Architectural Association School of Architecture

Brett Steele, Director, AA School

In a world of constant change, how architects learn – or rather how they learn to learn – is the defining question, and it is one fundamental to the AA, an institution that has been educating architects for more than 160 years.

Today, however, in a world where information and knowledge is valued far more than bricks, wood or steel, architecture is being profoundly altered. Now, what you know is suddenly the dominant paradigm, displacing those still trying to get by on the time-worn principle who you know (or what you've already done). With this shift, architects' lives have never been so dependent upon exactly those qualities we at the AA School have long taken for granted as the only true way forward – at the AA architecture is experimentation; at the AA architecture is learning and the pursuit of new and unexpected ideas; at the AA architecture is only ever understood in relation to its imagined future.

For glimpses into how talented architectural minds are defining and addressing the essential questions about the future of architecture and its culture, look no further than the pages of the AA replica watches Book and the Projects Review website and the spaces of the exhibition. A slice in time, these three portals have been prepared in real–time, alongside (and with an overview of) the 2010/11 academic year of the Architectural Association School of Architecture, a school unlike any other.

Read full text