IAAC Winter Lecture Series 2015

Thursday 19th of February 2015

Alfredo Brillembourg // Urban-Think Tank

Lecture: The Open Village

@ 19.30, IAAC Auditorium

Open to the Public

URBAN-THINK TANK

Urban-Think Tank (U-TT) is an interdisciplinary design practice dedicated to high-level research and design on a variety of subjects, concerned with contemporary architecture and urbanism. The philosophy of U-TT is to deliver innovative yet practical solutions through the combined skills of architects, civil engineers, environmental planners, landscape architects, and communication specialists. In 1998, Alfredo Brillembourg and Hubert Klumpner founded U-TT in Caracas, Venezuela. Since 2007, Brillembourg and Klumpner have taught at Columbia University, where they founded the Sustainable Living Urban Model Laboratory (S.L.U.M. Lab), and since July 2010, they hold the chair for Architecture and Urban Design at the Swiss Institute of Technology, ETH in Zurich. Their work concerns both theoretical and practical applications within architecture and urban planning. Working in global contexts by creating bridges between first world industry and third world, informal urban areas, they focus on the education and development of a new generation of professionals, who will transform cities in the 21st century. They have been awarded the 2010 Ralph Erskine Award, the 2011 Holcim Gold Award for Latin America, the 2012 Holcim Global Silver Award for innovative contributions to ecological and social design practices, and the 2012 Venice Biennale of Architecture Golden Lion.

ALFREDO BRILLEMBOURG

Alfredo Brillembourg was born in New York in 1961. He received his Bachelor of Art and Architecture in 1984 and his Master of Science in Architectural Design in 1986 from Columbia University. In 1992, he received a second architecture degree from the Central University of Venezuela and began his independent practice in architecture. In 1998 he and Hubert Klumpner founded Urban-Think Tank (U-TT) in Caracas, Venezuela. Since 1994 he has been a member of the Venezuelan Architects and Engineers Association and has been a guest professor at the University Jose Maria Vargas, the University Simon Bolivar and the Central University of Venezuela. Starting in 2007, Brillembourg has been a guest professor at the Graduate School of Architecture and Planning, Columbia University, where he co-founded the Sustainable Living Urban Model Laboratory (S.L.U.M. Lab) with Hubert Klumpner. Since 2010, Brillembourg and Klumpner hold the chair for Architecture and Urban Design at the Swiss Institute of Technology (Eidgenossische Technische Hochschule, ETH) in Zurich, Switzerland. As co-principle of U-TT, Brillembourg has received the 2010 Ralph Erskine Award, the 2011 Holcim Gold Award for Latin America, the 2012 Holcim Global Silver Award for innovative contributions to ecological and social design practices, and the 2012 Venice Biennale of Architecture Golden Lion.

HUBERT KLUMPNER

Hubert Klumpner was born in Salzburg, Austria in 1965. He graduated in 1993 from the University of Applied Arts in Vienna in the Master Class of Prof. Hans Hollein. Klumpner worked with Enrique Miralles and Paul Rudolph before receiving a Master of Science in Architecture and Urban Design from Columbia University in 1995. He has been a member of the German Chamber of Architects since 1997. In 1998 he and Alfredo Brillembourg founded Urban-Think Tank (U-TT) in Caracas. Starting in 2007, Klumpner has been a guest professor at the Graduate School of Architecture and Planning, Columbia University, where he co-founded the Sustainable Living Urban Model Laboratory (S.L.U.M. Lab) with Alfredo Brillembourg. Along with Brillembourg, Klumpner holds the chair for Architecture and Urban Design at the Swiss Institute of Technology (Eidgenossische Technische Hochschule, ETH) in Zurich, Switzerland. As co-principle of U-TT, Klumpner has received the 2010 Ralph Erskine Award, the 2011 Holcim Gold Award for Latin America, the 2012 Holcim Global Silver Award for innovative contributions to ecological and social design practices, and the 2012 Venice Biennale of Architecture Golden Lion.

IAAC Winter Lecture Series 2015

Tuesday 27th of January 2015

Dave Pigram

Lecture: Experiments in Design and Fabrication

@ 13.00, IAAC Auditorium

Open to the Public

DAVE PIGRAM

Dave Pigram is a designer, researcher and educator relocated to Sydney after 6 years living and working in New York. He holds a Master of Science in Advanced Architecture from Columbia University. His research currently focuses on the use of computation to increase the number and quality of feedback loops between design and fabrication.

Dave has worked for Studio Daniel Libeskind and has taught at Columbia University, the Architectural Association, Princeton University, TU Delft, Aarhus School of Architecture among many others. His work has been shown at the Centre Pompidou, UN Habitat World Urban Forum, the National Museum of Australia, the Gallery of Australian Design, AIA National Headquarters as well as in Lisbon, Paris, Florence, Venice, New York, Los Angeles, Beijing, Lexington, Melbourne and Auckland.

Currently the Director of the Master of Advanced Architecture program at the University of Technology, Sydney [UTS], Dave has been living in Switzerland for the last six months as visiting faculty at the Block Research Group, ITA, ETH Zurich.

He played a viking in what was the largest Bollywood film ever made.

Now, there is an emergence of new architectural practices whose new found modus operandi has a strong technological basis. A number of promising practices have been surfacing over recent years, leveraging architectural robotics beyond mere conceptual merit and stepping into the industrial arena.

In 1996, Bernard Cache’s company Objectile set up a factory utilising CNC milling machines. In 2000, architect Bill Massie built the Big Belt house, and more than a decade later companies like Facit Homes are revisiting the idea of the house as a product, where CNC is the enabling technology. Do these projects suggest a reconsideration of the objectives of early Modernism, to provide affordable and modern houses of architectural ambition? Where novel manufacturing processes, ranging from CNC to robotics are here to anew the architectural profession. To what extent is architecture’s the newfound vicinity of construction desirable, can architecture recover lost ground?

After the lecture Jelle, along with Dave Pigram, and IAAC Robotic Fabrication expert Alexandre Dubor, will all be developing a Robotic Fabrication Workshop, developing hot-wire cutting processes with the Kuka robot.

IAAC Winter Lecture Series 2015

Friday 23rd of January 2015

Jelle Feringa

Lecture: The Evolution of Work

@ 19.30, IAAC Auditorium

Open to the Public

JELLE FERINGA

Jelle Feringa is co-founder of EZCT Architecture & Design research and Odico formwork robotics, he is currently finishing his PhD thesis at Hyperbody, TU Delft. The work of EZCT is part of the permanent collection of the Pompidou Center and the FRAC Orléans collection. Recent expositions on the work of the office include “Naturalizing Architecture”, Archilab, Orléans,“Out of Hand”, MAD museum, New York (2013-2014), the “Multiverses Créatives”, Centre Pompidou, Paris (2012) and Salone del Mobile, Milan (2012).

Jelle lives in Rotterdam, where his robot workshop is located in the harbour. His current research is focused on the development of original robotic fabrication processes for architecture, considering materialization an inherent aspect of architectural design. These efforts have accumulated in an investor backed startup, Odico formwork robotics, based in Denmark. Recent fabrication experiments include the exploration of stereotomy in vaulting structures and cutting large marble volumes “traites” to which end he developed a large robot diamond wire saw in Carrara, Italy. Jelle is also currently collaborating with IAAC.

Friday 23rd of January 2015

Jelle Feringa

EZCT Architecture & Design research

Tuesday 27th of January 2015 - 13.00-14.30

Dave Pigram

supermanoeuvre, Sydney [UTS]

Tuesday 3rd of February 2015

José Luis de Vicente

Journalist, digital culture, arts & technology

Thursday 12th of February 2015

Andrew Watts

Newtecnic, façade system design

Thursday 19th of February 2015

Alfredo Brillembourg

Uban-Think Tank & ETH-Zurich

Thursday 26th of February 2015

Alberto Diaspro

Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia, advanced materials

Tuesday 3rd of March 2015

Rodolphe el-Khoury

Dean, University of Miami

IAAC Lecture Series is FREE and OPEN to the Public

Lectures are held @ IAAC Auditorium

19.30 – 21.00

(unless otherwise indicated)

For more information, contact: info@iaac.net

IAAC Fall Lecture Series 2014

Monday 1st of December 2014

Aaron Betsky

Lecture: The Architecture of Hunting and Gathering

@ 19.30, IAAC Auditorium

Open to the Public

AARON BETSKY

Aaron Betsky is a critic, curator, educator, lecturer, and writer on architecture and design, who, from 2006 to January 2014, was the director of the Cincinnati Art Museum. From 2001 to 2006 Betsky served as director of the Netherlands Architecture Institute in Rotterdam, Netherlands.

He graduated fromYale University with a B.A. in History, the Arts and Letters and a M.Arch. He then taught at Cal Poly Pomona and the University of Cincinnati from 1983 to 1985 and worked as a designer for Frank Gehry and Hodgetts & Fung. From 1995 to 2001 Betsky was Curator of Architecture, Design and Digital Projects at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art before moving back to The Netherlands.

Betsky has written numerous monographs on the work of late 20th century architects, including I.M. Pei, UN Studio, Koning Eizenberg Architecture, Inc., Zaha Hadid and MVRDV, as well as treatises on aesthetics, psychology and human sexuality as they pertain to aspects of architecture.

Betsky was named as the director of the 11th Exhibition of the Venice Biennale of Architecture in 2008.

Through the presentation of a series of their projects, Ali and Luis showed how with each project BAD strives to give a simple answer to complex challenges, considering data as something with the ability to form structured logics, through its inherent associative properties. These organizations are organic and naturally efficient groupings of data and can provide for novel directions throughout the design process. BAD leverages this concept in order to understand specific contexts wherever a project may arise. The data identified and collected from site analysis will not yield the same organization in Beirut as it will in Barcelona. BAD strives to understand and exploit these variations in order to enrich every one of their projects.

IAAC Fall Lecture Series 2014

Tuesday 25th of November 2014

Built by Assoiciative Data – Ali Basbous + Luis Fraguada

Lecture: BAD Bits

@ 19.30, IAAC Auditorium

Open to the Public

ALI BASBOUS - IAAC Alumni

Ali Basbous (Beirut, 1973) is the Founder and Director of BAD; A Canadian, Lebanese Architect living between Barcelona and Beirut. Ali holds a Masters degree in Advanced Architectural Design from IAAC. Ali’s global experience in creating pioneering ideas have been prized and granted many internationally notable awards. Ali has been performing major roles and renowned design practices like JDS Architects (Brussels, Copenhagen), NBBJ (Shanghai, Seattle) and Raphael Vinoly Architects (New York). Ali’s work has been strongly influenced by questions concerning the evolution of social interaction and new technologies. Ali pursues an expertise in the use of powerful modeling and design software (as Rhino 3D, Grasshopper and VB scripting) to discover new Architectural forms that can respond to contemporary culture, economics and industry. His deep understanding for the complex systems of nature and the massive Data accumulation varying between sustainable issues to practical diagrammatic programming enable him a to generate precise definitions to acquire pioneering designs. During his professional practice the firms he collaborated with have won several competitions and awards on major landmark projects.

LUIS FRAGUADA – IAAC Alumni

Luis Fraguada is the Research Director of Bad Research, he investigates critical issues in architecture, design and urbanism through various modes, including parametric design, scripting, and fabrication. Luis’ architectural studies began at the University of Colorado, Boulder where he was able to begin exploring computational tools and theories that would lead him to choose this field as a specialty. Luis pursued his master’s degree in architecture and urbanism (M.Arch) from the AA Design Research Laboratory (DRL) in London where he studied with Theodore Spyropoulos. Luis chose this program for it intense use of computational tools and extensive physical prototyping of dynamic structures.

A post-graduate degree in Digital Architectural Production at IAAC brought Luis to Barcelona, where he is currently based. Luis is currently member of the Faculty of Architecture at IaaC in Barcelona, Spain as the principle computation instructor, focusing on the interface between computational processes and fabrication. Luis joined BAD as an associate and the Director of the Barcelona office. His expertise allows BAD to implement diverse data sets and analysis in each project, leading to novel design solutions which exploit the boundaries set by budget, material, political, and societal constraints.

An important characteristic of natural structures is their multi-layered, hierarchically structured, finely tuned and highly differentiated combination of a few basic molecular components leading to structures that feature multiple networked functions. Recent developments in computational design, simulation and fabrication offer new options for transfer of these principles to the macro-scale of building construction. Aim is not only to increase performance, but also to transfer the inherent ecological properties of natural constructions, i.e. mainly the efficient usage of limited resources and the closed material cycles, and thereby to contribute to sustainability in architecture and technology.

Watch the lecture here!

IAAC Fall Lecture Series 2014

Wednesday 19th of November 2014

Kengo Kuma

Lecture: “Smallness” — The world is moving toward small things

@ 12.00, IAAC Auditorium

Open to the Public

KENGO KUMA

Kengo Kuma completed his master’s degree at the University of Tokyo in 1979. After studying at Columbia University as Visiting Scholar, he established Kengo Kuma & Associates 1990. In 2009, he was installed as Professor at the Graduate School of Architecture, University of Tokyo.

Among his major works are Kirosan Observatory (1995), Water/Glass (1995, received AIA Benedictus Award), Stage in Forest, Toyoma Center for Performance Arts (received 1997 Architectural Institute of Japan Annual Award), Bato-machi Hiroshige Museum (received The Murano Prize). Recent works include Nezu Museum (2009, Tokyo), Yusuhara Marche and Wooden Bridge Museum (2010), Asakusa Culture and Tourism Center (2012) , Nagaoka City Hall Aore. (2012), and Kabukiza (2013). Outside Japan, Besancon Music Center and FRAC Marseilles have been recently completed.

Kuma is also a prolific writer and his books have been published in English, Chinese and Korean, gaining wide readership from around the world.