The team | Little Architect

Programme Director

Dolores Victoria Ruiz Garrido (Lola): Senior Architect and Master in Art and History. CEO of Semisótano Arquitectos architectural office with over 14 years of experience in building private and public projects. Winner of more than 10 international awards. Her work involves communities in the designing process and has a strong responsible and sustainable approach to the environment. Co-founder of Spanish Contemporary Art Network (SCAN) http://www.scan-arte.com. She is author and director of Little Architect since 2013.

Lola was teaching at the AA Summer School in 2012 and 2013. She wants Little Architect to change the way in which architects communicate with society, especially in culturally deprived sectors of it. She aims to improve the understanding of contemporary architecture for the good of our future cities and the architectural profession. She loves having two breakfasts a day, hates shopping shoes and you can find her talking about architecture with adults & children regardless if she knows them or not…

Christopher Pierce: Doctor Architect. Director of the AA’s Visiting School Programme and Unit master since 2007. Little Architect is part of the Visiting School, which is a global programme, exporting the international AA pedagogical approach across the world.

Chris, completed his architecture studies at Virginia Tech and gained a PhD at the University of Edinburgh. His current collaboration with Noma has included a design proposal commission for Noma 2.0 and presentation at MAD5. He is the best multi-tasking director at the AA ever, you can find him in the office laughing on a Skype call to Tokyo and texting to Dubai while he packs his things to fly to Barcelona.

Special thanks to Andrea Ghaddar, AA Visiting School office Coordinator and Jolene Malek, Visiting School officer.

Little Architect Teachers & Contributors:

Natasha Sandmeier: Architect. DIP 09, Unit Master. Author and Editor of Little Worlds (2014). Worked at the Office for Metropolitan Architecture [OMA] in Rotterdam. She is Director of AA Summer School since 2002. Natasha is probably the most energetic teacher in the Little Architect team. She is funny, inventive and she challenges children´s architectural conceptions. You´ll find her wearing colourful clothes and eating cake at her studio unit while she pretends not being the boss.

Moad Musbahi: AA student. He studied Philosophy and Art History in London and New York respectively before embarking on Architecture, currently at the AA. Moad is incredibly sweet and patient with Little Architect´s pupils which make our lessons fun and enjoyable for them. He is also a good photographer, writer and makes our great Victorian Theatres models. He still remembers his time at primary school in London, when he had much more sleep! Currently, any free time he gets he spends with his younger brother or cycling in the countryside.

Manijeh Verghese: Architect. Head of AA Lectures and curator of the AA Public Programme. She is also the author and editor of the website AA Conversations. She currently leads a postgraduate design studio (DS7) at Oxford Brookes University. She graduated from the AA with Honours and previously did a degree in architecture and mathematics. You can always find her glued to her computer but regardless what she does she will be smiling. Manijeh loves the idea that Little Architect is breaking traditional role models in architecture because our team is an army of female architects.

Anouk Ahlborn. Architect. She has completed her Diploma School at the Architectural Association School of Architecture. After completing AA Intermediate School she gained a year in practical experience in art, craft and architectural heritage in Luxembourg and the Netherlands. Today she is proud to be one of the team members of Little Architect and we love her skills recording and making videos plus her warm personality. She wants all the children to have the opportunity to use their imagination. Anouk loves to go swimming in cold waters and drink hot chocolate afterwards.

Caroline Rabourdin, Architect, essayist, director of the AA PARIS Visiting School, Lecturer at the Architectural Association and PhD candidate at Chelsea College of Arts London (UAL). She is interested in spatial literature and language theory and is an advocate of writing as a creative and critical practice. Caroline is probably our calmer teacher and patiently listens to children’s fantastic ideas.

Patrick Morris: Architect. AA graduated with Honors. He is searching for challenging our everyday experience of space through the understanding of digital light. Children looooove Patrick! Anytime he enters in the classroom there is excitement because they know that something unusual and fun is going to happen. He is incredibly talented with the camera so sometimes he also helps us with recording and editing. You can find him glued to a building site.

Laura Lim Sam: Architect, AA graduated. Laura has worked with Little Architect on multiple occasions as she is deeply interested in education, children and urban spaces for them…..Laura speaks five different languages so she is perfect for London multicultural classrooms where English is not the first language for most children attending school in disadvantaged areas.

Maridia Kafetzopoulou.

Architect, AA graduated with Honors. Maridia has a broad and holistic understanding of Little Architect and she is interested in finding ways of making it replicable and exportable to other cultural realities.