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
Elif Erdine
Generative Processes in Tower Design: Algorithms for the Integration of Tower Subsystems
Supervisors: George Jeronimidis, Michael Weinstock, Patrik Schumacher
The aim of the research is to propose a new systematic design approach towards the recreation of the architectural typology of the tower. The thesis argues that the tower must respond to its environment by changing from a closed building typology of repetitive floor plates to a heterogeneous, differentiated open system that can adapt to the changing conditions within and around it. This argument is supported by principles derived from biological analogies in order to propose computationally generated self-organising systems for the tower typology, with the aim of achieving an integrated model.
Elif Erdine is an architect and researcher. She has been working at Zaha Hadid Architects since March 2006. She is the Programme Director of AA DLAB Visiting School and AA Istanbul Visiting School. She has received her B.Arch. from Istanbul Technical University (ITU) in 2003, with high honors, and Master of Architecture & Urbanism degree from the AA in 2006 with Project Distinction. She is a registered architect in Turkey.
e-mail: elif.erdine@aaschool.ac.uk
website: www.elif-erdine.com
http://dlab.aaschool.ac.uk/
http://ai.aaschool.ac.uk/