The AA School’s PhD programme combines advanced research with a broader educational agenda, preparing graduates for practice in global academic and professional environments. Current doctoral research encompasses the topics of the school’s postgraduate programmes in architectural theory and history, architectural urbanism, emergent technologies and design, and sustainable environmental design. Within each of these strands candidates can engage in design-led research (PhD in Architectural Design) or follow the traditional route of the text-based dissertation. Across the programme’s streams, shared research issues are explored through specialist groups, seminars and other events in and outside of the school. This year, several of the programme’s PhD candidates contributed to conferences and publications in the UK and abroad. ‘A Day on the Grid’ was a public event organised by Alexandra Vougia, Costandis Kizis and Gabriela García de Cortázar Galleguillos, held in early May. The programme’s current PhD candidates and recent graduates participated, as well as teaching staff and students from across the school. The day tackled the issue of the grid from nine angles, each examined by two papers: ‘prologue’, Aldo Urbinati; ‘urban’, Alexandra Vougia and Ross Adams; ‘maps’, Gabriela García de Cortázar Galleguillos and Emmanouil Stavrakakis; ‘drawing’, Alison Moffett and Nerma Cridge; ‘plan’, Alejandra Celedon and Costandis Kizis; ‘intermission’, Merve Anil and Eleanor Dodman; ‘coordinates’, Ryan Dillon and Arturo Revilla; ‘graph’, Valeria Guzman and Jingming Wu; ‘epilogue’, Doreen Bernath; ‘discussion’, Pier Vittorio Aureli, Mark Campbell and Marina Lathouri.
Director
Simos Yannas
Supervisors
Pier Vittorio Aureli
Lawrence Barth
Paula Cadima
Mark Cousins
Jorge Fiori
Hugo Hinsley
George Jeronimidis
Marina Lathouri
Patrik Schumacher
Brett Steele
Thomas Weaver
Michael Weinstock
Simos Yannas
External Supervisors
Doreen Bernath
Vida Norouz Borazjani
David Cunningham
Socratis Georgiadis
Spyros Papapetros
Edward Soja
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Arturo Revilla
ProcessCity: Architecture and the Border Condition
Supervisors: Marina Lathouri, Brett Steele
A growing literature seeks to provide a theoretical foundation for the interde¬pendencies between the use of digital tools among design disciplines and their fields of action. In architecture, change has been embraced by the use of sophisticated geometries as instruments for representing and articulating urban and environmental forces. Regardless of their contributions, these tendencies have continuously dis¬missed the influences and possibilities that electronic communication networks have on the physical environment. This research embraces the shift from understanding cit¬ies as artefact to systems that evolve, grow and change in ways that might be guided and managed, moving from an emphasis on structure and form to one of behaviour and process. ProcessCity explores inno¬vative relations between architecture and emerging forms of public space. To this aim, the thesis focuses on the question of the border, a conceptual, spatial and mate¬rial condition for design to articulate local parameters, socio-political implications and material networks, all of which are key influences to the success of architecture’s relation to the city.
Arturo studied Architecture at Universidad Iberoamericana in Mexico City (2001) and at the Architectural Association March-DRL in London (2007). His work experience includes projects in Mexico and abroad. He has collaborated with Zaha Hadid Architects in London and codirects the AA Houston Visiting School. Lectures and teaching include, University of Kent, UIA, UAA Aguascalientes, Chelsea College of Art, The Architectural Association, University of Palermo and Torcuato di Tella in Buenos Aires. In 2011 Arturo started a PhD in Architectural Design.
e-mail: Jose.Revilla@aaschool.ac.uk