For the first AA Alumni Workshop, the capital of Malaysia’s ‘heaven island’ is inviting the AA alumni community to reflect upon its newly acquired UNESCO Heritage listing. This unique gathering will be an opportunity to demonstrate the AA’s unique way of approaching architectural thinking by tackling a world heritage site in George Town, Penang.
This year’s question will tackle the ubiquitous street, whose death and revival has been constantly chanted to no avail. We will engage in an open workshop aiming at answering the proposed challenge of rethinking the obvious – the street - within the protected – the listed town. Finding the interstitial and necessary space where contemporaneity can exist, the street as a suprisingly generic term for a chaotic and vivid setting, will be our main subject of investigation. Novel design, whereby the cultural layers perceived sequentially will inform specific interventions on the forgotten voids, will aim to highlight the possible and illustrate the unseen. Proposals will question the specificity of the “The Pearl of the Orient” which sits within the straits of Malacca as a crossover of civilizations shaping an intrinsic multicultural society.
The AAaw,is open to members of the AA alumni worldwide community. It is an occasion for the institution to continue the prospective discussions, hands on. The workshop will provide a setting based on studio work and presentation together with a platform for newly developing digital and manufacturing tools. The consideration of the tropical climate and the traditional multicultural background will define sustainable and sensitive responses that act in coherence with the place, while questioning materiality and performance. The workshop intends to reflect on the fusion of traditional and contemporary architecture beyond traditional preservation strategies, for the 21st century development of George Town.
