Everyday life at the Institute for advanced architecture of Catalonia
Chris Wan currently city design manager at Masdar, was at the institute to give an open lecture about this sustainable project, and he expressed a big interest in IaaC’s Zero Emissions project of Barcelona, so he had a private session before the lecture with the students related with CO2 emissions and the different ways that they can approach emissions balance.
Gonzalo Delacamara, professor of Economic Analysis and researcher at the IMDEA Water Foundation, has co-ordinated a number of research projects over the last few years: the economic valuation of ecosystem services in Spain; the economic analysis of environmental external (marginal) costs of electricity generation in Spain or the economic valuation of water resources in Latin America. He has also worked on the analysis of liquid biofuels for transport in Latin America and the impact of the credit crunch and the global economic crisis on energy markets. Gonzalo also developed a number of projects for the European Commission. He is also an international consultant for the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean of the United Nations, the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank, both on water and sanitation services and energy.
The students presented their analyses of different parts of Barcelona. In approach to the final proposal for a zero emission Barcelona, they have studied and analyzed different aspects of the city. Vicente Guallart, Willy Muller, Marta Malé, Lluis Viu, Jordi Pages, Areti Markopoulou and Tomas Diez reviewed the projects and discussed about them with the students.
Afterwards, the general perspective of the zero-emission project had been evaluated in a semi-roundtable with Director Vicente Guallart.
The MAA students with Lucas Cappelli and Nota Tsekoura visited the Venice Architecture Biennale 2010, ¨People Meet in Architecture¨, directed by Kazuyo Sejima. It was the 12th International Architecture Exhibition and IAAC participated with the model of the Fablab House project, exhibited in the Spanish Pavilion at the Giardini.
Bloon 1:1 Prototype
The goal of this fabrication project is to build a portion of the Bloon capsule at 1:1. The toroidal shape of the capsule has been sliced into a series of ribs which will be milled, then glued together (using resin and fiberglass) into the final geometry. The ribs are being milled from 1.2×2.6m sheets of foam, and later once the shape is complete, the foam will be finished with “Top Coat”, a polyester polymer, to give a smooth “skin” to the capsule. Also, a 2.7×1.7 wooden mould is also being fabricated, where it will be used to form the large window.
Student: Nicholas Waissbluth
Site model in progress for the Barcelona Zero Emissions project. Students keep working and organizing sites for the working prototype model.
