The Digital Tectonics Studio 2010/11, led by Marta Malé-Alemany, came to its end today with final presentations by the MAA Students. The jury panel included outside guests: Branko Kolarevic and Vera Parlac from the Laboratory for Integrative Design at the University of Calgary; Matias del Campo and Sandra Manninger from Span Architecture; Valerie Bergeron from MATTER; Carlos Ipser from DHUB BCN; Madrid-based architect, Maria Eugenia Diaz; Eduard Cabay from Cloud 9 as well as IAAC staff, Santiago Martin, Luis Fraguada and the studio assistants Victor Viña and Brian Peters.

Later this week the Self Sufficient Buildings (Wednesday) and the Emergent Territories (Thursday) Studios will present their final projects.

MAA Students: Gamze Gunduz (Turkey) , Virat Kumar (India), Diego López Ibarra (Mexico)

Studio: Digital Tectonics
Studio Instructor: Marta Malé-Alemany, MAA Co-Director

Project: Catenary with Crystals
Student Summary:

The aim of the project is to exceed the catenary principle, the ideal form of architecture, with the help of bouyancy and flexibility of threads while using crystals as ridifying material. For the time being, the project is in the state of exploring possible geometries and the material behaviour while the machinic part is improving.

Simulation with Grasshopper

In Final Phases of the Masters in Advanced Architecture program students attend one of three Research Studios: Self-Sufficient Buildings, Digital Tectonics or Emergent Territories. At the end of Phase II MAA Students presented their initial proposals. Throughout Phase III they have refined this research for their final presentations.

This project is from the Digital Tectonics Studio which will present their projects on Monday, June 27th beginning at 10.30h.

All presentations are open to the public. We invite you to come to see the MAA students present.

MAA Student: Maria Marghariti (Greece)
Research Studio: Self- Sufficient Buildings

Studio Instructor: Vicente Guallart, IAAC Director, and Javier Peña

Project: Algae Farm Block

Student’s Summary:

Basic element of the project is the algae and its cultivation, that consists a powerful source of energy, an effective water cleaning system and captures great amounts of CO2 (essential for its growth), emitting at the same time O2. The algae is cultivated in photobioreactors that are hanged from the free ends of the beams of the light steel structure forming in that way the north-east and north west facades of the building that work as a filter between the interior and the exterior space. Furthermore, the terraces that are behind the photobioreactors consist a transitional space that can be unified at will with the interior space controlling in that way the conditions and the microclimate of the interior spaces. Moreover, principal circulation of the building are ramps and bicycle lines that follow the facades of the atrium of the building and that lead up to a green roof of a neighbor existing building.

The form of the structure is based on the placement of the columns and the perimetrical beams 2m towards the interior space of the slabs, creating that way a transitional space between the interior and the skin facade of Algae photo-bioreactors. That structure creates neighboring spaces with different conditions and gives the opportunity of a more free positioning of the interior partitions.

About the MAA Final Projects

In Final Phases of the Masters in Advanced Architecture program students attend one of three Research Studios: Self-Sufficient Buildings, Digital Tectonics or Emergent Territories. At the end of Phase II MAA Students presented their initial proposals. Throughout Phase III they have refined this research for their final presentations.

This year final presentations will be held the week of June 27. All presentations are open to the public. We invite you to come to see the students present. More information will be provided closer to the week of presentations.