AirAA

Files on Air is a podcast series in which contributors from AA Files read their work. In this episode, Sony Devabhaktuni – an architect, writer and Assistant Professor at Swarthmore College – reads his essay ‘Still-Time at Amaravati’, found in AA Files 81.

AA Files is the Architectural Association’s journal of record, which promotes original and engaging writing on architecture and its related fields. AirAA podcasts are recorded, mixed, edited and distributed from the Architectural Association School of Architecture, which is based in Bedford Square in London. Special thanks to Thomas Parkes for his contribution to the production of our episodes.<...

Join us On the Steps of 36: a question-and-answer conversation that crosses thresholds into our guests’ histories, lives, influences and stories, shedding light on the person behind the work.

In this episode, Ryan Dillon is in conversation with Mike Tonkin, cofounder of Tonkin Liu Architects, who launched their book Asking, Looking, Playing, Making: A Nature-focused Design Process at the AA Bookshop earlier this year.

AirAA podcasts are conceived, recorded, mixed, edited and distributed from the Architectural Association School of Architecture, which is based in Bedford Square in London. Special thanks to Dainius Kacinskas and Thomas Parkes fo...

Join us On the Steps of 36: a question-and-answer conversation that crosses thresholds into our guests’ histories, lives, influences and stories, shedding light on the person behind the work.

In this episode, Ryan Dillon is in conversation with Tom Emerson, cofounder of 6a Architects and Professor of Architecture at ETH Zürich who recently launched his book Dirty Old River at the AA.

AirAA podcasts are conceived, recorded, mixed, edited and distributed from the Architectural Association School of Architecture, which is based in Bedford Square in London. Special thanks to Dainius Kacinskas and Thomas Parkes for the...

Files on Air is a podcast series in which contributors from AA Files read their work. In this episode, George Jepson – a writer, researcher and editor who holds a PhD from the AA – reads his essay, ‘Demystifying Automation: Charles Babbage and the Invention of the ‘Thinking Machine’, found in AA Files 81.

AA Files is the Architectural Association’s journal of record, which promotes original and engaging writing on architecture and its related fields. AirAA podcasts are recorded, mixed, edited and distributed from the Architectural Association School of Architecture, which is based in Bedford Square in London. Special thanks to Thomas...

Join us On the Steps of 36: a question-and-answer conversation that crosses thresholds into our guests’ histories, lives, influences and stories, shedding light on the person behind the work.

In this episode, Ryan Dillon is in conversation with Tom Emerson, co-founder of 6a Architects and Professor of Architecture at ETH Zurich who recently launched his book Dirty Old River at the AA Bookshop.

AirAA podcasts are conceived, recorded, mixed, edited and distributed from the Architectural Association School of Architecture, which is based in Bedford Square in London. Special thanks to Dainius Kacinskas and Thomas Parkes for th...

Files on Air is a podcast series in which contributors from AA Files read their work. In this episode, María Páez González – an architect, educator and Postdoctoral Researcher at TU Wien – reads her essay, ‘A Commanding Type? Lessons from Silicon Valley on the Architecture of Headquarters’, found in AA Files 81. The essay is an architectural reading of Silicon Valley's tech headquarters and their embedded power dynamics.

AA Files is the Architectural Association’s journal of record, which promotes original and engaging writing on architecture and its related fields. AirAA podcasts are recorded, mixed, edited and distributed fro...

Join us On the Steps of 36: a question-and-answer conversation that crosses thresholds into our guests’ histories, lives, influences and stories, shedding light on the person behind the work.

In this episode, Leela Keshav is in conversation with Lex Fefegha, a creative coder and artist who makes interactive experiences using XR and AI, and who participated in the AA's event Disrupting the System.

AirAA podcasts are conceived, recorded, mixed, edited and distributed from the Architectural Association School of Architecture, which is based in Bedford Square in London. Special thanks to Dainius Kacinskas and Thomas Parkes for the...

Join us On the Steps of 36: a question-and-answer conversation that crosses thresholds into our guests’ histories, lives, influences and stories, shedding light on the person behind the work.

In this episode of the AirAA podcast On the Steps of 36, Leela Keshav is in conversation with Alessia Gammarota, a photographer and campaigner with Fight 4 Aylesbury who participated in the AA's event 'The Resistant Representations of Artist-Activists'. 

AirAA podcasts are conceived, recorded, mixed, edited and distributed from the Architectural Association School of Architecture, which is based in Bedford Square in London. Special thanks to Dainius Kacinskas and Tho...

Join us On the Steps of 36: a question-and-answer conversation that crosses thresholds into our guests’ histories, lives, influences and stories, shedding light on the person behind the work.

In this episode, Harriet Jennings is in conversation with Nelly Ben Hayoun-Stépanian, a pluridisciplinary artist, filmmaker and designer of experiences who participated in the AA's event 'Doppelgängers³: Intergenerational Trauma and Decolonial Futures in Space Exploration'.

AirAA podcasts are conceived, recorded, mixed, edited and distributed from the Architectural Association School of Architecture, which is based in Bedford Square in London. Special thanks to Dainius Kacinskas and Thoma...

Join us On the Steps of 36: a question-and-answer conversation that crosses thresholds into our guests’ histories, lives, influences and stories, shedding light on the person behind the work.

In this episode, Harriet Jennings is in conversation with Saskia O'Hara, a legal caseworker and community legal organiser at the Public Interest Law Centre. Saskia participated in 'Consultation Counter Cultures', a two-part event series at the AA that critically evaluated the dysfunction of public consultation practices in the context of urban renewal projects.

AirAA podcasts are conceived, recorded, mixed, edited and distributed from the Architectural Association School of...

Join us On the Steps of 36: a question-and-answer conversation that crosses thresholds into our guests’ histories, lives, influences and stories, shedding light on the person behind the work.

In this episode, Leela Keshav is in conversation with Olivia Oldham, a PhD researcher in agroecology who co-organised the symposium Locating the Agrarian Struggles for Land, which took place at the AA in November.

AirAA podcasts are conceived, recorded, mixed, edited and distributed from the Architectural Association School of Architecture, which is based in Bedford Square in London. Special thanks to George Patterson and Thomas Parkes for thei...

Join us On the Steps of 36: a question-and-answer conversation that crosses thresholds into our guests’ histories, lives, influences and stories, shedding light on the person behind the work.

In this episode, Harriet Jennings is in conversation with Caterina Frisone, author of The Therapeutic Power of the Maggie's Centre, which was launched at the AA Bookshop last term.

AirAA podcasts are conceived, recorded, mixed, edited and distributed from the Architectural Association School of Architecture, which is based in Bedford Square in London. Special thanks to George Patterson and Thomas Parkes for their contribution to the production of...

Join us On the Steps of 36: a question-and-answer conversation that crosses thresholds into our guests’ histories, lives, influences and stories, shedding light on the person behind the work.

In this episode, Harriet Jennings is in conversation with Andrew Holmes, an artist and former AA tutor whose large-scale photorealistic drawings were displayed at the AA in autumn 2024 in the GAS TANK CITY exhibition.

AirAA podcasts are conceived, recorded, mixed, edited and distributed from the Architectural Association School of Architecture, which is based in Bedford Square in London. Special thanks to George Patterson and Thomas Parkes for thei...

Join us On the Steps of 36: a question-and-answer conversation that crosses thresholds into our guests’ histories, lives, influences and stories, shedding light on the person behind the work.

In this episode, Manijeh Verghese is joined by Jordan Whitewood-Neal, an architectural researcher, designer and artist whose work addresses disability, domesticity, pedagogy and cultural infrastructure. Jordan took part in ‘New Standards’, an AA series that aimed to identify and confront some of the barriers to architecture, its education and practice.

AirAA podcasts are conceived, recorded, mixed, edited and distributed from the Architectural Association School of Architecture, which is bas...

Files on Air is a podcast series in which contributors from AA Files  read their work. In this episode, Rebecca Crabtree – an architect, lecturer and PhD candidate at the RCA – reads her essay, ‘Closing Time’, found in AA Files 80.  The essay reveals the multifaceted significance of coaching inns as both domestic and commercial spaces in 18th- and 19th-century England, a time of rapid industrialisation.  

AA Files  is the Architectural Association’s journal of record, which promotes original and engaging writing on architecture and its related fields. AirAA podcasts are recorded, mixed, edited and distributed from the Architectural Association School...

Join us On the Steps of 36: a question-and-answer conversation that crosses thresholds into our guests’ histories, lives, influences and stories, shedding light on the person behind the work.

In this episode, Ryan Dillon is joined by Brendan Cormier, Chief Curator at the V&A East and the editor of Pandemic Objects, published by AA Publications in collaboration with the V&A in February 2024. The book examines everyday objects that became charged with new urgency in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic and is available for purchase at the AA Bookshop.

AirAA podcasts are conceived, recorded, mi...

Join us On the Steps of 36: a question-and-answer conversation that crosses thresholds into our guests’ histories, lives, influences and stories, shedding light on the person behind the work.

In this episode, Ryan Dillon is joined by Ella Adu, an architect and writer whose research considers changing modes of grassroots cultural production in Britain. Adu was also the assistant curator of the AA exhibition As Hardly Found in the Art of Tropical Architecture in 2023.

AirAA podcasts are conceived, recorded, mixed, edited and distributed from the Architectural Association School of Architecture, which is based in Bedford Square in...

Join us On the Steps of 36: a question-and-answer conversation that crosses thresholds into our guests’ histories, lives, influences and stories, shedding light on the person behind the work.

In this episode, Manijeh Verghese is joined by Ellie Sampson, a model maker, paper cut artist and lecturer. Sampson also participated in the AA event Warburg Models: Buildings as Bilderfahrzeuge earlier this year – you can watch a recording of the event here.

AirAA podcasts are conceived, recorded, mixed, edited and distributed from the Architectural Association School of Architecture, which is based in Bedford Square in London. Special thank...

Join us On the Steps of 36: a question-and-answer conversation that crosses thresholds into our guests’ histories, lives, influences and stories, shedding light on the person behind the work.

In this episode, Ryan Dillon is joined by Martha Summers, an artist, architect and designer based in London. Earlier this year, Summers participated in the AA event Collective Efforts: Navigating Friction in Collaboration as part of the Self-Organised: Models for Learning series – you can watch a recording of the event here.

AirAA podcasts are conceived, recorded, mixed, edited and distributed from the Architectural Association School of Architecture, which...

Join us On the Steps of 36: a question-and-answer conversation that crosses thresholds into our guests’ histories, lives, influences and stories, shedding light on the person behind the work.

In this episode, Ryan Dillon is joined by Arinjoy Sen, an artist and architect whose work focuses on the politics and aesthetics of architecture and space. Sen participated in the AA event Collaborative Models as part of the Self-Organised: Models for Learning series in 2024 – you can watch a recording of the event here.

AirAA podcasts are conceived, recorded, mixed, edited and distributed from the Architectural Association School of Ar...

Join us On the Steps of 36: a question-and-answer conversation that crosses thresholds into our guests’ histories, lives, influences and stories, shedding light on the person behind the work.

In this episode, Manijeh Verghese is joined by George Massoud, an architect, educator, cultural worker and a director of Material Cultures – a design and research practice based in London. Massoud also participated in the AA event Feminist Practice in 2023 – you can watch a recording of the event here.

AirAA podcasts are conceived, recorded, mixed, edited and distributed from the Architectural Association School of Architecture, which is based in Bedf...

Join us On the Steps of 36: a question-and-answer conversation that crosses thresholds into our guests’ histories, lives, influences and stories, shedding light on the person behind the work.

In this episode, Manijeh Verghese is joined by Mohamed Elshahed, a writer, curator and architectural historian. Elshahed participated in the AA symposium Beyond Eurocentrism: Rethinking the Architectural Canon in 2024 – you can watch a recording of the event here.

AirAA podcasts are conceived, recorded, mixed, edited and distributed from the Architectural Association School of Architecture, which is based in Bedford Square in London. Special thanks to Thomas Parkes for h...

Join us On the Steps of 36: a question-and-answer conversation that crosses thresholds into our guests’ histories, lives, influences and stories, shedding light on the person behind the work.

In this episode, Manijeh Verghese is joined by Sarah Ackland, an architect, researcher and host of the podcast 29% Equal. Ackland participated in the event Making Visible at the AA in 2023 – you can watch a recording of the event here.

AirAA podcasts are conceived, recorded, mixed, edited and distributed from the Architectural Association School of Architecture, which is based in Bedford Square in London. Special thanks to Thomas Parke...

Files on Air is a podcast series in which contributors from AA Files read their work. In this episode, you will hear Michelle Millar Fisher and Amber Winick – authors of the book Designing Motherhood – read their text 'Birth Places: From the Bedroom to the Hospital and Back Again'. In this piece, Fisher and Winick examine the design histories of certain hospitals, birthing centres and other models of care, and trace how these systems and settings shape birth outcomes. You can read the piece in AA Files 79.

AA Files is the Architectural Association’s journal of record, which promot...

Join us On the Steps of 36: a question-and-answer conversation that crosses thresholds into our guests’ histories, lives, influences and stories, shedding light on the person behind the work.

In this episode, Ryan Dillon is joined by Elena Palacios Carral, an architectural researcher, educator and a founding director of architecture design and research platform Forms of Living. In 2023, she curated the exhibition Portraits of a Practice: The Life and Work of MJ Long at the AA.

AirAA podcasts are conceived, recorded, mixed, edited and distributed from the Architectural Association School of Architecture, which is based in Bed...

Files on Air is a podcast series in which contributors from AA Files read their work. In this episode, you will hear Ines Weizman – an architect, educator and founding director of the Centre for Documentary Architecture – read her text 'Synchronised by Murder: The 1930 Killing of a Berlin Clockmaker'. In this piece, Weizman examines the implications of a murder in early 20th-century Berlin, unpacking the event as a moment of historical synchronisation. The essay complements a trilogy of exhibitions by Ronit Porat. You can read the piece in AA Files 79.

AA Files is the Architectural Association’s journal of reco...

Join us On the Steps of 36: a question-and-answer conversation that crosses thresholds into our guests’ histories, lives, influences and stories, shedding light on the person behind the work.

In this episode, Manijeh Verghese is joined by Emma Dent Coad, an architectural historian and councillor in Kensington and Chelsea since 2006. Dent Coad participated in the symposium The Cladding Crisis at the AA in 2023 – you can watch a recording of the event here.

AirAA podcasts are conceived, recorded, mixed, edited and distributed from the Architectural Association School of Architecture, which is based in Bedford Square in London. Speci...

Files on Air is a podcast series in which contributors from AA Files read their work. In this episode, you will hear Brendon Carlin – an architect, critic, researcher, and AA School tutor – read his text ‘No-House: Shameless Architecture in 21st-Century Japan'. In this piece, Carlin examines the legacy of Japan’s ‘lost decade’, Yoshiharu Tsukamoto and Momoyo Kaijima’s Atelier Bow-Wow and the ‘shameless architecture’ that illuminates the reality of certain conditions in Tokyo. You can read the piece in AA Files 79.

AA Files is the Architectural Association’s journal of record, which promotes original and engaging writing on architect...

Join us On the Steps of 36: a question-and-answer conversation that crosses thresholds into our guests’ histories, lives, influences and stories, shedding light on the person behind the work. In this episode, Manijeh Verghese is joined by architect and writer Marianna Janowicz, who participated in the Feminist Practice event at the AA in 2023. Janowicz is a member of Edit, a feminist design collective focusing on the enduring biases and hierarchies embedded into the environments that surround us.

AirAA podcasts are conceived, recorded, mixed, edited and distributed from the Architectural Association School of Architecture, which is based in Bedford Squar...

For this last episode of How to Be Good Ancestors we are changing tides. Together with artist and academic Janice Cheddie, our aim is to expand the conversation into territories of resistance to the systems unpacked in the previous episodes. What mechanisms exist to rid oneself of debt without going through the painful processes of unfair repayment?

 We will explore modes of resistance, focusing on the tools and the precedents which each of us and our guest value and rely on to imagine a common future. The conversation revolves around a series of artefacts including text, video, f...

Join us On the Steps of 36: a question-and-answer conversation that crosses thresholds into our guests’ histories, lives, influences and stories, shedding light on the person behind the work. In this episode, Ryan Dillon is joined by architect and scholar Charlotte Malterre-Barthes, who participated in the Stop Building! event for the Stories about Sustainability series at the AA in 2022. Malterre-Barthes conducts research on urgent aspects of contemporary urbanisation, material extraction, climate emergency and social justice.

AirAA podcasts are conceived, recorded, mixed, edited and distributed from the Architectural Association School of Architecture, which is based in Bedford Square in Lo...

This third episode of How to be Good Ancestors on Indonesia will zoom into the architectural scale to look at another form of debt: the act of disseminating building knowledge as a form of epistemic imposition. We will be revisiting Indonesian colonial history with architectural historian David Hutama Setiadi focusing on design pedagogy. Together we will unpack the ways in which systems of knowledge were imposed through new ways of building generated by capitalist ideology, revealing the complicity of drawing methods and classification systems in marginalising the Metis, an unstructured type of knowledge learned through embodied experience. We will als...

Join us On the Steps of 36: a question-and-answer conversation that crosses thresholds into our guests’ histories, lives, influences and stories, shedding light on the person behind the work.  In this episode, Ryan Dillon is joined by Francisco Adriasola, an architect and graduate of the AA's Design and Make programme who curated the AA Gallery exhibition Observation, Act and Form in autumn 2022. Francisco participated in the Education and the Architectural Act event in Hooke Park in November 2022 – you can watch a recording of the event here.

AirAA podcasts are conceived, recorded, mixed, edited and distributed from the Architectural Assoc...

This second episode of How to be Good Ancestors focuses on Burkina Faso, in a conversation with the multidisciplinary designer Richard Aina. We will travel to Lobi land in the South Western region of Burkina Faso. to look at how the artefacts produced there are held hostage by colonial power structures and modern infrastructures. Through this episode we attempt to generate a framework to shift dominant paradigms and generate a sensible architecture for the repatriation of those artefacts.

How to be Good Ancestors means rereading our past to disentangle future possibilities from systems of oppression. In this p...

Join us On the Steps of 36: a question-and-answer conversation that crosses thresholds into our guests’ histories, lives, influences and stories, shedding light on the person behind the work.  In this episode, Ryan Dillon is joined by Kathryn Timmins, an architect, teacher and Principal Policy Officer in the regeneration team for the Greater London Authority. Kathryn contributed to an event in the AA’s New Standards series focusing on safety in 2023, in which she and the panel discussed how our cities and spaces can be better designed to consider the needs of those who identify as women. You can watch a rec...

Welcome to the first episode of series two of A Line Traced, How to be Good Ancestors, in which we discuss the economic tools which perpetuate neocolonialism. In today’s episode focusing on Egypt, we are joined by Yahia Shawkat, an architect, housing and urbanism researcher and the cofounder of 10Tooba, a research centre devoted to urban politics. Shawkat will take us on a deep dive into the history of Egypt’s multiple housing regimes and their foreign entanglements, allowing us to examine how debt has been and continues to be levied as a tool of control and submission.

Join us On the Steps of 36: a question-and-answer conversation that crosses thresholds into our guests’ histories, lives, influences and stories, shedding light on the person behind the work.  In this episode, Manijeh Verghese is joined by curator and writer Debbie Meniru, who contributed to an event marking the launch of the exhibition As Hardly Found in the Art of Tropical Architecture at the AA Gallery in 2023. You can watch a recording of the event here.

AirAA podcasts are conceived, recorded, mixed, edited and distributed from the Architectural Association School of Architecture, which is based in Bedf...

Welcome to the fourth episode of this series of A Line Traced, which focuses on Female Pioneers in the History of Virtual Reality. The series is hosted by Paula Strunden, a transdisciplinary VR artist with a background in architecture who taught on the AA’s Media Studies programme. In this episode, Paula interviews Char Davies, best known for her groundbreaking virtual reality artwork Osmose, which combines immersive environments, with embodied interactions, and a profound connection to nature.

This series of A Line Traced uncovers the untold stories of female pioneers in the early history of VR. Many of...

Join us On the Steps of 36: a question-and-answer conversation that crosses thresholds into our guests’ histories, lives, influences and stories, shedding light on the person behind the work. In this episode, Manijeh Verghese is joined by architect, urbanist and cofounder of Urban Symbiotics, Stephanie Edwards, who contributed to the AA’s New Models lecture series in 2021. You can watch her lecture here.

AirAA podcasts are conceived, recorded, mixed, edited and distributed from the Architectural Association School of Architecture, which is based in Bedford Square in London. Special thanks to Thomas Parkes for his contribution to the p...

Welcome to the third episode of this series of A Line Traced, which will focus on Female Pioneers in the History of Virtual Reality. The series is hosted by Paula Strunden, a transdisciplinary VR artist with a background in architecture who taught on the AA’s Media Studies programme. In this episode, Paula interviews Tamiko Thiel, a pioneer in augmented reality art and the visionary behind the design of the Connection Machine, the first commercial AI supercomputer.

About this Series:

This series of A Line Traced uncovers the untold stories of female pioneers in the ea...

Files on Air is a podcast series in which contributors from AA Files read their work. In this episode, you will hear Madeleine Kessler and Manijeh Verghese – curators of the British Pavilion at the 2021 Venice Architecture Biennale – read their text ‘Powers of Public Space', in which they examine some of the ideas that informed their Biennale display, including case studies on rewilded greens, playstreets and public libraries. You can read the piece in AA Files 78.

AA Files is the Architectural Association’s journal of record, which promotes original and engaging writing on architecture and its related fields.

Air...

Welcome to the second episode of this series of A Line Traced, which focuses on Female Pioneers in the History of Virtual Reality. The series is hosted by Paula Strunden, a transdisciplinary VR artist with a background in architecture who taught on the AA’s Media Studies programme. In this episode, Paula interviews Brenda Laurel, a pioneer in human-computer interaction in the field of virtual reality, immersive theatre, and gender inclusivity in technology and game design. Their discussion addresses Brenda's project PLACEHOLDER: Landscape and Narrative in a Virtual Environment (1993), which she created with Rachel Strickland; project documentation for PLACEHOLDER ca...

Join us On the Steps of 36: a question-and-answer conversation that crosses thresholds into our guests’ histories, lives, influences and stories, shedding light on the person behind the work. In this episode, Ryan Dillon is joined by multidisciplinary artist, photographer and architectural historian Esther Choi. Esther was part of the AA New Models lecture series in 2022 – watch her lecture here.

AirAA podcasts are conceived, recorded, mixed, edited and distributed from the Architectural Association School of Architecture, which is based in Bedford Square in London. Special thanks to Thomas Parkes for his contribution to the production of our episodes. To vie...

Files on Air is a podcast series in which contributors from AA Files read their work. In this episode, David Burns – a writer and academic who leads the Media Studies programme at the Royal Collage of Art – travels to Maralinga in South Australia, where the British conducted secret nuclear testing in the 1950s and 60s. The text, and the photo essay that accompanies it, can be found in AA Files 78. AA Files is the Architectural Association’s journal of record, which promotes original and engaging writing on architecture and its related fields.

AirAA podcasts are recorded, mixed, edited...

Join us On the Steps of 36: a question-and-answer conversation that crosses thresholds into our guests’ histories, lives, influences and stories, shedding light on the person behind the work.  In this episode, Manijeh Verghese is joined by architect and writer Shahed Saleem, who contributed to the AA’s New Models lecture series in 2022. You can watch his lecture here.

AirAA podcasts are conceived, recorded, mixed, edited and distributed from the Architectural Association School of Architecture, which is based in Bedford Square in London. Special thanks to Thomas Parkes for his contribution to the production of our episodes. To view...

Welcome to the first episode of this series of A Line Traced, which will focus on Female Pioneers in the History of Virtual Reality. The series is hosted by Paula Strunden, a transdisciplinary VR artist with a background in architecture who taught on the AA’s Media Studies programme. In this episode, Paula interviews Krista Kim, a pioneer in blockchain-based art and the visionary behind the Mars House, the first-ever NFT house. Read more about the Mars House on Krista's website.

This series of A Line Traced will uncover the untold stories of female pioneers in the ea...