Architectural Association School of Architecture

We believe students learn best by working in small, highly focused groups around a single tutor or team for an entire year, allowing them to direct their own path through the school.

All learning in the AA School is very much project- and portfolio-driven. Students learn architecture and address the broad spectrum of associated professional and political issues by embedding these realities within the scope of a single, resolved design portfolio. The AA's famous 'unit system' of teaching and learning includes collective assessment and enquiry across all parts of the school. In addition to the innovative team- and group-based studio work of the graduate school, individual undergraduate student projects and portfolios are assessed at the end of each academic year by a panel of unit tutors, who collectively assess, discuss and debate the strengths, weaknesses and results of each and every project and portfolio within the school.

Taken together, our decades-long commitment to these three essential features helps to explain how it is possible that a single small and independent school such as the AA can continue so consistently discover, define, promote and disseminate new architectural agendas across the world.

The dormitory, Westminster Lodge, accommodates 16 people in eight rooms each with two single beds, a toilet, shower and wash basin. A further eight fold-out camp beds are available for short visits. There is a large communal room with a wood burning stove. Basic tutor accommodation is also available in the hut adjacent to the workshop, where there is a room with two beds and a shower room. B&B and hotel accommodation is available in Hooke village, Beaminster and other local towns. Meals are provided in the Hooke Park refectory.

AA campus is featuring state-of-the-art facilities to enhance students' learning experience, including:

• AA Library (features over 40,000 volumes)
• Photo Library (features historical and contemporary buildings slides, as well as student work)
• Digital Prototyping Lab (features prototyping machines and a teaching space)
• Materials Workshop (equipped with machine and hand tools)
• Model Workshop (offers assistance and equipment to construct small-scale objects)
• Digital Photo Studio (equipped with DSLR cameras, backgrounds, lighting, and tripods)
• Audiovisual Department (houses audiovisual equipments and teaching spaces)
• Computer Department (features current design systems and softwares)
• Restaurant & Bar
• AA Bookshop (houses comprehensive range of architectural books)
• Radio Station
• AA gallery (exhibiting works from professionals)

The ten-building campus of 68,000 square feet means that for the first time in 50 years all students and staff are located at Bedford Square, and planning work can begin for a campus masterplan.