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.

The program is also unique as it is developed hand in hand with Industry Partners, with the objective of offering the researchers the possibility to engage in a semi-professional environment, and develop a project with the support and expertise of individuals and institutions that are commercially involved in their field of research.

The collaborative companies are: ASCAMM, Cumella Cerámica, Santa&Cole, Breinco and Cricursa.

The final presentations of OTF researchers took place with an international jury board: Areti Markopoulou – IAAC Academic Director, Lucía Pérez Cerezo – ASCAMM, Josep Maria Serra – Santa&Cole, Toni Cumella – Cumella Cerámica, and Paolo Bombelli – University of Cambridge; as well as the presence of the program advisors Silvia Brandi, Alexandre Dubor and Luis Fraguada.

This year’s projects feature green energy systems, small scale desalination devices, the implementation of ceramics with robotic fabrication, natural material research for the implementation of 3D printing on the architectural scale, and much more.

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.

Open Thesis Fabrication 2014 // Applied Research Program

Monday, 19th of January 2015 // 16h00 – 19h00, IaaC Auditorium

Advisors:

Silvia Brandi

Alexandre Dubor

Luis Fraguada

Jury:

Areti Markopoulou – IAAC Academic Director

Lucía Pérez Cerezo – ASCAMM

Josep Maria Serra – Santa&Cole

Toni Cumella – Cumella Cerámica

Paolo Bombelli – University of Cambridge

Collaborative Companies:

ASCAMM

Cumella Cerámica

Santa&Cole

Breinco

Cricursa

IAAC|Fab Lab Barcelona is pleased to announce the Smart Citizen Open Thursdays cycle.

The cycle will start next Thursday, November 13th, marking the beginning of a series of regular meetings of the SmartCitizen community.

These meetings will take place at Hangar and will be open for both users and the general audience interested in the SmartCitizen movement.

Open Thursdays will offer workshops and lectures on the different technologies, sensors and software used, as well as discussion forums, working groups and troubleshooting.

Where: at Hangar, c/Emilia Coranty 16, 08018 Barcelona, Spain.

When: every thursday from 19.00 hours.

In this first opening session, the Project’s Founders will present the Smart Citizen project, as well as explaining the hardware and technology used for the project’s development.

Join us!

Beijing Design Week 2014

This year Barcelona had the honor of being the guest city for the Beijing Design Week 2014, implementing the “Barcelona, a future inspired by design” exhibition in the 79-Tank, an impressive circular precinct in district 751. The Barcelona City Exhibition, designed by ExitDesign, won the prize for Best Exhibition of BJDW2014.

In this framework, the Institut Ramon Llull, content curators of the exhibition, invited architecture and design schools of Barcelona to develop a proposal for the realization of an installation, finally selecting the Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia’s (IAAC) BB Make proposal, presented by Areti Markopoulou and Mathilde Marengo.

BB MAKE – BARCELONA BEIJING MAKE

The BB Make proposal, developed by IAAC, in collaboration with the China Central Academy of Fine Arts, explored the potentials of new technologies applied to design, through the generation of a participative collaborative structure, enhancing local materials with advanced technologies. The structure consisted in bamboo beams, a well known local construction material, held together with digitally fabricated joints, in particular 3D printed joints and CNC milled joints, fabricated onsite, allowing the joints to be easily customized, so as to deal with the irregularity of the natural bamboo material, and finally allowing the structure to grow easily.

OPEN AND PARTICIPATIVE DESIGN

The design phase of the joints was developed through a workshop, run onsite by IAAC digital fabrication and computation faculty Alexandre Dubor and Rodrigo Aguirre, during the week prior to the Design Week. The Workshop was held at the Chinese Academy of Fine Arts with 15 local students, giving the local students the opportunity to be introduced to digital fabrication techniques, as well as new software necessary for this implementation. Through the application of 3D printing and CNC milling a series of joints designed were elaborated. These designs were then combined and integrated to finally develop one single base joint typology. A press fit joint was developed, allowing easy customization and allowing to overcome the great irregularity in the bamboo beams, differing in size from 40mm to 60mm. For the final structure, 22 different joints were fabricated through the customization of the original design.

COLLABORATIVE MAKING

During the Design Week, the BB Make structure was constructed thanks to the participation and collaboration of the local visitors, and the CAFA students. The structure was composed of a primary structure, implemented with bamboo beams, and held together with the 22 customized joints fabricated onsite in the 79 Tank. On top of this, in the interest of allowing the local visitors to further personalize the structure, hence fully taking advantage of the perks of digital fabrication, and finally making the structure “theirs”, a secondary structure was implemented using split bamboo beams, where the visitors could CNC mill a personal message, and connect this to the primary structure through simplified joints.

The BB Make installation finally represented the physical implementation of an exchange of knowledge, as well as culture, thanks to the combination of local materials and participation, with technologically advanced fabrication techniques, one of the fields of investigation developed in IAAC. Towards facilitating the access of these digital fabrication techniques during the Design Week, IAAC generated a “popup” Fab Lab inside the 79 Tank, among which the user could access and use 3D printers and a CNC milling machine.

The collaborative implementation of the structure allowed people, from students and professionals of the fields of architecture and design, to the general public, to have the opportunity to be introduced to new digital fabrication techniques, with the support of trained professional, as well as having the opportunity of actually realizing their designs through these techniques, and finally constructing the BB Make structure throughout the duration of the BJDW2014.

IAAC Team:

Areti Markopoulou, Mathilde Marengo, Alexandre Dubor, Rodrigo Aguirre, Maria Kupstova

IAAC local collaborator:

China Central Academy of Fine Arts (CAFA, Beijing)

Supported by:

Istitut Ramon Llull with ExitDesign.

IaaC’s Pavilion developed, with Anupama Kundoo, for BCN Re.Set installation, organized by the Fundació Enric Miralles in collaboration with Àlex Ollé, as well as the other BCN Re.Set pavilions are currently on display in Berlin at the Aedes Architektur Forum!

The Barcelona Re.Set Exhibition runs from the 18th of October to the 27th of November.

The IaaC & Anupama Kundoo installation, following the concept of FREEDOM, was located in the Plaça de Salvador Seguí. Knowledge provides freedom and progress; and the power of freedom is expressed through reading. This installation consists of three different trees which uproot the middle of Salvador Segui Square. The trunks and branches are made out of steel, the leaves of books, and the earth made of concrete. The public can sit beneath the permeable shadows of the trees to chat, read, and enjoy the gentle breeze created by the air passing through the leaves.

For those interested, Fab kids will be at #FabFestival on the 5th and 6th of July, so don’t miss out on your chance to make your life funner with Digital Fabrication!

Help us build the new Solar Pavilion during Fab10!

How can we capture the vastness of the world into one room, one single space that draws from multiple locations? How can we create that space so it could condense, represent and group a global network of Fabbers? And, furthermore, how could we do this collaboratively so people can plug, add, customize, propose, build, embed their designs and ideas into it?

The Endesa World Fab Condenser attempts to provide that space. It is designed to capture principles, ideas and people around the Fab Lab Network. It is a small, digitally fabricated pavilion that would serve as landmark of the Fab Lab community in the FAB 10 Symposium in Barcelona. It is a pavilion, but at the same moment is a collaborative performance, a party of fabrication where the final result would be equally important than the actual fabrication and construction phase.

Initial design by Margen-Lab, produced by IAAC and collaborative designed, build, and customized by the FabLab Network.

 FAB FESTIVAL

e-NABLE 3D printed prosthetic hands & 3D printing party Kachina Gosselin and Jon Schull & 3D Print Barcelona