Today the Lecture Hall, Library and Gallery sit among robotic arms, digital prototyping equipment, extensive research archives, audio-visual facilities, workshops, studio spaces and the AA bar, all of which connect with the workshop, fabrication areas and accommodation at Hooke Park. These resources are constantly evolving to reflect the requirements of the highest quality of contemporary architectural education, and the constant interaction between these varied components of the school embodies the intimate and interdisciplinary atmosphere that permeates all of the activities of the AA.
Located 200m from Hooke Park’s main campus, the timber processing yard is where raw timber sourced from the surrounding woodland is initially prepared for use. The processing yard hosts the site’s large sawmill, which can be used to break down logs into square sawn sections, in addition to Hooke Park’s bulk wood chip store which holds 400m3 of biomass fuel – providing heat and hot water to the entire campus. Our sawmill is a WoodMizer LT40 ‘Super Hydraulic’. This machine is a lightweight, fixed machine that can handle logs up to six metres in length and half a metre in diameter. This type of machine can take a ‘raw’ log from the forest – that is to say, the main trunk or stem of a tree minus its branches and leaves – and turn it into regularised, dimensioned sections that can be used in construction or be processed further in the workshop.