Architectural Association School of Architecture, 36 Bedford Square, London (2026)

23/09/2026

Join us in the AA Lecture Hall on Thursday 1 October, 6.30pm for ‘Part Map, Part Myth: Art and Architecture’ by the artist Louis Pohl Koseda.

With a practice that exists as part map and part myth, Louis Pohl Koseda (Louis Koseda) delivers a talk on new approaches to creating civic artworks. Primarily using drawing as a method to move between disciplines, Louis shares a collection of artworks drawn from imagination – exhibited at the solo show, ‘The Dawn of the Golden Age’ at Christie’s London last year – and a series of personal short stories that interpret the observed world as a ‘daisy chain of coexisting systems’.

This practice of recentring the civic image-making process is one that requires us to rethink the reason for the image-making. How do we reinterpret the sacred, the satirical and the cyclical nature of time and imagination alongside formal design? The talk culminates in a series of social architecture ‘thought experiment projects’ and spatial agency exercises that attempt to reach some form of reconciliation between the fields of art and architecture. After the presentation, Louis will be joined in conversation by Silvana Taher Silvana Taher.

‘Part Map, Part Myth: Art and Architecture’
AA Lecture Hall
Thursday 1 October, 6.30–8pm

To RSVP on Eventbrite, head to the Public Programme tile in our link in bio

Image: Louis Pohl-Koseda, ‘Surreal Estates’, pen and charcoal

22/09/2026

Last Friday, Introduction Week at the AA concluded with a trip to London Zoo!

New students gathered for a picnic and a tour led by current students, looking at the architecture of the zoo. AA LAWuN (Locally Available World Unseen Networks) .a.w.u.n created a screen-printed fold-out companion guide to the architecture of zoos, which asks:

“Maybe modern zoos are an epitaph to a relationship which was old as man, as technology continues to separate us further from our environment?”

Buildings at London Zoo include the Gorilla House and Penguin Pool by Tecton, the architectural practice formed by Berthold Lubetkin with AA graduates. Other buildings include the Snowdon Aviary (1960–65), designed by Lord Snowdon with AA alumnus Cedric Price and Frank Newby, and the Casson Pavilion (1962–65) by Hugh Casson and AA alumnus Neville Conder.

The companion guide was printed by AA LAWuN with students Atimanyu Vashishth, Freya Palmer, Peter Bergman, Celine Hobeichi, Gayatri Salkar, Julian Wasilewski, Frea Lei and Lea St-Georges.

Photos: Emily Wang / AA Photo Studio

18/09/2026

Intro Week at the AA

New faces, new conversations and Bedford Square filling up again.

Welcome to the 2026–27 academic year!

Explore the AA and our programmes via the link in bio.

17/09/2026

‘Peter Salter: Drawings’ opens next Friday 25 September in the AA Gallery!

This autumn, the AA presents a new exhibition dedicated to drawings by architectural designer and educator Peter Salter. This prolific body of work includes previously unseen material produced between 1985 and 2020. Working back and forth between architectural details, atmospheric perspectives and large-scale plans and sections of entire schemes, the drawings balance Salter’s architectural poetics with technical expertise. 

Full-scale drawings of construction details and pieces of furniture reveal a deep knowledge of materials and the way they behave, as well as a care and consideration for how buildings come together. Composed alongside plans and sections at 1:100 – often on the same sheet of paper – these demonstrate a keen attention to scale and complete formal approach to architecture, together tracing a lineage to the family of idiosyncratic forms that has become symbolic of Salter’s celebrated practice. 

The exhibition coincides with the release of ‘Peter Salter: Drawings’, a new book of drawings published by AA Publications, which will be available to purchase from the AA Bookshop (AA Bookshop) later in Autumn 2026.

For more information head to the Public Programme tile in our link in bio!

Peter Salter: Drawings
Friday 25 September – Saturday 5 December
Monday–Saturday, 11am–7pm
AA Gallery, Ground Floor, 36 Bedford Square

Images
1 Peter Salter, Kamiichi, Toyama Prefecture, Japan, 1993.
2 Peter Salter, Detail of drawing of Curtin University, Perth, Rottnest Island, Western Australia, c.1995.
3 Peter Salter, Chiswick House proposal, 2010.

16/09/2026

Reclaiming the Citadel

Project by Asher Ong, Intermediate 4 f(2025–2026)

Project description by Asher:

Counter Proposal:
Built 1937–44 as the British Admiralty’s fallback command centre, the Oxgate Admiralty Citadel at Dollis Hill was designed to withstand aerial bombardment. Yet, eighty years of neglect have taken their toll, and in September 2025, international capital secured planning approval to demolish it. Big Capital’s verdict: a decaying building on a site strained by infrastructure and industry is more profitable to raze than repair.

This project counter-proposes through adaptive reuse for local businesses instead of extractive international stakeholders. Upper floors offer affordable private studios. Lower floors open to the public for commerce and events. These industrious spaces orbit the Bunker Garden, the new heart of Dollis Hill Community.

Process:
Macro Adaptation is phased in two acts: Covering the Building protects the historic fabric while it is worked upon; Uncovering the Bunker opens the basement to light, air, and soil. Alder trees are planted within it, mitigating flooding and rooting a community garden.

Seeking to reveal the structure and spirit of the building, micro adaptation pursues selective removal and addition as acts of revelation. A screenplay of space, event, & movement was written & storyboarded, detailing the acts of care executed & drawn in the X-Ray Axonometric and Sectional Collage.

The Citadel now holds a mirror to a community it has never known. Reclaimed through ruination and adaptation, for those who now build within it.

Explore more projects from Intermediate 4 and other student work from Projects Review 2026 via the link in bio.

12/09/2026

Conservation and Reuse Short Courses

Modules from the programme are now available as standalone short courses.

Delivered through seminars, lectures, workshops, site visits and practical sessions with AA staff, external researchers and practitioners, the courses explore the history, theory and ethics of conservation, contemporary approaches to conservation and reuse, and comparative construction and carbon awareness.

The programme also includes visits to Hooke Park in Dorset, with practical workshops in thatching and traditional timber carpentry, land stewardship and ecocultural relationships, and quarrying and working with stone.

Courses run across the 2026–27 academic year, with modules available from September 2026.

Find out more and apply for the Conservation and Reuse Short Courses via the link in bio.

12/09/2026

OPEN DAYS 2027

Thinking about studying at the AA? Come and explore our programmes, meet students and tutors, see work in progress and find out what life at the School is really like.

💻 Wednesday 7 October – Virtual Open Day
For applicants to:
• Foundation in Architecture, Art and Design
• BA (Hons) Architecture – Intermediate Programme
• Master of Architecture – Diploma Programme
• Graduate Certificate in Architecture – AA Transfer Programme

📍 Friday 23 October – In-Person Open Day
All programmes
Visit the AA in person, explore our studios and facilities, see student work and meet staff and students.

💻 Monday 2 – Thursday 5 November – Virtual Open Day
For applicants to our Taught Postgraduate and PhD programmes, including:

Architecture and Urbanism (DRL) · Conservation and Reuse · Design and Make · Emergent Technologies and Design · History and Critical Thinking in Architecture · Housing and Urbanism · Sustainable Environmental Design · Projective Cities · PhD

Across our Open Days, you can find out more about teaching and research at the AA, explore student work, ask questions about your programme, learn about funding and get advice on the admissions process.

Ready to find out more?
Register via the link in our bio.

07/09/2026

A Civic Solar Collective

Project by Mraz Ghafour, Diploma 3 (2025–2026)

Project description by Mraz:

This project proposes collective living in which energy becomes spatial, visible and socially distributed through architecture. Located in Santiago, it responds to strong solar exposure, seasonal temperature fluctuations, housing demand and dependence on mechanical heating and cooling.

The proposal operates as a linear thermal infrastructure that captures, stores and redistributes heat through thermal mass. A half-cone cascading reflective array acts as the primary character, while an inhabitable thermal receiver forms the secondary character. Suspended mosaic reflectors redirect and diffuse solar radiation towards the receiver, creating softer public atmospheres while concentrating thermal gain.

The receiver absorbs, stores and releases heat through calibrated thicknesses, textures and inhabitable pockets. These variations create thermal zones for housing, production, markets, performances, gathering, drying, curing, warming and preparation. Energy becomes occupiable and supports domestic and civic life.

Approximately 1m³ of concrete can store around 5.9 kWh of thermal energy through a 10°C increase, allowing the receiver to function as an environmental battery. The project shifts the city from individual consumption towards collective environmental participation, where social behaviour, programmes and thermal infrastructure operate together. Its sectional system can expand over time, connecting housing, civic uses and productive activities to a shared thermal landscape.

To explore more projects from Diploma 3 and other students, visit the Projects Review 2026 website via the link in bio.

01/09/2026

Synanceus

Project by Joshua Hallam, Intermediate 3, (2025–2026)h_at_the_aa

Project description by Joshua:
Lying along the periphery between river and shore, there sits a barrage of blob-like structures – the Synanceus. They are hybrids, made of a fluctuating, pulsating bio membrane shell, some areas rigid, some more flexible. Inside, mechanical components of sensors and other measure moisture contents in the ground and with its dorsal antennae, wind speeds of the coming typhoon. These colossal structures contain the excess floodwater, sucked up from their locality, to ensure that the surrounding environment never becomes catastrophically flooded.

Too often is it that architecture and environment are seen as separate. Yet, what reality shows, with stark consequence, is that for architecture to succeed, it must be considered as embedded with Nature and continuously in flux. Upon diluvial order, landscapes can be restored to normality. Gaïa’s restraint to impose disorder and radical environmental catastrophe can be reached only through a new kind of architecture, a new order for architecture.
NOA26 The New Order of Architecture

Explore more from Intermediate 3 and other student work from Projects Review 2026 via the link in bio.

29/08/2026

Kiss the dirt, drink the water

Project by Seunghyun Jeon, Intermediate 2 (2025–2026)

Project Description by Seunghyun:

Dirt refers to conditions that do not fit established categories and are often understood as something to be removed. For me, dirt emerges in conditions that remain slightly unresolved, requiring continual attention, judgement, and repetitive maintenance. This project asks how dirt can take architectural form through domestic rituals, improvised tools, and encounter devices.
‎
In London, water infrastructure is buried underground and managed through large-scale networks, distancing people from sensing the process between dirty Thames river water and supposedly clean drinking water. Without shared spaces of negotiation, water is passively consumed rather than collectively understood.
‎
What if London’s dirty water is reprocessed from filtering to drinking through the domestic scale once again? Reusing the Leaning Tower of Rotherhithe as a Dirty Water House, the project reimagines the mudlarker as a guardian of the tower and the Thames. Dirty water and found river fragments are brought into the building and transformed into visible repair, reusable material and drinkable water, bringing hidden water infrastructures back into public encounter. Through the act of drinking, dirty Thames water quietly returns back to everyday life.

Explore more projects from Intermediate 2 and other student work from Projects Review 2026 via the link in bio.

Architectural Association School of Architecture

23/09/2026

22/09/2026

18/09/2026

17/09/2026

16/09/2026

12/09/2026

12/09/2026

07/09/2026

01/09/2026

29/08/2026

Address

Website

Alerts

Contact The School

Shortcuts

Share

Category

Listing takedown request