AA Jordan Prospectus 2014

J RDAN JUNE 14 - 24, 2014

CONTENTS

......... Introduction 1.0.... About .... The AA .... Visiting School Programmes .... Adminstration 2.0.... Our Programme in Jordan .... Agenda .... Context 3.0.... Workshop Format .... Faculty .... Methodologies 4.0.... Public Programme .... Guests 5.0.... Application .... Connect

THANK YOU Our programme is made possible through the sponsorship, support and partnership of various institutions.

We are continously seeking partners and sponsors to advance our successes. For opportunties, feel free to contact the Programme Director anytime at jordan@aaschool.ac.uk

Our Sponsors:

atlantis Tourism Investments Company

Our Local Hosts and Partners:

Our Partner Institutions:

Our Partners and Collaborators:

INTRODUCTION

Thank You for your interest in our AA Visiting School Programme. It is an intensive, thought-provoking workshop for architects, engineers and designers professionals and academics alike.

We are excited to bring to this region, distinguished faculty and guests to tutor and lecture on the cutting-edge in design today. We have setup the programme to utilize the distinct ecology of South Jordan, what exists in Petra and Wadi Rum. We find a vast potential to learn from these ecologies, and reconsider how we design in this region today. Join us, in June 2014 to become part of the paradigm.

Kais Al-Rawi Programme Director

THE AA

Unique, Dynamic, Independant and International The Architectural Association is the UK’s oldest and only private school of architecture, and has for decades been recognized as an influential world-wide leader in architectural education. AA School graduates are the recipients of numerous prizes including Pritzker Prizes, RIBA Gold Medal & Stirling Awards, AIA and other design awards. The AA School is the world’s most international school of architecture, with full-time students joining the AA from more than fifty home countries each year. The AA Public Programme each year organizes one of the world’s largest public programmes dedicated to contemporary architectural culture, presented at the AA and other venues and including dozens of visiting architects, artists, exhibitions, symposia and other events open to a public audience as well as 3,000 AA members world-wide.

The AA Visiting School is an extension to and embodiment of the AA School’s ‘unit system’ of teaching and learning architecture. The hallmark of this model is the delivery of distinctive, highly focused design agendas by talented teachers who lead a small, collaborative group of students, architects and other creative people in the development of projects. The AAVS is similarly about learning, exploring, collaborating and experimenting with a diverse group of international partners – schools, cultural institutions, local teachers and practitioners – in order to reimagine the shape, form and expectations of architectural education. The courses listed here show some of the dizzying range of architecture and other design, cultural and professional disciplines which aim to forward architectural knowledge and practise by direct engagement with the world’s larger, often untested realities of today.

ADMINSTRATION

Brett Steele

Christopher Pierce

Director Architectural Association Public Programme, AA

Director, Visiting School Programme Unit Master, Unit 9 Intermediate AA

Brett is the founder and former Director of the AADRL Design Research Lab, the innovative team- and network-based M.Arch programme at the Architectural Association. He is a Partner of DAL, desArchLab, an architectural office in London, and has taught and lectured at schools throughout the world. His interests include contemporary architecture and cities, architectural culture, and the impact of new media and today’s network-based distributed design and communication systems on architectural education. He is the editor of ‘Negotiate My Boundary’ (London 2002), ‘Corporate Fields’ (London 2005), ‘D[R]L Research’ (Beijing 2005), and ‘Supercritical’ (forthcoming, 2008). He is Series Editor of ‘AA Words: Critical Thinking in Contemporary Architecture’, and the ‘AA Agendas’ Series.

Brett’s articles, interviews & lectures have appeared in Arch+, AD, Architectural Review, A+U, Archis, AA Files, Harvard Design Magazine, The Architects Journal, Hunch, World Architecture, Log, Japan Architect, Icon Magazine, Daidalos and other journals; on CNN and the BBC and in other media.

Christopher Pierce studied at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University and gained a PhD from the University of Edinburgh. Among his recent publications are essays on Jordi Bonet Armengol, ‘Gaudi’s Gatekeeper’ (2011) and Cero 9, ‘Bump and Grind’ (2011). He formed MisArchitecture (mis-architecture. co.uk) with Christopher Matthews in 2000.

Christopher is the Unit Master for Inter 9 at the AA, further Chris directs the Visiting School Programmes of the Architectural Association.

Kais Al-Rawi Director & Tutor, Visiting School Jordan Architect, Synthesis Design+Architecture

Kais Al-Rawi is a registered architect (JEA).

Born in Amman, Jordan and is a Masters graduate from the Architectural Association in London and Ryerson University in Toronto. He is currently based in Los Angeles, working with the award-winning practice Synthesis Design+Architecture.

Kais specializes in generative design methodologies involving computation, investigating the potential they hold within architecture and urbanism. His ongoing design-research works which initiated at the AA have been privileged with publications, exhibitions and awards from international institutions including the AIA, d3 NYC, ACADIA and TEX-FAB Digital Fabrication Alliance.

Kais serves as the Director of the Architectural Association’ global studio in Jordan - Visiting School.

AA JORDAN AGENDA

The Jordanian desert ecology is a distinct unaltered antiquity, a magnificent heterogeneous landscape that is emergent of fluid erosion processes which have occurred over fifty million years. The biodiversity of the desert reveals a vast platform for research into natural artifacts. Participants will investigate natural phenomena which include sand dunes, rock strata, rock bridges, canyon, gorge and mountain formations. During the course of the workshop, participants will visit, examine and inhabit two UNESCO world heritage sites: Wadi Rum and Petra; the later named as one of the worlds seven wonders.

Throughout the design-research workshop, participants will investigate the morphology of the desert and its underlying principles and processes within a computational context; working towards the development of algorithmically generated topologies.

Participants will choose from a number of studios/units, to design interventions at different scales from the material, architectural to the urban. The ambition is to reconsider traditional design methodologies which are often limited to morphological abstraction; overlooking the inherent potentials within natural systems. The workshop will conclude with a public exhibition of participants outcomes.

CONTEXT

The Wadi Rum Desert will be a major focus of the workshop. It is well known for its magnificent sand landscape which is red in color which has eroded to soft sandstone over a period of over 50 million years. It is nestled by a series of mountainous formations which are emergent of fluid erosion processes. The landscape of Wadi Rum is often associated in its form with that of Mars and other planets. Wadi Rum is inhabited by Bedouins whom have developed over the years a local vernacular architecture of Tensile Structures which are environmentally responsive and sustainable.

The rose-red city of Petra is a distinct Architectural, Geological and Archaeological Site.

The city is a result of Human and Natural phenomena over thousands of years. From the Human perspective they include magnificent rock carvings with unprecedented level of detail. From the Natural Perspective, a diversity of morphologies exists as a result of fluid erosion process. These range from Canyon, Gorge and Mountain formations to rock strata and micro scale patterns.

The site remained unknown to the Western World until 1812, when it was introduced

by Swiss explorer Johann Ludwig Bruckhardt. It was described as “a rose-red city half as old as time” in a Newdigate Prize-winning poem by John William Burgon. UNESCO has described it as “one of the most precious cultural properties of man’s cultural heritage”

Amman is Jordan’s largest city and capital with about two-million inhabitants. The city has a mountainous terrain and was built on seven-hills (or Jabals) and has grown to over 20 Jabals in present day. Amman presents a unique urban fabric in terms of its architectural character, its connectivity and terrain. The landscape has defined much of the city’ urban metabolic processes and the way it operates today. The workshop will be hosted within one of Amman’s oldest Jabal’s.

FORMAT

DESIGN UNITS

SPECIALIST SEMINARS

MASTERCLASS SERIES

Multipe Design Advanced Software Guest-Lectures by Units lead by invited Seminars, for Design notable International faculty, varying in and Fabrication and Local Guests theme

10 days workshop

WORKSHOP TRIPS

PUBLIC EXHIBITION

Site Visits preceeding designresearch tasks

Exhibition of workshop outcomes open to a public audience

following exhibtion

FACULTY

Amman beirut los angeles london pa

architecture urban planning fashion des

aris berlin bologna vienna salzburg

sign civil engineering industrial design

FACULTY PROFILES AND RECENT WORKS

FACULTY’S RECENT WORKS

Kais Al-Rawi recent works at Synthesis Design + Architecture in Los Angeles

Julia Koerner’s recent 3D-printed collaborations with Haute Cotoure Designer Iris Van Herpen

Kais Al-Rawi, Julia Koerner and Marie Boltenstern research into Cellular Complexity

METHODOLOGY ANALYSIS

Morphological: -Computed Tomography (CT) Environmental: -Solar Analysis -Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD)

DESIGN

Generative: -Parametric Design (GH) -Scripting -Evolutionary Computation Form-Finding: -Dynamic Mesh Relaxation -Topological Opimization

Structural: -Finite Element Analysis (FEA)

Software: Realflow, Strand, Karamba, Ecotect, Vassari, Simulation CFD

Software: Maya, Rhino, Python, Grasshopper, Kangaroo,

PRESENTATION

-Rendering -Three-Dimensional Stereoscopic Imagery -Performance Simulations (from Analysis methods) -Prezi Dynamic Presentations

Software: Prezi, InDesign, Illustrator, Aftereffects, Primier, Maya, V-Ray, Keyshot

FABRICATION

Digital Fabrication: Fabrication optimization for: -CNC Routing -Additive Manufacturing (3D Printing) -Laser-Cutting Advanced Fabrication: -Composites -Vacuum Forming

PUBLIC PROGRAMME

As part of the Visiting School and our operation beyond Bedford Square in London.

We will include a public programme filled with events including: -International Keynote Guest Lectures -Faculty Guest Lectures -Panel Discussions -Round-table Discussions -Open Juries/Review -Exhibitions

2013 Exhibition at NABAD

GUESTS

Ross Lovegrove

Wael Attili

Other Guests will be announced shortly

APPLY The AA Visiting School requires a fee of ÂŁ845 Fees Include: -Access to all workshop events: design units, specialist seminars and masterclass series access to fabrication facilities -Visiting School Units Trip: private group transportation shared accommodation in Wadi Rum entry fees to Petra and Wadi Rum -Architectural Association Visiting Membership: discounted AA publications access to the AA in London wireless internet connection at the AA members newsletter library and photo library access (also online) -Certificate from the Architectural Association, London

Applications can be made online via http://jordan.aaschool.ac.uk or contact visitingschool@aaschool.ac.uk

WHY AA JORDAN?

-Computational Design -Develop a critical understanding of computational design both in theory and technical methodologies -Develop knowledge and capability of cutting edge software -Learn from professionals and academics who are on the forefront of computational design projects and eduction -Global Architecture Network -Become part of a larger discourse of computational design, and on the forefront of the region -Expand into a network of academics and practicioners abroad -Become part of the Architectural Association’ global network -Design Research -Excellent credintial for pursuing graduate studies -Expand into career opportunities in computational design -Develop a portfolio project -Outreach of work through exhibtions and publications

CONNECT

jordan.aaschool.ac.uk

AA Jordan | Visiting School

JORDAN@AASCHOOL.AC.UK

AA Visiting School Jordan