For the fifth year running the Architectural Association migrated to southeast Asia to offer an intensive introduction to the school’s approach to architectural education and design. The workshop investigated instrumental forms of urban density – ‘Designed Geographies’ – and develop alternative ways of observing and reading the city to generate strategic frameworks for its evolution. Building on research initiated in last year’s workshop, participants took the contrived geographical setting of Singapore as the starting point for a broader reflection on prospective tools for dense urban fields.

This year's programme focused on artificial expansions of specific urban conditions and their new geographies. The design potential of operational growth was investigated through new strategies that are able to adapt to multiple, fast-changing urban inputs. By relating the preset topographical limitations and geopolitical conditions of Singapore to an exploration of territorial discontinuity at various scales. Participants began to develop scenarios that – paradoxically – allowed for an extension of both uniqueness and diversity. Traditional mapping techniques, tweaked by appropriating strategies from the field of geography, yielded new readings of the coastal thresholds from which design proposals can emerge. In parallel with an introduction to modelling and digital fabrication techniques, participants developed an analytic approach to various representational tools.

This studiobased design workshop was divided into small groups, each of which directed by AA teaching staff. Each unit approached the shared agenda of Designed Geographies in a distinctive way, offering a broad introduction to creative design processes, critical forms of thinking and urban research. Common discussions and presentations will provide platforms for sharing questions and knowledge.

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AA Workshop 2009
AA Workshop 2008
AA Workshop 2007
AA Workshop 2006