The day started with a lecture by the Green Fab Lab Coordinator Jonathan Minchin, who explained the structure of the Valldaura Self-Sufficient LaB a to the new students.
Meanwhile the students enrolled in the second year of the MAA take advantage of the sunny day to develop a project in the Green Fab Lab facilities.

The lecture was followed by the guided tour of the facilities, allowing the students to understand in detail  what was presented to them: a laboratory to implement investigation and set a new bench mark for self-sufficiency, a  complex ecosystem structured by a Green Fab Lab, a Food Lab and an Energy Lab.

A 0 km paella lunch was then served, giving the students time to relax and get to know each other.

After this brief introduction on behalf of the team, the new Students took the stage to present themselves, sharing their hopes and dreams for their stay at IAAC!

The 30 students doing MAA02 and OTF this year were also at the welcome meeting, taking the students out on the town after the event.

The students built lamps, recycling locally found materials!

CRICURSA Company was founded in 1928 with the intention of bringing form, material and processing into high technology glass bending, in order to explore the possibilities of bent glass as a decorative element. After more than 8o years of experience, now offers architectural glass, curved and flat interior and exterior glass, and is present in many of the most famous architectural works around the world.
introduction of new glass-made solutions. Passionate about architecture, creativity and innovation, their aim is to continue inspiring the best engineers and architects in the world, in close collaboration with Facades and installers and all professionals, partnering CRICURSA to the efficiency and capacity to deliver ideas and concepts of the designers.

Students will be exploring and prototyping Robotic Fabrication, Adaptive Skins and Urban Orchards, towards the development of a 1:1 Scale final Prototype. Stay tuned to see the progress in real time.

Academic Director Areti Markopoulou meeting with with Dr. Thomas D. Meier, president of Zurich University of the Arts (ZHdK), in the Connecting Space Zurich University of the Arts in ‪#‎HongKong‬ !
‪#‎SharingKnowledge‬ ‪#‎Connecting‬ ‪#‎LearningByDoing‬ ‪#‎FutureEducation‬‪#‎Arts‬ ‪#‎Architecture‬ ‪#‎Cities‬ ‪#‎BuildingTheFuture‬ ‪#‎now‬

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.