The preferred countries for studying in architecture are generally the United States, Britain and Australia. The school style can be roughly divided into conservative and innovative. Conservatives, in line with the traditional spirit of craftsmen, pay attention to structure, space and rhythm. The students they train basically have a solid foundation and their works are full of humanistic flavor. The innovators focus on building a blueprint for the future of the construction industry, leading the development of architectural design in a better direction. The students cultivated have outstanding ideas and strong pioneer consciousness. The representative college is the AA Architectural Alliance, which is called God. How much water and pheasants are there in AA University?

　　 AA Architectural Alliance College How pioneering are they? First of all, it was born because it was unaccustomed to the academic style. There is no teacher to give lectures here, and there is no diploma after graduation. As a design college, it does not pay attention to "design". At present, when it pays attention to interdisciplinary, only architecture is available. How can such a school, which has much in common with the "pheasant" university, get onto the altar? It has been a long time since I wrote about a college. Today we will talk about the most unusual British AA Architecture Alliance.

　　 AA University No teacher to teach?

As we all know, the landmarks such as Big Pants and Galaxy Soho are all from the AA Architectural Alliance of the UK, and the professors of this school are of course the world's leading architectural educators. However, these professors despise the educational model of teachers' teaching and students' learning, and pursue the relationship of "mutual hatred and mutual harm".

In the teaching building of AA, there are arguments everywhere, students and students, students and teachers, teachers and teachers. Of course, it is not really to attack each other, but the harsh examination and outspoken criticism inspired by the collision of thought sparks. As for AA University in England, there are many voices of criticism from conservatives, but AA people don't care at all, because the most serious criticism comes from inside AA! Students and teachers are always criticizing, correcting and making progress.

No matter how famous a teacher is, he will become a partner of students here. The teacher will give you some advice and support, but you should use logic to persuade him. This atmosphere has no rigid hierarchy and dogma, and can accommodate all kinds of bold ideas.

This special teaching mode is also completed through a special curriculum. Taking UCL Architecture Design of University College London as an example, the curriculum, like most colleges, is divided into four grades: First Year, Sophomore Year, Junior Year and Senior Year.

Screenshot from the official website of Bartlett School of Architecture

However, this is not the case at AA University in the UK. It does not have a grade limit, but takes the project as the time unit, which is divided into three stages: First Year Studio+Intermediate Units+Diploma Units.

First Year Studio is similar to Foundation Year in other universities. It is a relatively basic content to prepare for the follow-up study. However, AA, which does not follow the usual path, has a very special way to lay the foundation, because students soak in Design Studio to lay the foundation with projects as soon as they enter.

There will also be some History&Theory content. This part is not boring to see the professor preach according to the book, but through a project like Fieldwork: Experiencing Buildings, in this project, students will study and analyze some building cases in the past 20 years, do field research, analyze the building logic of the year, and make optimization plans on this basis.

The concept blurred in AA is not only "grade", but also the concept of curriculum in traditional colleges and universities. At AA University in the UK, Intermediate Units replace "courses", and students can choose the research projects they are interested in. In a period of about one year, more than 10 units can be selected as "grades". This is the meaning of "Units".

Diploma Units is similar to the graduation design year of various universities, but the project difficulty of AA Diploma Units is completely the master degree difficulty of some universities. The "scale" of some projects has also become wider. Units in the previous stage are basically separate, small buildings and small ecology. However, in Diploma Units, there are some more extensive design projects, such as the overall design of the square.

In this teaching mode, students should not only understand the unit system as a learning method, but also assume the responsibility of defining their own curriculum, and develop their own independent research practice as a means of acquiring skills.

At the graduate stage, because students need to be proficient in one direction after five years of study, the classification of courses is much clearer, divided into nine majors. They are: Master of Architecture&Urbanism MArch Architecture and Urban Planning, New Technology and Design of Emergency Technologies&Design, Design+Make MSc/MArch Design and Production, History&Critical Thinking MA History and Critical Thinking, Housing&Urbanism MA/MArch Housing and Urban Planning, Spatial Performance&Design MA/MFA Spatial Performance Design Landscape Urbanism MSc/MArch Urban landscape planning, Architecture and Urban Design Taught MPhil Sustainable Environmental Design MSc/MArch sustainable environmental design.

The master's program includes two stages of study. The first stage is the design project of the studio and three professional courses, and the second stage is the completion of the design project paper.

The courses of AA University in England are completed in the form of teamwork from beginning to end. Whether it is workshop or studio, students can learn from each other in the practice of team cooperation, tap their potential in team cooperation, and exercise their collaboration ability in running in.

　 　 AA Architectural Alliance College graduates can not get a certified degree?

It can be seen from the name that AA is not a school/college, but an independent college named Alliance, so even if AA is well-known, there is no name on the QS ranking list. This also means that it has its own special school system in addition to the British National University system, which issues a unique AA diploma. In addition to the AA diploma, there is also an Open University Master degree certified by the British Royal Architect RIBA, the Art Society and the Ministry of Education.

How good is this RIBA qualification certificate? How good can it be compared with the officially certified degree? RIBA qualification certificate comes from the Royal Institute of British Architects, which was founded in 1834 and has been committed to the construction industry to ensure the professional standards of architects imported into the society.

To get this qualification certificate, it takes three steps to become an approved architect:

RIBA Part 1: Completed the first three years of architecture courses in full-time institutions in the UK, accumulated one year of practical experience, and recorded one year of experience on the official website.

RIBA Part 2: You can only read Part 2 after obtaining a bachelor's degree or above. This Part 2 requires 24 months of practical experience and at least 12 months of project completion under the supervision of an architect.

RIBA Part 3: The final exam, which includes 24 months of practical experience, professional resume and career assessment, case studies, oral and written examinations recorded on PEDR.

It usually takes 7 years for British local students to get the RIBA qualification certificate. UCL Architecture, the first major in architecture in the world, can get RIBA Part 1 after graduation.

The AA Architecture Alliance College can directly get RIBA Part 2 after graduation. However, although RIBA has weight, in the eyes of AA students and teachers, these are not comparable to an AA diploma. Many Daniel architects will write AA instead of RIBA in their resumes even if they get RIBA Part 3, which is enough to prove the gold content of AA as a "wild degree".

　　 AA Architectural Alliance College Pay attention to unreliable things?

From the above two points, we can see that AA does not follow the path of drawing in the first grade, learning computers in the second grade, contacting projects in the third grade, and finishing projects in the fourth grade. What they recruited was pure enthusiasm for architecture, and they were willing to explore the infinite possibilities of architecture in the future with the rigorous attitude of scholars and the unconstrained attitude of artists.

This arrogant and confident attitude, of course, is not to train architects to draw for customers, but to train creators for the world and lead everyone to lead the world in building discipline.

The works of both well-known alumni and students have a strong sense of future. Many people do not understand this style. They feel that they have to make the architecture very vague and conceptual, and they have to pursue the concept of vanguard, while ignoring the customers' desire for a cost-effective design. Of course, these imaginative industries are by no means imaginary, but a design that has been derived from rational and logical reasoning.

AA will study tribes, fish, sand dunes and other strange things when doing design projects, and even use programming and technology to do "flashy" buildings. However, it is in this unreliable experiment that these absurd imaginations lead the architectural innovation step by step and make the utopia in the ideal close to reality.

Therefore, AA University in England studies architecture as a science. They transcend the times and walk at the forefront of the times. Customers and Party A are just the added value of research. This is also the most respectable place of AA. Everyone maintains a very pure passion for architecture in this era, doing something seemingly "unreliable" to create a new era of architecture.

　　 One from AA University, UK Building with steel bars?

At a time when colleges and universities emphasize interdisciplinary and society pursues comprehensive talents, AA still focuses on architecture, except Studying abroad in architectural design There are no other professional courses available. Students from other schools have cooperated with each other across disciplines. Students from AA University in England can only play with students from architecture. But is this pure and perfect school really a single minded building? Yes, not really.

AA now has 33 studios with different themes, each of which has about 12 students. These themes can be said to cover everything, from humanities to fashion, from politics to history, from sustainable development to programming code, and even business and management. Each studio has interdisciplinary knowledge, trying to put architecture into any field of modern society, So as to stimulate new output.

How much water is there in AA University? The above points are the reasons why every architecture major student still flocks to the school despite the "full slot". They all say that once people have ideals and goals, everything will be different. Dream School The existence of the school may not lie in how perfect the school is. Many times, it is more like a lamp in the dark to help us hold back time after time, encouraging us to stay through the nights of overnight study. I hope you also have a Dream School that constantly recharges you!

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