Tutors

Eva Castro is the director of the Landscape Urbanism programme and has been teaching at the AA since 2003. She studied architecture and urbanism at the Universidad Central de Venezuela and subsequently completed the AA Graduate Design programme with Jeff Kipnis. She is cofounder of Plasma Studio and GroundLab. She is winner of the Next Generation Architects Award, the Young Architect of the Year Award, the ContractWorld Award and the HotDip Galvanising Award. Her work is published and exhibited worldwide. Plasma and GroundLab are currently lead designers for the International Horticultural Fair in Xi’an, China a 37ha landscape with a wide range of buildings due to open in 2011.

Monia De Marchi is an architect who studied in Venice at the Istituto di Architettura di Venezia. She then completed her M. Arch at the AADRL graduate programme. She has practised architecture in Italy and for Zaha Hadid in London. She currently teaches at the Architectural Association as Unit Master of Diploma 9, as tutor in Media Studies with a course on fabrication, she co-directs the Spring Semester Programme, and continues with her architectural practice.

Holger Kehne is a German architect based in London. He is director of Plasma Studio and Groundlab as well as Diploma Unit Master at the Architectural Association School of Architecture. After studying architecture at the Muenster School of Architecture, Germany from 1992 to 1995 and the University of East London between 1995 and 1998, he founded Plasma Studio with Eva Castro Iraola in 1999. The studio is working on all scales from furniture and installations to urbanism and master planning. Recently Plasma has been involved in large-scale mixed-use projects in China and is currently lead designer for the International Horticultural Expo in Xi’an with 37 ha and 12,000 sqm of projected buildings. With Plasma Studio Holger Kehne won the BD/Corus Young Architect of the Year Award and the Hot Dip Galvanising Award in 2002, the Next Generation Architects Award in 2007, and the Contract World Award in 2008. Additionally Plasma was selected for Architecture Record’s Design Vanguard 2004 and Arquitectura Viva’s Emergentes in 2007. Its work has been published widely: examples are Phaidon’s 10x10_2 and Atlas of 21^st Century Architecture, Taschen’s Architecture Now, the Architectural Review, A+U, Abitare, Architektur Aktuell, Icon, Mark, Wallpaper, the New York Times, the Financial Times, El Pais among many others worldwide.

Alejandra Bosch studied architecture at the Catholic University in Chile and graduated with distinction from the AA Landscape Urbanism Programme. She has worked on several urban projects in Chile, the United Kingdom and China. After graduated she worked for the collective Groundlab, winning the first prize in the Lonngang City Competition. Alejandra has taught at the AA Landscape Urbanism Programme and is currently teaching at Universidad Diego Portales. She is co-founder of LyonBosch Architects and the collective Materia Lab, focusing on the performative potential of ecological strategies in landscape and urbanism, as well as the incorporation new adaptive design strategies in architecture.

Arturo Lyon is an architect who graduated from the Catholic University in Chile and AA’s Design Research Laboratory. After finishing his studies he worked at Zaha Hadid Architechts in London for two years focusing on the use of parametric design and algorithms for the resolution of doubled curved paneling systems as well as conceptual designs for different projects in China.  Arturo has taught at the AA Landscape Urbanism Programme and workshops on Generative Algorithms and Parametric Design at the AA and at the Catholic University in Chile. He is currently Assistant Professor at the Catholic University in Chile and co-founder of LyonBosch Architects and the collective Materia Lab.

J. Parrish joined Arup in 2000 to lead Arup Sport and to provide world class sports architecture design and technical expertise, as an acknowledged expert in concept design, sightlines, stand, bowl and roof geometry. He has specialised in sports venue design since the mid 1970s. Prior to joining Arup he was the concept designer of Stadium Australia, centrepiece of the Sydney Olympics and of Cardiff’s Millennium Stadium, venue for the 1999 Rugby World Cup final and all recent FA cup finals. He has recently led the Arup Sport teams working on a range of projects including the 50,000 seat football stadium for Shakhtar FC in the Ukraine and (in design collaboration with Swiss architects Herzog & DeMeuron), Beijing’s new stadium for the 2008 Olympics. Prior to joining Arup Sport he worked as a consultant to Arup for over two years on the new City of Manchester Commonwealth Games Stadium. J Parrish is a leader in the use of computer design technology in the construction industry; he developed the world’s first computer sightlines programme more than twenty-five years ago. His latest specially developed parametric stadium and arena design program places Arup Sport at the forefront of sports venue design, using his specially developed parametric stadium design software. Many key features of ArupSport projects, such as the new Beijing National Stadium (the Bird’s Nest) and the new 50,000 seat UEFA 5 star football stadium built for Ukrainian Club FC Shakhtar, would not have been practical without these sophisticated new tools. Parametric software makes it possible to produce sophisticated 3D models accurately and efficiently in considerably less time than using conventional CAD. J is a regular speaker at international conferences on sports venue design and on the use of computer technology in architecture. He has extensive experience of working as lead designer on major venues around the world, such as the new stadium for FC Shakhtar in the Ukraine. He is committed to working with local consultants and our colleagues from the extensive network of Arup offices around the world on all our projects.

Rodrigo Pérez de Arce studied architecture at the Catholic University in Chile and the Architectural Association (Graduate Diploma, 1975). He initiated private practice in England realizing various competition entries. Since 1992 he has been established in Chile, forming his own practice .His projects include the Cultural Centre for Santiago and the Renewal of Santiago`s Main Square, its Plaza de Armas which received a Mies Van Der Rohe commendation in the Urban Design category. He has collaborated in many urban studies for Santiago, the Aconcagua Valley and Montevideo and he is a member of the interdisciplinary team for Arid Zone studies at the Atacama Desert Centre .Within this framework he is collaborating in the development of a master plan and the design of the site installations in Patache. Curently he is engaged in the refurbishment of a public market in Valparaiso,  which forms part of the Worlds Heritage Site programme of urban improvements. He taught at the Architectural Association in London between 1978 and 1990, also at the University of Bath 1983-1990, and since 1991, at the Catholic University in Chile, where he is now tenured professor. He has published extensively. He is currently researching the subject of Play as generator of architectural and urban form.

Brett Steele is the Director of the Architectural Association School of Architecture and AA Publications. The AA is the UK’s oldest and only private school of architecture, and has for decades been recognized as an influential world-wide leader in architectural education. AA School graduates are the recipients of numerous prizes including Pritzker Prizes, RIBA Gold Medal & Stirling Awards, AIA and other design awards. The AA School is the world’s most international school of architecture, with full-time students joining the AA from more than fifty home countries each year. Brett also directs the AA Public Programmes, which each year organizes one of the world’s largest public programmes dedicated to contemporary architectural culture, presented at the AA and other venues and including dozens of visiting architects, artists, exhibitions, symposia and other events open to a public audience as well as 3,000 AA members world-wide. Brett is the founder and former Director of the AADRL Design Research Lab, the innovative team- and network-based M.Arch programme at the Architectural Association. He is the editor of ‘Negotiate My Boundary’ (London 2002), ‘Corporate Fields’ (London 2005), ‘D[R]L Research’ (Beijing 2005), and ‘Supercritical’ (forthcoming, 2008). He is Series Editor of ‘AA Words: Critical Thinking in Contemporary Architecture’, and the ‘AA Agendas’ Series. Brett’s articles, interviews & lectures have appeared in Arch+, AD, Architectural Review, A+U, Archis, AA Files, Harvard Design Magazine, The Architects Journal, Hunch, World Architecture, Log, Japan Architect, Icon Magazine, Daidalos and other journals; on CNN and the BBC and in other media, and a selection can be found online at www.brettsteele.net

Pedro Ignacio Alonso is the Programme Director of the Architectural Association Visiting School in Chile. He studied architecture at the Catholic University in Chile and completed his Ph.D at the Architectural Association on the modernist conceptualization of architecture as a work of assemblage. He has taught at the AA since 2005, and is professor of architecture at the Universidad Católica in Santiago. Between 2006 and 2009 he worked for Arup’s Urban Design office on a number of large-scale projects in China, Russia, Saudi Arabia and Azerbaijan. He currently leads the Extreme Weather Project, investigating the design of industrial ecologies constrained by extreme weather conditions and scarce energy resources in Chile’s Atacama Desert. Recent publications include A panel’s tale: KPD and the Politics of Assemblage (AA Files 59, London 2009); Acronym (AA Files 57, London 2008); and Post-Digital (MArq 04, Santiago 2008). He is also guest editor of a special issue of the Chinese Magazine New Architecture (no 129) titled Critical Fabrications (Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, April 2010). Together with Hugo Palmarola he received a RIBA Research Trust Award in 2008, and more recently he has been awarded with a Research Grant from The Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles, California (2010).