Curriculum
The students of the AA have been addressed by many eminent figures, from John Ruskin and George Gilbert Scott, to more recently Richard Rogers, Zaha Hadid and Rem Koolhaas, an alumnus of the school.
After 150 years, the AA is one of the world's most international schools of architecture, attracting students and staff from more than 60 countries worldwide, and a long list of visiting critics, lecturers and other participants from around the world each year.
Courses are divided into two main areas - undergraduate programmes, leading to the AA Diploma (Part 2), and postgraduate programmes, which include specialised courses in Landscape Urbanism (LU), Housing and Urbanism, Sustainable Environmental Design, Histories and Theories, Emergent Technologies, Design Research Lab (DRL), as well as day-release course in Building Conservation, garden conservation, and environmental access. Recently launched programmes Projective Cities, Design+Make and Interprofessional Studio. Since its foundation, the School has continued to draw its teaching staff from progressive international practices, and they are reappointed annually, allowing a continual renewal of the exploration of architectural graphics and polemical formalism.
The school also has its own bookshop, the AA Bookshop, containing a comprehensive range of architectural books. The bookshop is also used as a platform for newly launched titles from AA Publications and its imprint Bedford Press. AA Publications has a long tradition of publishing architects, artists and theorists early in their careers, as well as occasionally publishing figures who have already gained notoriety in their field of expertise, such as Salman Rushdie. AA Publications also publishes the journal AA Files and the AA Book, also known as the Projects Review, which annually documents the work undertaken by members of the school from Foundation to Graduate programmes. AA Publications are designed and edited by the AA Print Studio, originally established in 1971 as part of the Communications Unit directed by Denis Crompton of Archigram. The school also has its own independent radio station. The AA gallery also regularly exhibits work from emerging professionals, to exhibitions containing the work of more established architects and related professionals.
The school is notable as existing outside the state-funded university system, with tuition fees comparable to that of a private school, though some bursaries are available on merit and financial need. Since non-EU students are charged higher fees to attend state universities however, the AA is competitively priced by comparison; therefore the AA is notable for having a higher proportion of overseas students enrolled than many other UK architecture schools.
It also exists outside the UCAS application system; even at undergraduate/first degree level direct application is the norm. It is therefore not included in many books which guide potential undergraduates to choose appropriate courses, indeed many are unaware of its existence until they are studying architecture elsewhere. This may also account for the lower count of home-students enrolled.
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“If we focus exclusively on teaching our children to read, write, spell, and count in their first years of life, we turn our homes into extensions of school and turn bringing up a child into an exercise in curriculum development. We should be parents first and teachers of academic skills second.”
—Neil Kurshan (20th century)