25 · 35 · 55
WSA Unit Leaders – Carles Sala and Relja Ferusic
IAAC Fabrication Tutor – Alexandre Dubor
The students in this WSA Vertical Studio Unit will design and fabricate their prototypes at IAAC, Institute for Advanced Architecture in Catalonia, in Barcelona, pack them in a 25 · 35 · 55 cm size cabin baggage, and fly back to Cardiff to exhibit them at WSA, Welsh School of Architecture, Cardiff University.
The overall object of 25 · 35 · 55 is to consider the whole process of design, in terms of material, fabrication and logistics to answer today’s industry challenges for architecture and product design. By starting with a very analogue experimentation to discover material properties and by building up a material system narrative, the unit will shift to current innovative technologies and techniques. This will be addressed by the use of digital design and fabrication tools, as the emerging scenario that brings the industry towards the customized product and architectural design, opposed to the massive serial production of the XXth Century. Digital fabrication combined with the advanced IT technologies is starting a new industrial revolution that is changing the way in which the industry is going to design, produce, stock, transport and distribute the products throughout the globalized world that seeks for customized products. Just as the first industrial revolution arrived together with the steam machine, and the second industrial revolution arrived with the mass production, both the industry and architecture are already upgrading their design and production processes towards digital fabrication, making possible the third industrial revolution.