Marcos Cruz at IaaC

Lecture “Neoplasmatic Design”
13th of June // 20:00 // IAAC Auditorium // C/Pujades 102 BARCELONA

Marcos Cruz is the Director of the Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL, where he is also a Reader and Studio Master of Diploma/MArch Unit 20. His varied teaching activity has been carried out at University College London and University of Westminster in London, University of California Los Angeles, Tunghai University and Feng Chia University in Taiwan, Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts School of Architecture in Copenhagen, among others. Cruz studied at the Escola Superior Artística do Porto – ESAP (1997). In London he gained a master’s degree with distinction in Architectural Design at the Bartlett (1999) and got a PhD (2007). His investigations about Neoplasmatic Architecture, focused on a contemporary discussion about the body and the impact of bio-technology on architecture, won the RIBA President’s Research Award for Outstanding PhD Thesis (2008). Cruz founded with Marjan Colletti the atelier marcosandmarjan in 2000, combining the practice and teaching of architecture, along with experimental design research. The work has been extensively published and exhibited. This includes the participation in the Venice Biennale (2004) and the solo exhibition Interfaces/Intrafaces at the iCP Hamburg and TU Braunschweig (2005/06). Apart from numerous exhibition installations, they built two pavilions and worked on a large entertainment complex in Beijing.

Pulp fiction

The concept of the workshop was to develop 6 fields of play directed by 6 teams so as to produce a reflection around and on the new lines of thought in contemporary architecture and the contemporary position of the architect in this socio-cultural scenario. A mix between reflection and playing games, thought and action. A hybrid that mixes critics and actions. Finally, a critical action.

We had less than 48 hours to energetically produce a critical and propositive action.

An action-production whose definition was to be open to the individual criteria of the 6 invited production and thought groups, and that could be developed as a punctual action, as an active object , as a giant map or any special or material form of manipulation that activates the positive-critical reflection of the spectator.

The answer was to be festive and/or ludicrous. The aim was to answer the question posed through a process of “productive games”, both intense and rapid (object, action or installation) and to occupy or, in any case, transform a space inside IAAC (6 simultaneous spaces, like a multi-track circus).

The invited teams: 6 fields, 6 teams:

José Maria Torres Nadal and Antonio Sanmartín

Josep Maria Garcia Cors

Juan Alfonso Zapata

Studio G – Mathilde Marengo, Jeannette Sordi and Anna Varaldo

Joan Maroto, Lis Marrani and Ana Martinez

Luciana Asinari and Silvia Brandi

The structures and performances were presented on the 28th through an itinerant multi ring circus presentation party.

in Architecture

Computation, in its most basic meaning, refers to the processing of information. In this way, both machinic processes operating in the binary realm of the digital, as well as material processes operating in the complex domain of the physical can be considered computational. The lecture will introduce Achim Menges’ work on exploring the territory where machine computation and material computation potentially overlap, where they not simply co-exist but intensely interact in the design process. He will present the related design research – conducted at the Architectural Association, at Harvard University and at his new institute at the University of Stuttgart University over the last ten years – along a series of constructed prototype buildings. This will include the institute’s latest research pavilion, which was entirely constructed by robotic carbon and glass fibre filament winding processes.

Lecture “Material Computation in Architecture”
3rd of June // 19:30 // IAAC Auditorium // C/Pujades 102 BARCELONA

Achim Menges, born 1975, is a registered architect and professor at University of Stuttgart where he is the founding director of the Institute for Computational Design (since 2008).  In addition, he has been Visiting Professor in Architecture at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design (2009-10), at the AA School of Architecture in London (2009-current) and at Rice University in Houston (2004). Achim Menges graduated with honors from the AA School of Architecture in London (2002) where he subsequently taught as Studio Master of the Emergent Technologies and Design Graduate Program (2002-09) and as Unit Master of Diploma Unit 4 (2003-06).
Achim Menges practice and research focuses on the development of integral design processes at the intersection of morphogenetic design computation, biomimetic engineering and computer aided manufacturing that enables a highly articulated, performative built environment. His work is based on an interdisciplinary approach in collaboration with structural engineers, computer scientists, material scientists and biologists. Achim Menges has published several books on this work and related fields of design research, and he is the author/coauthor of numerous articles and scientific papers.  His projects and design research has received many international awards, has been published and exhibited worldwide, and form parts of several renowned museum collections.

Tonight at IAAC, Enrico Dini, an italian civil engineer, gave us a lecture explaining how he developed his idea of printing houses. Enrico showed some images about his first attemps, and then he explained how he figured out the whole process. Finally a debate took place and several students could ask and comment some of the issues that the lecture rise up.

3D Printing applied to a large scale is a new Construction Science.
The pages of this book are all blank and need to be written from scratch.
Building through 3D Printing means : a new machine; but, what embodiment? how big? How tall? How fast? How accurate?
A new process using new materials or old materials in a new way, but what binders? what fibers? what additives? What methods to achieve structural performance?
A new Building technique : just one? Maybe many? Which should be adopted first?
But the biggest question is : what should be done with the 3D printer, a new tool for a new architectural language? what to print? what to sell? How to design?
Freedom of Creation:
Is it really true? What are the constraints? How to solve practical matters? Printing on site or off site?
Enrico Dini has spent the past seven years facing hundreds of questions and answering roughly just a few of them.
During his lecture Enrico will explain the story of a challenging, painful, exciting invention process, still on going and full of surprises, mistakes and discoveries.
He found his way: mimicking nature.

Enrico Dini at IaaC

Lecture: “D-Shape: petrified algorythms”
30th of May // 19:30 // IAAC Auditorium // C/Pujades 102 BARCELONA

Enrico Dini is an Italian civil engineer who spent most of his career in automation and robotics for the footwear industry.
Since the late 90′s Enrico came into contact with rapid prototyping techniques used to facilitate the design of the shoes.
In 2003, while he was 3D printing a shoe sole, Enrico had a vision of this technique applied on a large scale and imagined a new free form architecture. Enrico decided to return to its original skill enriched by his experience in robotics and since then has devoted his life to developing a new construction technique based on the principles of stereolitograpy. In 2007 helped from his trusted brother Riccardo, Enrico tested successfully his large scale D-Shape printer prototype and the following year he printed the Radiolaria, the first free-form building structure ever. Today Enrico Dini is immersed in developing D-Shape, 3D Printing Building technology to bring innovation to the architecture and construction industries.

The offices of the Italian lightening company are located in a spherical glass structure, wrapped in a special fabric solar protector and hanged from a complex central pillar, whereas the showroom and storage area is contained in a lower concrete base. In night-time the sphere turns on in an exciting light show. The multi-awarded building (Architizer A+ Awards - Winner 2013 //  WAF World Architecture Awards – Shortlisted 2012// Building of the year Archdaily - Winner 2011) has been completed in 2011.

The visit has been conducted by Silvia Brandi, project leader of this building in MiAS Architects and part of the IAAC Faculty.

Stefano Boeri at IaaC

Lecture: “Mar Adentro”
23rd of May // 19:30 // IAAC Auditorium // C/Pujades 102 BARCELONA

Stefano Boeri, born in 1956, is a Milan-based architect and founder of “Stefano Boeri Architetti”. From 2004 to 2007 he was editor in chief of Domus international magazine. From 2007 to 2011 he was editor in chief of the international magazine Abitare. Professor of Urban Design at the Politecnico di Milano, he has taught as visiting professor at Harvard GSD, MIT and Berlage Institute among others. He is the founder of Multiplicity international research network dedicated to the study of contemporary urban transformations. Co-author of different volumes such as Mutations (Actar, 2000), USE (Skirà, 2002) and Cronache del Abitare (Mondadori, 2007), Biomilano (Corraini, 2011) and author of Anticittà (Laterza, 2011). Stefano Boeri, with his texts and reflections, is a regular contributor to several magazines and newspapers. Together with Burdett, Herzog and MacDonough, Boeri was part of the Architecture Advisory Board in charge of developing the guidelines for the urban transformations to be implemented within the frame of the 2015 Milan Architecture Expo.