Designed Geographies School of Design, Singapore Polytechnic
Wednesday 21 to Friday 30 July 2010

For the fifth year running the Architectural Association will be migrating to southeast Asia to offer an intensive introduction to the school’s approach to architectural education and design. The workshop will investigate instrumental forms of urban density – ‘Designed Geographies’ – and develop alternative ways of observing and reading the city to generate strategic frameworks for its evolution. Building on research initiated in last year’s workshop, participants will take the contrived geographical setting of Singapore as the starting point for a broader reflection on prospective tools for dense urban fields.

This year’s focus will be on artificial expansions of specific urban conditions and their new geographies. The design potential of operational growth will be investigated through new strategies that are able to adapt to multiple, fast-changing urban inputs. By relating the preset topographical limitations and geopolitical conditions of Singapore to an exploration of territorial discontinuity at various scales, we will begin to develop scenarios that – paradoxically – allow for an extension of both uniqueness and diversity. Traditional mapping techniques will be tweaked by appropriating strategies from the field of geography, yielding new readings of the coastal thresholds from which design proposals can emerge. In parallel with an introduction to modelling and digital fabrication techniques, participants will develop an analytic approach to various representational tools.

This studiobased design workshop will be divided into small groups, each of which will be directed by AA teaching staff. Each unit will approach the shared agenda of Designed Geographies in a distinctive way, offering a broad introduction to creative design processes, critical forms of thinking and urban research. Common discussions and presentations will provide platforms for sharing questions and knowledge.