Media Studies

Media Studies at the AA includes required studio-based courses for First and Second Year undergraduate students covering methods of production in the design process. In addition to these courses Media Studies offers a set of computer laboratory-based courses that focus on the direct instruction of a series of significant digital applications in the architectural pipeline. Studiobased courses available to Second Year students are also open to participation by all students who are currently in the Intermediate or Diploma schools, while laboratory-based courses are open to students throughout the entire school. Together the many classes and special events comprising Media Studies expose students to the work of architects, artists and other practitioners, the innovative skills associated with traditional forms of architectural media and representation, and today’s most experimental forms of information, communication and fabrication technologies. Media Studies emphasises the integration of established techniques in design with the potential of progressive media and production methods, underlining its potential within the creative process.

Required Media Studies Courses

Media Studies courses are a required part of the First Year and Intermediate Schools, providing students with the knowledge and skills associated with a wide range of contemporary design, communication and fabrication media. These weekly courses are taught by AA Unit Staff, the school’s AV department, Workshop and Computing staff, as well as by invited outside architects, artists, media and other creative specialists. Each termlong course focuses on the conceptual and technical aspects of a specified topic of design media, and emphasises a sustained development of a student’s ability to use design techniques as a means for conceiving, developing and producing design projects and strategies.

Media Studies Lab Courses

Working in close relationship with the AA Computer Lab, Media Studies offer a range of focused workshop-format courses that allow students to quickly grasp fundamental techniques in major digital applications for architecture. As the recent proliferation of digital design technologies has now matured as an integral part of the architectural education offered by the school, Media Studies provides concise one-day courses on many of the most common computer applications, covering content such as 3D Modelling, Computer Aided Drafting, Imaging, Publication, Digital Computation and Scripting, various Physics-Based Analyses, and other relevant software. aa-mediastudies.net

First Year , Term 1

Peripheral Landscapes

Sue Barr

This year we will be taking inspiration from the work of legendary American landscape photographer Robert Adams, by exploring landscape photography in suburbia. Instead of photographing iconic architecture within the city centre we will be working at the periphery of the city, where the landscape is more subtle and reveals its forms more quietly.

Sampling 5x5x5 – Drawing

Christopher Dyvik & Jorgen Tandberg

Participants in the course will learn how to measure and redraw architectural fragments as a means of improving their understanding of built space. We will focus on how the placement and proportions of basic architectural elements such as walls, windows, doorways, columns and stairs, as architectural composition, produces a silent argument. Translation Object to Drawing Shin Egashira An examination of the link between processes used in representing and making space, based on the translation of objects into drawings and the interpretation into models.

Information Design and Presentation: Diagrams

Heather Lyons

We will survey the worlds of maps, diagrams, infographics, colour and typography and then create our own maps and diagrams. We will work together to communicate abstract concepts in a visually clear way while looking at the pros and cons of different visual production techniques from Adobe CS to light scripting.

Materiality of Colour

Antoni Malinowski

This course focuses on the potential of colour in creating/manipulating space. Students will be introduced to the materiality of pure pigments with the focus on colour as micro-structure. Students will be encouraged to create their own distinctive notational system sensitive to space, time, light and the characteristics of materials.

Second Year , Term 1

Shapes of Fiction - Viewpoint

Charles Arsene-Henry

The course will enable access to a film or a text the way one might enter an abandoned spaceship: as a faceted volume to be examined with a sense of slowness, attention and wonder.

Viewpoint in Shapes of Fiction 01: ‘If Only You Could See What I Saw With Your Eyes.’ Matter-of-Fact

Shany Barath

This course examines fabrication techniques as potential activators of material systems. Working at the interface between fact and matter, computed geometry and machinic properties, we will develop material catalogues translating visible and invisible properties into variables of effect, behaviour, scale and articulation. We will use Rhinoceros, lasercutting, and CNC technologies to create a series of ‘data prototypes’ demonstrating possible design negotiations between the machine and the material.

Replica Structures

Valentin Bontjes Van Beek

The course will focus on the redesign (copy) and fabrication of an existing chair. Each student will select an original (chair) and work towards a translation and a fresh construction strategy for the fabrication of this replica structure. Our sole material will be 12mm sheet birch plywood. All components will be designed and produced with the use of CNC milling technology in mind. Issues of weight, porosity and composition should be considered. The course will culminate with a fabrication trip to Hooke Park.

Customised Computation

Eugene Han

This course will focus on the manipulation of digital geometry using scripting techniques within a NURBS modelling environment (Python for Rhino). We will cover the basics of scripted logic to customise geometry using iterative logic. Students will also be introduced to the basics behind the theory of computation and processing as a means to establish intelligent geometrical systems that can be applied to their on going unit projects.

Drawing in the Nation’s Cupboards

Anderson Inge

Escape the AA, draw on the riches of nearby national collections to discover new ways of seeing. We will develop ways to draw with authority, to author drawing that stands on its own. Hand drawing is the architect’s most powerful tool – find your drawnvoice here in Second Year. ‘So much more than I expected from a “drawing class”, a new perspective in visualisation was unravelled.’

Painting Architecture I

Alex Kaiser

This course will explore painting as a means of design that goes beyond the representational and into the prototypical. We will examine the fundamentals of painting and drawing; line, tone and colour, and begin to explore how these techniques of painting can be utilised in the creation of physical objects. The paintings will go through several iterations on the digital canvas (Photoshop) before being translated in a series of soft and hardware (3D Max, Zbrush, Illustrator, CNC) into their final state.

Paper Projections – Layered Realities

Tobias Klein

This is a roller-coaster journey from inherently 3D perception-based architecture, to its 2D representation and analysis, to a 3D or possibly 4D fragment. We will be working with the precise settings of visual perception and its manipulation throughout the centuries, from anamorphic projections, to the vertical skewing of Disney’s castle. The course aim is twofold: to articulate an example of a perception-manipulating architecture through a set of planimetric drawings and finally, to design a 3D printed object.

Scanned Space

Immanuel Koh

The course is interested in computer- vision as a means of exploring new architectural forms through the implementation of computational techniques. This term students will use X-Box’s Kinect sensor to extract ‘live’ physical data and embed this as digitally scanned architectural geometries within the work. The rich algorithmic and graphical capabilities found in processing will be utilised to allow direct application to the students’ on-going unit projects.

Video: Intermediate

Joel Newman

It’s no surprise that when we talk about video, we use the language and conventions of not only cinema but of literature, fine art, theatre and photography too. Walter Benjamin thought watching a film was akin to moving through a building and required a similar pattern of habits and thought processes. With this in mind we will construct a journey that retells the story of a space.

First Year , Term 2

Peripheral Landscapes

Sue Barr

We will be taking inspiration from the work of legendary American landscape photographer Robert Adams, by exploring landscape photography in suburbia. Instead of photographing iconic architecture within the city centre we will be working at the periphery of the city, where the landscape is more subtle and reveals its forms more quietly.

Sampling 5x5x5 – Model

Christopher Dyvik, Jorgen Tandberg

The course will focus on modelmaking as a tool to study and articulate building volumes, by revisiting existing spaces and abstracting them to their most telling, simplified motifs. In the process we will develop our understanding of architectural proportions by using basic digital tools to develop customised moulds for resin casts, articulating mass, volume and space through a series of material choices.

One-to-One Instruments

Shin Egashira

Techniques for constructing performative instruments, including collage and bricolage, are to be tested through an application towards the city. We will be working with both drawings and physical assemblages to develop design concepts.

Life Drawing

Trevor Flynn

The human figure will be used as a departure point as we draw male and female models in both long and short poses that enable us to study tone, mass, line and simple underlying structures through a range of drawing media. We will also explore concept sketches, viewpoint and biomorphic improvisations and remind ourselves of the Matisse maxim ‘exactitude isn’t truth’.

Information Design and Presentation: Portfolio

Heather Lyons

During the second term of this course, through an investigation of typography and layout strategies, we will experiment with the relationship between image and text while also refining the graphic presentation of your portfolios. We will also look at the differences between printed and bound and digital portfolios.

Materiality of Colour

Antoni Malinowski

This course focuses on the potential of colour in creating/manipulating space. Students will be introduced to the materiality of pure pigments with the focus on colour as micro-structure. Students will be encouraged to create their own distinctive notational system sensitive to space, time, light and the characteristics of materials.

Formal Improvisations

Marlie Mul

In a course focused on formal improvisation we will work towards the creation of 1:1 scale functional objects from Styrofoam. Working according to a set of parameters, the object will be the site for finding successful structures. The outcome of the fourweek workshop will be a completed object following the workshop brief, with a clearly presented documentation of the production process.

Video: First Year One-Minute Animation

Joel Newman

Students will make a one-minute animation (1500 discrete frames) that plays with scale and disrupts perspectival space. ChromaKeying, Motion, AfterEffects and HD video will be our weapons of choice.

Second Year , Term 2

Shapes of Fiction – Environment

Charles Arsene-Henry

The course will enable access to a film or a text the way one might enter an abandoned spaceship: as a faceted volume to be examined with a sense of slowness, attention and wonder.

Environment in Shapes of Fiction 02: ‘It is not a Place, It is a Feeling.’ Matter-of-Fact

Shany Barath

This course examines fabrication techniques as potential activators of material systems. Working at the interface between fact and matter, computed geometry and machinic properties, we will develop material catalogues translating visible and invisible properties into variables of effect, behaviour, scale and articulation. We will use Rhinoceros, laser cutting, and CNC technologies to create a series of ‘data prototypes’ demonstrating possible design negotiations between the machine and the material.

Pending Structures

Valentin Bontjes Van Beek

Going beyond the scale of the standard model, this course focuses on developing a working understanding of fabrication through designing on the CNC-machine for an actual scale. Throughout the term, students will be developing projects that address the design of installation pieces within the school, examining the relationship of material structures and physical resolution. The ‘Pending Structure’ should be beautiful and consider ideas of independence while respecting forms of integration – a measured ratio of directionality and belonging. The course will culminate with the fabrication of a final project at Hooke Park.

Articulation of Volumes

Christopher Dyvik & Jorgen Tandberg

The course will investigate the articulation of building volumes through model making, each study culminating in a model comprising one or more carefully crafted, abstracted volumes cast in resin. Students will integrate their studio projects into the proposal, abstracting to their most essential motifs, and modelling them as a constellation of pieces with a minimum of detail. This process of reduction is intended to communicate basic architectural qualities purely through mass, detail level, colour and opacity.

Orders of the Indefinite

Eugene Han

The course will progress from scripting knowledge gained in the previous term, moving onto a theoretical and technical study of Object-Oriented paradigms. Students will be responsible for linking architectural concepts within a class-driven structure, advancing their proposals into presentation and production to establish a general order of indefinite formal ensembles of their own making. As in the previous term, the course will employ Python scripting/programming within Rhino.

Painting Architecture II

Alex Kaiser

Using methods of painting, printing, lasercutting, folding, sticking, 3D Maxing and cutting, deep paintings will physically manifest themselves out of an aggregation of digital paintings created at the beginning of the course. There will be a greater emphasis on the mapping of pixels to 3D surfaces and the relationships that form when you begin to layer, fold, interlace and pleat paint surfaces.

Lucid Perception

Tobias Klein

This is a roller-coaster journey from inherently 3D perception-based architecture, to its 2D representation and analysis, to a 3D or possibly 4D fragment. We will be working with the precise settings of visual perception and its manipulation throughout the centuries, from anamorphic projections, to the vertical skewing of Disney’s castle. The course aim is twofold: to articulate an example of a perception-manipulating architecture through a set of planimetric drawings and finally, to design a 3D printed object.

Augmented Space

Immanuel Koh

The course continues the conceptual computational framework set out in Term 1 by looking at Augmented Reality (AR) as another potential site of spatial investigation using real-time video-based input. This term students will use the Smartphone/Webcam as the main hardware and Processing/ Java as the main scripting software. The generative interaction between physical and virtual spatial entities will be developed to complement students’ unit projects.

Unit Staff

Sue Barr studied at the London College of Printing where she specialised in photographing Brutalist architecture. She is now in practice as an architectural photographer and is a PhD candidate at the Royal College of Art. In collaboration with David Heathcote she is making a film about public space in London for exhibition at this year’s Venice Architecture Biennale.

Valentin Bontjes Van Beek trained as a carpenter in Germany before attending the AA, from which he graduated in 1998. He has practised architecture in Berlin, New York and London, and has taught at the AA since 2001, where he is currently an Intermediate Tutor.

Shin Egashira worked in Tokyo, Beijing and New York before coming to London. Artworks and installations include ‘English House’ at the Camden Arts Centre, ‘Impossible Vehicle’ at the Spiral Garden, Tokyo, and ‘Slow Box/ Afterimage’ for the Tsunami Triennale 2000. He has taught at the AA since 1990 and is currently Unit Master of Diploma Unit 11.

Trevor Flynn received an MFA Goldsmiths, is Course Director of Drawing At Work and a freehand drawing tutor at several architectural and engineering offices including Foster + Partners, Future Systems, and Rogers, Stirk, Harbour and Partners. He is visiting tutor at Central St Martins College of Art and Design and RISD.

Anderson Inge is a practising architect who has completed additional training in structural engineering (at MIT) and sculpture (at St Martins). He also teaches at the Rural Studio and Royal College of Art (sculpture).

Alex Kaiser graduated from Oxford Brookes and the AA and worked for firms including RSH-P and Moxon Architects. Before co-founding Ordinary, where he is currently researching trans-media methods for design through drawing, painting and manufacture and experimenting with line beyond the representational and into areas such as material science, timber construction and ‘beyond bio-mimetics’.

Tobias Klein studied architecture at the RWTH, the University of Applied Arts and the Bartlett School of Architecture. He worked for Coop Himmelb(l)au before founding his own practice, Studio Tobias Klein and is one of the founders of .horhizon. He currently runs Diploma Unit 1 at the AA, where he has taught since 2008 and has lectured internationally.

Immanuel Koh is a computational designer/ architect based in London. He graduated from the AA Design Research Lab and has since taught at various AA Visiting Schools and other international universities. Previously, he practised in Berlin and taught at Dessau Institute of Architecture (Bauhaus) Graduate School. He currently works at Zaha Hadid Architects.

Heather Lyons is an architect and interaction designer who designs digital products and experiences working on a wide variety of projects from interactive kiosks to mobile applications. Her work focuses on creating experiences that are visually compelling, easy to understand and push the limits of technology. She received her Master’s degree in Architecture from Princeton University.

Antoni Malinowski is an artist whose practice comprises painting and large-scale drawing installations. He has exhibited widely in the UK and Europe, and his paintings are in most major collections, including the Tate’s. He is currently working as artist-colourist with MJP Architects on the redevelopment of the BBC’s Broadcasting House.

Marlie Mul is an artist, currently based in Berlin and Amsterdam. She received a Master’s degree in Histories and Theories from the Architectural Association in 2009, and a Bachelor’s degree in Fine Arts from the Academy of Fine Arts in Maastricht. Marlie Mul exhibits internationally and is an initiator of the online publishing platform www.xym.no.

Joel Newman was born in 1971 in rural Hertfordshire. He studied fine art at Reading University and has exhibited in the UK and abroad. He has run the AA’s Audio Visual department since 1994 and has taught video within Media Studies since 1998.