Phase 2 Reviews // 11-12 January 2024

DAY 1 // January 11th 2024 Link here

morning session // 10:15AM-1:30pm GMT

afternoon session // 2:30pm-5:30pm GMT

DAY 2 // January 12th 2024 Link here

morning session // 10:15AM-1:30pm GMT

AFTERNOON session // 2:30pm-5:30pm GMT

Keynote Lecture Thomas Heatherwick // 6:30 PM January 12th 2024 Link here

Angius STUDIO

MOBILE HABITATS / CLIMATE SHIFTS / RESPONSIVE ARCHITECTURE / SOFT INFRASTRUCTURE

The studio explores design strategies for the moving and the living, engaging with nature as a meteorological entity. We research on strategies for mobile and responsive habitats that operate in synchrony with the rhythms of nature, challenging the archetypal nature of clear and fixed boundaries. The inhabitable is reconsidered as a minimal and seamless extension of the human body, a metamorphic, multi-potent interface with environmental and programmatic fluctuations, in motion and in constant transformation. While challenging the notion of infrastructure as a preconceived and static fabric, we investigate collective, large-scale occupancy strategies that gravitate towards concepts of self-sufficiency, adaptability, economy of means and behavioural intelligence.

bhooshan STUDIO

ARCHITECTURAL INTELLIGENCE FOR NEW CITIES

Agglomeration benefits of cities are by virtue of the high frequency interaction of human producers - of goods, services, culture, knowledge - and consumers in a compact footprint. Coupling this wealth creation mechanism, with increased need for new cities and densification of existing cities implies that there is an heightened need for low-risk sandboxes for rapid urban experimentation. The studio explores the creation of such virtual sandboxes to test both novel urban configurations that could aid the synergetic agglomeration and the architectural kit of parts that could enable its rapid physical realisation.

Schumacher STUDIO

BEYOND COLLAGE CITY

Form-making and composition are foregrounded in the service of achieving social-functional values including urban legibility and identity, to facilitate orientation and navigation, and to provide a rich urban diversity. The key urban design task is maintaining legibility in the face of complexity, through district-sized expansions of East London. The shared premises include: a diverse programme mix and high-density.  The formal strategies include the layering of urban fabric: blocks, podiums and towers with the circulation systems: vehicular traffic, pedestrian circulation, parks, and high-level connections. The building shape and façade articulation also operate semiologically: spatial position, programmatic differentiation and combinations are articulated architecturally. The overall character of the district aims to achieve visual unity, while simultaneously, displaying a rich variety of identifiable offerings. 

Spyropoulos Studio

ELEMENTAL

Within the contemporary condition, new conceptual terrains emerge that raise questions of agency and intelligence within a deep ecology of our environment. The work explored examines environmental phenomena in the service of sustaining life. The following are attempts to see "phenomenon as technology" aiming to expand the conversation on climate matters. Beyond material specification and net zero strategies, the challenges we face today may speak to the need to explore and prepare for a world that is ever more extreme and unstable. If it is environmental, social or political - the circumstances are planetary and necessitate strategies that go beyond mitigating our past mistakes and preparing for what is to come. 

guest critics

Andrew Witt - https://andrewjwitt.com/ 

Andrew Witt is an Associate Professor in Practice in Architecture at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, teaching and researching the relationship of geometry and machines to perception, design, construction, and culture. Trained as both an architect and mathematician, he is interested in a technically synthetic and logically rigorous approach to form. Witt is also co-founder, with Tobias Nolte, of Certain Measures, a Boston/Berlin-based design and technology studio that combines imagination and evidence for systemic and scalable approaches to spatial problems. He is the author of Formulations: Architecture, Mathematics, Culture (MIT Press, 2021), an expansive examination of the visual, methodological, and epistemic connections between design, mathematics, and the broader sciences.

Sebastian Aristotelis - https://www.saga.dk

Sebastian Aristotelis is the lead architect and co-founder of SAGA Space Architects. Which specialises in 3D-printed architecture and habitation for outer space. SAGA has built projects in Asia, the Middle East, Latin America, Europe, and Northern Greenland. SAGA recently sent its first payload to Outer Space, a lamp for the International Space Station. Sebastian was part of the two-man crew on the LUNARK expedition where he spent 100 days in isolation by the North Pole, in a Prototype Space Habitat. SAGA has won several awards and holds numerous world records for its architecture, such as the tallest 3D-printed plastic structure at 7 meters tall. Sebastian gives talks around the world about space, architecture, innovation, and his adventures. 

Mario Carpo - https://www.ucl.ac.uk/bartlett/architecture/people/prof-mario-carpo

Mario Carpo is an architectural historian and critic and is currently the inaugural Reyner Banham Professor of Architectural History and Theory at the Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London, and Professor of Architectural Theory at the Institute of Architecture of the University of Applied Arts Vienna. 

Marina Lathouri - https://www.aaschool.ac.uk/academicprogrammes/postgraduate/history-and-critical-thinking

Marina Lathouri studied architecture and philosophy of art and aesthetics. She directs the graduate programme in the History and Critical Thinking at the AA and lectures at Cambridge University. She has previously taught at the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Navarra, Spain and is Distinguished Visiting Professor at the Universidad Catolica in Santiago, Chile. Lathouri’s current research interests lie in the conjunction of architectural history, city and political philosophy. Most recently, she co-authored the book Intimate Metropolis: Urban Subjects in the Modern City, published several articles and directed a Research project at the AA entitled City Cultures. 

Monia De Marchi - https://www.aaschool.ac.uk/academicprogrammes/intermediate/first-year 

Monia De Marchi is an architect and Head of the First Year Undergraduate Programme at the Architectural Association (AA). She completed her architecture studies at Istituto Universitario di Architettura di Venezia with distinction and a MArch from the Design Research Laboratory (DRL) programme at the AA. She has been teaching at the AA since 2005, formerly directing a Diploma Unit, and from 2011 as Head of First Year Programme.

Homa Farjadi - https://www.design.upenn.edu/architecture/graduate/people/homa-farjadi-0 

Homa Farjadi teaches advanced architectural studios and heads Penn's study abroad program in London. Prior to her appointment at Penn she has taught at the AA School of Architecture (1980-87), GSD Harvard University (1989-96) and has held chaired visiting professorships at Yale, Penn and Edinburgh universities and visiting professorships at Columbia University and University of Virginia. Homa Farjadi, MArch, AA Grad Dip RIBA ARB is principal of FARJADI ARCHITECTS in London and Practice Professor of Architecture at University of Pennsylvania where she conducts graduate level research studios and a studio on London urbanism. She is directly involved with individual projects in the office in close collaboration with members of the office. Professionally she has served as master jury member of the Agha Khan Architecture Awards and other international architectural design awards and competitions. Delayed space, a monograph of her work together with with Mohsen Mostafavi was published in 1994. Sense Geometries, more recent work of FARJADI ARCHITECTS was printed in September 2008 by Actar Publishers. 

Suhair Kahn - https://www.suhairkhan.com/

Suhair Khan is a technology entrepreneur and creative leader. She is the founder of open-ended design, a platform and incubator for creative technologists working with artificial intelligence. Her work centers on impact-driven work at the intersection of design, culture and future-facing technology.In over a decade at Google and Google Arts & Culture, Suhair led initiatives which merged cutting edge technologies with arts, design, culture, education and environmental sustainability. Her work cut across products in machine learning, AI, hybrid realities and search, as well as emerging markets.She is chair of the board of trustees of dance choreographer Studio Wayne McGregor, and is on the board of trustees / advisory committees to the Design Museum, British Library, Sadler’s Wells, London Design Biennale and the UK’s Museum of the Year Prize. A graduate of Cornell University and Harvard University, she is currently a visiting lecturer at Central Saint Martins College of Art & Design where she lectures on technology and spatial practices.

Paolo Flores - https://www.zaha-hadid.com/people/paulo-flores/

Paulo Flores received his Bachelor’s Degree in Architecture from the Ibero-American University in Mexico in 2003, and his Master’s Degree in Parametric and Digital Design from the AA in 2007. H joined ZHA in 2007 and was made Associate Director in 2018. He leads the firm’s Front-End Design Research Team, which inputs to a wide variety of project types, with focus on development of the firm’s creative approach to early concept design.  

Hannes Schafelner - https://www.zaha-hadid.com/people/johannes-schafelner/

Hannes Schafelner is an Associate Director at Zaha Hadid Architects. Having studied architecture and design at Technical University in Innsbruck (1998-2001), Politechnico de Milano (2001-2002), and at the studio Zaha Hadid, University for Applied Arts, Vienna (2002-2006), Schafelner joined Zaha Hadid Architects in 2006. He has worked as Lead Designer and Architect on several major projects at ZHA, including design and detailing for the complex roof of the 2012 Aquatic Centre.

Viviana Muscettola - https://www.zaha-hadid.com/people/viviana-muscettola/#

Viviana Muscettola joined ZHA in 2004 and has an extensive experience working on the studio’s seminal project. A director since 2019, she has successfully led  the teams on large urban development projects at ZHA, presenting a unique portfolio that encompasses high-rise, residential, hospitality and cultural, infrastructure, transportation schemes, furniture and product design. Muscettola began her studies at the University of Naples, receiving her degree in architecture in 2001. She then continued her studies at the Architectural Association’s Design Research Laboratory, receiving her Master’s degree in 2004. She is leader of the CTBUH London chapter and tutor at the Architectural Association – leading Experimental 18 Unit.