Representations/Investigations: Media in architecture, the territory and the urban

The event brings together researchers, architects and artists to explore the use of media and representation of space as a form of multiscalar investigation, from architecture to the territory and the urban. From analogue tools to advanced computation, speakers will discuss key projects from their practice that use media beyond the pure representation of architecture but instead as a systematic form of enquiry.

This is the first of a series of public events by the MPhil Projective Cities to foster a transversal conversation and a creative dialogue across different parts and research in the AA.

Organisers: Sam Jacoby, Platon Issaias
Keynote speakers: David Burns, Eva le Roi
Participants: Gili Merin, Samaneh Moafi, Jingru (Cyan) Chen, Hamed Khosravi, Xristina Argyros, Maria Giudici, Clara Oloriz, Christina Varvia. 

David Burns' research and practice engage architecture, media, and politics. His work manifests as site specific art, academic research and writing, and innovative pedagogies in spatial design and media studies. His current research - as a PhD candidate at the Centre for Research Architecture at Goldsmiths - analyses issues of sovereignty and extraterritoriality in the spatial politics of the Woomera Rocket Range in South Australia, specifically the British nuclear weapons testing in Maralinga during the 1950s and 60s.

Éva Le Roi studied illustration at the École Estienne in Paris and visual media at the École Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs in Strasbourg. Since 2010 she has worked as an independent illustrator, together with architecture offices such as Xaveer De Geyter Architects, 51N4E and AUC. She also illustrated editorial projects (OASE #90, D'A # 224) and collaborated on exhibitions and institutional projects. She participated three times to the Architectural Venice biennale. In 2012, she collaborated to the project 'POST-CITY' for the pavilion of Luxembourg.  In 2014, she realised the graphic contribution to the project "Architecture of fulfilment" exposed in section "Monditalia". In 2018, she exhibited a selection of works in the Japanese pavilion. She also teaches architectural project representation to masters students at the Catholic University of Leuven (Belgium).

Sam Jacoby is a chartered architect with an AA Diploma and a doctorate from the Technische Universität Berlin. He has taught since 2002 at the AA, as well as at the University of Nottingham, The Bartlett (UCL), Staatliche Akademie der Bildenden Künste Stuttgart, and Hochschule Anhalt. He is currently Senior Research Tutor at the Royal College of Art and Director of the AA Projective Cities MPhil programme.

Platon Issalas studied architecture in Thessaloniki, Greece (AUTh) and holds an MSc in Advanced Architectural Design from Columbia University and a PhD from TU Delft. He has written and lectured extensively about Greek urbanisation and the politics of urban development. In 2018, he co-curated Islands of Exile: The Case of Lerosin Manifesta 12, Palermo, Italy, which presented the findings of a four-year-long interdisciplinary project on the island of Leros, Greece and int history as a place of displacement, detention, and control. He is currently a Unit Master of Diploma 7 and a Director of AA Projective Cities MPhil Programme.

Jingru (Cyan) Cheng obtained both PhD by Design (2018) and M.Phil Projective Cities (2014) at the Architectural Association (AA) and was the co-director of AA Wuhan Visiting School 2015-17. She is currently a postdoctoral research associate at the Royal College of Art. Her research interests lie in the intersections between disciplines, especially shared ideas and methods by architecture, anthropology and sociology, with a focus on socio-spatial models in China. Employing the design research method, her PhD thesis focuses on rurality as a spatial question at levels of territory, settlement and household. Cyan’s research on Care and Rebellion: The Dissolved Household in Contemporary Rural China received a commendation from RIBA President’s Awards for Research 2018. 

Xristina Argyrosis co-founder of Neiheiser Argyros, a multidisciplinary architecture practice with projects in the UK, USA and Greece. She received her Masters degree in 2013 from the Yale School of Architecture after earning her Bachelor of Arts and Architecture degree from Princeton University. Argyros has worked at a number of award winning firms in Europe and the USA including WORKac, the Office for Metropolitan Architecture and Ateliers Jean Nouvel. As well as teaching at Cardiff University and Yale University. Argyros is a licensed architect in Greece. She has been teaching at the AA Intermediate School since 2016

Maria Shéhérazade Giudici founded the publishing and educational platform Black Square and coordinates the history and theory course at the School of Architecture of the RCA. She holds a PhD from TU Delft with a thesis on the construction of modern subjectivity through the project of public space. She previously taught at the Berlage Institute and BIArch Barcelona and worked on large-scale urban plans with offices BAU Bucharest, Donis Rotterdam and Dogma Brussels. She is Unit Master of Diploma 14 and co-directs the City/ Architecture PhD by Design with Pier Vittorio Aureli. She is also the editor of AA Files. 

Samaneh Moafi is an architect and academic researcher. She holds her PhD from The Architectural Association (AA) School of Architecture. Her thesis examined struggle and resistance from the space of the home with a particular focus on the intersection of gender and class in Iran. Her articles on domesticity have appeared at the Avery Review, the Funambulist and the Real Review. Currently, Samaneh is a lead researcher at Forensic Architecture, Goldsmiths University of London, coordinating the Centre for Contemporary Nature (CCN) and developing new investigative techniques for environmental violence. Previously, Samaneh has taught at the Bartlett School of Architecture, Royal College of Art, Architectural Association, University of Technology Sydney and PACT Zollverein.

Hamed Khosravi is an architect, educator and writer. He graduated from the University of Tehran. He holds an MSc in Architecture, and a postgraduate Diploma in Urbanism at TU Delft / IUAV. He’s got his PhD in history and theory of architecture in The City as a Project program at the Berlage Institute / TU Delft and recently completed his Post-doctoral research on Social Movements and Architecture of the City at the International Institute of Social History, Amsterdam. He has previously taught in schools of architecture including TU Delft, Oxford Brookes and the Berlage Institute. He is currently Studio Master of Diploma Unit 7, and teaches on the Projective Cities course at the AA.

Christina Varvia is an architect, researcher, and Deputy Director of Forensic Architecture. She graduated from the AA with a previous degree from Westminster University. Her research concentrates on architectural evidentiary techniques, and more broadly - digital media and memory, as well as the perception of the physical environment through scanning and imaging technologies. She has worked with multiple NGOs, and published and exhibited internationally. She recently joined the Technology Advisory Board at the International Criminal Court.

Clara Olóriz Sanjuán is a PhD architect, tutor and practising architect. She works as project leader at Groundlab, specialized in the design of public spaces and masterplans from a landscape and urban perspective in various international contexts.  She teaches at the AA Landscape Urbanism master’s programme and co-directed the AA Visiting School Computing Topos in Bilbao and the AA Research Cluster Urban Prototypes. She has published and lectured extensively. She is working on Landscape as Territory, supported by the AA Publication Fellowship and the Graham Foundation.

Gili Merin is an architect, photographer and journalist based in London. She teaches History and Theory at the Royal College of Art and the Architectural Association, where she is also a PhD candidate at the City/Architecture program. She studied architecture at the UdK Berlin, Waseda University in Tokyo, and the Bezalel Academy in Jerusalem. She worked as an architect and researcher at OMA Rotterdam, COBE Berlin and ArchDaily in Santiago, Chile. Her research and editorial work are included in a number of publications, including Elements of Architecture by Rem Koolhaas (Taschen, 2018), The Object of Zionism (Spector Books 2018), SOS Brutalism (Park Books, 2018), and Thresholds (MIT Press, 2018).

Image: (top) Eva Le Roi, Canal St-Martin, ink on paper, 37 x 56 cm
(bottom) David Burns, Tufi 1, 2018.