CAMPAIGNING ARCHITECTURE, AA/UIC GLOBAL WORKSHOP 2012

The 2012 AA/UIC Global Workshop in Chicago is a 10-day international design workshop that will expose, explore, and develop multiple ways for campaigning architecture – enabling participants to combine the potential of design intelligence with the strategic power of propaganda, in order to get things done in the city. Campaigning strategies engage the city like no other – from the social media offensive to get America’s youth to elect their first African American president; to the environmental drive to re-reverse the flow of the Chicago river to keep evasive species from destroying Lake Michigan’s fishing industry; to the behind-the-scenes lobbying to pave the way for Chicago’s first casino. Executed as an amalgamation of military-like precision and haphazard logic, the effectiveness of campaigning lies in successfully engaging the social, political, and economic networks that make a city tick. And while architects are never shy to proclaim, and often quicker to disdain, architecture has yet to learn how to campaign. The AA/UIC Global Workshop will therefore explore how architects can develop more effective ways to campaign. In doing so, Campaigning Architecture will engage with and rethink architecture’s relevance to the city. The workshop is a collaboration between the Architectural Association and the University of Illinois at Chicago Schools of Architecture, and will be taught by instructors from both Schools. The workshop will be supplemented by an evening program of events, in which some of Chicago’s leading designers, thinkers, and protagonists will join in conversation on topics that are vital to the success of different kinds of interventions in the city. Participants will also be given an insider’s tour and meeting at Studio Gang Architects and will receive a copy of Reverse Effect, personally signed by Jeanne Gang. The 2012 AA/UIC Global Workshop is open to students, recent graduates, young designers and architects, as well as professionals from related fields interested in exploring alternative forms of practice. Participants will work in small groups and then collectively assemble these works into an architectural finale like no other – one that will sabotage local media and prick up the ears of the city, from Jane Doe to Mayor Rahm Emanuel. By doing so, the workshop will enable participants to invest in the development of ideas for the future of Chicago. chicago.aaschool.ac.uk facebook.com/aachicago