The Foundation course offers a yearlong introduction to an art and designbased education. It allows students to develop their ideas through experimentation with a wide range of media and opens pathways towards a variety of creative disciplines from fine art to architecture. Students are taught in a studio environment that fosters both individual and group projects. Drawing on a number of pedagogical practices, experienced tutors and visiting practitioners, Foundation offers a unique cross-disciplinary education within an architectural institution.

All great deeds and all great thoughts have a ridiculous beginning. Great works are often born on a street corner or in a restaurant’s revolving door.
Albert Camus

Do it Yourself
Inspired by the interactive installations of Robert Morris and the imagined characters in Cindy Sherman’s Film Still series, this year will explore scale, site, scenario and identity. The Foundation cohort will feature as both makers and players during the year.

Tool-up
The first term will encourage students to discipline themselves to observe, research, explore, analyse and experiment by providing a series of workshops, exercises and discussions that serve as an introduction to the methods and skills used in visual and verbal analysis and representation. Students will develop their strategies through photography, drawing, painting, modelmaking, casting, mapping, material studies, form and structure. The second term will extend investigations with respect to both scale and dialogue by investigating the body in place, looking at site and performance. Workshops will explore pattern-cutting, costume, weaving, textiles, performance, lighting and filmmaking. The third term will concentrate on using these techniques to develop a self-generated series of explorations and discoveries.

Know Your Place
A series of trips will invite students to broaden their personal references to culture and context, taking the form of audio tours across London, gallery visits, residential stays in Hooke Park and a trip to Paris. Introductory lectures in history and theory will encourage a provocative dialogue among the students while talks from visiting artists will offer personal insights into a range of practices. Alongside studio and workshop exploration, students will be encouraged to develop and identify their own intellectual ambitions within and beyond the boundaries of their direct experience and context.

Bios
Foundation Master
Saskia Lewis has taught at the AA since 2001 and also teaches at the Bartlett School of Architecture. She is co-author and photographer of Architectural Voices: Listening to Old Buildings, published by Wiley Academy in October 2007.

Studio Staff
Matthew Butcher runs his own practice, Post Works, whose work has been widely published and exhibited. He recently designed a set for choreographer Rosemary Butcher and the 2008 Dance Umbrella festival, and he teaches at Nottingham University.
Takako Hasegawa was born in Tokyo and educated at the AA. Working on the periphery of architecture, art and performance, her interests focus on the ordinary and everyday. A photographer and installation artist, she also teaches at Chelsea College of Art & Design.
Will Martyr is an artist and graduate of the Slade School of Fine Art, the New York Studio School of Drawing, Painting and Sculpture and the Royal College of Art, London. His work features in many private and corporate collections worldwide.