Afroditi Psarra (Athens, 1982) is a multidisciplinary artist and a PhD candidate at Complutense University of Madrid, in the field of Image, Technology and Design. Her work explores the boundaries between traditional handicrafts, pop culture and science fiction. Her artworks include a wide variety of media, from electronic embroideries and wearables to interactive installations and sound performances. She has presented her work in numerous media art festivals and she has worked as an intern at Disney Research in Zurich.

After a full day of hard work, students and staff set up a sunday barbecue in the Masia terrace, while the sun was setting behind Montserrat.

Most preparations are now over and construction with bricks can start in the next session, a week from now.

Philippe Rahm is architect, principal in the office of Philippe Rahm architectes, based in Paris, France. His work, which extends the field of architecture from the physiological to the meteorological, has received an international audience in the context of sustainability. In 2002, he was chosen to represent Switzerland at the 8th Architecture Biennale in Venice, and was one of the 25 Manifesto’s Architects of Aaron Betsky’s 2008 Architectural Venice Biennale. He is nominee in 2009 for the Ordos Prize in China and in 2010 and 2008 for the International Chernikov Prize in Moscow where he was ranked in the top ten. He has participated in a number of exhibitions worldwide (Archilab, Orléans, France 2000; SF-MoMA 2001; CCA Kitakyushu 2004; Centre Pompidou, Paris, 2003-2006 and 2007; Manifesta 7, 2008; Louisiana museum, Denmark, 2009; Guggenheim Museum, New-York 2010). In 2007, he had a personal exhibition at the Canadian Centre for Architecture in Montreal. Mr. Rahm was a resident at the Villa Medici in Rome (2000). He was Headmaster at the AA School in London in 2005-2006, Visiting professor at the Mendrisio Academy of Architecture in Switzerland in 2004 and 2005, at the ETH Lausanne in 2006 and 2007, at the School of Architecture of the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts of Copenhagen in 2009- 2010, in Oslo at the AHO in 2010-2011. From 2010 to 2012, he held the Jean Labatut Professorship in Princeton University, USA. He has lectured widely, including at Harvard School of Design, Cooper Union, UCLA and the ETH Zürich. He is working on several private and public projects in France, Taiwan, Italy and Germany. His recent work includes in 2011 the first prize for the 69ha Taichung Gateway Park in Taiwan, an office building of 13000 m2 in La Défense in France for the EPADESA; a convective condominium for the IBA in Hamburg, Germany; the white geology, a stage design for contemporary art in the Grand-Palais on the Champs-Elysées in Paris in 2009 and a studio house for the artist Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster in 2008. Monographic books include Physiological architecture published by Birkhaüser in 2002, Distortions, published by HYX in 2005, Environ(ne)ment: Approaches for Tomorrow, published by Skira in 2006 and Architecture météorologique published by Archibooks in 2009.

Tuesday 29th of April 2014

Philippe Rahm
Lecture: Thermodynamics cities

@ 19.30, IAAC Auditorium
Open to the Public

PHILIPPE RAHM
Philippe Rahm is architect, principal in the office of Philippe Rahm architectes, based in Paris, France. His work, which extends the field of architecture from the physiological to the meteorological, has received an international audience in the context of sustainability. In 2002, he was chosen to represent Switzerland at the 8th Architecture Biennale in Venice, and was one of the 25 Manifesto’s Architects of Aaron Betsky’s 2008 Architectural Venice Biennale. He is nominee in 2009 for the Ordos Prize in China and in 2010 and 2008 for the International Chernikov Prize in Moscow where he was ranked in the top ten. He has participated in a number of exhibitions worldwide (Archilab, Orléans, France 2000; SF-MoMA 2001; CCA Kitakyushu 2004; Centre Pompidou, Paris, 2003-2006 and 2007; Manifesta 7, 2008; Louisiana museum, Denmark, 2009; Guggenheim Museum, New-York 2010). In 2007, he had a personal exhibition at the Canadian Centre for Architecture in Montreal. Mr. Rahm was a resident at the Villa Medici in Rome (2000). He was Headmaster at the AA School in London in 2005-2006, Visiting professor at the Mendrisio Academy of Architecture in Switzerland in 2004 and 2005, at the ETH Lausanne in 2006 and 2007, at the School of Architecture of the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts of Copenhagen in 2009-2010, in Oslo at the AHO in 2010-2011.

Emergent Territories is in L.A. this week, with the objective of discovering the opportunities of a territory in a context of unprecedented urban growth with high density and congestion.

Visiting one of the most iconic cities worldwide, and located along the coastline of California, Los Angeles is one of the most distinctive areas in the world.

The Research trip is an educational one, aiming to understand what can be learnt from the situation in cities and the process of formulating proposals within these constraints. Students are able to investigate the particular conditions prevailing within the realms of the Emergent Territories Research Line established by the studio project at all scales.

The IAAC group has so far had the opportunity to visit some of the more important architectural works in L.A., a visit to SCI-Arc, where they have been working for the past 2 days in the development of a Workshop regarding Render Animation and Robotics.

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. »

Thursday 27th of March 2014
Francis Soler
Lecture: The Art of the Opposition.

@ 19.30, IAAC Auditorium
Open to the Public

FRANCIS SOLER
Francis Soler set up his private practice in 1985. Its activities are extremely varied: from facilities to housing and from studies to urban development. The office takes part in major competitions for public projects both in France and abroad and in consultations by invitation. As much attention is given to small but remarkable buildings, such as public housing in Rue Emile Durkheim (Paris/Delivery in 1997), and in Clichy (delivery in 2001), layouts, and facilities, as to high prestige works, such as grandstand for 14 July celebrations (under François Mitterrand mandates), International conference centre (aborted project), Ministry of Culture (delivery in 2005), OCO / “Coeur d’Orly”, big urban airport project and Philharmonics of Paris (competitions).
In 2009, he participated in the elaboration of Vasconi report, ordered by Minister of Ecology Jean-Louis Borloo about environmental challenge and the discussion about placing architecture under supervision of this ministry and not Ministry of Culture.
His big project of Research and Development Centre for EDF (French Electricity) is actually under construction (delivery is scheduled in 2015). His private housing project for VINCI, in Zac Cardinet (Paris) is also under construction (delivery by 2015). The construction of his big public housing projects, in Porte d’Auteuil (Paris) with Anne Demians, Rudy Ricciotti and Finn Geipel architects is scheduled to begin in mid-2014. Executive studies for the construction of the huge bridge over the Arno River Florence, (Italy) are almost achieved and approved, construction being scheduled by the end of 2014.
The aim is to give them all an important role in the city, to make them into art works. Whatever the project is, Francis Soler’s priorities are to propose pertinent responses to the complex problems of old and new cities, and to give real pleasure to users and residents by offering them architecture that is an art of usage.