AA Visiting School
Bangalore
Rethinking Surfaces with AI
Material Systems · Design · Manufacture · Build
Carbon Ecologies
The program examines how low-carbon material systems can be integrated into design without compromising spatial clarity, contextual sensitivity, or expressive quality. Moving beyond sustainability as an add-on, it positions low-carbon thinking as a core design driver, embedded through material experimentation, making techniques, and fabrication, treating carbon as a generative force shaping both form and function.
Workshop Structure
The AA Visiting School x CarbonCraft will unfold through three interconnected phases, integrating research, computational inquiry, and hands-on material exploration.
Material Exploration & Experimentation
Computational Exploration & Design Development
Participants will explore diverse material systems, including CarbonCraft’s formulations, through hands-on testing of mixes and performance. This phase treats carbon not just as data, but as a tangible design medium shaped through direct material inquiry and low-carbon experimentation.
Research is translated into design proposals through AI-assisted and computational workflows. Technology supports evaluation of carbon impact, material performance, and fabrication logic, guiding iterative exploration across scales from artefact to spatial systems.
Prototyping, Fabrication & Assembly
Design concepts are materialised through hands-on prototyping with CarbonCraft’s and complementary materials. Through moulding, casting, compression, and assembly, participants test fabrication and construction logics, culminating in prototypes and surface systems grounded in ecological and structural thinking.
Co-Creation
Artists · Architects · Material Scientists
The Visiting School operates through interdisciplinary collaboration, bringing together artists, architects, and material scientists within a shared design process. Co-creation serves as the working method, where material research, design strategies, and making evolve collectively. Through this exchange, material behaviour, spatial intent, and performance continuously inform one another, enabling ideas to develop through dialogue, experimentation, and iterative prototyping.
Material Systems .Low Carbon . Design, Manufacture, Build
Key Questions Addressed
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How can we design–manufacture–build carbon-negative products and buildings that are ecologically sensitive yet architecturally expressive?
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How do constraints of context, aesthetics, functionality, time, and urgency shape new architectural methodologies?
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How can designers retain intent, flexibility, and authorship while engaging deeply with material innovation and manufacturing systems?
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What does carbon-negative architecture mean within the social, climatic, and construction realities of India?
Skills & Knowledge Developed
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Research-driven architectural thinking
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Material systems and carbon-negative design strategies
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Product-to-building scale design development
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Prototyping and fabrication logic
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Contextual and ecological design methodologies
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Collaborative and hands-on making experience
Apply
Across the Global South, rapid urbanisation and infrastructural growth are intensifying the environmental impact of construction. While carbon-negative materials and processes are increasingly discussed, their integration into architectural practice often remains superficial treated as technical add-ons rather than design drivers. This Visiting School positions carbon negativity not as a constraint, but as a generative framework through which architectural intent, spatial quality, and contextual sensitivity can be re-examined and strengthened.