
of the city’ and the relationships
between and within spatial and
social diagrams. Students develop
a clear focus for enquiry and define
the theoretical or physical context
of their dissertation proposal.
Academic Writing 3
Term 3
Tutor: Anna Font
The writing workshop is scheduled
once a week during the term and
complements the Thesis-Studio.
On days when no seminars or
group sessions take place, individual
tutorials are available to discuss
any writing-in-progress; these are
also offered to Phase 2 students.
The aim of the module is to enable
students to write an academic for a
research thesis.
PHASE 2
Dissertation
Term 4–5
Tutors: Platon Issaias, Hamed
Khosravi and guest advisors
The dissertation is the final and
most substantial piece of work
in the programme, and starts
at the end of Phase 1 and is
developed throughout Phase 2.
Dissertations consist of a critical
theoretical argument and a
series of comprehensive design
proposals, and must demonstrate
proficiency and rigour in research,
design methods and techniques as
well as knowledge of the subject
context, literature and precedents.
Students conduct independent
research under the close guidance
of their supervisors, with the
support of other programme
staff and specialist consultants as
required. The supervisor’s role
is to aid the development of
ideas and encourage critical and
independent thinking.
74
Staff Bios
Roozbeh Elias-Azar is a designer and an urban
researcher. He studied architecture in Tehran’s
IAU and urban studies at UCL. He is the founder
of Third-Line, an architecture studio based in London
and Tehran, and his research projects explore the
relationship between urban imaginations and
spatial practices.
Anna Font is an architect, researcher and educator.
She studied architecture at Universitat Ramon Llull
in Barcelona, and she holds a MArch II from Harvard
University (GSD). She is currently completing her PhD
at the AA. Her work uses materials as platforms to
continue expanding the lineages of thought that give
form to architectural culture.
Cristina Gamboa is an architect and teacher.
She studied in Barcelona (ETSAB-UPC) and at the
University of Stuttgart. She is a cofounder of Lacol, a
co-operative of architects, and her research focuses
on participative approaches to design and developing
co-operative housing and policies.
Platon Issaias studied architecture in Thessaloniki,
Greece, and holds an MSc from Columbia University
(GSAAP) and a PhD from ‘The City as a Project’
programme at the Berlage Institute and TU Delft.
He teaches DIP7 and is cohead of the Projective
Cities programme at the AA, and practices with the
research and design collective Fatura Collaborative.
Hamed Khosravi is an architect, researcher and
educator. He studied architecture in Tehran, holds a
Master’s from TU Delft and IUAV, and gained his PhD
from ‘The City as a Project’ programme at the Berlage
Institute and TU Delft. He teaches DIP7 and is cohead
of the Projective Cities programme at the AA, and is a
senior lecturer at LSBU.
Daryan Knoblauch is an architect, designer and
scenographer whose work focuses on alternative
models of living, using print, exhibition, furniture and
installation design as mediums of communication.
He graduated from the Projective Cities Programme
in 2021.
75
PhD Programme Four years, full time

The PhD Programme at the AA trains scholars and researchers in the

fields of architectural history and theory, urban studies and technology.
The Programme encourages rigorous and speculative dissertations that
question architecture itself and its history, as well as its professional and
disciplinary mandate. In parallel with the development of their individual
theses, candidates are provided with a background of historical and
theoretical thinking through weekly discussions with their director of
studies and supervisor, as well as monthly seminars with guest scholars
and an annual symposium that brings together invited guests and current
candidates in a collective discussion. The AA is a Partner Institution and
Affiliated Research Centre of The Open University (OU), UK. The OU is
the awarding body for research degrees at the AA.

76 77
PhD Programme Programme Co-ordinator:
Maria Shéhérazade Giudici

Directors of Studies:
Pier Vittorio Aureli
Doreen Bernath
Mark Campbell
Maria Shéhérazade Giudici
Marina Lathouri
Mark Morris
Michael Weinstock

Supervisors:
Platon Issaias
Hamed Khosravi
William Orr
Theodore Spyropoulos
Emmanouil Stavrakakis
Teresa Stoppani

The PhD Programme at the AA encourages candidates to learn from
architectural knowledge and its history in order to understand the built
environment. The programme is not based on the application of one
specific research method, but instead provides a platform for candidates
to develop their own approach. Beyond their individual lines of inquiry,
however, all candidates and staff share an understanding of architectural
form as an index of sociopolitical processes. This attitude provides a
springboard for research that engages both with the materiality of the
built world and with its cultural dimensions. We question the traditional
separation of theory and design, and see thinking and practicing as
activities that are intrinsically connected. This connection becomes ever
more important as we face new social and environmental crises.
The programme supports challenging, speculative dissertations
that interrogate architecture and its history, as well as its professional and
disciplinary mandate. Each candidate is tutored by a director of studies and
a supervisor throughout the duration of the programme, and their work
is evaluated by both internal supervisors and external experts. Every year,
candidates must present the results of their research in an open forum,
allowing guests and staff to discuss its methodology, content and argument.
In parallel with the development of an individual thesis, each
participant will be provided with a background of historical and theoretical
thinking through weekly discussions with their director of studies and
supervisor, regular seminars with guest scholars and an annual symposium
that encourages discussion between invited guests, students and staff.
Participation in collective activities and school-wide debate is a crucial
component of the PhD experience, and is monitored and assessed as part
of the candidates’ yearly review process. Candidates are also encouraged
to test their research by teaching at the school.
PhD candidates at the AA include researchers in architecture,
urbanism and other subjects related to the built environment, and the
programme requires prospective candidates to have experience in
conducting independent investigations and study in their respective fields.
Priority will be given to applicants who propose original, well-defined and
provocative research hypotheses, and prospective researchers must all
be able to support their hypothesis with a mature and coherent existing
body of work in their chosen field. Upon acceptance to the programme,
candidates prepare a thesis abstract, preliminary table of contents and
bibliography that is submitted to the Open University for registration. This
first proposal becomes the core of the thesis that they then develop in
the following years.
Lola Lozano Lara, República de Ecuador no 109, Mexico City, from
the PhD thesis ̒ Vecindad: Redistribution of Domestic Space in
78 Mexico City 1519–2021', 2023. 79
PROGRAMME STRUCTURE
The PhD Programme comprises a
set of activities that run in parallel,
to encourage and stimulate
collective discussion among
participants. These take the form
of tutorials, seminars, end-of-term
presentations and symposia.
Tutorials
Directors of studies are available
every week for tutorials and
discussion about candidates’
in progress. Candidates are
encouraged to remain in constant
contact with their director of
studies to ensure the continual
development of their thesis.
Seminars
In Term 1 and 2, the directors
of studies hold seminars that
connect the PhD Programme with
other postgraduate programmes.
Alongside these, the programme
co-ordinator runs an open seminar
that provides candidates with a
space to share their work. This year,
the theme for this seminar will be
‘Forms of Care’; the sessions will
offer an opportunity to construct
a critical perspective on the
relationship between environmental
and social crises, connecting
candidates’ interests with the AA’s
2023–24 Climate Matters initiative.
Guest Seminars Annual Symposia
The PhD Programme organises a The PhD Programme organises
series of guest seminars that invite annual symposia in collaboration
contemporary researchers to with candidates; these sessions
present their work and introduce are devoted to specific topics and
their methodology. These seminars incorporate the contributions of
encourage debate on alternative invited guests. Recent symposia
topics, positions and media; they have been held on the themes of
intend to question fundamental Algorithmic Controversies, The
interpretations of what constitutes Politics of Construction, Domestic
research, how it can be pursued Frontiers, and Architecture and
and what agency it offers in the Labour. In Spring 2024, the
present day. PhD Programme will host the
AHRA symposium Invisible
End-of-Term Presentations Actants: Undoing, Remaking and
Building-with.
At the end of each term, candidates
present a portion of their in-
progress thesis to a panel of invited
critics. Second-year candidates
present their work in December,
at the end of Term 1, while first-year
candidates are reviewed in March,
at the end of Term 2, in order to
receive preliminary feedback to
prepare for their Upgrade Exam,
which takes place at the end of
the academic year. Third-year
candidates undergo a ‘ninth-term
review’ at the end of Term 3 to
enable them to enter the write-up
phase. These presentations are a
compulsory part of the
PhD Programme.
Lola Lozano Lara, República de Ecuador no 101, Mexico City, from
the PhD thesis ̒ Vecindad: Redistribution of Domestic Space in
80 Mexico City 1519–2021', 2023. 81
Staff Bios
Pier Vittorio Aureli is an architect and educator.
He teaches at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de
Lausanne where he holds the Chair of Theory and
Project of Domestic Space. He is the author of The
Possibility of an Absolute Architecture, The Project
of Autonomy: Politics and Architecture Within
and Against Architecture and the forthcoming
Architecture and Abstraction. He is a cofounder of
Dogma, an architectural studio based in Brussels.

Doreen Bernath is an architect and theorist trained

at the University of Cambridge and the AA. She
is currently Executive Editor of The Journal of
Architecture and a cofounder of the research
collective ThisThingCalledTheory. She teaches DIP22
at the AA, as a course master within the Projective
Cities programme and as a lecturer in History and
Theory Studies.

Mark Campbell received his MA and PhD from

Princeton University as a Fulbright and Princeton
Scholar. He is an editor of the RIBA Journal of
Architecture and an external examiner at the Welsh
School of Architecture and the Royal College of Art.

Maria Shéhérazade Giudici is the editor of the AA’s

journal of record, AA Files, and leads the History
and Theory course at the School of Architecture
of the Royal College of Art. She is the founder of
Black Square, a research and publishing platform that
explores the relationship between form and process
through books and architectural projects.

Marina Lathouri studied architecture and philosophy

of art and aesthetics. She has lectured at the University
of Cambridge and has been visiting professor at the
Universidad de Navarra and the Universidad Católica in
Santiago. Her current interests lie in the conjunction of
historiography and politics, writing in architecture, city,
land and political philosophy. She is the author of City
Cultures: Contemporary Positions on the City and has
published numerous articles.

Mark Morris is Head of Teaching and Learning at the

AA. His research interests focus on questions of
visual representation, scale models, paracosms and
the history of architectural education. He previously
taught theory and design at Cornell University, where
he served as the director of Graduate Studies. His
books include Models: Architecture and the Miniature
and Automatic Architecture. He lectures in History
and Theory Studies at the AA.

Michael Weinstock is an architect, researcher and AA

alumnus who has taught at the school since 1989. His
research interests lie in exploring the convergence
of the natural sciences with architecture. His body
of published work includes The Architecture of
Emergence: The Evolution of Form in Nature and
Civilisation and Emergent Technologies and Design:
Towards a Biological Paradigm for Architecture.

82 83
How to Apply We encourage applications from prospective students who can
demonstrate initiative in entering into the public forms of presentation,
collective discussion and productive debate that permeate the AA, the
architectural community and the world at large. We are keen to hear from
independent, motivated and respectful individuals with the curiosity and
ambition required to define their own unique path through a school that
fosters a multitude of educational methods and agendas.

The AA is a Higher Education Institution (HEI) and is the oldest

independent school of architecture in the UK. As an Approved Provider
registered with the Office for Students (OfS), England’s independent
regulator of higher education, the AA is a designated recognised body
with the authority to grant its own taught degrees (Foundation, Bachelor
and Master level), and is a licensed Student Sponsor registered with UK
Visas and Immigration (UKVI). The AA is not a member of UCAS and all
applications are made directly to the school. The application procedure is
the same for all prospective students.

If you would like to apply, please read the information on our website
about the AA’s Academic Programmes and visit the admissions pages
listed below for up-to-date entry requirements and application deadlines.
There is one point of entry each year, in September, for all of our courses
and programmes.

Open Days and Open Evenings

Throughout the year we hold Open Days for prospective undergraduate,

postgraduate and visiting students.

To find more information, see full event details and to register your
interest in attending, please visit www.aaschool.ac.uk/openday

Dates for these are as follows:

Open Days

Friday 10 November 2023

Taught Postgraduate programmes and PhD programme

84 85
Entry Requirements

To learn about academic entry requirements and for more details for each
programme, please click on the relevant ‘Find out more’ link below, which
will take you to the AA website.

Taught Postgraduate Programmes

The AA offers nine Taught
Postgraduate programmes for
students with prior academic
and professional experience. All
programmes are full-time courses
of advanced study, and all students
join the school in September at the
beginning of a new academic year.
Find out more

PhD Programme
The PhD Programme at the AA
is a full-time, four-year course
and is open to students with
prior academic and professional
experience. The programme
includes a PhD-by-design option.
Find out more

Fees and Financial Assistance

The AA is committed to ensuring that the most talented students

from around the world have the opportunity to study at the school.
Approximately one in five students currently receive financial assistance
from a scholarship, bursary, hardship fund or assistantship.

Find out more

86 87
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