Movies

There are three movies in the AA Photo Library about Havana,

Habana Blues - Benito Zambrano
Soy Cuba - Mikhail Kalatozov
Buena Vista Club Social - Wim Wenders

Enjoy them!

MAUD

BUILDING A POLITICAL ARGUMENT

ULIANA

Brief 2 Reassesing Disciplinary Tools

VOID: People as Construction




FULL: Construction as people

1st Term work

REASSESSING THE IMMEDIATE

Based on AA school’s everyday life, three small workshops will reassess the relation between the individual and the collective. With a special focus on governance, the aim of these three exercises will be to dismantle previous assumptions in order to reconsider the relation between architecture and politics in everyday, seemingly banal situations. (5 weeks)

1st Term Final Jury

Thanks you to all critics, students, tutors & visitors

Review Portfolios

Portfolios review will be on Saturday 12th of December in Inter Unit 8 space (Morwell Street building). Please bring your work till date and your proposal for an A3 portfolio.

10.30 Amir/Olivia/Costa/Kayvan/Karl
2.00 Uliana/Liza/Yong/Max/Stavros/Merve

1st Term Final Jury

Inter Unit 8 1st Term Final Jury will be held on Open Room 1 (close to Lecture Hall) from 10am to 6pm. Jury critics will be Stefano Rabolli (Inter Unit 5), Ricardo de Ostos (Inter Unit 3+ Madrid Visiting School), Marina Lathouri ( H&T Graduate program), Mania ( TS Intermediate), Eduardo Rico (LU Graduate program),Charles Tashima ( AA Academic Head), Jorge Rodriguez (SED Graduate program), Dora Sweijd (Inter Unit 11) & Alberto Moletto.

6th Workshop Tutorials II

Last tutorials before the final Jury will be in Open Room 3 on Monday 7th December in the following order,
Morning
9.00 Uliana
9.30 Gary
10.00 Max
10.30 Karl
11.00 Amir
11.30 Yong
12.00 Maud
12.30 Kayuan
Afternoon
1.30 Stavros + Costa
2.00 Liza + Olivia
2.30 Merve
Please be on time for reviews.

6th Workshop Pin-up

Pre-Final Jury will be held on Friday 4th December from 10 to 7pm in Open Room 3.

Cuban Visa

Tomorrow, Wednesday 2nd December there is a meeting about the travel to cuba at 10.30 in Open Room 3. Please bring your passports with you.

Meeting about travel to Cuba - Rescheduled

Cristian will join us on Thursday 3th December in Open Room 3 @ 5pm to have some drinks and talk about our trip to Havana.

6th Workshop tutorials I

Combined tutorials next week will be in the following order at intermediate Unit 8 space on Tuesday 1st December,

10.00 Karl & Max
11.00 Costa & Olivia
12.00 Merve & Liza
2.00 Kayuan & Maud
3.00 Uliana & Amir
4.00 Gary & Stavros
5.00 Yong

Please be on time for your tutorials.

6th Workshop

W10 Skins as Urban Mediators between Politics and Individuals
30-04 Dec
Students will be required to establish a political argument to define a skin proposal for the Ministry of Internal Affairs in relation to the Plaza de la Revolución.

Readings
Alejandro Zaera-Polo: “The Politics of the Envelope: A Political Critique of Materialism”, Volume 17 pp. 76-105.
Ellen Lupton, Skin: Surface, Substance, and Design, Princeton Architectural Press, 2002.

03 Brief

BUILDING A POLITICAL ARGUMENT



After intensively working throughout the term on understanding the relationship between politics of space as defined by architecture and abstract means of government, students will be asked to define their own design proposals, which will be developed in the following spring and summer terms. (2weeks)

Intermediate Unit 8 Life

5th Wokshop Pin-up

The final Pin-up will be on Friday 27th November in Open Room 4 from 10am till 6pm. After that we will go together to Rafael Moneo´s Lecture in the Lecture Hall.

9th Seminar

A seminar by Pier Vittorio Aureli with Diploma 14 students will be on Thursday 26th at 11.30. OPEN ROOM 3 in Bedford Square building.

Pier Vittorio Aureli is an architect and educator. After graduating from the Istituto di Architettura di Venezia, he obtained masters and PhD degrees at the Berlage Institute/Delft University of Technology. His theoretical studies focus on the relationship between architectural form, political theory and urban history. He currently teaches at the Berlage Institute, where he heads the ‘City as a Project’ PhD programme. Together with Martino Tattara he is the co-founder of Dogma, a prize-winning architectural collective focusing on the project of the city.

5th workshop tutorials

Tutorials next week will be in the following order at intermediate Unit 8 space,
Tuesday 24th November
10.00 Karl
10.30 Max
11.00 Uliana
11.30 Kayuan
12.00 Amir
12.30 Olivia
Wednesday 25th November
2.00 Gary
2.30 Costa
3.00 Yong
3.30 Liza
4.00 Stavros
4.30 Merve
5.00 Maud
Please be on time for your tutorials. There will be no chages in the order since it is related to your performance last Friday.

TS3 Design Project submissions Meeting

All 3rd year students of Intermediate Unit 8 have their meeting with Technical Studies staff and Inter Unit 8 tutors on Thrusday 26th November at 4pm in Inter Unit 8 space (4 Morwell Street Building).

5th Workshop

W9 FULL: Construction as people
23-27 Nov
In this exercise, which is complementary to the previous one, students will represent the Ministry of Internal affairs and Plaza de la Revolución through different techniques. They will be specific about how they draw it while understanding the political and representational load of the building.

Readings
Pier Vittorio Aureli, “Rossi: The Concept of the locus as a political category of the city”, in The Project of Autonomy, NY: Princeton Architectural Press, 2008, pp.53-69.
Christopher C.M. Lee and Sam Jacoby (eds), AA Agendas 5 Typological Formations, Renewable Building Types and the City, London: AA Publications, 2007.
References - Buildings
Giusepe Terragni, Casa del Fascio, 1932-1936.
Aquiles Capablanca, Cuban Ministry of Internal Affairs, 1953.
Alejandro De la Sota, Tarragona Civil Government, 1956-61.
Rafael Moneo, Murcia Town Hall, 1991-1998.
Foster + Partners, London City Hall, 1998-2002.

4th Workshop Pin-up

The Final Pin up, with your readings of Havana in an A1 format, will be on Friday 20th November in Open Room 4 from 10am till 6pm.

4th Workshop Students´ Presentation

Next Tuesday 17th Novemeber at 9am in Open Room 1 (close to Lecture Hall) you will present your group research work about Havana to your classmates. Please be on time @ 9am.

Then on Wednesday 18th we will have tutorials of your individual studies between 10am to 3pm in Open Room 3 (Bedford Square Building).

4th Workshop

W8 VOID: People as construction
16-20 Nov
This exercise considers the Plaza de la Revolución—where Fidel Castro has traditionally addressed his famous speeches—as embodying Cuban politics. As such, students will be tasked with determining how to represent this void while considering that people—not buildings—are what construct politics. The selection of elements to be represented in students´ particular account of reality defines their political reading of the square.

Readings
Roberto Segre, “The Pearl of the Antilles”, in Cruelty and Utopia, Princeton Architectural Press, 2005, pp.134-145.
Hanna Arendt, “Introduction into politics”, in The Promise of Politics, Schoken Books: New York 2005, pp. 93-200.

References - Squares
Tiananmen Square, Beijing, China, 1417.
Plaza de la Revolución, La Havana, Cuba, 1953.
Three Powers Square, Brasilia, Brazil, 1960.
Rabin Square, Tel Aviv, Israel, 1964.

02 Brief

REASSESSING DISCIPLINARY TOOLS

These two weeks engage students in reconsidering architectural means of representation at an urban scale in relation to politics and will serve as our first approach to La Habana. Students will be required to complete two exercises to fully recognize the reality of the Plaza de la Revolución before presenting their own design arguments. (2 Weeks)

AMIR ATTA Yousefi KARL Karam MERVE Anil ULIANA Apatina

3rd Wokshop Installation

BREAKING THE SPACE

LYZA MAX STAVROS

3rd Workshop Installation

NARCISSIM

8th Seminar

Self-organisation and Self-control: The Networked subject of Late Capitalist Urbanism

This lecture presents a critique of architectural and managerial theories of so-called 'self-organisation' focused at the points of their convergence within urban and pseudo-urban public space. Drawing upon post-autonomist accounts of networks, 'swarms' and multitudes as the instruments of contemporary processes of capital accumulation, and upon original research, architecture's engagement with contemporary organisational paradigms and their material expression will be critically examined.



Douglas Spencer has studied design and architectural history, cultural studies and critical theory, and has taught history and theory at a number of architectural schools. His research and writing on urbanism, architecture, film and critical theory has been published in journals including The Journal of Architecture, Radical Philosophy, AA Files and Culture Machine. He has contributed chapters to collections on urban design, utopian literature and contemporary architecture, and is currently researching for a book which formulates a Marxian critique of contemporary architecture and ‘control society’.

The Seminar will be held on Saturday 14th Novemberat 11am in Open Room 5

7th Seminar

Conflict Cities Research Cluster in Cambridge - Jerusalem
Maximilian Gwiazda is employed as a post-doctoral researcher on the ESRC-funded ‘Conflict in Cities and the Contested State’ project (www.conflictincities.org). He completed his PhD in the History and Philosophy of Architecture at Cambridge in 2007. His current research focuses on Jerusalem and relates to the visual analysis of the interplay of heritage stewardship, nationalism and urban design in the politics of planning in East Jerusalem. Gwiazda is a founding member and former president of “Architecture Sans Frontières – Cambridge”, an international network of academics, practitioners and public agencies dedicated to the social dimensions of urban development. Gwiazda is an Academic Associate of Pembroke College and acting Director of Studies at Selwyn and Wolfson colleges (2008-2009).
http://www.arct.cam.ac.uk/conflictincities/

Seminar will be held on Friday 13th in Open Room 3 @3.30pm , 36 Bedford Square building.

FIRST WORKS

http://nuriaalvarezlombardero.blogspot.com/2009/11/first-works.html

3rd Workshop Final Pin-up

Next Friday 13th November we will have our final Pin-up for the Instalation. All Inter Unit 8 will decide which instalation express better the brief aims.

Please set your drawings, plans and text in an A1 sheet. Other drawings, models, sketches,etc can be part of your presentation. However your presentation should be based in this A1. Thus you should be strategic in what you show from your proposal to catch others attention. This is a kind of competition where all of us (tutors, students and guests) will vote for the best idea. See you at 10am in Open Room 3.

3rd Workshop Tutorials 2

Next Tuesday 10th November tutorials will be in the following order,

2pm G.1. Lyza-Max-Stavros
3pm G.2. Amir-Karl-Merve-Uliana
4pm G.3. Gary-Kayuan-Olivia
5pm G.4. Costa-Maud-Yong

Please start to review books and travel guides of Havana. We will meet @ 2pm to talk about the travel.

Canales & Lombardero work exhibited

http://nuriaalvarezlombardero.blogspot.com/2009/11/exposicion-metalocus-25-25-x-10.html

METALOCUS 25. 25 = X> 10 exhibition at Raquel Ponce Gallery in Madrid

Wilfredo prieto-Cuban artist in AA

Next Tuesday 3th November at 6pm in the lecture Hall the artist Wifredo Prieto will participate in Stefano Rabolli Pansera cluster Beyond Entropy. He is a cuban artist to who you can ask some questions about Havana. Francisco Gonzalez de Canales will translate his talk to English.

Travel to Cuba-2

Please check your emails for the first payment to confirm reservation.

3rd Workshop Review

Tutorials of your installation designs will be on Wednesday 4th November afternoon in our Inter Unit 8 space, Morwell Street building. Reviews will follow this order,

2pm G.1. Gary-Kayuan-Olivia
3pm G.3. Lyza-Max-Stavros
4pm G.2. Amir-Karl-Merve-Uliana
5pm G.4. Costa-Maud-Yong

GARY

2nd Workshop Immediate Governance: Windows, doors, and transits

EXCHANGE

MERVE

2nd Workshop Immediate Governance: Windows, doors, and transits

INTERFERENCE

AMIR

2nd Workshop Immediate Governance: Windows, doors, and transits

PRAGMATISM

6th Seminar Installations

See you on Saturday @ 3.30pm in Inter Unit 8 Space for an informal meeting to talk about Installations with Jose Perez de Lama.

After we will go to the Cuban Restaurant CUBA LIBRE to enjoy Caribbean food and music while drinking some Mojitos. (http://www.cubalibrelondon.co.uk/)

Travel to Cuba

The travel agent is asking me your names to book the flight and confirm the reservation for the visa. Please check that names are correct and answer us ASAP.

Merve Anil
Gary Gene Dupont
Max Ulrich Hacke
Karl Karam
Yong Taek Kwon
Stavros Papavassiliou
Costantino Maria Rivetti
Ielyzaveta Rudyk
Kayvan Sarvi
Amir Yousefi

JURY 2nd workshop - Director's office walls

The final Jury of 2nd workshop will be on Friday 30th of November in 37 Bedford square building (FFO3). Please be at 10 am on the first floor. We will have Brett Steele (AA director), Douglas Spencer(LU), Evan L. Greenberg (EmTech), Stefano Rabolli Pansera and Goswin Schwendinger (Inter Unit 5) and Jose Perez de Lama as critics of your work.

5th Seminar-Lecture

Lecture "Hacking in public! From DIY Geopolitics to Urban Space" by Jose Perez de Lama, hackitectura.net
Thursday 29th of October 2009 at 6pm in the Lecture Hall

J. Perez de Lama -PhD in Architecture, Professor at the School of Architecture, University of Seville, Spain. With Pablo de Soto and Sergio Moreno forms hackitectura.net. Their work deals with the interaction of physical space, electronic flows and social networks, from the perspective of hacker culture and free software, and is focused in the production of digital infrastructures and temporary public spaces. Among their productions: /Fadaiat. Freedom of Movement, Freedom of Communication/ (Tarifa-Tangier, 2004 & 2005), /Situation Room/ (Laboral Centro de Arte, Gijón, 2008) and /WikiPlaza Bastille/ (Paris, France, 2009). Perez de Lama is the author of the book /Cyborg Becomings. Architecture, Urbanism and Communication Technologies/, 2006, Universidad de Sevilla (Spanish). Hackietctura.net's work was shown in 2009 at the Bienal Internacional de Arte Contemporáneo de Sevilla (Spain) and ZKM (Karlsruhe, Germany).URLs: http://mcs.hackitectura.net/ <http://mcs.hackitectura.net/> AbstractIn the last decades electronic networks and flows have transformed the environments we inhabit. This becoming is not only a tecnical one, but also an artistic, social and political one. Hackitectura.net explores these new territories from the perspective of hacker culture, free software, and the idea of ecosophic machines.

WikiPlaza Figueres, hackitectura.net, 09.2009

Review 3rd workshop

The first review of the third workshop will be on Tuesday 27th October 2009 in Inter Unit 8 Space. Please work in groups the whole day there.

3rd Workshop

W5-7 Top-Down and Bottom-Up

Top-Down and Bottom-Up are design strategies that express two fundamentally different political attitudes toward governance and representation. Bottom-Up strategies suggest that a politically loaded envelope is constructed by summing up different reactions from a multitude of individuals. Top-Down strategies suggest that a system of rules has to be set a priori; in this kind of approach, individuals can be already imbedded into the structure of the system or can activate this system politically by appropriating its rules. The aim of this workshop is to explore and compare these two strategies by designing two installations—one Top-Down and the other Bottom-Up. Each group of students will submit proposals, and the best entry will be built and showcased for public review.

Readings
Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, Multitude: War and Democracy in the Age of Empire, New York: Penguin Press, 2004.
Mary McLeod, “Everyday and “other” spaces” in Architecture and Feminism, Princeton Architectural Press, 1996, pp.1-37.

References
Maya Lin, Vietnam Veterans Memorial, Washington, 1982.
Peter Eisenman, Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, Berlin, 1998-2005.

Groups

G.1. Gary-Kayuan-Olivia

G.2. Amir-Karl-Merve-Uliana

G.3. Lyza-Max-Stavros

G.4. Costa-Maud-Yong

2nd workshop Pin up

Next Friday 23rd of October we will meet in Open Room 3 , Bedford square building at 10am. We will have a pin-up with all your work for the 2nd workshop, Director´s walls.

3rd Seminar Means of representation

Next Tuesday 20th of October we will review different means of representation in a small seminar by Nuria Alvarez Lombardero. These references will help you in your future work in the Unit.

Please be at 3pm in Open Room 4 bedford Square building. Seminar will be followed by tutorials.

3.00 Travel
3.30 Seminar

5.00 Karl
5.30 Olivia
6.00 Costa
6.30 Merve
7.00 Lyza
7.30 Stavros

On Wednesday tutorial will continue as follows,

4.00 Kayvan
4.30 Uliana
5.00 Yong
5.30 Gary
6.00 Maud
6.30 Max
7.00 Amir

Inter 8 Spanish Dinner

Prepare your stomachs for a delicious dinner in Navarro´s. This Spanish restaurant in Charlotte Street has the best beverages ever. See you there at 8.30pm.

2nd Workshop Pin-down

We will have a silent Pin down review on Friday 16th October at 4pm in Inter Unit 8 Space.

YONG

1st Workshop Immediate Governance: Windows, doors, and transits

IN-BETWEEN

MAUD

1st Workshop Immediate Governance: Windows, doors, and transits
CONTROL-MOBILITY

MAX

1st Workshop Immediate Governance: Windows, doors, and transits
CORRESPONDENCE