The AA

Visiting School

One – three weeks

The Visiting School encompasses diverse learning programmes, workshops and site-based agendas shaped by participants working intensively in small groups over varying periods of time from one to two weeks. Central to each programme is the idea that experimental, new and provocative forms of architecture are best learned by doing. These programmes take place all over the world, including Bedford Square in London and Hooke Park in Dorset. The Visiting School welcomes applicants in any moment of their studies and careers, from within and outside of the architectural realm. The AA Summer School Programme, also part of the Visiting School, is equally open and takes place for three weeks during the summer period.

DTA Students’ education and architectural practices post AA

Incubators

Join one of our Visiting School short courses happening around the world.

Location

Course Title

Dates

Programme Heads

DLAB: Robotic 3D Printing

20 July to 7 August 2026

Excess and Experiment

27 July 2026 - 7 August 2026

Ring of Fire

Summer 2026

Playful Cartographies

Summer 2026

Palimpsest Barragán

Summer 2026

Ecologies of Innovation: Circular Architecture in the Tropics

Summer 2026

Urbanity from the Ocean – Taiwan

Summer 2026

Exhibiting Architecture - Media, Methods, Agents

15 August 2026 - 23 August 2026

Emerging Ecologies Lab

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Associated Things

Programmes

AA Visiting School

Associated Things

Associated Things by Leire Asensio Villoria and David Mah, digital collage, 2025.

Dates

Summer 2026

Brief

'To use the world well … we need to relearn our being in it. ... Our fellowship as creatures with other creatures, things with other things.'

– Ursula K. Le Guin, Late in the Day: Poems 2010–2014 (PM Press, 2015).

'Things make us just as much as we make things.'

– Daniel Miller, Stuff (Polity Press, 2009).

Our everyday lives are full of things.

Cars, computers, books, buildings, streets, trees, trams, pencils, coffee, clothes, phones and games: these are just a few of our many favourite things.

Every thing is part of a larger story.

Every thing is embedded within a larger network of material, cultural, economic, political, ecological processes and practices.

Melbourne’s AA Visiting School will focus on things: understanding existing things while imagining and prototyping new things.

The units are structured to help you build capabilities in different methodologies, techniques and mediums:

Critical design thinking in the 21st century
Theoretical and practical understanding of experience design
Introduction to advanced use of digital technology
Research and development of new architectural processes
Multidisciplinary design approaches
Interaction design
Exhibition design
Art and design

Fees

Please email leire.asensio@unimelb.edu.au for the cost and fees for this elective as it will be dependent on if it is assessed or not. This fee will include registration costs and fees related to assessed credits from the host institution, The University of Melbourne.

For University of Melbourne students, please enroll directly via the University of Melbourne student portal.
For Non-Australian University enrolled students, contact the AAVS Melbourne Programme Heads, Leire (leire.asensio@unimelb.edu.au) and David Mah (david.mah@unimelb.edu.au) for further information regarding the Community Access Program (CAP) and how you may choose to study in either assessed or non-assessed mode.
For Australian University students (but not University of Melbourne students), please apply through Cross Institutional study programme at the University of Melbourne: https://students.unimelb.edu.au/your-course/cross-institutional-study
Enrolment for University of Melbourne (UoM), Non-University of Melbourne, and Non-Australian University enrolled applicants will need the following subject codes to complete the application:

- ABPL30063 _ AA Visiting School Undergraduate
- ABPL90386 _ AA Visiting School Post Graduate

Once you are enrolled with UoM, the Programme Heads will be in touch regarding online registration with the AA School.

Applications

Applications for this program will open soon.

Eligibility

The programme is open to current architecture and design students. Students need their own laptops, digital equipment and model making tools.

Software requirements: Adobe Creative Suite, Rhinoceros

Visas

All participants traveling from abroad are responsible for securing any visa required and are advised to contact their home embassy early. An official letter can be issued by the Visiting School Office confirming enrolment onto the programme once an applicant has settled their full fees. This letter can be used when applying for a visa.

Insurance

All participants are responsible for securing their own travel and health insurance. Please ensure that your travel insurance also covers your personal belongings i.e. laptop, equipment, tools, passport, etc. The AA and the University of Melbourne take no responsibility for lost or stolen property.

Biographies

Programme Heads

Dr Leire Asensio Villoria and Dr David Mah

Leire and David are senior lecturers in Architecture and Urban Design at the Melbourne School of Design and have taught at The Architectural Association, Harvard GSD and Cornell University.They are active in creative practice and are authors and editors of Systems Upgrade: (Re)Fabricating Tectonic Prototypes, Lifestyled: Health and Places and the forthcoming book The Climate Imaginary.