Climate Matters

Climate Matters Week will give students and staff the opportunity to explore and present their opinions, concerns, and their architectural ideas for the impending climatic and ecological changes that the world will face over our lifetime. The ambition is to bring heightened awareness of the work of our community to each other, to provide knowledge of the interrelated cultural and social impacts of climate change across the range of spatial and temporal scales. We want to inform and to inspire, so that students have the knowledge and confidence to imagine architectures that tread more lightly on the earth and are adaptive to the future of a changed world.

Imagination of future architectures requires an understanding of the current and impending changes to climate as well as the severity of risks that can cascade through all the natural and societal systems. Where and how we live in the world today now was once imaginary – all our buildings, including the ones we inhabit in Bedford Square, public spaces and infrastructures of the world, the various structures of societies, computation and the internet, Artificial Intelligence, all the way down to the smallest physical artefacts of daily life, once existed only in imagination. They evolved into the material world that regarded the natural world as a source for extraction and exploitation, they developed and proliferated until they became part of the fabric of everyday life. What has rarely been studied and imagined until recently was how all human activities have impacted on the climate and ecological systems of the earth. Imagination of the future is the crucial activity of architects, as we live with the consequences of our activities and now face an existential crisis.

The week has three themes:

Origins and Destinations
The impact of humans on the natural environment, the origins of the Anthropocene, and how mainstream culture and economics has led to the climate emergency. Identification of the social inequities of climate changes and why we should tread more lightly on the earth.

Culture and Engagement
The research and social/political interventions that are current, where to find out the detail of existing and predicted impacts on terrestrial and ocean/coastal ecosystems, on cities and settlements, and on different regions across the world.

Futures
Exploration of the architect’s role in mitigation to reduce our impact on the planet, and the imagination of future architectures that are adapted to a changed world.

AA Low Carbon
A visual survey of the AA's carbon footprint can be accessed here.

SCHEDULE:
All events are held in the AA Lecture Hall unless otherwise stated, and are open to the public.

Events:

Monday 30 October – The Climate Emergency
12.30pm: Welcome Address by AA Director Ingrid Schroder
1.00pm: Michael Weinstock on The Climate Emergency
2.30pm: Student Forum-hosted discussion in the AA Bar
5.00pm: Cíaran Malik on Zero Carbon
6.00pm: Giles Bruce and Tom Raymont on the AA Low Carbon Initiative

Tuesday 31 October – Climate Change, Culture and Societal Engagement
1.00pm: Suzanne Dhaliwal on Climate Justice
Followed by a panel discussion led by Student Forum
2.00pm: Paul Feeney and Marie-Louise Raue on The Cultural Presence of Material
3.00pm: AA Material Arcade on Material Matters: A Material Training Ground Exploration
3.45pm: Student Forum-hosted discussion in the AA Bar
5.00pm: Albane Duvillier and Elliot Rogosin on Designing with What is to Hand with Henna Burney and Ruth Lang
6.00pm: Territorial Agency on Why the Anthropocene Baffles Architecture
Followed by a panel discussion led by Student Forum

Wednesday 1 November – Landscape, Ecology and Material Futures for a Changing World
All day in the Barrel Vault: Natural Dye Textile Workshop with Defne Özdoğan
1.00pm: Darshil Shah on Visions of the Future: Biomaterials and Bioarchitecture
2.00pm: Katya Bryskina and Nataly Nemkova on Nature Machine: Bio-infrastructures
3.00pm: Rowland Keeble and Ivan Morison on Earth Architecture
5.00pm: Nicolay Boyadjiev of re:arc institute on Non-Extractive Architecture
6.00pm: José Alfredo Ramírez Galindo and Clara Óloriz Sanjuan. on Landscape, Nature and the City

Thursday 2 November – Innovations and Ambitions in Practice, Now and in the Future
1.00pm: Celina Martinez Canavate, Carla Ferrer and Thomas Hildebrand on Presentation and Book Launch for Touch Wood: Material Architecture for the Future
2.00pm: Wood Lab and Wyatt Armstrong with Chris Sadd on the 100-Year Forest
3.00pm: Joanna Gonçalves and Anna Font with invited guest speakers on the Pedagogy of Environmental Practice
3.45pm: Climate x Social Justice as a Form of Practice – Diploma 12 and Landscape Urbanism in conversation with Student Forum in the AA Lecture Hall
5.00pm: Brigitte Clements on Circular Economy: Reshaping the Foundations of Architectural Innovation
6.00pm: Wolf Mangelsdorf of Buro Happold on Climate Change Adaptation and Resilience in Architecture and Engineering
Followed by a panel discussion led by Student Forum

Friday 3 November – Visions of the Future
11.00am: Pecha Kucha Presentations and Manifestos by programmes across the school - click here for a full schedule
4.00pm: Elsa Arcaute on The Future of Cities
5.00pm: Panel discussion moderated by Hamed Khosravi, Cíaran Malik, Michael Weinstock with Student Forum, followed by a drinks reception

Exhibitions:

South Jury Room – The Science
An exhibition presenting dynamic visual data of real-time world temperatures, currents, wind and weather; interactive wall displays with direct access to IPCC-predicted futures, regional and biome- and system-based impact studies; and a collaborative annotated world map.

Lecture Hall and AA Bar – Exemplary Student Projects
Posters detailing the AA's carbon footprint and activities within its spaces, alongside statements and images from completed projects by students that have been framed, curated and displayed by the Student Forum.

Graduate Gallery – Work in Progress
An ad-hoc pinup space for statements, workshops and images of projects-in-progress by students, curated by the Student Forum