Category Archives: Uncategorized

MAA Research Trips: Munich Stadiums, Abu Dhabi Museums, Hong Kong Housing

By iaac | Published: April 7, 2011

(Above- RS3 at the Olympic Stadium in Munich. IAAC Tweet “RS3 studio @ Frei Otto’s Stadium, 2h tour on the canopy, walking + jumping on the 70000 m2 of cable net roof! Unforgetable experience!”)


Students in the Masters in Advanced Architecture Program are split into three Research Studios (RS1: Emergent Territories, RS2: Self Sufficient Buildings, RS3 Digital Tectonics). This week each will be exploring a different part of the world. Each trip is related to the focus of each Research and Development Studio.

On the third day of exploring Hong Kong, Research Studio 1: Emergent Territories visited the School of Architecture at Hong Kong University, the Hong Kong Housing Authority, and the Terminal Cruisers Authority. Still ahead for RS1 is a gallery tour of the Hong Kong Planning and Infrastructure Exhibition and exploring the Kowloon district.

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Urban Feeds at Smart Geometry 2011

By iaac | Published: April 6, 2011


Urban Feeds Team: Olivier Gras, Elsa Wifstrand, Federico Giacomarra, Scott Leinwebe, Bernadette Luger, Dimitris Papadopoulous, Woo Jae Sung, Felipe Pecegueiro, Morten, Bulow, Luis Fraguada, Tomas Diez

Smart Geometry 2011 just finished last Saturday, after an intense week of workshops, talks and conferences, all orbiting around the mean of Data, its uses and applications into architecture and design. Urban Feeds cluster, tutored IAAC community members: Luis Fraguada, Tomas Diez and Felipe Pecegueiro, was about the Personal Data Collection and the use of it to affect the behavior of city inhabitants. The workshop was an opportunity to develop a workflow proposal, based on a more protagonist role of the data production into the design process.

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MAA Research Trips: Following the MAA Curriculum Around the World

By iaac | Published: April 6, 2011

(RS2 Self Sufficient Buildings: Students discuss sustainable urban planning in Masdar City)

Students in the Masters in Advanced Architecture Program are split into three Research Studios (RS1: Emergent Territories, RS2: Self Sufficient Buildings, RS3 Digital Tectonics). This week each will be exploring a different part of the world.

As we have mentioned, each trip is related to the focus of each Research and Development Studio. Their goal is to discover advanced architecture in action around the world and apply and expand upon these ideas in their work when they return for the final Phase of their Masters program. In this post you will see a few of the things a couple of the Studios have seen in their travels that relate to their MAA curriculum at IAAC.

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MAA Research Trips: Digital Fabrication in Zurich, Masdar City, Macau

By iaac | Published: April 5, 2011

(RS3 Checking in outside ETH, the group on foam furniture fabricated by robots)

Students in the Masters in Advanced Architecture Program are split into three Research Studios (RS1: Emergent Territories, RS2: Self Sufficient Buildings, RS3 Digital Tectonics). This week each will be exploring a different part of the world. Each trip is related to the focus of each Research and Development Studio.

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Fab Academy Update: 1st Half Complete

By iaac | Published: April 5, 2011

Every week since the beginning of January, Barcelona Fab Academy students have been working on a different assignment learning about digital fabrication tools and techniques. On this second edition, the Fab Academy has more than 50 participants from all over the world learning and sharing knowledge together through the Fab Lab Network. The students are working on a different assignment each week learning and doing projects on many different scales, from plywood press-fit structures to micro-electronics.

In the second half of the course the students are getting deeper into electronics and embedded programming, developing electronic circuits from zero and doing their first steps on C programming. Below you could see a selection of some of the work done through the first half of the course.

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MAA Research Trips: Pictures from Dubai

By iaac | Published: April 4, 2011

(Above: IAAC Inside 0-14 Tower in Dubai. IAAC Tweet: “RS2@O-14 tower by Reiser+Umemoto/amazing concrete exoskeleton structure+skin freeing the building core and the floors from columns”)

Students in the Masters in Advanced Architecture Program are split into three Research Studios (RS1: Emergent Territories, RS2: Self Sufficient Buildings, RS3 Digital Tectonics). This week each will be exploring a different part of the world. Each trip is related to the focus of each Research and Development Studio.

RS 1:Emergent Territories landed in Hong Kong today. Their first day will consist of a walking tour of Hong Kong to visit relevant projects such as the HSBC headquarters, Bank of China Tower, and The Peak Tower. RS3: Digital Tectonics is currently traveling by bus through Switzerland, Austria, and Germany. Tomorrow they will be in Zurich visiting Blumer-Lehmann, Design to Production and Gramazio & Kohler, Architecture and Digital Fabrication.

RS2: Self Sufficient Buildings has been in Dubai all weekend and have been very busy so far. They’ve been to the top of the tallest building in the world, Burj Khalifa, and to Meydan Race Course. Today the group visited the dxb.Lab studio led by founder Khalid Alnajjar.

Tomorrow the group will visit Masdar City. Masdar City, established in 2006, is a commercially driven enterprise that operates to become a leader in making renewable energy a real, viable business and Abu Dhabi a global center of excellence in renewable energy and clean technology.

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Smart Geometry 2011

By iaac | Published: April 4, 2011


IAAC community at SG 2011. Foto: Nicholas Waissbluth

Smart Geometry workshops and conference finished with a talkshop and symposium, right after 4 days of intensive sessions on different workshops based on the subject: Building the Invisible.

Talkshop was an opportunity to open debates, pose questions, challenge orthodoxies, and propose new ideas regarding the use, production and sharing of data into the architectural world. The Symposium has been a unique opportunity to hear insights into the challenges ahead for the discipline. Some of the speakers: Ben van Berkel (UN Studio), Usman Haque (Haque Design + Research), Billie Faircloth (KieranTimberlake), Craig Schwitter (Buro Happold + Adaptive Building Initiative), Lisa Amini (IBM Smarter Cities Lab), and Mette Ramsgaard Thomsen (CITA).

IAAC was represented by alumni: Felipe Pecegueiro (EMBT), Luis Fraguada (LAN), Tomas Diez (Fab Lab Bcn), Nicholas Waissbluth, Joao Albuquerque (BIG), Tomasz Jaskiewicz, Kristof Gornici (Foster and Partners), and current students: Morten Bulow (Urban Feeds CITA affiliate), and Andrea Debilio.

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