A friend of mine attended last year. She enjoyed it greatly but did not produce any traditional 'architecture' work. In the end she produced a book and a garment that were vehicles for social interaction with space. I'm pretty sure some of the other groups did projects more similar to what one would expect, I suppose it comes down to who you have for your professor.

switch
thank you for the response. I assume your friend has an arch. background?

No not at all. She has an undergrad in an unrelated field and took the program to gain some material for her portfolio for grad school applications. From what I remember, she said there was quite a mix of ages/backgrounds/levels of experience in the group.

I had the same question 1 month ago and thought that I had to try. But I have kind of question for those who already have been there, I was accepted for entrance but after paying the tution fees I haven't got the confirmation till now. So it's almost 2 weeks. I'm a bit nervous... why?!

I don't think I could handle a summer without drinking....so no AA for me.

They didn't answer me as well (I didn't pay though). Too busy?


snook_dude, there're pubs in London everywhere:)

archiwhat, I hope so. did you enter summer school in london or international one?

soulofautumn,
I was trying to contact them about the London school, haven't actually been accepted yet.

i don't know about what others experiences were like, but I would recommend the AA summer design program. I study interaction design now, and the concepts discussed there 5 years ago still remain highly relevant to what i'm doing right now. i don't know what it's like there now, but i get the sense that they have a good reputation for being ahead of the curve. plus it's exposure to european style pedagogy, which is a good complement/ rounding out of a north american/ US background (if that's where you're from)

oh and go while the pound sterling is down comparative to the dollar. it's a steal compared to a few years ago!

soulofautumn
did you send your application via email or via snail mail?

for some reason nobody answers my letters..

archiwhat,
I've sent it via email. Maybe they have some network problems. Recently I sent several emails but noone have answered till now.

we have to wait...

i was a little let down by the AA shanghai program. I live in Shanghai, and I was hoping that we would have received a much more organized set of information about the city. I don't think anyone left the program with a better urbanistic understanding of Shanghai--beyond what they could see with their eyes.

However, I did have the chance to produce really nice work, but the period of study was simply too short to learn about computer programming to complete an excercise of variable-related urban design. (if you didnt' already have the skillz)

However, I could see enrolling in the program if you were not already attending an excellent architecture program. It would be a good introduction to quick methods and what happens in a studio-like environment. Also, many of the shanghai AA program participants did not speak english, unforturnately, and were chinese students signing up only to get it on their applications to the AA for later..

Is it mostly about urbanism?

No, the shanghai one was not about urbanism at all... except in the fact that shanghai combines 2 scales--one large, and one tiny, and they are adjacent to each other. I am serious when i say that that course could have benefited from a real urban design professor. basically you get 2 TA's who are AA trained, and then you get 2 digital-stuff professors. and that's it. urbanism was not discussed. you work on computer simulations in a 'city' however, but study no 'site.', the site is imaginary. how that's a study of 'urbanism' i'm not sure.

But, i liked the course, i'm just glad i didnt waste my money to fly and then stay in shanghai for it. i just happened to live here.

Charisma124

What did you like the most except you being in the same city? :)

lets see. i did make connections in shanghai. that was nice. and .. i got off work for a week.. that was nice too.. and ..it was also nice to be thrown together with people who were from different european universities, and also different backgrounds of work--ie. realty, etc.

Charisma124]


I actually meant what did you like about the program itself? What kind of knowledge did you obtain? You've mentioned something about quick methods..
I'm thinking if it's gonna be useful for me at the moment. Thanx.

knowledge? ... I guess I learned more about what is possible with parametric modeling in architecture/urban des. We were given a few presentations on some previous projects AA students had done in the past.

I also learned about the debate of why not to use parametric modeling in urban design---and there's a lot of criticism on the usefulness of parametrics in urban designing..the idea of plugging in data , and outputting a city is just too 'hands off' for traditional planning methods, and faces the difficult proposition of never become mainstream---which also then poses the student a question: why learn it, if no one will seriously buy into the idea at a firm. If your primary skill is 'parametric urban design', i say to you: that's so cool, but can you use it at work? my guess is ... no.