Emergent Technologies and Design Architectural Association

Overview

Architectural Association continues to investigate new synergies of architecture and ecology through the critical intersection of computational design and advanced fabrication. 

The focus is on exploring the experiential, social and cultural potentials of new material and spatial configurations for architectural, urban and ecological design solutions situated in the dynamic contexts of emerging biomes. 

The Emergent Technologies and Designprogramme is designed to stimulate critical thinking through experience of research-driven design projects that are developed in an intellectually rigorous and creative studio environment. 

The projects are pursued by multiple iterations through hypothesis, material and computational experimentation, advanced fabrication including robotics, and evaluation; reflected upon in verbal presentations and group discussions; and documented in analytical and scientifically-structured papers.

The programme has two distinct phases: the Studio and the Dissertation, both of which are aligned with and supported by the research of the programme team and the advanced expertise of our alumni and research colleagues in practice and industry.

Design research is central to the agendas of Emergent Technologies and Design. 

The programme proceeds from the fundamental premise of a shared understanding between staff, students, researchers and collaborators across the world that nature and artifice are strongly coupled; that the cultural production of artefacts and systems exist as part of the environment of other active systems; and that they are subject to change. We also share an understanding that causality of change is complex and multi-scalar, that the dynamics of change are perturbed and accelerated by human activities; we share a concern for the consequences of those changes to society and the natural world.