The First Year of the Intermediate Programme at the AA introduces students to the study of architecture. The programme is characterised by a studio-based environment where we explore freely and take daring positions while remaining open to the input of others. We do so by learning to think critically through group projects, fieldwork focused on buildings and cities, and visits to archives, offices and workshops.

This year, the AA’s motto ‘Design with Beauty, Build in Truth’ will be our guide. We will learn by exploring works of architecture that exhibit intentional aesthetic qualities, aiming to sharpen our perceptions and attune our sensibilities. Here, we take ‘aesthetic’ not to refer to visual pleasures, but instead to the experiences of our bodies and our senses, directing this attention towards spaces, places and territories that trigger a sense of awe, of bliss, of vivacity and more We will explore works of art that provoke, in which beauty mingles with the grotesque, the ugly and ‘the other’.

We will study works in which the languages of form have been reinvented to move beyond merely fulfilling a need. In so doing, we will suspend our engagement with reality and instead engage with aesthetic worlds where composition and abstraction are used to invent new experiences. We will look within and beyond architectural works and ideas towards examples from literature, cinema, poetry, music, art and science.

In the First Year, we approach the study of architecture as a way of thinking protectively: challenging ourselves to look beyond what is apparent and to engage with the otherworldly, while learning from the past and speculating into the future. By experiencing remarkable work with all our senses, we will be challenged to pay attention to the differences between stepping into a space and seeing an image of it. We will ask: how far can the eye see? How differently do we perceive space from a static point of view versus running through it? Can we learn to apprehend the contours of form?