Architecture in Transition

As cultural producers, architects narrate and legitimise the systems and values of the world we inhabit, mediating between collapsing orders and emerging futures. AA Transfer invites students to reflect on their own transitions into architecture, while considering how design can contribute to world-making in a time of cultural, social and environmental change.

Building on this theme, the event brings together four practitioners and educators who each entered architecture from different fields including art, geography, psychology and philosophy. They will reflect on how these disciplinary crossings have shaped their work, and open a discussion on how their practices respond to the current moment of transition, including the UK’s ongoing educational reforms. Speakers include Nichola Barrington-Leach, Conrad Koslowsky, James Mak and Rory Sherlock​. The event will be chaired by James Kwang-Ho Chung and Ben Folkes.

About the AA Transfer (GradCert)

AA Transfer (GradCert) is the world’s first one-year graduate access programme in architecture. It is designed for graduates from non-architecture disciplines who wish to transition into architectural study and practice. The programme provides an intensive, design-led curriculum that prepares students for direct entry into the AA Diploma Programme (MArch) or other postgraduate pathways.

The programme encourages applicants to bring a wealth of knowledge and skills from their previous fields to bear in the context of architecture, and offers a new pathway into the AA School. Students are encouraged to translate their prior experience into architectural enquiry through research, experimentation and collaboration within the AA’s studio culture. The programme is structured around a year-long building design project which provides the framework for reinterpreting experience and study in other fields, while developing core competencies in design, research and communication.

Image: Beachfield Markup, Of Architecture

Please get in touch to let us know of any access requirements that you might have and how we can best accommodate these. If you are unable to attend physically but would like to participate in the event remotely please email publicprogramme@aaschool.ac.uk