On Saturday, July 2, the Master in Advanced Architecture class of 2010/2011 graduated from IAAC. This year’s graduating MAA class was made up of 56 students from over 25 countries. It was a day to celebrate after all of the hard work put in by the MAA students this year. In the final weeks of the program, the MAA Students worked tirelessly on their studio projects, you can read more about the final project presentations here: Emergent Territories, Self Sufficient Buildings, and Digital Tectonics.

After the graduation ceremony students, family, and friends took a bus to Playa del Prat for the annual end of year beach party. It was a night to remember!

(Above- RS3 at the Olympic Stadium in Munich. IAAC Tweet “RS3 studio @ Frei Otto’s Stadium, 2h tour on the canopy, walking + jumping on the 70000 m2 of cable net roof! Unforgetable experience!”)

Students in the Masters in Advanced Architecture Program are split into three Research Studios (RS1: Emergent Territories, RS2: Self Sufficient Buildings, RS3 Digital Tectonics). This week each will be exploring a different part of the world. Each trip is related to the focus of each Research and Development Studio.

On the third day of exploring Hong Kong, Research Studio 1: Emergent Territories visited the School of Architecture at Hong Kong University, the Hong Kong Housing Authority, and the Terminal Cruisers Authority. Still ahead for RS1 is a gallery tour of the Hong Kong Planning and Infrastructure Exhibition and exploring the Kowloon district.

(Above- IAAC Tweet: “RS1 meet with Housing Authority in HK.”)

Research Studio 2 finished their trip to Dubai and Abu Dhabi. On the last day the group visited the exhibition of proposed designs for the future museums on Saadiyat Island.

(Above- IAAC Tweet: “RS2@Corniche Exhibition/F. Gehry,Z.Hadid,J.Nouvelle+T.Ando proposals for 4 museum/attractors”)

In Germany, Research Studio 3: Digital Tectonics spent time at the Olympic Stadium and BMW Welt in Munich before heading to Stuttgart. There they spent time at the University of Stuttgart’s Institute of Computational Design and Institute of Lightweight Structures. RS3 will have one more day in Stuttgart before heading to Basel.

(Above- IAAC Tweet: “RS3 studio @ ICD-Institute of Computational Design, University of Stuttgart. Presentation + Visit of robotic facilities”)

IAAC Everywhere:

Staff members from each Research Studio group are chronicling their travels on Twitter.  You can also follow all of IAAC’s stops around the world on Foursquare.

(RS2 Self Sufficient Buildings: Students discuss sustainable urban planning in Masdar City)

Students in the Masters in Advanced Architecture Program are split into three Research Studios (RS1: Emergent Territories, RS2: Self Sufficient Buildings, RS3 Digital Tectonics). This week each will be exploring a different part of the world.

As we have mentioned, each trip is related to the focus of each Research and Development Studio. Their goal is to discover advanced architecture in action around the world and apply and expand upon these ideas in their work when they return for the final Phase of their Masters program. In this post you will see a few of the things a couple of the Studios have seen in their travels that relate to their MAA curriculum at IAAC.

(RS1 Self Sufficient Buildings- Electric cars in Masdar City)

(RS3 Digital Tectonics- The longest 5axis CNC machine, used to fabricate free-form timber structures at Blumer-Lehmann in Erlenhof)

(RS2 Self Sufficient Buildings: Masdar Library by Norman Foster, created from low carbon materials)

(Video from Research Studio 1: Emergent Territories at the Hong Kong Housing Authority. Urban interactive.)

IAAC Everywhere:

Staff members from each Research Studio group are chronicling their travels on Twitter.  You can also follow all of IAAC’s stops around the world on Foursquare.

(RS3 Checking in outside ETH, the group on foam furniture fabricated by robots)

Students in the Masters in Advanced Architecture Program are split into three Research Studios (RS1: Emergent Territories, RS2: Self Sufficient Buildings, RS3 Digital Tectonics). This week each will be exploring a different part of the world. Each trip is related to the focus of each Research and Development Studio.

RS 1:Emergent Territories is in Hong Kong and after a walking tour of the city yesterday they headed by boat to Macau. Tomorrow they will be visit Hong Kong University for a tour of the campus.

(RS1 Checking in from Flower Market Road, Mong Kok, Hong Kong)

RS2: Self Sufficient Buildings made their trip to Masdar City today. Tomorrow they will tour Ferrari World and the Yas Marina F1 Circuit. (RS2 at Masdar City- IAAC Tweet: “Chris Wan, Masdar City director explaining different strategies of energy generation”)

RS3: Digital Tectonics is currently traveling by bus through Switzerland, Austria, and Germany. They concluded their first day of visits in Zurich at EPFL also included a visit to ETH Zurich Digital Fabrication Lab and a presentation at Design to Production by Fabian Scheurer about use of parametric tools for production of non-standard buildings. Tomorrow they will arrive in Munich and will visit Museum Pinakothek der Moderne, the Olympic Stadium, and BMW World.

(RS3 at EPFL- IAAC Tweet: “RS3 studio visited EPFL Mobile Robotics Group, received by senior researcher Dr. Francesco Mondada”)

IAAC Everywhere:

Staff members from each Research Studio group are chronicling their travels on Twitter.  You can also follow all of IAAC’s stops around the world on Foursquare.

(Self Sufficient Buildings- Dubai and Abu Dhabi, Above- Masdar City)

The Masters in Advanced Architecture program will be traveling the world!

Each year the MAA program takes its research out of Barcelona and explores a different region of the world. Past trips include India, Romania, Taiwan, Slovenia-Croatia, and Brazil.

This year, the three Research Studios will be exploring a different part of the world. Self Sufficient Buildings will be in Dubai and Abu Dhabi, Digital Tectonics will visit Switzerland, Austria, and Germany, and Emergent Territories will travel to Hong Kong. Each trip is related to the focus of each Research and Development Studio.

Follow IAAC’s Travels

IAAC staff from each group will be updating everyone on Twitter and we will be posting pictures and recaps regularly on the blog. Students have already set off on their travels and updates have started to come in!

(Digital Tectonics- Lausanne, Zurich, Munich, Stuttgart, Basel, Geneva)

(Emergent Territories- Hong Kong)

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.

Phase 2 of the Masters in Advanced Architecture program is an Open Education Structure where students attend a Research Studio and 1 Seminar related to this studio plus 2 elective Seminars based on academic interest.

As you may have seen in previous posts Research Studio 1 (RS1) is focused on Emergent Territories, Research Studio 2 (RS2) is studying Self-Sufficient Buildings, while Research Studio 3 (RS3) is working on Digital Tectonics.

Good luck to all, keep working hard.

To learn more about what MAA students are working on in the Designing Associativity seminar visit the seminar blog at: legacy.iaacblog.com/designingassociativity

Francisco Marmolejo working on details.