The tenth anniversary of the AA’s Design Research Lab (DRL) was celebrated with a series of events in February and March 2008. The AA Gallery and Front Members’ Room hosted an exhibition featuring current work by DRL tutors and students, as well as projects selected from some 354 DRL graduates. In addition to this research-based work, a physical manifestation of DRL’s vision was on display in Bedford Square in the form of a pavilion designed by graduates Alan Dempsey (DRL 2002) and Alvin Huang (DRL 2004). Their (C)Space Pavilion – selected through competition – was constructed of fibre-reinforced precast concrete panels. 

As part of the launch of the second book in the AADRL Documents series, DRL TEN: A Design Research Compendium, which combined a visual survey of the evolution of the DRL with texts by the programme directors and Andrew Benjamin, Mark Burry, Mark Cousins, Zaha Hadid, Christopher Hight and Jeffrey Kipnis, among others. The collective mission of this book and the DRL TEN events was to narrate the ten-year history of the work of the students and staff, to evaluate the programme’s collaborative teaching and learning methods, and to speculate on future terms of design research in an evolving global architectural culture.

25 February to 18 March 2008

Location: AA Gallery & Front Members’ Room