Monday 30 October – Friday 3 November 2023
AA Lecture Hall, 36 Bedford Square, London


Climate Matters Week is a festival of events at the Architectural Association (AA) School of Architecture in which students, staff, guests and the public will share and generate architectural ideas in response to the climate emergency.

A week-long programme of lectures, debates and workshops will bring the school community together to disseminate knowledge, share concerns and empower students to effect change. The ambition is to promote awareness of the work being done within the AA community to address the climate emergency, and to highlight its social and cultural impacts across a range of scales. The festival will encourage students to imagine new architectures that tread more lightly on the earth and are adaptive to a changing world.

Climate Matters Week is organised around three themes: Origins and Destinations, Culture and Engagement, and Futures. Events will take place every lunchtime, afternoon and evening, with space in the schedule for open discussion and independent work in response to the ideas explored in the sessions. All AA students have been invited to spend the week producing work that expresses their vision for the future in relation to the climatic changes they will face during their lifetime. These works will be presented in the Lecture Hall on Friday 3 November. Exhibitions in the AA’s Jury Rooms will include dynamic visualisations of climate-related data, interactive displays, exemplary previous student projects and an ad-hoc pinup space for statements and images by students.

The programme includes a presentation on the AA Low Carbon Initiative, a project begun by the school in September 2022 to reduce its carbon emissions, increase literacy in low-carbon design strategies among students and staff, and position the school at the forefront of low-carbon design innovation. The first phase of the project has surveyed the carbon emissions that arise from all of the AA’s activities, and the presentation during Climate Matters Week will share this data with the school community and discuss potential approaches to reduce the AA’s carbon footprint.

For a full schedule of events taking place during Climate Matters Week, visit the What's On listing. The festival has been organised by Michael Weinstock, Chair of the AA’s Academic Committee, with the support of a working group of AA staff including Brigitte Clements, Hamed Khosravi, Cíaran Malik, Marko Milovanovic, Milad Showkatbakhsh and members of the AA Student Forum.

For more information about the festival or to arrange an interview, please email publicprogramme@aaschool.ac.uk. All events during Climate Matters Week are open to the public.