Defined by its difference: Architectural Association Student Show 2023

The taming of the Architectural Association (AA) is perhaps the true project on show at this year’s Projects Review. This is the first summer show since the election of new director Ingrid Schroder, and it feels radically different. Where previous years’ displays were generally sprawling and wild in their nature, Schroder has curated the very broad outputs of the AA into a more mature unified voice – a community with a collective purpose.

In a departure from the regular jostling for real estate among the warren of buildings at Bedford Square, this year’s show has been organised with clarity and order. All the school’s programmes, from foundation to PhD, are represented in four ‘rooms’ categorised by different forms of architectural representation: models, books, films and drawings. A fifth room of ‘images’ features a wallpaper of snapshots, each chosen by a student at the school, forming a collective collage by the school community.

In its long history, the AA has often defined itself by its difference, setting itself apart as an outlier with its own impenetrable obscure eccentricities. Schroder taking the reins has sought to demystify the school and dissolve some of the more egocentric projects into a conversation about plurality and collaboration, in order, as Schroder puts it, to ‘reset the datum’.

Each room presents strong projects. Sustainability and outreach feel foundational to the students’ approach to a huge range of contexts. A little digging and engaging always brings up intrigue and treasure.

There was a lot to be said for the democratic mixing between units and programmes. While the units are broadly zoned, all levels of the school occupy a level playing field. In the Books room, impressive tomes by students of the Projective Cities postgraduate programme sit next to collaborations from a whole unit of undergraduate students.

Among the vast field of models, stand-out projects include Diploma 15’s playful experiments, Dariya Cheremisina of Diploma 20’s pilgrimages to Manchester’s water sources and Esperanza Nelson of Unit 14, creating melted glass canopies, speculating on the use of silica-rich rice husks to make sustainable glass.

Following the richly textured Models room, the Drawings and Books rooms are decidedly more muted. Though there is less immediate wow factor, the strict curation does make space for a more sensitive and precise side of the AA to come through. The drawings of Unit 10 in particular showed agile experimentation, while the Construction of an Image media studies course showed great flair and pleasure in the act of drawing.

It is fair to say that film is more popular than ever as a form of output at the school, and engaging with the political, analytical and emotional wealth of projects in the Film room is rewarding and inspiring. It is in watching the films that we see a glimpse of the sheer magnitude of work contained in every one of the projects exhibited. The radical voices of Diploma 13’s Experiments in Reparations showed that the AA’s revolutionary heart is alive and well.

The accompanying website also deserves recognition. It is organised to reflect the rooms of the AA and allows anyone not able to visit the show, or who wants to explore the projects in more detail, to wander and discover.

There are, perhaps inevitably, some limitations to the curation. The sorting of units and programmes into media categories plays into the strengths of some projects, but one can’t help but feel it obfuscates some impressive contributions.

Using media themes can also be seen as directly at odds with the cross-pollination of a multidisciplinary school. Are these categories in themselves obsolete? The core project of this Projects Review seems to be to distil hundreds of voices into something more legible and coherent. The experimentation and interrogation one comes to expect from the AA is still in full force in every medium, even if it may require more investigation.

Schroder has taken on the AA directorship at a difficult and pivotal moment for the school. In the wake of financial turbulence, the ejection of the last director by the school community, and of course the trials of Covid, the school has been in urgent need of a steady hand.

The project of organising the AA and making it an outward-facing institution has become an essential one. Schroder’s leadership may be exactly what the school needs to nurture it and reaffirm its relevance for the wider world of architecture.

The Architectural Association 2023 Projects Review opened on 24 June and runs till Friday 14 July at 36 Bedford Square, London WC1B 3ES