The Architectural Association School of Architecture has announced yet another ‘Visiting School’ program in the Middle East, this time around, its newest workshop in the region is to take place in Dubai.

Directed by alumni Riyad Joucka, the workshop entitled Expocity 2020: In Search of an Urban Identity. The endeavor is an immediate response to a newly announced turning point in the cultural reform of the city: Dubai winning the bid for hosting ‘The World Expo 2020’.

AA Visiting School Dubai is part of an ever-growing attempt by the AA to expand the network of the school by initiating nodes of collaboration dealing the immediate social, cultural and ecological context of their accommodating cities.

“Our goal is to challenge the very form and not the presumed geography – of the modern architectural school as a learning space defined above all by local location, formation and culture. What we seek through the AA Visiting School is something else entirely: an open embrace of the creative, critical potentials latent within today’s decidedly global circumstances in the production of architectural knowledge, teaching and learning.” AA Prospectus 2013.

The 10-day Visiting School takes on the challenge of reflecting the cultural identity of the city in a series of pavilions, designed with the aim of representing the UAE in the upcoming Expo 2020.

Participants are to work in groups and to collaborate closely with a teaching team composed of selected innovators in the field of digital design and fabrication in architecture.

State of the art methodologies in generative simulation and fabrication in architectural design are to be utilized in this research, coupled with a rigorous field study of the urban formation, social context and local materials, all of which are treated as synergetic elements igniting the cultural future of the city of Dubai.

AA Visiting School will take place from the 20th-30th of March. Registration is now open. 

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