Selection of workshops and events in 2024/25

Urban Form was a seminar course run in collaboration between the Architectural Association and Drawing Matter. Drawing Matter’s archive worked as a prompt for a discussion around the representation of urban form. In response, Ingrid Schroder and her students worked each week on a different reading of the city, framing it as an idea or ideology; a terrain (real and vague); as theatre; as a rhythm or network; and as a lived metabolism. Peter Carl and Jane Pavitt joined for the fourth seminar in the series. Find details of the the seminar course here. 

Matthew Wells and Léa-Catherine Szacka brought their research students from Manchester University to the archive in November. In pairs they spent an hour observing the selected drawings and at the end of the session they led the discussion around each object. You can find their selection of London based drawings on the collection catalogue here. 

At the beginning of November 2024 we held a two-day workshop with Ben Machin’s students from Loughborough University, focusing on modes of survey drawing, from Peter Wilson’s concertina sketchbook, Ponis’ hand drawn maps, to Hollein’s crayon sketches. On the second day alongside drawing exercises, Tony Fretton stopped by to talk about his sketchbook practice while designing the Lisson Gallery. Find their selection of drawings on the catalogue here. 

Benjamin Wells and Hannah Summers brought their architecture students from Cardiff University to look at projects that dealt with design for children. The workshop aimed to show them playful approaches to dealing with existing conditions, through the drawings of school extensions by Gunnar Asplund, Richard Neutra, Superstudio, and James Gowan. Find their selection of drawings here. 

At the end of 2024 we had multiple practices visit, including Purcell, Tom Stuart-Smith, Witherford Watson Mann, and Sergison Bates. This photo is from our afternoon with Sergison Bates, which focused on Siza’s housing scheme for Evora.