AAVS New York
Urban futures
08.01.2025 - 08.09.2025
Application Deadline 07.28.2025
The AA Visiting School New York aims to investigate new computational approaches and collaborative design methodologies for the development of urban interventions – blurring the lines between physical and digital workflows to create new conceptions of urban habitats. Participants will foster strategies of automation in design and construction, utilizing advanced large scale 3D printing technologies as basis for their interventions.
With a focus on New York City’s Governors Island, participants will explore the unique historical context and promising recent attention in development and public programming across the site through proposals aimed at invigorating interest and offering solutions to the challenges of this unique urban framework.
The studio will reconsider the role of the designer as that of a system architect – one who produces a framework for construction and building lifecycles that can continuously generate new futures. Experimentation is a key focus of the programme: we will question conventions through unconventional design that initiates discourse, offering novel solutions that can adapt to the changing landscapes of the built environment around the world.
Overview
In partnership with Pratt Institute, this in-person nine day programme will kick off with a symposium featuring presentations and panels by leading designers, urban thinkers and academics, focused on ideas of automation in design and construction, utilizing advanced large scale 3D printing technologies.
With this foundation of ideas presented, along with guest lectures and Master Class instruction, participants will explore how strategies of automation in design can be transformed through community participation and innovative models of adaptive space planning. Participants will tour successful urban interventions and infrastructure throughout New York City, and visit some of the leading design offices shaping our cities for local perspectives on approaching design on sensitive contextual sites.
Throughout the programme, participants will work in small groups to develop design proposals under the guidance of our talented design Instructors from some of the world’s leading design offices and academic institutions. To conclude, group presentations will be critiqued by distinguished architects and academics whose research focuses on urbanisation and the role technology plays the design of future urban systems.
Urban Futures
Throughout the programme a series of morning and evening lectures will be presented to the participants on topics relevant to the workshop agenda, offering exposure to a wide range of methodologies and applications used by tutors and guest speakers in their practices, and providing a rich platform for discussions and exchange of ideas. See our growing list of speakers here.
Studio Workshop
Each group of students will produce a proposal driven by new, advanced computational techniques that will postulate their versions of a future urban outcome driven by technological innovations and urban changes within New York City. These proposals will be expressed through renders, animations, and diagrammatic representations.
In Person Learning and Global Access
AAVS New York will be fully in-person. All workshops, lectures, crits and collaborations will take place both on Governors Island and Pratt Institute in Brooklyn.
Participants unable to visit New York have the option to audit the programme, receiving virtual access to the Symposium, Instruction Sessions, Master Class Presentations, and Lecture Series. This option includes no direct instruction, participation in the development of a group project, or receipt of certificate course completion.
Digital Platforms
The programme will focus on digital and scripted design methodologies as well as cutting-edge AI platforms, realised through digital representation techniques. Focused on the utilization of Rhinoceros and Grasshopper, each invited tutor will be introducing their own advanced methods of working within these platforms for a diversity of design outcomes and an exposure for participants in each group to differentiated design methodologies.
No previous software experience is necessary and will be taught from a basic level so all participants and grow and develop their digital skills.
Symposium
08.01.2025
Governors Island in New York City
In partnership with Pratt Institute, the Architectural Association Visiting School New York Programme will host a symposium on disruptive construction technologies, focusing on automation strategies and scalable solutions for the built environment. We will explore the latest advancements in these technologies and their potential impact on the architecture, engineering, and construction industry. The symposium will feature discussions on innovative construction approaches, the integration of automation in building processes, such as 3D printing, and the benefits of modular and prefabricated construction methods. Attendees will have the opportunity to engage with field experts, examine case studies, and consider the future of construction in the context of these disruptive technologies.
In laying out a framework of the issues related to the island, we will explore its unique history and examine the recent surge of interest in the site. We will consider the unique opportunities for growth and discuss the balance of interests needed for successful preservation and development.
Symposium event is free and open to the public.
