Development Studio 2: Self Sufficient Buildings

By iaac | Published: May 11, 2011

(Above- IAAC Faculty Javier Peña working with MAA Student Manuel Alejandro Huerta Fernandez (Mexico) in DS2)

Last week students in the Masters for Advanced Architecture Program began work in their Development Studios. Phase III of the MAA Program is an Open Educational Structure where the students attend a Development Studio plus 1 seminar engaged with the studio (MAA Research Trips) and 2 seminars chosen within their academic interest. Phase III continues its focus in three different scales of investigation: territorial, architectural and parametric design.

This Development Studio is led by Vicente Guallart (IAAC Director) and Javier Peña assisted by Rodrigo Rubio. They are joined by guest expert, Nikos Salingaros.

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MAA Projects: Areaña

By iaac | Published: May 8, 2011

Students: Miguel Guerrero (Spain), Natasa Pistofidou (Greece), Carolina Miro (Spain), Chryssa Karakana (Greece)

Research Studio: Digital Tectonics

Studio Instructor: Marta Malé-Alemany, MAA Co-Director

Student Summary:

“Earth´s abundance of sand and the critically self-organizing nature of granular materials were the inspiration of this research. To this day sand has predominantly been used in construction as a primer material as well as in sand casting moulds. The aim of the project is to numerically control the process of sand pile formation and solidification, through manual and digital design and experimentation.

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MAA Research Trips: Exhibition 2011

By iaac | Published: May 6, 2011

(Above: Digital Team by MAA Student Mani Khosrovani (Iran) from RS3: Digital Tectonics-Switzerland, Germany. Taken at the Weissenhof Museum in “Le Corbusier” House. Winner of the exhibition photo contest.)

On the evening of 6 May 2011, IAAC held a special exhibition chronicling the 2011 MAA Research Trips. The exhibition featured research, videos and photos created by the students in the Master in Advanced Architecture program. The exhibition was held at the Corretger5 gallery in Barcelona.

Each year the MAA program takes its research out of Barcelona. Past trips include India, Romania, Taiwan, Slovenia-Croatia, and Brazil. This April each MAA Research Studio explored a different part of the world: RS1 Emergent Territories (Hong Kong), RS2 Self Sufficient Buildings (Dubai, Abu Dhabi) and RS3 Digital Tectonics (Germany, Switzerland).

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Open Lecture Series 2010/2011: Ignasi Cubiñá

By iaac | Published: May 6, 2011

Cradle to Cradle: Beyond Beautifiers

Ignasi Cubiñá is CEO and Co-founder Eco Intelligent Growth (EIG). He has a BS in Biological Sciences and 15 years experience in the food and pharmaceutical industries. Since 2006 he has worked as an advisor on Cradle to Cradle implementation for business development with institutions and private companies at EIG.

¨The problem is located in the fact that we are creating structures that are not evolving¨

Ignasi Cubiña, through his lecture, gave an extended analysis on the basic focus of Cradle to Cradle and why now, more than ever, industry and architecture need to support the ¨technical cycle¨ by bringing to life products of shorter life span, with the ability to recycle themselves. The next question would be: How can we eliminate waste by design?

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Phase III Seminar Preview: Metabolic Structures

By iaac | Published: May 5, 2011

Seminar: Metabolic Structures

Faculty: Cristina Sendra (Eco Intelligent Growth)

In Phase III of the Masters in Advanced Architecture students will continue to work on their final projects in their Research Studios and they will also attend three seminars that cover a wide variety of topics.

Metabolic Structures Seminar will work with applying efficient design concepts to buildings, urban infrastructure and apparatus. There will be three important sources to be taken into account:

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IAAC Global School: Data Driven Structures Workshop in Tel Aviv

By iaac | Published: May 3, 2011

In collaboration with the exhibition Parameter: Digital Collaborative Design in Tel Aviv, IAAC faculty Areti Markopoulou and Luis Fraguada held a five day workshop called Data Driven Structures.

In this workshop participants were challenged to rethink urbanity based on  information gathered throughout the city. The goal of the workshop was to understand how could data-driven structures affect the construction of the physical world, how cities and its built elements could be viewed as informational architecture systems.

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Open Lecture Series 2010/2011: Or Ettlinger

By iaac | Published: May 2, 2011

On Friday, 29 April, IAAC welcomed Or Ettlinger for its most recent installment in the 2010/2011 Open Lecture Series.

Dr. Or Ettlinger is an Assistant Professor and senior researcher of virtual architecture and media theory at the Faculty of Architecture of the University of Ljubljana. His exploration of virtual architecture and virtual space has spanned both formal education and professional experience across the multiple disciplines from which these emerging fields derive. This fifteen-years of research has ranged from architecture to computer science, from product design to digital imaging, from classical drawing to information design, and from art history to media theory.

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