The Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia is a cutting edge education and research centre dedicated to the development of an architecture capable of meeting the worldwide challenges in the construction of habitability in the early 21st century. Based in the 22@ district of Barcelona, one of the world’s capitals of architecture and urbanism, IAAC is a platform for the exchange of knowledge with faculty and students from over 25 countries, including USA, China. India, Poland, Italy, Mexico and Sudan. Students work simultaneously on multiple scales (city, building, manufacturing) and in different areas of expertise (ecology, energy, digital manufacturing, new technologies), pursuing their own lines of enquiry on the way to developing an integrated set of skills with which to act effectively in their home country or globally.

IAAC has carried out research projects in Brazil, Taiwan, Croatia and Romania. In 2008 it was chosen to take part in the official section of the Venice Biennale with the project Hyperhabitat and in 2010 it presented a 1:1 scale house (entirely produced at IAAC) at the Solar Decathlon Europe in Madrid where it won the Peoples Choice Award. IAAC has the most advanced digital production laboratory of any educational institution in southern Europe, with laser cutters, 3D printers, milling machines and a platform for manufacturing chips.

 
IAAC organizes a Masters course in Advanced Architecture and a Masters course in Advanced Interaction in conjunction with the UPC Polytechnic University. The Open Thesis Fabrication course is open to Masters architecture students from around the world. The Fab Academy is part of the global network of Fab Labs affiliated to MIT’s Center for Bit and Atoms. 

Since 2004 the IAAC has run the Advanced Architecture Contest (Self-Sufficient City, Self-Sufficient Housing and Self-Fab House). This year IAAC and HP present the 4th Advanced Architecture Contest: CITY-SENSE: Shaping our environment with real-time data. City Sense will promote discussion and research that help us envisage what the city and the habitat of the 21st century will be like.