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.

SEMINAR BRIEF:

Each day, the average computing power of any given device increases. Technologies that were visionary and innovative in the

past, might not have been birthed at the correct time in order to take full advantage of their potential. For example, Virtual Reality in the late 80’s or 90’s was little more than a gimmick as the real time rendering capabilities of computers was not up to par with the vision for the technology. Last month, Facebook purchased a startup company that makes the Occulus Rift Virtual Reality Headset for 2 Billion USD. The technology is the same, but the computing power is different.

Unity is a Game Editor, allowing artists and designers to have one common platform for the development of 2D or 3D games that are deployable across many platforms including Windows, MacOSX, Android, iOS, XBox, etc. This means we can create immersive environments with realistic shadowing, information overlay, animation, and much more and be able to run them on the phones most of us have in our pockets. The implications for how we present our projects are broad.

Objective:

Over the course of this module, we will learn the Unity interface, how to model for a game environment, how to create navigation systems, cameras, and gui elements. In the end of the module, each individual will have a game engine platform to use for the presentation of their studio project.

Tools:

- Unity 4.3.4 or latest version

- Rhinoceros 5.0 or any 3D CAD for modelling (Rhino will be used in any tutorials dealing with modelling for games)

- Grasshopper 0.9.0072 + Plugins

In collaboration with the exhibition Parameter: Digital Collaborative Design in Tel Aviv, IAAC faculty Areti Markopoulou and Luis Fraguada held a five day workshop called Data Driven Structures.

In this workshop participants were challenged to rethink urbanity based on  information gathered throughout the city. The goal of the workshop was to understand how could data-driven structures affect the construction of the physical world, how cities and its built elements could be viewed as informational architecture systems.

Led by Areti nd Luis (above), the students worked on 4 case studies in Tel Aviv that were chosen based on urban criteria such as attractors,density, public space and heavy infrastructure.

Student groups visited the 4 different case studies and walk around them with the ASKit, a sensor kit developed at the Fab Lab BCN able to gather information on temperature, light, movement and CO2 as well as the specific longitude and latitude at each moment gathered by an integrated GPS on the sensor kit.

Students extracted the collected data from the ASKit and map them in order to understand the case studies based on real time collected data.

Based on the information extracted students made urban proposals and rehabilitation strategies for the 4 case studies. The intent of the workshop was not to merely interface with the built environment but to implement strategies which transform built environments into information systems.

Part of the workshop’s strategy was focused on testing ways of collecting the urban data by using the ASKit and others were focused on how those data could inform a structure that in its turn gives information to the city network.

Students developed their proposals by using rhino, grasshopper and ghowl (a plugin for rhino developed by Luis Fraguada) and they worked on fabricating their proposals using the new CNC milling machine that was set up and inaugurated by Areti and Luis.

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.

Personal Data Collection is the anchor point of the cluster, based on the use of the Ambience Sensor Kits (ASKit). ASKit are equipped with GPS antenna, Co2 sensor, light sensor, movement and temperature sensors, that allow to the user to capture and storage data into a memory card, while is scanning the city through paths. After collecting the data, it could be used as an input in Grasshopper and Google earth by the use of the G_Howl (developed by Luis Fraguada) plugin for GH, getting a real time visualization on site: hyperpresence + hyperrealism. The ASKits were then connected to Twitter and Pachube, for data streaming and information source for users to identify best places to go on the city, based on their interests and the Positive Ambience Zone Experience (PAZE). PAZED, PAZE + Devices, came out as a physical representation of the data flow and behavior, providing urban signs for people to move into the city. This whole workflow is creating a constant loop, where the user/data producer is the beginning and the end of the cycle.

Find more information about the cluster in the following presentation:

Following last’s year Smart Geometry conference, hosted in Barcelona, IAAC faculty Luis Fraguada and Tomas Diez and alumni Felipe Pecegueiro are leading the Urban Feeds cluster (assisted by MAA student Morten Bulow) at the Smart Geometry Workshops and Conferences 2011, which is taking place in Copenhagen from March 28th to 31st.

Urban Feeds cluster aims to generate design responses that scrutinize and analyze the relationships between two or more sensor parameters. Like traffic lights with sensors that are programmed to respond to fluctuations in traffic flows, the cluster aims to prototype urban interventions. These ‘behavioral prototypes’ allow the participants to design explicit behaviors and their varying degrees of expression in relation to the input parameters.

To achieve the challenge, Urban Feeds team pre-developed and produced the Ambience Sensor Kits (ASK) at Fab Lab Barcelona, supported and sponsored by IAAC.

Smart Geometry 2011 > Building The Invisible

Vast streams of data offer a rich resource for designers. User data, energy calculations, embedded sensing, material and structural simulation allows design to be situated and responsive. Design sits not separate from is environment but inhabits an ecological system, open, dynamic and interdependent. We now have the chance to instil design with an immanent intelligence creating new relationships between the user, the built and its ecosphere. From the simulation of megacities to the solid modelling of material systems, design has the potential to be informed by the real.