¨Let material dictate you and find out how creative material could be¨ Theo Jansen

Atari was the tool of Theo when we he first started working with his idea on the ¨new forms of life¨, when he first started generating the codes for his animals.

Now Theo is wondering if he will be able to achieve the evolution of these species. He says that the fact that there are people throughout the word making their own beests with the holy numbers that he shared with his audience … it’s an evolution if you see it from a certain perspective.

The audience had the pleasure to see  firsthand the project that Theo Jansen just started working at.

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IAAC is happy to announce the entrance of KUKA robot at the institute. KUKA is added to the list of machinery of the fablab amplifying the limits of fabrication process and opening the way to new experiments and possibilities from design to production.

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The Director of Cittaslow, Pier Giorgio Oliveti,  shared with us the concepts of the Cittaslow movement. he talked about the first modernity, the period between the 18th to late 20th century  and the second modernity or reflexive modernization  were the transformation of the basic institutions of modernity happens. Pier Giorgio Oliveti listed the differences between slow and fast, were you can find industrial in fast and craft in slow, copied in fast and authentic in slow, stantarized vs customized an so on.  The goals of Cittaslow movement among others is to maintain tradition and culture,  urban quality as well  is one of Cittaslow critiria.

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- Many slow cities into a smart city
- Barcelona SuperBlocks
- From Devices to Cities
- Smart Cities by Smart Citizens

Some of this topics have been part of the research topics in the Introductory Studio at IAAC’s Master in Advanced Architecture 2011-12. The Introductory Studio gathers all students in one super group working on different sites in Barcelona. 24 SuperBlocks were chosen with the support of the Agencia de Ecologia Urbana de Barcelona (advisor) in which proposals on public space should take in consideration the redefinition of the urban unit (from the Cerdá block to the super block) from 100m x 100m to 500m x 500m, and the liberation of public space by removing the protagonism of the car in the urban space. In addition to the physical considerations, students have been encouraged to develop strategies and actions in the urban space by the introduction of new technologies and tools to give the citizens different platforms of action by the use of apps or devices in different scales.

Smart Citizen Devices were developed in collaboration with the Fab Lab Barcelona and Hangar . The devices were installed in different superblocks feeding with real time data the performance of the urban environments, which have been evaluated in a software application, offering the possibility to visualize the before and after conditions of the super blocks by introducing the student’s proposals.

The Smart Citizen platform is a project for the development of apps and devices to give users the access to tools and processes to understand their urban environment, and to act into it by different sets of alternative proposals.

The second assignment of the digital fabrication seminar class was focused on the methods of fabrication with the use of  CNC milling machine by challenging the design. The second assignment was tutored by Jose Pedro Sousa (co-founder OPO´Lab) with the assistance of Jordi Portell and Miquel Lloveras. Eduard Cabay and Marta Malé- Alemany, tutors of the other 2 digital fabrication assignments were jury on the final presentation.

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Gunter Pauli had a lecture the previous days on designing with the flows. Gunter highlighted the importance of flows for the design of a healthy environment. A school that ventilates correctly and creates a healthy environment for children can upgrade the value of the city and become a pole of attraction for families. In terms on materiality Bamboo has a special place on the interests of Gunter, in ZERI foundations book ¨growing your own house¨ it appears that bamboos properties are suitable for sustainable design with extremely low cost in countries like Colombia were it could be used.

After the lecture the 1st book of the new publications of IAAC – Interviews 01 Gunter Pauli was presented to the audience. The book has a complete interview of Gunter Pauli taken by Willy Müller (IAAC founder) and Areti Markopoulou (MAA master program director) last year at IAAC.

Dr. Gunter Pauli was born in Antwerp in 1956. He Graduated with a degree in Economics from Loyola’s University in Belgium and obtained his masters in business administration from INSEAD in France. He is an entrepreneur and founder of ZERI Foundation (Zero Emissions Research and Initiatives).
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