Cápsulas Espacio Público – Fin del Plazo de Presentación

By admin | Published: March 17, 2014

Today the Elective Seminar Public Space Capsules led by José Ballesteros and Rodrigo Rubio presented their final works. The seminar aimed to build self-sufficient and interactive prototypes, that were light-weight, temporary and fragile, and able to host one or two people, amid the contemporary urban public space. The prototypes were to be rapidly developed, simple and manageable, as well as capable of confronting themselves with real conditions and the controversies linked to the use of public space.

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Taller – Estructuras Experimentales

By admin | Published: March 17, 2014

This weekend the Experimental Structures Seminar participated in a workshop with Manja Van de Worp, Silvia Brandi and Alexandre Dubor.

The workshop was centred around the development of a stair system, through both the creation of a physical model, as well as the generation of a virtual model using Karamba for virtual structural testing. Once generated the virtual model the students then re-elaborated the design of the stair thanks to the new data gained through the generative model with regards to the structural behaviour of the design.

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Conferencia a cargo De sisternas MARIA – Ciudad de Todos los Días

By admin | Published: March 13, 2014

Last Tuesday we had the pleasure of hosting the Winter Lecture Series 2014 with Maria Sisternas, as well as some important guests attending the lecture such as Mr Antoni Vives – Deputy Mayor for the Urban Habitat of the Barcelona City Council - and Mr. Vicente Guallart – Chief Architect of the Barcelona City Council.

During her lecture Ms. Sisternas discussed City planning through the Case Study of one particular project: the area of Glories, here in Barcelona. In this sense, the management of these processes, and how they can pass from rigid designs, as in the past, to a more flexible situation, in the hope of satisfying the contemporary urban phenomenon’s needs, from social, economic and environmental points of view. Ms Sisternas presented the project through 10 paradigms of change.

1_ The city as an incremental process: how can the city manage and participate actively during the construction site time lapse, through the generation of positive dynamics, as well as continuous activity? In large scale urban transformations, the areas involved tend to loose economic activity and density, generating a high risk, particularly in the case of Glories where the City’s aim is to create a new centrality. How can the complexity involved, on all fronts and in all phases, in these processes guarantee positive outcomes, particularly in the public realm? More simply, why is it that some public spaces work and others don’t? Read More »

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Digital Materia Estudio – Taller de presentación final al CITA Copenhague

By admin | Published: March 11, 2014

The workshop held at CITA last week, investigating the potential to build a canopy between the two workshop spaces at KADK proposing a structure covering a courtyard used for open-air material experiments, concluded with the final presentation of the prototype developed.

To end the trip to Copenhagen on a lighter and more touristic note, the Students and tutors then had the pleasure of visiting BIG.

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Conferencia a cargo de Mose RICCI – Aprender de Detroit

By admin | Published: March 7, 2014

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).

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Digital Materia Estudio – Taller en el desarrollo CITA Copenhague

By admin | Published: March 6, 2014

The Digital Matter Studio Students and Tutors continue their experience in Copenhagen:

The Students are continuing to develop their research and prototypes in the workshop studying the ways of creating tensioned membranes with disconnected bending active elements, stabilising non-elastic membranes locally (for example with the configuration of three linear elements placed in a reciprocal configuration).

Within the workshop a series of questions are being discussed and developed among which: the setup of bending active elements; patterns towards the creation of membranes with local active bending tensioning (regular, irregular, self-organising); topology of skin, single, double, splitting skin; the computation of bending active and tensioned skin; modelling of interdependent models for skin and bending active elements; as well as tools for 3d modelling and pattern cutting of membranes.

The CITA tutors Mette Ramsgaard Thompsen and David Stasiuk also gave a presentation on the evolution of the works produced during the Workshop held in IaaC, by David Stasiuk – digitalization of the physical models for the self parametrization -, Henrik Leander Evers – 3D scanning expert -, as well as the RS3 studio directors: Areti Markopoulou with Mette Ramsgaard Thompsen – CITA – and tutor Alexandre Dubor, and developed with the Digital Matter Studio students, earlier this year. The evolution presented included new generative algorithms to be added in the different stages of the design process, allowing to enhance the self-learning systems, as well as generating an optimisation criteria towards the final development of the 1:1 prototype. Said prototype is to be produced in CITA during an exhibition to be held in 2 weeks from now.

After the Presentation, the Students then presented the work they have developed so far in a Mid-Workshop Presentation, gaining some useful feedback towards the further development of these projects, and finally the 1:1 Prototype.

The Students and Tutors from IaaC also had the possibility to visit the 3XN /GXN, including a visit to the DAC (Danish Center of Architects).

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Martes 11 de marzo: MARIA sisternas –
ciudad Todos los días

By admin | Published: March 5, 2014

IAACblog

Tuesday 11th of March 2014
Maria Sisternas
Lecture: Everyday city.

@ 19.30, IAAC Auditorium
Open to the Public

MARIA SISTERNAS
Maria Sisternas trained as an architect at EtsaB-UPC, was awarded with the Fundación Caja Madrid Scholarship and holds a MSc in City Design and Social Sciences from the London School of Economic. She has lectured at the Postgraduate Diploma in Sustainable Architecture and Urbanism at La Salle (PAMUS) since 2010 and serves as a Board member of COAC. She is a regular contributor to the “Revista Diagonal” and took part of the Commission of Architecture at the Barcelona Metropolitan Strategic Plan 2010-2020. Her interests focus on the links between the economic, social and legal issues that contribute to the development of contemporary cities, as well as the influence that urban form can play over citizens’ quality of life. She is currently Director Projects at the Urban Habitat Department of the Barcelona City Council.

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