DYNAMICS IN EXTREME ENVIRONMENTS

ETH CAAD and Chalmers Faculty: Manuel Kretzer, Stig Anton Nielsen

IAAC Faculty: Areti Markopoulou

IAAC Assistants: Alexandre Dubor, Carlos Bausa

External Guest: Raul Nieves, Prototipolab

In collaboration with: MaterFad

In traditional architecture, a change in a material’s property, such as its volume or elasticity, was generally seen as a potential problem affecting the performance of built structures. Static planar surfaces related with stability or even durability have long dominated the architectural vision. When, as a consequence to the introduction of domotics, design disciplines started to explore kinetic and dynamic performances to increase efficiency, this was done following mere rules of mechanical actuators and heavy motor or servo-based systems plugged-in in whichever material surface.

Today, progress in novel and advanced materials coming from disciplines such as medicine or aerospace engineering raise the challenge of adaptation following smart, active or reactive materials that are able to alter their properties reacting to external stimuli. Changes in state, colour, and volume take place with no need of any computing device or mechanical actuator; rather the material itself has all these functions programmed into its persistence on a molecular scale.

In parallel, the 21st century challenges related with global warming, i.e. global temperatures that rise and cause climate change and global urbanization, raise new questions regarding our way of building and inhabiting. Architecture, will have to respond to extreme weather conditions, especially the rise of temperature in densely urbanized areas and smart materials will play a critical role in the architectural process of dealing with the current challenges of the global context.

Which architectural systems can be dynamic and react to environmental conditions such as temperature shifts?

Can buildings and cities perform as environmentally integrated living organisms?

How can architecture remember and learn from previous experiences, therefore evolving with embedded intelligence?

The workshop introduced students to a series of “smart materials” such as polymorph plastics, shape memory polymers, bioplastics, thermochromic pigments, temperature-sensitive and electroconductive materials for 3d printing.

The project proposals explored active materials and developed dynamic architectural proposals for extreme environmental conditions where temperatures in urbanized areas surpass 70 or 80 degrees Celsius. Such extreme temperatures are able to activate a series of smart materials that can change state when heated in high temperatures.

Project 1

Project Name: Thermoteam

Students: Alina Kvirkveliya, Ji Won Jun, Josep Alcover, Jose Algeciras, Matteo Silverio, Yoko Gotoh

Project 2

Project 3

Project Name: Thermoluminescence

Students: Nina Jotanoivc, Panagiota Sarantinoudi, Farah Alayeli, Apostolos Apostolinas, Lubna Alayeli, Ceren Temel

Project 4

Project 5

In collaboration with: 

The Pylos Research project, developed by IAAC Fabrication Researcher Sofoklis Giannakopoulos, supervised by Areti Markopoulou, with the Robotic Supervision of Alexandre Dubor, is currently being exhibited in the Onassis Cultural Centre in Athens as part of the 3D Printing Exhibition ”An exhibition from the future… now”.

3-D printing, of everything from houses to hearts and pretty much all you can imagine in-between, is the coming revolution. And not only for industry, but culture and creativity too.

In the first major exhibition in Greece dedicated entirely to this amazing technology, more than 100 pieces by luminaries of Art, Architecture, Fashion, Science, and Product design combine to hint at the transformed commercial, public and private spheres of tomorrow.

In the first stages of the Pylos research project a new protocol has been set up towards the investigation of the material chosen, soil, and the relative science, both physical and chemical, connected to this material.

Earth, or Soil, as a construction material, has been used since Neolithic times. The advantages of an earth – soil structure are primarily related to both environment and economy, being both secure and environmentally friendly. These constructions also offer the benefits of natural insulation, fire protection, air circulation and more, with regards to their comparison to conventional building techniques and typologies.

The project focused on the behavior of the soil when mixed with other ingredients, towards a better understanding of the material and potential composites. Each sample developed showed different behaviors, all of which have been recorded, also through the testing of their tensile strengths, to then compare these results towards the development of a prime material. So as to fulfill this phase of the research, a crash machine was developed and built. Graphs were then implemented showing the results of the relative material testing, generating a comprehensive analysis of the materials and results.

The interest to develop additive manufacturing, specifically 3d printing, as a construction method, moreover when printing with natural materials, particularly in this time of economic and environmental crisis, is undeniable. The material results obtained through the development of the first phase of this research project are extremely promising, and consequently push the interest towards the further development of the machine itself.

Digital Fabrication

Wednesday, 10th of December 2014 // 10h00 – 14h00, IaaC Main Hall

Senior Faculty:

Alexandre Dubor

Assistants:

Sofoklis Giannakopoulos

Anna Popova

Jury:

Areti Markopoulou, IAAC Academic Director

Silvia Brandi, IAAC Academic Coordinator

Edouard Cabay – Appareil & IAAC Faculty

Pablo Martinez Diez – 300.000Km/s

Luis Fraguada – IAAC Computational Expert

Luciano Bertoldi – Fab Lab BCN Manager

Anastasia Pistofidou – Fab Lab BCN AMO director

Rodrigo Aguirre – IAAC Computational Faculty

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.

To check the participating Fab Labs: http://academy.cba.mit.edu/2013/labs/index.html

To check student’s personal websites: http://academy.cba.mit.edu/2013/students/index.html

To access to the video archive of the class: http://academy.cba.mit.edu/2013/videos/index.html

To access to the Fab Academy 2013 content: http://academy.cba.mit.edu/2013/schedule/index.html

Fab Academy Barcelona first Class from Fab Lab Barcelona on Vimeo.

If you have any enquiries about the Fab Academy, please send us an email to: coordination@fabacademy.org

Seminar: Material, Materiality and Material Systems

Faculty: Claudia Pasquero, Marco Poleto (EcoLogicStudio)

In Phase III of the Masters in Advanced Architecture students will continue to work on their final projects in their Research Studios and they will also attend three seminars that cover a wide variety of topics.

The Material Systems seminar will investigate the relationship between material, materiality and material systems in the realm of architecture. The method of investigation will involve discussion as well as digital and material experiment.

Architecture as a form of Material life

(From Systemic Architecture: Operating Manual for the Self-Organizing City by C. Pasquero, M. Poletto)

“When the matter of architecture is freed from the essentialist conception that considers it a formless entity regulated by transcendental geometric rules, forms and proportions, it suddenly acquires potential of self-organization and becomes generative. In this state matter can go far beyond the resolution of structural or constructive problems as it provides models for dealing with the complex feedback that occurs between multiple (and often contrasting) forces, like the ones operating in cities.

Our task as design explorers has been to breed these models by developing scaled material prototypes that operates as analogues computers when subjected to specific sets of structural and organizational principles, programmatic regimes and urban operational fields.”
These prototypes have been actualized in many series of projects, each exploring specific set of input parameters and actualizing in highly different urban contexts; among them the eco Machines series, prototypical architectures capable of systemic co-action with their users and within the local ecosystems”.