Projects at the Architectural Association engage with the real and the fictional with the same creative attitude, ethical acumen, and care. Filled with optimism, since its found in 1847, the AA is a platform to expand the horizons of the possible allowing students, academics, and random passers-by to rethink the way we want to live together.

From affordable housing, reuse of materials, to the reinvention of democracy, the ideas, work and practices developed over the course of this year are exercises in the redefinition of our discipline, but more importantly our world and its future. This Projects Review exhibition, which has been organised as a pedagogical mirror to the inaugural issue of the relaunched AA Files, edited by Maria Giudici, aims to start conversations across units, programmes and constituencies inside and outside of the school, and to push the boundaries of architecture and contemporary culture.

Aesthetics, Border, Commons … these are some of the 30 terms that structure the Projects Review 2019, bringing together units and programmes from the Foundation to the PhD Programme to address topics of relevance within architecture and society at large.

This year’s Projects Review takes the risk and responsibility of exhibiting work from each one of the 779 students forming the 2019 student community across the walls, corridors and office spaces of the school, responding to the 30 terms that will be a permanent exhibition lasting for an entire year. Additionally, the work of the units and programmes are presented in the form of a temporary exhibition within 13 rooms that expand some of these terms through extensive portfolios, films, models, business plans, and other representational and generative modalities.

If something characterises experimental work, it is that it is not always easy to access. We invite you to download the exhibition guide to better understand each programme’s agenda, learn about the people that made them happen, and find new ways to navigate the school and its ideas. We also invite you to curate your own route through the exhibition through the AA Files 76 terms and issues, or ask any of us to take you on a journey through the school to start one of the conversations that might shape the future of architecture and collectively move society forward.

Eva Franch i Gilabert

Exhibition runs Saturday 22 June 2019 - Saturday 13 July 2019

The Architectural Association, 33-38 Bedford Square, London WC1B 3ES