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
Gabriel Felmer Plominsky
Development of a Prototype for Sustainable Social Housing in Chile
Supervisors: Simos Yannas, Paula Cadima
The central problem addressed by this project is the fuel poverty and poor environmental conditions experienced by low-income groups in social housing around Santiago. The research investigates the parameters influencing the environ¬mental performance of social housing schemes with the aim of developing low-cost designs for achieving thermal comfort by passive means without the need for any additional source of space heating. The final outcome of the project will be a replicable housing prototype for different urban areas and climate regions of Chile.
Gabriel Felmer obtained his degree as architect at the Faculty of Architecture and Town Planning of the University of Chile, where he carried out a Research Seminar on “Urban Eco-morphology” and participated in an international internship at L’Ecole National Superieure d’Architecture in Belleville, Paris. In February 2010 he obtained a scholarship from the Chilean government for his project “Sustainable Social Housing in Chile” and joined the PhD Programme in Sustainable Environmental Design.
e-mail: gefelmer@gmail.com