AA Book 2022: On Location

The AA Book: On Location highlights the agendas and practices that have intersected both physically and metaphorically throughout the Architectural Association (AA) during the 2021-22 academic year. The publication features hundreds of projects by students from every unit and programme within the school, which together document the plurality of agendas explored, interests developed, approaches tested and questions posed and addressed by our community this year. As staff and students re-entered the AA buildings on Bedford Square in September 2021 after a year-long absence, the work of the school returned to its usual sites of production - the unit space, the workshop, the Lecture Hall, Ching's Yard, the Bar and the terrace; spaces where things are made and ideas are discussed. Reflecting this reinhabitation, the AA Book: On Location documents the spatial distribution of units and programmes throughout our premises in London and Dorset. Its chapters each represent a building or site in Bedford Square, Morwell Street or Hooke Park, and units and programmes are organised within according to where their main teaching space has been situated this year. Each building-based chapter is bookended by a series of written accounts, observations and reflections by staff and students, highlighting different spaces within the school to capture the experience of being on location and how this influences the work and way of life that emerges from the AA.