Dezeen School Shows: wooden play apparatus combining traditional and contemporary timber techniques is among the projects from the Architectural Association.

Also featured is a project exploring architectural strategies in response to wildfires, and a proposal for a subterranean settlement in Egypt.

Architectural Association

Institution: Architectural Association
Courses: Design Research Laboratory, Design and Make, Emergent Technologies and Design and Spatial Performance and Design

School statement:

"The AA offers ten Taught Postgraduate Programmes for students with prior academic and professional experience.

"The following is a showcase of this year's postgraduate thesis projects from three of our MArch programmes dedicated to material and computational research and design: the Design Research Laboratory (DRL), Design and Make and Emergent Technologies and Design (EmTech).

"Adding to these, and to finalise the thread, we are featuring the latest performance organised in London at Stone Nest by our Spatial Performance and Design (AAIS) MA/MFA programme.

"The Design Research Laboratory (DRL) has been at the forefront of design experimentation for more than two decades, pioneering advanced methods in design, computation and manufacturing. The programme is based on an evolving framework of three-year research cycles that examine architecture and urbanism from the city scale to the nanoscale.

"Design and Make is based at the AA's satellite campus at Hooke Park, where students study within a working forest, inhabiting a unique environment in which landscape, studio, workshop, forestry and 1:1 fabrication are interwoven. We use a hands-on approach and students are expected to spend most of their time in the workshop developing an in-depth material understanding.

"The Emergent Technologies and Design (EmTech) Programme is open to architecture and engineering graduates seeking knowledge and skills in architectural design science, who want to experiment with how these can be applied within new production paradigms, investigating new synergies of architecture and ecology at the intersection of computational design and advanced fabrication.

"Spatial Performance and Design (AAIS) explores practices of design that reach beyond standard definitions of architecture and performance. The programme focuses on fields such as dance, theatre, music, exhibitions and festivals, with a focus on the sociopolitical effect of works in these fields."

Not Yet by Spatial Performance and Design students

"Not Yet: re:turn at Stone Nest, London, is the first public event in the Not-Yet festival series. It is developed by the AA Interprofessional Studio (AAIS), MA/MFA in Spatial Performance and Design at Stone Nest, and in partnership with Færderbiennalen.

"The work brings architecture, choreography, sound and material systems into one constructed environment that unfolds in real time, with a plant-based culinary experience embedded in the festival as a shared spatial and social situation.

"Food, movement and material action operate together and are tested with an audience present.

"The work continues in June in the quarry in Norway, where the Not-Yet festival series develops further through workshops, experiences, installations and performances."

Students: Antonio Saucedo Azpe, Eemaan Rashid, Ying Ying Cecily Tong, Yingying Cheng, Wendi Zheng, Xujun Lu, Bianca Lee, Ojasvini Goel, Xiaoke Ding, Ziyue Wang and Deniz Kangüleç and Hao Wu
Course: Spatial Performance and Design

A Forest Datum by Design and Make students

"A Forest Datum is the physical manifestation of an imaginary line drawn between the forest and the sea, ending at the Jurassic coast 12.5 kilometres to the south.

"It marks a horizontal line in a sloping terrain, and a counterpoint to the verticality of the forest.

"The project uses crown timber – sourced from the pruning of very small branches high up in the forest canopy – in an experimental structural system.

"Each uniquely forking branch is located using a bespoke jig that situates it within a repeatable cell structure. The project won a 2025 Wood Award in the Bespoke category."

Students: Yan Chen, Yonger Chen, Paola Gonzalez Ferreiro, Seongsoo Han, Alejandra Marcovich, Kavana Irappa Pujar, Ramtin Taherian, Mingxin Yang and Ramsey Young
Course: Design and Make

The Tree and the Truss by Design and Make students

"Design and Make students were briefed to design and build the primary structure to expand the existing Wakeford Hall building at Hooke Park, combining natural forking tree geometry with engineered (glulam) timber.

"With the act of making at the centre of the process, the structure integrates material knowledge with progressive design and fabrication technologies, while also adapting to new possibilities for an evolving campus."

Students: Miguel Arturo Chávez Cornejo, Yungang Chen, James Kristian Dent, Rafael Ferrés Echavarren, Maisie Hoile, Guixin Lin, Joaquin Mosquera Iragorri, Sai Snigdha Pinisetti, Yiting Sun, Nicholas John Volpe, Yifan Wan and Yiling Zhou
Course: Design and Make

Architecture of Co-intelligence by Design Research Laboratory students

"This thesis project by a group of DRL students responds to Theodore Spyropoulos's 'Everything Intelligence' design agenda, which reframes architecture as a mediator between artificial and ecological intelligence in the context of planetary crisis.

"Intelligence is understood not only as something human or computed, but through the capacity to adapt, learn and sustain life.

"At its core is the seed: a compact vessel of genetic intelligence carrying evolutionary knowledge across millennia.

"While climate change is rendered visible through data and models, the intelligence embedded in seeds remains largely invisible, despite over 40 per cent of global plant species facing extinction.

"Reimagined as a co-intelligent infrastructure, the seed bank integrates genetic and environmental datasets, drawing on sources such as the IUCN Red List, to organise species into adaptive microclimates.

"Inspired by the work of Frei Otto, the architecture operates as a living interface between natural and artificial intelligence."

Students: Design Research Laboratory students
Course: Design Research Laboratory

Ember by Gal Gnapp, Sandip Kale and Yuxuan Hu

"The Ember Project explores new architectural strategies for resilience at the Wildland-Urban Interface (WUI), where urban expansion intersects with the increasing threat of wildfire.

"Responding to climate volatility, resource scarcity and the fragility of peri-urban landscapes, the project asks: how can we expand urban environments into nature-adjacent areas while remaining protected from the emerging risks that accompany such proximity?

"To address this, the project proposes a community of mobile, transformable and self-sustaining units that function simultaneously as shelters, protective barriers and regenerative infrastructure.

"Positioned at the edge of Los Angeles's Pacific Palisades, these autonomous structures harvest water and carbon dioxide to support inhabitants while mitigating fire spread through adaptive microclimate interventions.

"By combining principles of minimal spatial design, mobility and ecological intelligence, Ember envisions a living system that safeguards vulnerable communities, regenerates burned landscapes and redefines habitation as an active agent in climate adaptation."

Students: Gal Gnapp, Sandip Kale and Yuxuan Hu
Course: Design Research Laboratory

Tesser[act] by Dharmik Siddhapura, Kevin Paul Samuel and Namankumar Patel

"Tesser[act] proposes a compact, high-density, three-dimensional urban fabric along the Thames between the City of London and Canary Wharf.

"Conceived as a metropolitan condenser, it aggregates housing, work and civic programs within a single, publicly traversable building, adding large-scale capacity without expanding the urban footprint or fragmenting the street network.

"The project responds to London's sustained population growth, immigration and land scarcity by converting distance into proximity and reorganising everyday life around shared spaces and open outlooks.

"Methodologically, Tesser[act] is developed through an algorithmic framework that treats the voxel as the base tessellation and employs agent-based fields to distribute program, circulation and structure as adaptive subsystems.

"Multi-scale rules translate behavioural logics into a legible, mixed-use landscape.

"The result is an integrated, generative, city-scale system designed to accommodate change over time, support shared infrastructure and prototype a resilient model for high-concentration urban living in London."

Students: Dharmik Siddhapura, Kevin Paul Samuel and Namankumar Patel
Course: Design Research Laboratory

Up-Bridge City by Atul Hanchnale, Fenglin Xia, Peilin Zhao and Yungpeng Luo

"In response to demands of urban development, the UpBridge City project takes the rapid advancement of AI as an opportunity to propose a novel paradigm for urban growth, whilst exploring possible pathways for cities to continuously evolve as intelligent systems.

"UpBridge City conducts a comparative analysis of two conventional paradigms of urban growth – top-down and bottom-up approaches – and proposes a hybrid model that integrates both.

"This hybrid model is further translated into a cooperative game-theoretic framework, enabling a structured interpretation of interactions between multiple urban actors.

"By deploying multiple AI-based techniques across the entire urban design pipeline, the project presents a renewed and comprehensive response to the question of AI for new cities."

Students: Atul Hanchnale, Fenglin Xia, Peilin Zhao and Yungpeng Luo
Course: Design Research Laboratory

Post-Mining Palimpsest by Mauli Patel, Sung-Soo Park, Ajinkya Randive and Luis Castro Aguilar

"This dissertation examines the environmental degradation caused by coal mining in Jharia, India, where land subsidence, contamination, and ecosystem loss have created unstable, uninhabitable terrain.

"It analyses the full extraction process, revealing how each stage produces lasting damage. In response, the project reimagines architecture as a process of ecological repair rather than imposition.

"By integrating stabilisation, ecological succession, and spatial formation, it proposes a generative framework where built form emerges only under viable environmental conditions.

"Architecture develops gradually, shaped by soil, climate and vegetation, offering a model for post-mining landscapes in which settlement evolves alongside ecological recovery."

Students: Mauli Patel, Sung-Soo Park, Ajinkya Randive and Luis Castro Aguilar
Course: Emergent Technologies and Design

Subterranean Currents by Sherine Elabd, Maria Aranzales and Orfeas Rachiotis

"This thesis addresses accelerating desertification by proposing a subterranean settlement in Egypt's Bahariya Oasis, drawing on the finite resources of the Nubian Sandstone Aquifer.

"It develops a closed water-cycle system combining groundwater extraction with atmospheric condensation to support decentralised desert inhabitation.

"Informed by climatic and cultural research, it translates vernacular practices into four adaptable prototypes – cistern, housing, agriculture and condensation units – aggregated into a responsive urban fabric.

"Through iterative analysis of environmental and spatial performance, the project evolves into a generative system that organises settlement patterns based on water, climate and social conditions, reimagining the desert as a metabolic landscape shaped by resource flows."

Students: Sherine Elabd, Maria Aranzales and Orfeas Rachiotis
Course: Emergent Technologies and Design

The Wild Thing by Design and Make students

"The Wild Thing brings together traditional and contemporary timber techniques to create a playful structure in the woods.

"The project celebrates natural tree geometries by combining century-old timber craft techniques used in boatbuilding with contemporary timber engineering principles of glue lamination.

"The structure is accessed by a western red cedar, raw beech and aluminium drawbridge, which transforms from a walkable floor to a vertical door.

"Its south elevation is clad in clay dug directly from the site, which is processed, powdered, rehydrated and fired into modular tiles.

"The ceramic becomes cladding: dense, curved and deeply tied to place."

Students: Yan Chen, Yonger Chen, Paola Gonzalez Ferreiro, Seongsoo Han, Alejandra Marcovich, Kavana Irappa Pujar, Ramtin Taherian, Mingxin Yang and Ramsey Young
Course: Design and Make

Partnership content

This school show is a partnership between Dezeen and the Architectural Association. Find out more about Dezeen partnership content here.

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