On the 19th of June we had the MAA02 Individual Thesis Final Presentations here at IAAC. The jury included international guests Stephen Gage (The Bartlett), Franz Prati (Polytechnic School of Genoa), Elena Rocchi (Taliesin), Josep Ferrando (Josep Ferrando Architecture), Beatriz Minguez de Molina (EMBT), and Carles Casamor (Barcelona City Council); as well as IAAC members Areti Markopoulou (Academic Director), Silvia Brandi (Academic Coordinator), Manuel Gausa (Dean), and Maite Barvo and Ricardo Devesa (Research Methodology & Theory Faculty). The presentations were divided into 3 blocks, each block linked to thesis projects developed under one of the Individual Thesis Supervisors: Marcos Cruz, Vicente Guallart, Jordi Pagès, or Lluís Viu.
Block 1 – Supervisors: Jordi Pagès and Lluís Viu
Emotions in Design – Richard Aoun – Proposing to rebalance emotions through design to improve the users mental health and conceptualize their happiness.
Rigidum Flexible S.C – Luis Leon Lopez – deform structures so that they can change shape according to their external environment, or load distribution in the building, generating a relation between rigidity and flexibility.
re-Form, development & application of self-assembly in the built environment – Ian Mann – a system which can spontaneously build a structure, allowing for example connectivity in flood zones, or support unstable post-earthquake structures.
The aesthetics of efficiency for sustainability, reducing the environmental impact of today’s cement factories – Alejandro Martinez del Campo – in order to increase factories sustainability, their designs must be driven by efficiently analyzed architectural intervention tools, generating new aesthetics based on performance and environmental impact.
Robustic – Sahil Sharma – based on active bending of plywood: taking advantage of the material performance and fabrication techniques to achieve a deformative behavior generating a dynamic structure.
Block 2 – Supervisor: Marcos Cruz
The architecture of decay, Bio-Scafold – Natalie Alima – through a process of biomimicary, it is time for architecture to grow and transform itself over time.
Bio-Concretion – Tobias Grumstrup Lund Øhrstrøm – seagrass possesses he special characteristic that it hardens over time, allowing the seagrass roofs shapeless surface character. This process is known, in the science of geology, as the process of concretion.
Liquef (A)rchitecture – Chung Kai Hsieh – cork, a unique healthy method of farming and material sourcing.
Living Screen – Irina Shaklova – explores the possibilities of creating living systems through novel fabrication techniques (robotics).
Hydro-Mediating Interface, water management in contaminated groundwater sources and related ecological systems - Alessio Verdolino – the spatialization of an innovative low-tech water desalination process.
Metabolic Architecture – Mohamad Yassin – behaviorologic architecture: man must stop making and manipulating, and instead allow architecture to happen.
Block 3 – Supervisor: Vicente Guallart
Charring Cities – Wen Shan Foo – in order to deal with carbon emissions from its root, it is necessary to investigate the global carbon cycle and interrogate the carbon network of our cities.
Hybrid Playgrounds – Mardet Gebreyesus – exploring informal agencies as sustainable expressions for hybridising urban environments.
Genius Ghetto, architecture towards activation – Ruxandra Iancu Bratosin – a proposal of social reactivation through architecture: a multiscalar approach based on top down analyses, multiple players, bottom up inputs, achieving a self-sufficient agenda through user empowerment.
Turbulentopolis, spatial and formal generation through archetypes for energy exchange – Robert McKaye – just as the city’s informational layer emerged through the digitalization of matter within the internet of things, so will the city’s sensational layer emerge through the electrification of similar means: the paradigm shift towards an architecture of sensitivity.
Redefining Urban Realities, towards a socially sustainable urban strategy for Beirut City – Rasha Sukkarieh – empowering the concept of sharing through innovative interactive spatial interventions, ensuring, in parallel, eco-friendly and environmentally sustainable standards.