Architectural Association School of Architecture

Immanuel Koh (AA Media Studies Tutor) was invited as an international Key-note speaker at the annual Digital Design Conference in China(24-30 Aug 2012). This year's topic is "Simulation, Coding and Collaborative Design" and is hosted at the Harbin Institute of Technology(HIT). Other guest speakers include Dennis Sheldon(MIT, Gehry Technologies), Ali Malkawi(University of Pennsylvania)...etc. Immanuel's computational design work would also be part of the conference's exhibition which showcases projects and works using generative design modelling.He is also invited to give a separate lecture to the university's faculties and students.

http://archi.hit.edu.cn/
http://vimeo.com/user4700481

Ling Leng's work for the projects review is highlighted on the British Council's cultural relations and design website.

http://backoftheenvelope.britishcouncil.org/2012/jul/24/aa-project-review-thaumaturgical-forest/

For full details of how to apply, please go to http://alexandria.aaschool.ac.uk/aa-alexandria-scholarships

The AA Accommodation office will be open in 36 Bedford Square (room to be confirmed) from Monday 3 to Friday 21 September for new students looking for accommodation in London.
 
If you have any rooms/flats/houses to let, and would like to put up an advert, please send jpegs/pdfs no larger than 500kb to meneesha.kellay@aaschool.ac.uk and we will advertise the let in the AA Accommodation Office. Please include photographs if possible. Alternatively, you can bring your own poster/advert into the AA Reception marked attention of Meneesha Kellay.

From 4 May to 8 June 2011, the School of Architecture of the University of Costa Rica held the first Interventions and Debates Series under the title Training as an Architect, Thinking about Architecture. Its aim was to look at the bond between the training of an architect and the way in which s/he makes architecture and thinks about it. As a way of encouraging and disseminating the discussion there generated, revistArquis is honoured to publish in this issue the papers presented during the Series, as well as the edited transcription of the QA sessions with the public that attended the event.


The authors are Costa Rican citizens who studied at the AA at undergraduate and postgraduate levels in the period from 2000 to 2001. Each participant reflected on their chosen path of training, as well as the particular relationship they established with the practice of architecture.


This was a Series with heterogeneous positions. Jaime Sol discussed the power of ornament, Maria Paula Sáenz talked about typological reasoning in the process of making the city, Carlos Umaña about landscape strategies for urbanism, Valeria Guzmán-Verri spoke about the obstructions inherent in the way we tackle architectural problems, and Diego van der Laat about what lies between physical and filmic space.


Download articles at: http://revistarquis.ucr.ac.cr/index.php/revistArquis/issue/view/4/showToc

The exhibition at the Peruvian Embassy, 52 Sloane Street SW1X 9SP, is part of the International Architecture Showcase, organised by the British Council.
 
The exhibition explores the need for social interfaces between citizens and the new transport infrastructure that is now connecting a city that, until very recently, was managed by informal operations. These interfaces take the shape of pop-ups, spatial interventions, urban commentaries, all utilising the common vehicle of the architectural project. These projects seek to define the needs of the population and ways in which the new modes of transport connect with the existing tissue of the city. Projects on display have been submitted by a collective of students, young professionals, teachers and architectural aficionados, selected and curated using a common social network platform.
 
Open 17 August until 21 September, 9.00–13.00, 14.00–16.00 at the Peruvian Embassy.

For further information check:
http://tiparquitectura.wordpress.com
http://www.facebook.com/TipArchitecture

The jury was composed of Joshua Price-Ramus (REX NY), Eva Franch i Gilabert (Storefront for Art and Architecture), Roland Snooks (Kokkugia), Shohei Shigematsu (OMA NY), Alessandro Orsini (Architensions), and Mitchell Joachim (Terreform One) and chose two winners, a FARM prize winner, and attributed eight honorable mentions.
 
The brief proposed two possible themes as departure points: From Past to Future, whereby participants where challenged to 'imagine the city of New York from manipulation and time deviation of a critical phase of its past and rewrite a new and correct future with consequent changes to the natural ecosystem, social and architectural history of the city', and From Future to Past, which proposed to 'imagine New York City starting with the already compromised future – accepting the failure of our futuristic aspirations – and describe your idea of a city of tomorrow that will have to come to terms with the relentless advance of technology and the parallel regression of the social life of its inhabitants, but that has a great opportunity to really change the system by replacing all that is outsourcing into insourcing'.
 
See winning projects and all the entries on the CityVision competition website:
http://www.cityvision-competition.com/

Apply to the Rural Studio Outreach Programme: ruralstudio.org

Read more at www.auburn.edu

The show How I Learnt To Stop Worrying and Embrace the Beauty of Nature and the Goodness in the Souls of All Men is currently running at Rokeby Gallery at  5–9 Hatton Wall, London EC1N 8HX until 11 August.
 
Read the review here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2012/jul/26/artist-of-week-sam-dargan#_

Read the rest of The Guardian's guide at http://www.guardian.co.uk/travel/2012/jul/27/london-top-five-quirky-restaurants-bars?intcmp=239

The AA School website came in at no.8 in the paper's top ten architecture blogs, with the comment: 'This should appeal mainly to those with a more professional interest. However, others will be able to take pleasure in the avant-garde offerings in the school's 2012 project reviews.'

See full list

The Architect’s Newspaper is offering two full-tuition scholarships to Campaigning Architecture, the AA/UIC Global Workshop (13–24 August) at the UIC School of Architecture. The scholarships are open to all individuals interested in attending the Workshop.

To apply, send a short statement about yourself to aavschicago@gmail.com stating why you want to attend. Please write 'Scholarship Applicant' in the subject line. Application deadline for the first scholarship is 27 July. Application deadline for the second scholarship is 3 August.

Read more at http://chicago.aaschool.ac.uk

IS ARCH Awards is a platform stimulated by a team of architecture students from the Polytechnic University of Catalonia (UPC – ETSAB). The aim is to provide a platform for the promotion and recognition of university projects done by architecture students, to encourage young people to join the debate on architecture.

Jury members:
Herzog & de Meuron Studio
Richard Rogers Architecture Studio
EMBT Studio
Koji Tsutsui
Fernando Marquez Cecilia

The second registration period opened on 9 July and it will remain opened until 21 September.

Visit the website at www.isarch.org for any other details.

Read more in dezeen

The prize for 2012 has been awarded to Yvonne Weng, of Diploma Unit 17, for her project ‘The 6th Layer – Explorative Canopy Trail’. Set in the context of Brazilian Amazon rainforest, the project recognises the reciprocal relationship between humanity and the forest and sees the forest as a natural infrastructure to work with, instead of against.

Weng's designs would allow scientists to live in the treetops of the Amazon rainforest. Her proposals are for a series of lightweight pods and platforms where scientists can study and harvest the medicinal plants of the jungle. Research laboratories would be contained inside a series of suspended pods that can be lowered to the ground when necessary, while a second set of pods would provide living quarters. A web of synthetic fibres and steel supports would hold each of the pods in place and provide a solid canopy above the trees.

The prize is presented annually to the AA Diploma student whose final project best addresses themes of sustainability and infrastructure.

Nested Figures and Loose Outer Shell
Core Tutor, Tom Wiscombe
Teaching Assistant, Muhammed Shameel
21 - 25 June
Ajman University of Science and Technology, UAE
For further details, please visit the website at: http://d-undergrnd.blogspot.com/2012/07/figures-in-loose-outer-skin-workshop.html