Massimo Banzi came to IaaC on the 28th of February 2014 to share his thoughts on “Open Sourcing Innovation” as part of the IaaC Winter Lecture Series. In this occasion he was interviewed by Lluís Amiguet of La Contra, and the interview was published yesterday, check it out!

Marc Barani describes Francis Soler in the following extract:

« I remember a drawing on the cover of an architecture magazine. It was back in 1986. With a nerve, Francis Soler drew support from the structuralist approach to explore an unusual aesthetic world that was flexible, living and rational. As a result, the plans, sections and details of his projects demonstrated uncompromising functional and constructive precision, an economy of means, while the volumetry, façades and atmospheres captured the context and culture of the period. This fertile tension, between structuralism and sensuality, and between rationality and poetry, was the basis of his work. On this doctrinal foundation, Francis Soler achieved the miracle of developing a very personal timeless type of architecture. Those who know how to do this are few and far between; all the more so since this talent is combined with that of a pioneer. Indeed he proposed to cover all the buildings for Les Bons Enfants – the seat of the Ministry of Culture – with a vibrant and unifying latticework. That was in 1994, well before this solution was taken up in many projects. Still in 1994, he designed the Lycée in Noumea from a sophisticated natural ventilation system, without following the program, which required air-conditioning, to the point of being excluded from the competition.In 1999, for the conversion of the Keroman submarine base in Lorient, he located a wind farm on a rough site where water and concrete meet. It was a “utopia”, according to the jury. Yet this utopia would have provided the city of Lorient with half its electricity requirements, and whose feasibility was confirmed by a letter from EDF in which they undertook to finance the project. At the time, these proposals earned him incomprehension, mockery and virulent criticism. They are now an integral part of the architectural landscape. In Francis Soler’s more recent projects, the strong narrative dimensions he began with tend to fade before a more direct and technical representation. It would seem that the proliferation of standards and regulations of all sorts is a driving force in their design. A beneficial opposition to the pervading exasperation to describe the growing number of constraints differently, recognize that despite it all they are revealing of a contemporary culture, and from this create new arwchitectural material. Today, Francis Soler’s constant search for innovation drives him to design projects like a scientist, to set them up like far-reaching and generous precision engineering, capable of adapting to the prevailing cultural instability. He is a pioneer as I already said. It would probably be appropriate to ask what he is telling us that we have not yet seen or understood. »

Tonight we had the pleasure of hosting the Winter Lecture Series 2014 with Mosè Ricci, as part of the International Seminar regarding Theory and Landscape, entitled “Landscape and Emotion, the resurrection of Emotional Geographies”, and organised in collaboration with the Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Observatori del Paisatge and IaaC.

In his lecture Prof. Ricci discussed the change in the urban paradigm as well as the concept of urban recycling, using the case of Detroit as a critical observation, hence Learning from Detroit.

“Detroit could be considered the operating manifesto of the new urban condition in the Western World. It is possible to use it as a point of reference or as a case study to focus on or – better – to learn from. In Detroit, at the end of the last century, something crucial happened to the western metropolis future. More than 320,000 jobs were lost between 2001 and 2008, and about 57% of the population having left the city from 1970, and 25% in the past decade. Detroit no longer expresses a traditional urban figure. In Detroit the “Modern City” is dead, with the economy that molded its spaces.

Detroit is the American Pompeii.

In the space of just a few years its population fell from 1,850,000 to 740,000, more than 2,000 buildings were knocked down, resulting in the abandonment of the center for an area with an approximately eight-mile radius that is glaringly evident. Nevertheless, more than ten years later, something is happening.  As a result of the crisis of the economy that had generated it, the Fordist metropolis of Detroit has been forced to think about the problem of its survival and its fate. And Detroit is slowly finding another dimension. New urban materials are taking the place of the traditional urban figures and they give the ruins of this Fordist city back to narrative and nature by transforming Detroit into the real first post-metropolis. The movement from landscape, as a way of measuring (a territory), to a system of values (a landscape) is the conceptual basis and the general goal of the most interesting projects and events that are happening in Detroit. Reduction, reuse and recycle seem to be the only sustainable social strategies capable of expressing innovation, of generating consensus and producing beauty in the cities in the age of the crisis.” Mosè Ricci

The Lecture was then followed by a conclusive Round Table with Mosè Ricci, Isabel Valverde (UPF), Manuel Gausa (IAAC) and Joan Nogué (OdP).

MOSÈ RICCI (Florence, 1956) -Emeritus of Italian Art and Culture since 2003- is Full Professor of Urbanism at the University of Genoa and of Lanscape Architecture at the University of Trento. He graduated in architecture in 1982 at La Sapienza University of Rome (Italy).

He became Researcher Professor (1984), Associate Professor (1997) and Full Professor (2001) at the Pescara School of Architecture (Italy). In 1996-1997 he was Fulbright Recipient and Visiting Scholar at GSD (Harvard University, USA, Visiting Professor of Sustainable Urbanism at Universitad Moderna de Lisboa (2006-2007) and at Technische Universitat of Munich (2008-2009).

Since 1999 he is member of the Scientific Board of the Villard International Seminar and since 2004 of the Villard International Doctorate. He has been member of Italian Society of Urban Planners Steering Committee (2003-05, 2007-11). Since 2010 he is member of the Mies Foundation Mediterraean Program Board.

He was member of the Scientific Committee and curator of the Urbanism and Landscape section of the international exhibition Recycle, Strategies for Architecture, Cities and Planet (MAXXI. 2010-12). In 2012 he has been ranked in the top 100 World Educators by the Cambridge Institute.

He gave lectures or was keynote speaker in several universities such as: Liebnitz University Hannover (2013); OSU Columbuso Ohio (2013); GSD, Harvard University, (2013,1997); Tulane, New Orleans, (2013); KSU (Cleveland, 2011-2010), ETSAB (Barcelona, 2010); TU Munich, (2010-11), Kionggi, Seoul (2009); University of Sao Paolo (2008); UM, Montreal (2005); School of Enviromental Design, Waterloo (1996-97); BTU Cottbus, (2000); Weissensee Berlin (2001).

He has a record of publications, lectures, and participation at conferences and symposia, at an international level. His professional activity and research have been primarily developed in the field of urban design and urban studies, as well as on architectural theory. His research focuses on the interactions of architecture, urbanism and landscape design in an ecological framework. His practice work with RICCISPAINI firm has been included in numerous exhibitions such as the Venice Biennale; MAXXI, Rome; Modern Art Gallery, Rome; and Heimatt Museum, Charlottenburg, Berlin. Editor of BABEL international series of books (2000-013 Meltemi and ListLab Publishers). He is author of several books and articles and books such as New Paradigms (List Lab, Barcelona, 2012); UniverCity (List, Barcelona, 2010); iSpace (Meltemi, Rome, 2008); Rischiopaesaggio (Meltemi, Rome, 2003).

Friday 7th of March 2014
Mosè Ricci
Lecture: Learning from Detroit.

@ 18.00, IAAC Auditorium
Open to the Public

The lecture Learning from Detroit with Mosè Ricci, is not only part of the IaaC Winter Lecture Series 2014, but is also part of an international conference on theory and landscape: Landscape and Emotion, the revival of emotional geographies organised in collaboration with Universitat Pompeu Fabra and Observatori del Paisatge.

In architecture, kinetic structures enable buildings to react specifically to internal and external stimuli through spatial adjustments. While these mechanical devices come in all dimensions, they are conceptualized as uniform and standardized modules. Typically, they gain their adjustability by connecting rigid elements with highly strained hinges. Even though this construction principle may be generally beneficial, it has some major drawbacks for architectural applications. Adaptation to irregular geometries, for example, can only be achieved with additional mechanical complexity, which makes these devices often very expensive, prone to failure, and maintenance-intensive.

Simon Schleicher is searching for a promising alternative to the still persisting paradigm of rigid-body mechanics and has found inspiration in flexible plant movements. By using modern computational modeling and simulation techniques, he can reveal the plants’ compliant mechanisms and integrate them into bio-inspired flexible structures. In various case studies, he demonstrates the transfer process in more detail and shows how bio-inspired mechanisms can be used, for example, to shade double curved facades.

The lecture unfolded the relationship between urban planning and urban design. A disciplinary knowledge that ones was united and was invented by Ildefonso Cerda and his Theory of urbanization. Urban planning is understood as the regimes that form the knowledge on which urban decisions are based on. This can span from administrative to legislative to economical and technical ones. Urban design is understood as a material projection on which urban environments are formed and shaped. The lecture shown the shift within the discipline of urban design form understanding cities as a field problems towards a the understanding of cities as objects.

In his lecture entitled ‘Ending Poverty in 10 Years’, Mr. Negroponte talked about how technology can help developing countries fight against poverty by teaching kids means to educate themselves.  ”If you can learn to read, you can read to learn”.

Nicholas Negroponte is the founder and Chairman Emeritus of Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Media Lab, and also known as the founder of the One Laptop per Child Association (OLPC).

In 1967, Negroponte founded MIT’s Architecture Machine Group, a combination lab and think tank which studied new approaches to human-computer interaction. In 1985, he created the MIT Media Lab with Jerome B. Wiesner, a pre-eminent computer science laboratory for new media and a high-tech playground for investigating the human-computer interface. In 1992, Negroponte became involved in the creation of Wired Magazine as the first investor contributing, from 1993 to 1998, with a monthly column: “Move bits, not atoms.” Negroponte expanded many of the ideas from his Wired columns into a bestselling book Being Digital (1995), which made famous his forecasts on how the interactive world, the entertainment world and the information world would eventually merge. Negroponte is a digital optimist who believed that computers would make life better for everyone.

In 2006, Negroponte stepped down as lab chairman to focus more fully on his work with One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) although he retains his appointment as professor at MIT.

On Tuesday, February 26^th, Nicholas Negroponte will be lecturing at the Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia – IAAC.

Nicholas Negroponte’s lecture at IAAC, will be streaming live in our youtube channel

]]> http://legacy.iaacblog.com/blog/2013/iaac-lecture-series-nicholas-negroponte/feed/ 0 http://legacy.iaacblog.com/blog/2013/bernard-tschumis-lecture-iaac-red-is-not-a-color/ http://legacy.iaacblog.com/blog/2013/bernard-tschumis-lecture-iaac-red-is-not-a-color/#comments Fri, 22 Feb 2013 12:49:33 +0000 admin http://legacy.iaacblog.com/?p=9483