Architecture and cities are not only impacting planet Earth’s ecological balance, but also altering the way we tell stories about the environment. Powered by high-definition nature documentaries, forests are shown as both synthetic and exotic; bursting with colourful life. Complex digital networks, fed by satellites and military drones, monitor resource extraction and deforestation from above. On the ground, forest communities live their lives between mythology and modern necessity. The New Forest is an entanglement of organic, digital and human factors. What is the future of sustainability and what role can architects play in these ecosystems, both small and large? What is the future of the forests? Are humans to be merely the stewards of and visitors to a sealed world of exotic and protected green?

EX3 will explore the relationship between the forest and the city, and the lessons that are transferable between the two contexts. We will challenge the concept of future forests being parks and discuss whether cities are merely places where humans dwell or, rather, extensions of a larger digital and organic ecology. Acknowledging forests as the birthplace of many fundamental architectural ideas and the physical source of many building materials, we will develop ways to engage with both their visible and invisible worlds. Students will learn how to perceive and draw economic, spatial and emotional relationships between cities and forests. With a strong focus on design, the unit will help students to transform impactful environmental ideas into compelling and meaningful narratives about future forests as mythologies, resources, frontiers, homes or digital networks. Final designs will speculate on metamorphic buildings, electronic landscapes, alternative models of land ownership and carbon sink institutes, among many other possibilities.

Students will be guided through a process of producing mixed media drawings, articulated models and immersive films in order to tell stories about their future forest. In EX3 we value both speculation and great execution. Students are encouraged and assisted to design and produce a portfolio that is investigative and thorough, and that has value both inside and outside the AA School. From big data and digital creatures to sustainable future crafts, the New Forest is an architectural voyage into the converging mythology of today’s city and tomorrow’s Land.