Since the industrial revolution the factory has confirmed architecture’s place in the mass-production of modernism. From James Watts’ steam engine, to Henry Ford’s assembly line, to Andy Warhol’s infamous Factory of pop art, to the invisible ones that yield our digital spaces - for nearly 150 years the factory has housed all kinds of manufactured worlds. At the start of the year unit discussions revolved around factories that make stuff - typewriters, cars, textiles, shoes and drugs - but our conversations led us to an entirely other realm of production. If we were going to use architecture to work on the very issue of architecture culture, then surely where we work and how we work were inevitable questions to ask. Our attention shifted from the assembly of a product towards the assembly of a critical question: What is an architecture factory and what does it make: stuff or identity?
Oliver surreptitiously interviewed architects in the streets of London about pay and gender equality within the profession. His resulting project is a carnival-esque mobile office that shirks identity in favour of pure output, and demands dialogue instead of directives. Arguing that the factory assembles more than it creates Sabrina built a world of ‘borrowed’ work, grafting her identity from those around her and situating herself at a crucial junction where copyright law and identity theft steadily encroach on the profession. Catarina’s factory - a real-life photoshop - exists at the end-stage of production, the realm in which architecture meets its viewer. In her project people and structure are edited away to optimise the audience’s experience. This hyperrealism sits in stark contrast to Nara’s more ethereal factory of belief. Light is her building material - but she uses it to build uncertainty, transforming terra firma within her spaces into infinite vistas and slipped timescales. Ultimately, the output of Diploma 9’s factories is equally a set of cultural conditions and building proposals that address the multifarious world we operate within today.
Manolis Stavrakakis for his seminars, workshops, and cultural and geographical navigation
Antoine Vaxelaire for seminars, tutorials and in-house exhibition
Charles Arsène-Henry for seminar, superworlds and chess
and to our dear friends, guests and critics:
Miraj Ahmed
Shumon Basar
Umberto Bellardi Ricci
Doreen Bernath
Valentin Bontjes van Beek
Matthew Butcher
Nerea Calvillo
Barbara-Ann Campbell-Lange
Javier Castañón
Judith Clark
Marie de Monseignat
Ryan Dillon
Belinda Flaherty
David Greene
Kostas Grigoriadis
Fenna Haakma Wagenaar
Francesca Hughes
Sam Jacob
Lilly Jencks
Carlos Jiménez Cenamor
Amandine Kastler
Saskia Lewis
Nacho Marti
Inigo Minns
Carol Patterson
Pablo Ros
Lola Ruiz Garrido
Adiam Sertzu
Takero Shimazaki
Rob Stuart-Smith
Brett Steele
Antoine Vaxelaire
Madelon Vriesendorp
Mike Weinstock
Thanos Zartaloudis
Elia Zenghelis
Natasha Sandmeier has taught at the AA since 2001 and in addition to Diploma 9, she directs the AA Summer School, held in Bedford Square every July. She is also a registered architect and has worked in architectural offices in Boston, London, Athens and in Rotterdam at OMA, where she was the Project Architect for the Seattle Public Library. She is the author of the AA Agendas title, Little Worlds (2014).
