AA Women in Architecture 1917-2017

October 2017 marks the centenary of the admission of the first female students to the Architectural Association. Published to coincide with a symposium, exhibition and series of talks all celebrating this event, AA Women in Architecture puts forward the stories of women who have entered the architectural profession and their contributions to architectural practice and education.

An Anatomy of influence

Written by Thomas Daniell, with a foreword by Thomas Weaver and an afterword by Peter Cook, An Anatomy of Influence contains a wealth of texts and images that together elucidate the theory and practice of 12 leading Japanese architects. Rather than the usual array of exquisite yet autonomous buildings, this book focuses on the hitherto unexplored lives of their architects, and the febrile intellectual, social and political environment in whichthey worked. The period covered spans from the postwar decades up to the present day, but the emphasis is on the radical transformation of Japan’s architectural culture that occurred in the 1960s and 1970s: from envisioning rigorously systematised urban plans to creating introverted private houses, from the imitation of western modernism to the study of non-western vernaculars, from the ruthless demolition of historical buildings to the documentation of forgotten objects, from rigid authorial control to flexible user participation, from industrialised prefabrication to self-build experimentation, from a seemingly homogenous society to an enthusiastic celebration of personal differences. The cumulative result is not only a fascinating perspective on modern

AA Files X

Even the most casual visitor to the AA’s club-liked premises at Bedford Square where the school, the London and International networks make contact in a series of elegant eighteenth-century public rooms, cannot but be caught up in the momentum of the daily events which have made the AA a centre for the public discussion and display of architecture on a unique and unprecedented scale. Unfortunately, until the advent AA Files,’ writes AA Chairman Alvin Boyarsky in 1981 in the opening pages of the first issue of the long-running journal, ‘few glimpses have been available and certainly no documents exist recording aspects of this all-important phenomenon.’ In this student-edited issue AA Files 76 looks back on 37 years of not only glimpsing architecture as it happened at the AA, but also of writing about architecture and, through the idiosyncrasies, interests and generosity of its authors and editors, extending those conversations far beyond Bedford Square. Presented in facsimile, AA Files X revisits the voices, ideas, drawings and designs that have filled its pages for nearly  four decades.

AA Files Conversations

Léon Krier , John Winter,Mario Botta, Robin Middleton Thomas Weaver (ed.) This volume - the first in an anticipated series of similar anthologies - collates conversations from the past ten issues of AA Files, the long-running journal published by the Architectural Association School of Architecture. It includes extended interviews with architects François Dallegret, Léon Krier, John Winter, Mario Botta, John Frazer, Massimo Scolari, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Moshe Safdie, artists Richard Wentworth and Thomas Demand, film maker Sally Potter, philosopher Paul Virilio, historian Robin Middleton and photographers Tim Street-Porter and Hilla Becher.

Geologics ( SP ED. )

Geografía, Información, Arquitectura Vicente Guallart Vicente Guallart, pioneer of new media in architecture, examines the technological, social and cultural changes inherent in our information society for fresh ways of building in the city. Presenting the last 15 years of his work, this book investigates architecture s ability to construct systems for habitable environments in diverse environmental, social and economic conditions. His collaborations with specialists in geology, anthropology, sociology, engineering, economy, software and interface design have blurred traditional boundaries. The projects follow a "natural" logic, referring to components originating in nature, as well as to environmental systems. A logic that connects nature with the transformations of urban spaces, social organizations, and the digital world.

Color en Masa (SP ED.)

Hormigon y Pigmentos: Ciudad de la Justicia de Barcelona David Chipperfield A complete analysis on the project and construction of the new City of Justice of Barcelona Currently, the various departments of justice of Barcelona and L’Hospitalet de Llobregat are scattered in 17 buildings distributed between the two cities, with functional frustrations for both users and employees. A new conjoined City of Justice will improve efficiency and allow working spaces to adapt and absorb the constant transformation of the judicial body while allowing extra space for future growth. This monograph is devoted to the winning project by b720 architects and David Chipperfield Architects, describing all details from the design process to the construction phase. The most significant proposition breaks up the massive program requirements (241.519,92 m2) into a series of separate but inter-related buildings on a public plaza, engendering a spatial composition that attempts to break the rigid and monolithic image of justice. This proposal also attempts to provide an equilibrium in the relationships between the different working areas, public areas and landscape. The book is organized in four different sections. The first chapter is an interview between David Chipperfield and Fermin Vazquez; the second gives an overview of the project with visual material and drawings; part 3 talks about the execution of the building by B720, and there is a final technical analysis on the pigmented concrete by Lanxess, the chemical company that collaborated on the project. B720 is a studio founded in 1997 and managed by Fermin Vazquez. It has offices in Madrid, Barcelona and Porto Alegre (Brazil). English edition

Nuevas Naturalezas

La Estación Intermodal de Logroño Inma E. Maluenda Ábalos+Sentkiewicz arquitectos Monograph dedicated to the new Intermodal Station Logroño, Spain by Iñaki Abalos and Renata Sentkiewicz, tells how the authors started from the intention to exploit the underground of the tracks and the train station to create a memorable urban event. Under a single encompassing gesture, it doesn't only contribute functional benefits to the city of Logroño (a new high-speed railway and bus station), but specially allows to create a large pedestrian space, a park or artificial hill, culminating with uninterrupted pursuit of a new urban green ring where the tracks would separate the city in two. Among its contents, the book also includes an unpublished article by Stan Allen, interview with the editors, I. E. Maluenda and E. Encabo to Abalos and Senkiewicz, some specialized essays by T. Galí-Izard and M. C. Gutierrez as well as the photography by Jose Hevia of both the construction process and the finished project in its first phase. English edition.

Suspended City: L’Aquila after the Earthquake (IT ED.)

Michele Nastasi The photographs taken by Michele Nastasi of L’Aquila after the earthquake lay the city implacably bare as a place where it has become impossible to live: a deserted and surreal landscape, choked with structures shoring up the buildings and fixing the city in a state of suspension without any time limit. The photographs, accompanied by drawings and essays written by Giorgio Agamben and Maddalena d’Alfonso, conjure up images of surgery: prostheses, braces and splints stabilize the body of the city, but while the operations have been a technical success, the patient shows no signs of life. The picture of L’Aquila presented here is not just a record of the catastrophe of the earthquake and its aftermath, but an image that has become exemplary of some decisive changes underway in the whole of European and Western culture. What is brought into focus in this book is the shift in political paradigms and the nature of government action, the febrile relationship of culture with history and the need to restore the experience of the community and urban living to its central role as a forge of identity.

Yona Friedman / Pro Domo ( SP ED. )

Yona Friedman In 1958 Yona Friedman published his first manifesto on "mobile architecture" and founded GEAM (Groupe d'Etude d'Architecture Mobile), which proposed different strategies and actions geared to the adaptation of architectural creation to modern user requirements for social and physical mobility. In this initial manifesto, Friedman claims that architectural knowledge cannot be the exclusive property of professionals and specialists, and suggests writing guides or manuals, which explain topics related to architecture and urban planning in clear and simple terms. Pro Domo is "a collection of fragments of scattered topics," a set of "milestones" selected by the author himself, a personal selection chosen “according to sentimental value”, spanning 50 years of production. Buy English edition

VERB CONNECTION (SP ED.)

Albert Ferré The third issue of Verb boogazine is about the changing status of the city in the electronic era. Connection looks at the impact of electronic technology on new forms of urban reality, which are generated by new phenomena that affect all aspects of space and the experience of living in these new urbanisms. Faced with an increased blurring of the distinctions between the physical and the informational dimension of cities, we explore the relation between virtual connections - the effect of digital networks on the spaces and uses of the city - and the persistent role of architecture in creating physical connections between people, programs and uses. Featured works and texts: OMA, Atelier Bow-Wow, AUDC, PLOT. Featuring the Palast der Republik story in Berlin, Chip City by Shinobu Hashimoto and Rients Dijkstra, and Sim City, which contrasts the real city (the product of virtual processes) with virtual cities (created by real people, via computer-based simulations).

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An Anatomy of influence

AA Files X