Digital Matter // Intelligent Constructions

Wednesday, 18th of June 2014 // 10h00 – 18h00, IaaC Auditorium

Tutor:

Areti Markopoulou

Assistants:

Alexandre Dubor

Moritz Begle

In Collaboration with:

Mette Ramsgaard Thompsen, CITA Director – Copenhagen

International Jury Board:

David Stasiuk, CITA Copenhagen

Daniel Ibañez, Margen Lab – Harvard GSD

Lluís Viu Rebés, Max de Cusa Arquitectes

Miguel Rodriguez, xmade

Valérie Bergeron, Materfad

Luis Fraguada, IAAC Computational Expert

Maite Bravo, IAAC Faculty

Pepe Ballesteros, ETSAM – Pasajes Arquitectura

Edouard Cabay, APPAREIL

Mr Brillembourg presented Urban-Think Tank (U-TT), an interdisciplinary design practice dedicated to high-level research and design on a variety of subjects, concerned with contemporary architecture and urbanism. The philosophy of U-TT is to deliver innovative yet practical solutions through the combined skills of architects, civil engineers, environmental planners, landscape architects, and communication specialists. U-TT’s work concerns both theoretical and practical applications within architecture and urban planning. Working in global contexts by creating bridges between first world industry and third world, informal urban areas, they focus on the education and development of a new generation of professionals, who will transform cities in the 21st century.

This was elaborated during the lecture through the presentation of a series of key projects regarding Public Buildings, Infrastructure and Housing projects, with the aim of confronting realities to create realisable utopias, pushing designers to step out of their comfort zones and onto the ground, giving up the concept of “signature architecture”, and ultimately designing structures that will be finished by others, according to the specific needs at hand, transforming architecture into a moderator.

Thursday 8th of May 2014

Alfredo Brillembourg
Lecture: Radical Urbanism: A search for a new architecture

@ 19.30, IAAC Auditorium
Open to the Public

ALFREDO BRILLEMBOURG
Alfredo Brillembourg was born in New York in 1961. He received his Bachelor of Art and Architecture in 1984 and his Master of Science in Architectural Design in 1986 from Columbia University. In 1992, he received a second architecture degree from the Central University of Venezuela and began his independent practice in architecture. In 1993 he founded Urban-Think Tank (U-TT) in Caracas, Venezuela. Since 1994 he has been a member of the Venezuelan Architects and Engineers Association and has been a guest professor at the University Jose Maria Vargas, the University Simon Bolivar and the Central University of Venezuela. Starting in 2007, Brillembourg has been a guest professor at the Graduate School of Architecture and Planning, Columbia University, where he co-founded the Sustainable Living Urban Model Laboratory (S.L.U.M. Lab) with Hubert Klumpner. Along with Hubert Klumpner, Brillembourg holds the chair for Architecture and Urban Design at the Swiss Institute of Technology (Eidgenossische Technische Hochschule, ETH) in Zurich, Switzerland. As co-principle of U-TT, Brillembourg has received the 2010 Ralph Erskine Award, the 2011 Holcim Gold Award for Latin America, 2012 Venice Biennale of Architecture Golden Lion and the 2012 Holcim Global Silver Award for innovative contributions to ecological and social design practices.

image credits: Urban-Think Tank Project: “Grotao Community Centre”

DEMO-Day @ DHUB

22nd of March

The Auditorium of DHUB will be dedicated to the elaboration and discussion of new perspectives, the relationship between user and object and new productive scenarios regarding the themes ofGLOBAL – DATA – EDITION – PROCESS – MATERIAL – HIGH vs LOW.

4pm -5.30pm // MATERIAL

IaaC will be featured in the MATERIAL section of the Day during which Masters Director Areti Markopoulou will give a talk regarding the potentials, research and investigation of 3D Printing applied to the architectural field.

IaaC will be feature along side MaterFad and HYBRIDaSCP.

We hope to see you there!

For more information on DEMO-Day, please visit:

demo.adifad.org 

The Students are continuing to develop their research and prototypes in the workshop studying the ways of creating tensioned membranes with disconnected bending active elements, stabilising non-elastic membranes locally (for example with the configuration of three linear elements placed in a reciprocal configuration).

Within the workshop a series of questions are being discussed and developed among which: the setup of bending active elements; patterns towards the creation of membranes with local active bending tensioning (regular, irregular, self-organising); topology of skin, single, double, splitting skin; the computation of bending active and tensioned skin; modelling of interdependent models for skin and bending active elements; as well as tools for 3d modelling and pattern cutting of membranes.

The CITA tutors Mette Ramsgaard Thompsen and David Stasiuk also gave a presentation on the evolution of the works produced during the Workshop held in IaaC, by David Stasiuk – digitalization of the physical models for the self parametrization -, Henrik Leander Evers – 3D scanning expert -, as well as the RS3 studio directors: Areti Markopoulou with Mette Ramsgaard Thompsen – CITA – and tutor Alexandre Dubor, and developed with the Digital Matter Studio students, earlier this year. The evolution presented included new generative algorithms to be added in the different stages of the design process, allowing to enhance the self-learning systems, as well as generating an optimisation criteria towards the final development of the 1:1 prototype. Said prototype is to be produced in CITA during an exhibition to be held in 2 weeks from now.

After the Presentation, the Students then presented the work they have developed so far in a Mid-Workshop Presentation, gaining some useful feedback towards the further development of these projects, and finally the 1:1 Prototype.

The Students and Tutors from IaaC also had the possibility to visit the 3XN /GXN, including a visit to the DAC (Danish Center of Architects).

The group, including journalists from the UK, Germany, Russia and Spain, toured IaaC together with MAA Director Areti Markopoulou and Alexandre Dubor (Research and Development).

The main interest of the tour regarded additive manufacturing. The journalists were able to observe prototypes and projects, all developed in IaaC, in action.

Thursday 20th of February 2014
Simon Schleicher
Lecture: Bio-inspired Mechanisms – Designing with flexibility.

@ 19.30, IAAC Auditorium
Open to the Public

Today the IAAC OTF researchers presented their research proposals to the partner companies (KUKA, CRICURSA, SANTA&COLE, DUPONT, STORA ENSO, BREINCO and CERAMICA CUMELLA), as well as the research line advisors, to discuss the next possible steps towards the development of their experimental prototypes.

9 projects, presented by 10 OTF researchers, in total were presented inside the research lines of INTELLIGENT BUILDING CONSTRUCTIONS, and SMART URBAN ELEMENTS, bringing forth great interest on behalf of the partner companies, and an interesting discussion in general.

The research proposals presented various aspects and themes of interest:

_How can buildings meet the needs of public space, adapting continuously to the changing conditions posed by the environment and the interaction between public and private space? What is the potential of a building to interact and adjust to its physical, environmental and social context?

_What are the potentialities of embedding responsive technologies into various materials to generate smart materials, and dynamic products, finally a dynamic and responsive city, potentially generating constant evolution in the spatial context of these material applications, according to the real time needs of these contexts?

_What is the potential of parasite architecture towards the rehabilitation of obsolete infrastructure in the dense urban scape?

_How can invisible elements, such as pollutants and sound, become the basis for the interaction with space, creating new spatiality, according to urban and social needs, and potentially generating energy for these?

‘Behind the Green Door – Architecture and the desire for sustainability’ explores how architecture, city planning, scientific practice, business opportunity and political power shifted their focus and discourse, during the last 30 years, under the umbrella of the term ‘sustainable’.

The exhibition seeks to build an a-critical landscape of the contemporary culture of design for selfsufficiency through an impressive selection of 600 material samples, models, games, photographs, videos and prototypes.

The Endesa Pavilion multiscalar prototype, façade system and generative process will be exhibited there during the next months.

The Students were given a tour of the Pavilion during which the concept, design and fabrication of the Pavilion were explained.