Precedent Studies at The AA

Fall 2017 | Professors Naraia Vegara and Marie de Monseignat Lavrov

Architectural Association Visiting School

For the autumn semester of 2016, I had the opportunity to study at the Architectural Association in London. It was an interesting experience to study at a school whose curriculum was very different from that of my own school. I learned how having total freedom to choose your site and program means you must have lots of research and analysis to back up your decisions.

The first half of the studio taught us the amount of analysis needed through the study of One New Change in London and The City of Liverpool. The second half was focused on creating a project to improve The City of Liverpool.

Historic Liverpool

I continued my network study in Liverpool. The city did not have a clear network because of how the city had changed over time. I created a drawing that shows the history of the city and what buildings and streets have helped create the network of today.

Analysis of One New Change

1/4

I was assigned the topic of network and infrastructure to focus on in analyzing the One New Change building in Central London. The building is a shopping mall, office building, and restaurant hub.

The thing that impressed me most was how the postmodern building responded to the historic site. It reflects its surrounding buildings, creating new, unique views of them. Its program attracts many different people to the area. I mapped where visitors are coming from and how they will travel through the building.

Today’s Liverpool is very commercial, it focuses on tourism and shopping. It is a city you can walk in just a day. I mapped the major destinations and how they are nice walking distances apart, making the city very easy to explore.

Tourist Liverpool

Network Model

For the model, I expanded the scale of my network to show how the building connects different types of people - residents, tourists, office workers, and transit users - in the area.