THE AA VISITING SCHOOL MEXICO CITY INVITES TO THE 13th ARQUINE CONGRESS IN MEXICO CITY

The AA Visiting School in Mexico City invites to participate in the 13th Arquine Congress an event that will bring leading voices of the Architectural scene to Mexico City:

Displacements refer to a change in position, the movement of an entity that changes its relative position in space.

The emotional experience that denotes the action of displacing oneself through a building or on the previous path before you reach it became one of the most relevant principles in modern architecture, reaching the point where it transformed these trajectories in rites that were then used to highlight the space and time surrounding the work.

Nowadays, ideas of change of position, transfer or dislocation gain value; displacing transcends the notion of movement and turns into a much wider term that ranges over many geographical concepts and their alterations, the foreigner condition in those that migrate from one place to another detaches itself, and from their experience, it makes a sum that emerges from its differences, by finding in the one that is being displaced not only the idea of he who is far from his place of origin, but also of he who sees himself forced to put himself in exile as a way of escape and survival when faced to the dramas of society.

Architecture is immersed in a world of constant crossings, a place where the active exchange of information and experiences generate new scenarios leaded by displacements, which transgress the own limits of the trade and localization, and at the same time transfer the actions into new spaces in spheres where own and foreign cultures converge, and are characterized by the overlapping of realities and actions that result in projects and opened, changing and multiple works.

The 13th Arquine International Architecture and Design Conference is looking to rescue the value of displacements as the dynamic that supports the action of architecture, of the city and its architects, investigating amongst new scenarios that reinforce the position, relationship and information changes of discipline and of current society.

More info HERE

GROUNDLAB / AA LANDSCAPE URBANISM LECTURE IN FLORENCE 31 March

Alfredo Ramirez -Groundlab partner and AALU design studio master- gave a lecture at the School of Architecture Syracuse University in Florence. Lecture was part of Symposium-Green Value: The Economic Benefits of Sustainable Design- organised by Lawrence Davis School's coordinator. Others speakers include Luis Fernandez Galiano- Editor Arquitectura Viva, Angela Brady, RIBA President, among others.

Landscape Urbanism RA Forum

15 November 2010 at Royal Academy of Arts

In the Reynolds Room, a John Madejski Fine Room

The scale, forms and inevitable indeterminacy of landscape all fit well with the challenges of working in today's urban environment, and is thus a source of ideas and inspiration for architects. This event looks at this emerging movement, called landscape urbanism, and how it promises to connect nature and culture more deeply than ever before. Speakers include Eva Castro and Alfredo Ramirez both of Groundlab and the Landscape Urbanism unit at the Architectural Association, Peg Rawes, Senior Lecturer at the Bartlett, and landscape architect, Andrew Grant.

More info at:

http://www.royalacademy.org.uk/events/lectures/

AA Symposium Mexico City

AA Symposio in Mexico City: From Academia to Praxis, 11 October

The director of the Mexico City Visiting School Alfredo Ramirez has organised a symposium at Universidad Iberoamericana in Mexico City on Monday 11 October 2010.

This one-day event of lectures/presentations given by staff and alumni of the Architectural Association was a preface to the AA Visiting School in Mexico City in January 2011. The event was an opportunity to present the work and research methodologies being developed at the Architectural Association with AA graduates.

AA lecturers and guests invited to the symposium shared and commented on their own research ambitions and the use of these methodologies in practice and education. At the same time Brett Steele discussed the role of schools of architecture and his vision for the future with a distinguished group of Mexican practitioners and educators. The symposium aimed to contribute to the exchange of pedagogic ideas and it will confront the leading issues shaping architecture, design and urban culture at the outset of the 21st century.

Guests and lecturers included:
Brett Steele (London)
Michael Rojkind (Mexico)
Derek Dellekamp (Mexico)
Juan Carlos Sanabria (Costa Rica)
Jose Maria Nava (Mexico)
Kevin Mccleland (USA)
Alfredo Ramirez (London)
Carolyn Aguilar (Mexico)
Edgar Payan Pacheco (London)
Jose Arnaud (London)

Douglas Spencer lectures at the Institute of Urbanism and Landscape, The Oslo School of Architecture and Design, 14-10-2010

Abstract

Both landscape and infrastructure are territorial practices. Each functions as a kind of ‘groundwork‘, shaping, organising and servicing bases upon which forms of social, economic and ecological relations operate. What, though, is their relationship? Landscape design and landscape urbanism have tended, in recent years, to follow an agenda set by infrastructural development, in both its technical and economic senses, or even to identify themselves with, and as, infrastructural practices. Since this development is itself largely driven by processes of neoliberal urban entrepreneurialism, however, greater critical reflection on the position of design, its own agency and its practice in relation to infrastructural matters are required. Exploring the possibility of landscape urbanism as a critically-informed practice, and the design processes by which it might operate, this lecture will draw upon examples of recent work in China by graduates of the Landscape Urbanism programme of the Architectural Association, London.

LANDSCAPE URBANISM LECTURE SERIES: STEVE GRAHAM

An investigation of the ways in which the disruption or destruction of the infrastructure systems that continually sustain contemporary urban life act to reveal the usually hidden politics and geographies of the city.

LANDSCAPE URBANISM LECTURE SERIES: ERIK SWYNGEDOUW

Nature and its more recent derivatives, like ‘environment’ or ‘sustainability’, are ‘empty’ signifiers. There is no such thing as a singular Nature around which an environmental policy or an environmentally sensitive planning/architecture can be constructed and performed. Rather, there are a multitude of natures and a multitude of existing, possible or practical socio-natural relations. The obsession with a singular Nature that requires ‘sustaining’ or, at least, ‘managing’, is sustained by a particular ‘quilting’ of Nature that forecloses asking political questions about immediately and really possible alternative socio-natural arrangements. I conclude with a call for a politicization of the environment, one that is predicated upon the recognition of the indeterminacy of nature, the constitutive split of the people, the unconditional democratic demand of political equality, and the real possibility for the inauguration of different possible public socio-ecological futures that express the democratic presumptions of freedom and equality.

LANDSCAPR URBANISM LECTURE SERIES: ALEX WALL, THE URBAN SURFACE - PUBLIC, GLORIOUS, URGENT

The Urban Surface - public, glorious, urgent"Programming the Urban Surface" is the title of an article Alex Wall contributed to Recovering Landscape, edited by James Corner and published in 1999. In the early days of landscape urbanism, the article looked at the emergence of projects, nascent theories and the potential significance of an "extensive" design of the urban landscape. Since its publication, the twin forces of urbanization and climate change bring a far more urgent focus on the performance of public space and the public realm. The lecture will consider the design of the urban surface with respect to the city as a context "as found," to questions of density, social equity, and as Philippe Rahm has put it, "public space becomes the place where the quality of air is defined.

AA Landscape Urbanism tutor and Groundlab Director Alfredo Ramirez will lecture at the International congress “Designing Ecotown”in Pescara Facoltá di Architettura,Italy, on 13th may. In “From the academia to the praxis” Alfredo will present the research of the AALU MA and its application in the large scale urban projects Groundlab has been developing recently.

www.unich.it/dart/ecotown.htm

LANDSCAPE URBANISM LECTURE SERIES

Each year, an international and diverse range of speakers are invited to offer new perspective on the issues that concern the practice of Landscape Urbanism at the Architectural Association. This will open up the possibility of actively contributing to the (re)definition of landscape urbanism as a new operative field. This year the lecture series will run from the 26th may to the 17th of June and speakers will include: Chris Reed, Alex Wall, Alberto Clementi, Steve Graham, Erik Swyngedouw, Alejandro Zaera, Simon Marvin, and Mike Hodson.

more info soon

AALU BOLZANO SUD IN PECHA KUCHA

On 21st April, Thomaz Demetz gave a presentation on the work carried out byt the AALU team in Bolzano Sud during the Redesign Boundaries with the universities of Trento and Innsbruck. The presentation formed part of the Pecha Kucha event organized in the Italian city by Werkbank: http://diewerkbank.com/2010/04/21/my-home-is-my-castle-______________/

DOUGLAS SPENCER IN TEMPERE

AA Landscape Urbanism History and Theory tutor Douglas Spencer will present a keynote lecture at the Nordic Association of Architectural Research Annual Conference, 2010, in Tampere, Finland on 23 April. In 'Complexity without Contradiction: Cybernetics, Architecture and Enchantment' he will present a critique of the reduction of thought to information in cybernetics and its use within architecture to serve contemporary mechanisms of organisational control. http://www.tut.fi/units/ark/pdfs/NAAR2010Conference.pdf

EVA CASTRO LECTURE IN BOLZANO

On Friday 16th April, AALU director Eva Castro will be giving a lecture in the Free University of Bolzano of her work in Landscape Urbanism, Plasmastudio and Groundlab. The lecture is part of a series of events linked to the Redesign Boundaries worskop organized by AALU and university of Trento.

RELATIONAL URBANISM IN BARELONA

On Friday 12th March, Enriqueta Llabres and AALU tutor Eduardo Rico will be giving a lecture in the Institut d'Architectura Avancada de Catalunya, in Barcelona, about the relevance of Relational Uranism in contemporary pratice.

http://www.iaac.net/events/iaac-lecture-series-mar-12-eduardo-rico-enriqueta-llabres-163

http://www.relationalurbanism.com/

AALU @ INFRASTRUKTURURBANISMUS

Design Tutor Eduardo Rico and AALU graduate Rahul Pahul will take part as speakers in INFRASTRUKTURURBANISMUS, a two day symposium in Munich about the role of infrastructure in the city. Details of the interventions can be found in:

http://www.infrastruktururbanismus.de/

DOUGLAS SPENCER IN TRENTO UNIVERSITY

AA Landscape Urbanism history and theory tutor Douglas Spencer will lecture in Italy at Trento University's Faculty of Engineering on "AA Landscape Urbanism: A Renewed Praxis" on 18 November. Considering a range of contemporary urban conditions operating outside those of the discipline's original North American and Westernised telos of the 'post-industrial' and 'post-urban', in this lecture he will argue for a critically-oriented renewal of Landscape Urbanism's theory and practice

JORGE AYALA IN CONVERSATION WITH PEI ZHOU STUDIO, 6TH NOVEMBER 2009

AALU graduate currently working with Groundlab in Beijing, will be heading a discussion panel in Pei Zhu office, Beijing. The title of the lecture will be Landforms, Horizontality, Infrastructure, Techniques....

ALFREDO RAMIREZ IN WELSH SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE

AALU tutor Alfredo ramirez will be giving a presentation on Monday 02nd November in the Welsh School of Architecture showcasing AALU projects where sustainability has had a major role within the design. (image above from Responsive Coastline, Alejandra Bosch, AALU 0607)

DOUGLAS SPENCER IN AHO OSLO

Douglas spencer will be partcipating in the critics of diploma projects in the Landscape Architecture program in AHO Oslo .

LANDSCAPE URBANISM IN DONGHUA UNIVERSITY, SHANGHAI

Eva Castro and Alfredo Ramirez gave a lecture in the Doghuan University in Shanghai about the work of Landscape Urbanism and Groundlab.