Check out the results of the Digital Fabrication Exercise on CNC milling, with molding, casting and composite explorations.

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“SELF-SUFFICIENT HABITAT”

Organized by The Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia and HP.

240 proposals from 91 countries were evaluated through the internet from October to December by the following jury members of the 5th ADVANCED ARCHITECTURE CONTEST:

Aaron Betsky, Architect. (Cincinnati, USA).

Areti Markopoulou, Architect. IaaC Master Program Director

Daniel Ibañez, Architect, Iaac Factulty IAAC

Eric Owen Moss Director, SCI-Arc; Eric Owen Moss Architects (Los Angeles, USA)

J.M. Lin, Architect. The Observer Design Group. (Taipei, Taiwan).

Josep Mias, MIAS Architectes. (Spain).

Kim, Young Joon, Architect. Korea

Lucas Cappelli, Architect. Director of the Advanced Architecture Contest.

Manuel Gausa, Dean IaaC. Architect. Spain

Nader Tehrani, Director School of Architecture MIT (Boston, USA)

Neil Gershenfeld, physicist. MIT, Cambridge, MA, USA

Rodrigo Rubio, Architect Iaac Factulty, IAAC. Spain

Tomas Diez, Director FabLab Barcelona

Willy Muller, Architect. Director Barcelona Regional.

Each juror has selected a first, second, and third prize, and honourable mentions in some cases. The jury voted on a total of 20 proposals.

The jury has decided to award the following contestants:

The first prize has been awarded to the project WALKING CLOUDS designed by Josiane Crampe and Ji Won Jun (Canada).

The second prize is for the project F.R.A. FLOATING RESPONSIVE AGRICULTURE designed by Javier Ponce (Guatemala).

The third prize is for the project THE ANT TRIBE designed by Junqin Lian (China).

The jury has agreed to give 4 honourable mentions to the following proposals:

- CLIFF DWELLINGS – Roman Jesus Cordero Tovar and Izbeth Katia Mendoza Fragoso (Mexico).

- Self sufficient PARASITE city – Hana Svatos-Raznjevic, Yen Ju Timothy Tai and Sean.J Kim (Croatia).

- THE ENERGY OF TRAFFIC – Shurui Yan, Licheng Wang, Zhaolun Yang and Yuchen Liu (China).

- SWARM URBANISM – Kenichi Kabeya (Japan)

The jury would like to thank the effort carried out by all contestants, and encourages the development of ideas which transform cities into more efficient and stimulating environments for the human life.

People’s Choice Award:

In parallel to the 5th Advanced Architecture Contest, the Institute for advanced architecture of Catalonia (IaaC) and Hewlett-Packard were also running a Peoples Choice Award. Submissions were displayed online to be viewed and voted on by the public.

Finally the most popular image and the winner of the HP Designjet web connected Printer is the project SELF SUFFICIENT re.HABITAT (ID: we5mdb) by Adam Myczkowski and Anna Jurkiewicz (Poland) which received 2166 votes (likes) from the public. Read More »

This evening we had the pleasure of partaking in the Lecture on behalf of Neil Leach, as part of the IAAC Fall Lecture Series 2013. During the Lecture entitled Adaptation a series of topics were touched around the following concepts: within contemporary architecture design a significant shift in emphasis can be detected – a move away from an architecture based primarily on visual concerns towards an architecture justified by its performance. Structural, constructional, economic, environmental and other parameters – concerns that were once relegated to a secondary level – have now become primary, and are embraced as positive inputs into the design process from outset. Architecture – it would seem – is now preoccupied less with style and appearance, and increasingly with material processes and performance. It is as though a new architectural design sensibility has emerged.

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This evening the OTF Researchers reviewed their project elaborations and prototypes, insode the research lines of Intelligent Building Constructions and Smart Urban Elements. Advisors of both research lines were present, consisting in Areti Markopoulou, Marc Viader, Silvia Brandi, Victor Iribas and Luis Fraguada, as well as Breinco Executive Director Joan Balagué, and IAAC Faculty Alexandre Dubor and Guillem Camprodon.

The projects and prototypes gave way to an open discussion focusing on the potential outcomes of each OTF project, as well as the potential of envisioning further research on the topics.

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Tonight we had the pleasure of hosting Richard Blythe as part of the IAAC Fall Lecture Series. The Dean of RMIT started his discourse on the Ticklish Subject of Architecture with a series of images of typical Australian architecture, or “monuments”, that is the Bigs: the Big Banana, the Big Merino, the Big Earth Worm…etc all of which in some way transform into architecture what is particular to that territory, or to put it more straight forward, what that place is about.

Richard Blythe then presented a series of his projects, as well as some of his PhD Candidates work in the search for quality in architecture, presenting possible answers to a variety of questions among which: what is it that drives architecture? What is the urge? What invites us to experiment? And how do I, architect, create a moment with the user, how do I grab you?

For Richard Blythe architects are gardeners who tend to their own imagination of urges and afscination, growing a garden of urgent possibility, aiming to move us. There is no thing more important that an arhcitect can do than to move us in some way.

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Beforelight and IAAC held the “Creating participatory lighting prototypes” Workshop, within the European-funded project Urban Lightscapes, this weekend.

Urban Lightscapes is a European Project focused on the multifaceted study of urban lighting, through an interdisciplinary platform that involves artists, designers and citizens, with utter goal to promote open dialogue and residents’ active participation. Involving three activities: a symposium, a workshop and light installations, Urban Lightscapes aims to change the way citizens perceive open spaces and urban lighting, aspiring to be a successful example of an interdisciplinary and social collaboration with positive influence in public lighting.

The aim of the workshop was to design and fabricate a Participatory light Prototype/lighting Process, promoting users’ participation in creating different light interventions in their neighborhoods.

The development during the 3 days of the intense workshop regarded the development and fabrication of an urban lighting prototype, that could interact both physically and digitally, using tools such as Rhino 3D – Grasshopper, programming with Arduino UNO, sensors and digital fabrication.

The outcome of the 7 groups, all consisting in integrated groups of students and engineering, industrial design, lighting dessign and architectural professionals, were a series of very interesting projects and prototypes, all concentrating on and reflecting the management of urban lighting.

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