The Void

Miraj Ahmed, Martin Jameson

'I've had nothing yet,' Alice replied in an offended tone, 'so I can't take more.'

'You mean you can't take less,' said the Hatter: 'it's very easy to take more than nothing.'
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll

Intermediate 13 continues its investigation of the political and cultural dimensions of architecture. This year we will concentrate on nothing, or the void. In an obvious sense, this is an attempt to swim against the tide of contemporary architectural teaching, in which the emphasis has been on an obsessive articulation of the physical object, its geometry and form. As an antidote to this compulsion to objectify we will divert our attention to the void – the space between – and the potential of erasure. This return to nothing is a rejection of the so-called 'new' and a contemplation of the eternal, poignant and experiential.

In one sense, this contemplation is directed toward the phenomenological potential of absence, of enclosure and place-making, in which creative energy and experimentation are directed at the creation of atmosphere. This is the personal world of memory, psychological impulses and sensations. In a sense, the potential of the void is embedded in the political life of the collective. Here, the focus of thought is on removal, difference, separation, and on assembly, collision and event. In both instances, the object is put aside and attention is directed at once toward the boundary, the limit, and its counter, the boundless sublime.

Unlike previous years we will indulge in a strategy of delayed gratification – immersion into the complexity of an urban site will be postponed until the second term. This will give us more time lingering within the void and teasing out its potential as a fecund space of possibility. In this space the void is seen as a generative tool and emptiness as a design technique. Starting with art practice and an interest in the conditions of void, we will move on to architectural space and the disruptive effects of cutting, carving, casting and dislocation, with renewed interest in physical modelling. A wide range of media techniques will be encouraged. In the second term students will bring strategies of the void to sites in London subject to problematic differences of wealth and power, disuse and conflict, compromised architectural heritage and impoverished cultural content. Our goal will be to use nothing to achieve something.

Unit Staff

Miraj Ahmed is a practising painter and architect exploring the interstices between art and architecture. He has taught at the AA since 2000 and is a Design Fellow at the University of Cambridge and Associate Lecturer at Camberwell College of Art.

Martin Jameson is an associate at Serie Architects. He studied for five years at the AA and received his Diploma with honours. Before studying architecture he was a business consultant advising corporations on strategy and organisational design. He has a BA from Oxford University where he studied Kantian philosophy and political theory, and an MBA from IMD, Switzerland.