Everyday life at the Institute for advanced architecture of Catalonia
Digital Fabrication Seminar Introductory class.
The seminar Digital Fabrication is tutored by Marta Malé-Alemany ( IAAC acting Director) ,Jose Pedro Sousa (OPO´Lab/Porto) and Edouard Cabay (Cloud9/Barcelona) with the assistance of Jordi Portell and Miquel LLoveras. The digital Fabrication course is intended to initiate students in the use of advanced digital design methods and fabrication processes. The class is composed with 3 parts and 3 assignments that the students will develop in groups.
IAAC welcomed the passed week students from 29 countries in the ¨students welcome¨ of the MAA, Master in Advanced Architecture and its 11th editition. The president of IAAC : Javier Nieto, the director of IAAC : Marta Malé Alemany, the director of the master : Areti Markopoulou as well as the founders of IAAC : Vicente Guallart and Willy Müller, after the presentation of the master, had the chance to meet each student of the current academic year.
(Above: OTF Program Director, Marta Malé-Alemany, introducing the 2012 OTF Program)
Yesterday, the 2011 Open Thesis Fabrication (OTF) participants gathered for the first time for a presentation by the various industrial partners for this year’s program. The 2011 OTF program has developed a non-profit partnership between IAAC and the following companies:
Santa & Cole- Design editor
Kuka- Robotic Technologies
Cricursa- Complex glass manufacturer
Escofet- Concrete and cast stone manufacturer
Industrias Imar- Metal Manufacturer
Dupont- Corian manufacturer
Finnforest- Wood company
Fupisca- Wood construction
The objective of this collaboration is to offer participants the possibility to engage in a semi-professional environment and to develop a project with the support and expertise of individuals and institutions that are commercially involved in their field of research. Read More
Back in August, representatives from IAAC and Fab Lab Barcelona took part in the Fab 7 Conference in Lima, Peru. Fab Lab representatives from all around the world gathered in Lima for a week of sharing ideas and passing along knowledge. Fab 7 is the seventh annual international Fab Lab event hosted by The MIT Center for Bits and Atoms and The Fab Lab Network. Fab 7 ran from August 14 through 19.
The first few days of the conference featured workshops and programs specifically for Fab Labbers, old and new. Later in the week the conference was open to over 500 people interested in learning about what happens in a Fab Lab. On Thursday evening, August 18, participants took part in a celebration of the official opening of Fab Lab Lima.
(Above: Dreamweaver)
The Masters projects by IAAC Alumni from the Digital Tectonics Studio in the 2009/2010 Masters in Advanced Architecture program are currently featured in the current special exhibition (Fab)Bots at Museo San Telmo in San Sebastian. The (Fab)Bots exhibition, created in conjunction with DHUB Barcelona, features these seven IAAC alumni projects:
Dreamweaver by Melat Assefa (Ethiopia), Brian Peters (USA), Joao Albuquerque (Portugal);
Mimicry by Mia Gorretti Layco (USA), Georgia Kotsari (Greece), Tomasz Starczewski (Poland);
Sandbot by Joel Letkemann (Canada), Viraj Kataria (India), Fabio López (Colombia);
Heliobot by Felipe Pecegueiro (Portugal), Jorge Orozco (México), Kfir Gluzberg (Canada)
Fab [a]thing by Jun Huang (China), Jessica Lai (New Zealand), Asim Hameed (Pakistan)
NGPS (Non Gravitational Printing System) by Ali Basbous (Lebanon), Miquel Lloveras (Spain)
PNEUmorphosys by Natalija Boljsakov (Perú), Brian Miller (Perú), Carlos Naranjo (Panamá)
Admission to the exhibition is free and it is open to the public until September 11, 2011. Read More
Yesterday at 13:00h in Barcelona (and 16:00h Mumbai), students in the IAAC Global Summer School began their final presentations after 15 days of hard work and preparation. Their goal: turn a city “SuperBlock” into an intelligently connected system of distributed information.
The Global Summer School students from Barcelona were split into 6 groups, each group was assigned one block that was part of the Barcelona “SuperBlock” they were analyzing (students in Mumbai were split into 3 groups with 3 blocks). At the beginning of the workshop the groups analyzed the levels of consumption for each block (energy, water, CO2 emissions, etc) taking into consideration the various types of buildings and residents of each block (commercial, industrial, residential, vacant buildings, public space, etc). With the data collected they were able to make recommendations as to how each block could become more efficient, not just on its own, but acting in conjunction with the other blocks within SuperBlock. This is a sample of a network that could be applied to an entire city in the future where the city working together as whole can be more efficient than the sum of its parts.
This year, the IAAC Global Summer School (GSS) implemented a distributed educational model which generated a dynamic network based on distributed knowledge and collective actions. This network consisted of collaboration with various experts and professionals around the world including Dipal Kothari-Chhaya and Atrey Chhaya, who led the student group at the Balwant Sheth School of Architecture in Mumbai, and Cesare Griffa who collaborated with both groups from Turin through lectures and presentations. Read More
