AJ Student Prize 2023: Architectural Association

About the School of Architecture

Location London WC1 | Courses BA (Hons) Architecture/AA Intermediate Examination (Intermediate Programme), MArch/AA Diploma and AA Final Examination (Diploma Programme) | Head of school Ingrid Schroder | Full-time tutors 15 | Part-time tutors 268 | Students 944 | Staff to student ratio 1:3

Undergraduate

Liča Anić

Course BA (Hons) Architecture (Intermediate Programme)
Studio/unit brief Shifting Landscapes (Intermediate 15)
Project title Breaking the Thermal Silence

Project description This project explores the design and experience of heat in architecture through a heating infrastructure for Halifax. It reimagines the city as a centre for green energy production, adapting its widespread industrial chimneys for geothermal use. The proposal works on two scales: civic and domestic. The civic hearth is an energy centre, allowing collective gathering around the generated waste heat. The domestic hearth adopts the once-common practice of organising space in relation to heat source. An existing terrace house in Halifax serves as a testing site. 

Tutor citation Liča’s thesis challenges our relationship to heat and climate within modern architecture. She questions the collective experience of thermal spaces and proposes a geothermal energy infrastructure alternative that aligns with a carbon-free future in 2050. What emerges is thoughtful and provocative. Nichola Barrington-Leach, Caroline Pepper

Postgraduate

Seonwoo Kim

Course MArch (Diploma Programme)
Studio/unit brief The Office: (Re)working with What We Have (Diploma 18)
Project title AA Material Training Ground

Project description Practical Training Ground was a postwar AA initiative, occupying bombed-out sites behind the school. This project seeks to revive its spirit by addressing the post-pandemic wave of demolition of office buildings in the surrounding area. It would occupy 90 Tottenham Court Road as the AA’s new Material Training Ground – repositioning the school at the centre of a local reuse network. It would house a workshop to test prototypes of reuse, a showroom for reclaimed materials, a 1:1 mock-up site, extended studio space, a lecture hall and an exhibition room.

Tutor citation Seonwoo’s project knits together various themes that often remain separate. It asks what it would take to reuse the elements of everyday Modernism, such as precast concrete panels, and rethink them as tools not just to avoid demolitions but to introduce a healthier metabolism to our buildings – even those less loved. James Westcott, Juliana Westcott