Research Studios Prepare for Final Presentations

By iaac | Published: March 24, 2011


Phase 2 (second term) is almost over and Research Studio Final Presentations are around the corner, so everyone is busy working on their projects.

Phase 2 of the Masters in Advanced Architecture program is an Open Education Structure where students attend a Research Studio and 1 Seminar related to this studio plus 2 elective Seminars based on academic interest.

As you may have seen in previous posts Research Studio 1 (RS1) is focused on Emergent Territories, Research Studio 2 (RS2) is studying Self-Sufficient Buildings, while Research Studio 3 (RS3) is working on Digital Tectonics.

Good luck to all, keep working hard.

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Shigeru Ban Lecture at IAAC: Works and Humanitarian Activities

By iaac | Published: March 21, 2011


(Above: Shigeru Ban at IAAC)

Last Friday, 18 March, IAAC welcomed Shigeru Ban for our Open Lecture Series. Despite the difficult circumstances after the terrible earthquake in Japan the previous weekend, Mr. Ban presented ¨ Works and Humanitarian Activities ¨.

In his presentation, Mr. Ban  shared with the audience projects like, the Paper House, the Nomadic Museum, the Centre Pompidou-Metz and more by giving a structural explanation as well as the conceptual background that supports his projects. He explained the  influence of modernism and Mies Van de Rohe, in terms of transparency and structural strategies, on his projects,  using the Farnsworth house and the Barcelona Pavilion as main examples.

After the devastating earthquake in Japan the previous week,  it was interesting to see how Shigeru Ban is greatly involved in humanitarian works  with disaster relief projects such as Paper Log House (Kobe of Japan in 1995, Turkey in 2000, India in 2002), Paper Church (Kobe,1995), Tsunami Reconstruction Project (Kirinda, Sri Lanka, 2005), Temporary Elementary School (Chengdu, China 2008), L’Aquila Temporary Concert Hall (L’Aquila, Italy, in progress) and his proposal for temporary shelters in Japan.

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Designing Associativity Seminar Presentations

By iaac | Published: March 17, 2011

The Designing Associativity Seminar is titled as such in order to acknowledge the effort of designing relationships versus explicit objects or forms. MAA Students look at ways to construct logics which take advantage of diverse data sources, algorithms, geometry, and manufacturing processes.

Architecture as a practice and experience has often dealt with the negotiation of several elements rendered in a built space. The tools of the trade (both conceptual and instrumental) have played a crucial role in defining how architecture and design evolve through form, materials, scale, and performance. In the end though, designing has always been and will always continue to be about designing associations.

The image below  shows a project that uses solar panels that rotate according to sun location to capture the most solar energy possible. Project presented by MAA students Tomas Vivanco and Javier Gonzalez.

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Emergent Territories – Mid Reviews

By iaac | Published: March 16, 2011

During the Emergent Territories Workshop MAA Students have been working on large infrastructure areas in Barcelona called ´Rondas´, a network of mobility and its surroundings, consisting of different large scale projects. In these they have been investigating the relation between the programmatic decisions, both formal and spatial as well as structural, in relation to their capacity to interact, give and receive information and the need to invent new devices. Devices that become part of the urban design and are capable of monitoring in real time what is happening in the city as far as waste, CO2 emissions, traffic, and energy use are considered.

Last week, students presented their proposal saying that much of the “city of tomorrow” can be organized connecting global positioning systems and social networks, creating a new Barcelona as a dynamic space.

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Research Studio 3 Workshop Introduction

By iaac | Published: March 15, 2011


MAA students of Digital Tectonics Research Studio are having an intensive Processing workshop with Thiago Mundim. Before the workshop started they had an introduction of Processing simulations and what they can achieve with this powerful tool.

Thiago presented his project Knitectonics, structured spaces made with different fabrics and simulation.

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IAAC Hosts Students from UTSA

By iaac | Published: March 14, 2011


Each year IAAC hosts various groups of students and researchers from around the world making IAAC a dynamic center for learning and innovation.

Since January a group of students from the University of Texas at San Antonio have been at IAAC with their professors Maria Solé Bravo and Natali Canas working and learning about digital fabrication. Last week students from this university had a Digital Fabrication workshop guided by Tomas Diez (pictured above) and Brian Peters, where they worked in teams in IAAC’s FabLab fabricating their projects and presented them at the end of the workshop.

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Digital Tectonics – Mid Reviews

By iaac | Published: March 11, 2011


Ara(e)Na (picture above) is one of the projects presented by MAA students. Marta Malé-Alemany, Luis Fraguada, Victor Viña, and Thiago Mundim were part of the jury during the Mid Review presentations.

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