AGENDA

AA Chania Progressions ::

04 – 14 October 2016

 

In 2016, the AA Chania Visiting School will continue to pursue its design agenda concentrating on the bigger picture of the Chania city’s characteristics. The city of Chania is the second largest city of Crete. Chania can be divided in two parts: the old town and the modern city which is the larger one. The old town is situated next to the old harbor and is the matrix around which the whole urban area was developed. It used to be surrounded by the old Venetian fortifications that started to be built in 1538; of them the eastern and western parts have survived. From the south, the old town is continuous with the new, and from the north the physical border is the sea. The center of the modern city is the area extending next to the old town and especially towards the south. It is a lively busy city but with several areas being disconnected and less active. The School will revisit the way by which the built environment has been put together and will explore design possibilities which can be applied in order to improve connectivity and functionality in the city.

Innovative urban interventions informed by bottom-up rules extracted from existing city conditions will formulate the major focus of design proposals. Design teams will be working with simulation tools and digital fabrication methods throughout the design research phase. The design brief will be initially explored through the combinatorial use of different computational design tools. Methods of connecting form‐finding methods with form‐making techniques will be investigated.

Prominent Features of the workshop/ skills developed

• Participants become part of an active learning environment where the large tutor to student ratio allows for personalized tutorials and debates.

• The toolset of AA Greece includes but is not limited to Maya, Rhinoceros, Raspberry Pi, and Grasshopper.

• Design seminars and lecture series support the key objectives of the programme, disseminating fundamental design techniques and relevant critical thinking methodologies.