The structure of events included in a_ta 2014 is based on four major categories: EDUCATION, START, PROFESSION, STREET. These categories address the issue of a_ta’s audience: a major goal of this year’s edition is to reach as many people as possible, regardless of age or profession. The choice for these particular categories is also justified by their relevance in a mechanism that generates the general perspective on our profession, both from within and from without. By debating them we hope to emphasize the necessity of their association, but also the possible benefits residing in a more intimate connection between them.

Events under the EDUCATION section are destined on one hand to children and their parents and on the other to architecture students and teachers, architects, collaborating professionals and the whole community. The event dedicated to children will help them learn basic architectural and spatial concepts in a creative and friendly environment. Students in architecture will benefit from a call for proposals concerning their annual field work practice which will facilitate their comunication with the profession and the community. This category will conclude with a debate in which professionals and teachers will argue the conformity between the educational and the professional systems and their correlation.

The START section will include a series of events commited to the subject of career start-up as well as the less visible, more practical aspects of our profession. This category will start with an informal feast coupled again with a debate over these proposed subjects and will continue with several seminars on the 2 year architectural training for graduates and with a conference on possible start-up strategies in October.

The category entitled PROFESSION includes a series of professional conferences destined for architects and not only, which will take place in November and December. This edition of a_ta will also include a documentary process aiming to highlight architects’ alternative pursuits. In this same period the exhibition of the a_ta projects competition will be mounted. This category will conclude in December with the awards gala, the final event, and the apogee, of a_ta.

The STREET section involves a conference held in October, debating public space as a typology and its understanding in our contemporary society, as applied to the local context. This event will be supported by a number of related events organized by our partners in the street (as a generic space) all through the summer and will end with a panel, similar to the round tables included in  previous categories but addressed this time to communities and to all the users of this critical space.

Through this array of events, developed on a 6 months timeline and aimed at as wide a public as possible in an accesible fashion, a_ta hopes to become a dinamic and progressive process with the declared purpose of issuing a call for presence.