Educational Program - Summer School

The city is man´s greatest creation, built (and being built) by adding different layers in formal, informal, emergent, planned and unplanned processes with billions of people in different generations as the main actors. The city is the result of natural, historical, cultural, geological, economic, social, political, and many other phenomena. There is no concept of the city, there are different realities in a city, and many cities in one city.

The study of man-made phenomena, including the city, is based on the selection of parameters, theories and concepts agreed by a scientific community, with the consideration and support of capital agents, protagonists of the production and construction of formal processes into cities. During the last 5 decades we have seen how these agreements, theories and even dogmas have been redefined, and are doing it constantly, however they are running in a slower speed than the reality is being transformed. The distribution of the creation, access to knowledge and the ability to share it through new media has created alternative structures of intervention and analysis of reality, but still formal proposals continue to reside in the power and capital (both in knowledge and in the economy, and politics), the largest producers of reality of our time.

Rate informal processes as belonging to the contemporary era, or the second half of the twentieth century, it would obviate the various steps taken by mankind to produce their habitat many centuries and eras ago, in fact it is a fine line that separates the formal and informal, and most of the times we can say that this separation is obsolete. Since man´s consciousness entered into materiality and the relationship with their environment, man has created shelters, instruments and tools using the means available to do it. With the continuous advancement of technology and knowledge set forms were created, exported and taken to build / manufacture. But is not until the last 50 years that we can observe in real time the hybridization between knowledge and technology, culture and tradition. Globalization has taken, and exported from the "first world", the materiality, morphologies and ways of understanding processes to emergent and under development countries. Similarly, at local scale, ways of building are being standardized, both at formal and informal level.

It is recalled that formal call to that produced by agents of power and capital, in the process of "top-down, controlled, informal means any self-made process and emerging, which in any case can be standardized, but uncontrolled or even legislated, "bottom up." This has happened in the ways to build in slums or favelas in Latin America: Rio, Quito, Caracas or Medellin used same materials: concrete blocks, steel body, tin roofs prefabricated, tom produce housing, by adopting new ways of building, this "know how" has generated new economies (emerging), where you can hire services for the construction of informal settlements, also illegal.

Similarly, as in many other areas, the advance of technology is light years ahead of the informal production of reality. Beyond the Satellite TV Antennas, mobile phones with Internet or super-powerful sound systems that are installed on houses or "ranchos" of the favelas, the production-consumption process remains the same. Joining this self-making in informal production with the philosophy and technology of Fab Labs, Informalism suggests the term "Self-Fabrication 2.0", where "low-tech" and "high-tech"  join together processes and knowledge that can generate ways of produce and manipulate new realities.

The CAD / CAM processes have become increasingly available in areas outside the industry and large chains of production.  Architecture, design (in its various disciplines), and other practices, have adopted the use of computer controlled machines (CNC) for the production of prototypes and final products, if they had been doing through the industry since more than two centuries, is now when you can get this technology on a smaller scale at small workshops and offices, even at the garages of the houses where we live. Different types of CNC machines are available in the market for any user, bringing the production to a personal level.

The Fab Labs are an outreach project of the Center for Bits and Atoms at MIT, this project aims to bring the production on a personal level, moving from being mere consumers to producers through the use of personal fabrication technologies, networking and sharing knowledge via Internet. Nowadays exists a network of more than 50 laboratories in 12 countries worldwide (and growing daily) that are working and doing research in social, educational and economical implications and applications of the use of new technologies available in Fab Labs, and the application of electronics, mechanics, design, physical computing and other disciplines into small scale communities.

We are approaching the elimination of the line between formal informal, however, the historical view, the idea of creating cities from scratch or neighborhoods runs counter to the forces that have created what exists in some form is an expense of extra energy to destroy and then rebuild.

The aim of Informality / Informalism is to study, analyze and intervene in non-formal aspects of the city, those self-generated processes and self-produced by emerging forces in specific critical moments. This research is focused on empowering the forces acting on the production of reality, give them advanced tools personal digital manufacturing, promoting development through self-making 2.0.

DATES: Summer School takes place from July 17th to July 28th

July 17 th Presentation. Faculty introduction. Presentation of the Informalism and self-fabrication 2.0 agenda. Case study selection, group constitution.
July 20th, Digital Tools and Fabrication. Advanced Parametric Modelling. Morning: Grasshopper training. Afternoon: Introduction to Fab Labs, machines demos.
July 21st, Digital Fabrication applications and implications. Morning: Grasshopper training. Afternoon: group work on preparation for Fabrication.
July 22nd, Digital information vs. analogue materials. Morning: Digital fabrication of parametric models, prototype scale. Afternoon: models assembly
July 23rd, Raising up scales. Morning: re-modeling process. Afternoon: 1:1 scale test fabrication
July 24th, Structural performance. Morning: Structure modeling. Afternoon: 1:1 scale structure fabrication.
July 25-27th, Work-on progress. Final model assembly.
July 28th, Final Presentations

The price of the IAAC Summer School program is 1200€ and by the end of the course  an IAAC degree/certification of attendance will be provided to the participants.

REQUIRED DOCUMENTS
The documents required for the application are the following:
- The IaaC Summer School Application Form (find attached)
- Curriculum Vitae
- A copy of valid passport (valid copy of I.D. is accepted)
- A copy of a non-refundable application fee of 50 euros, payable by bank transfer to the Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalunya at the bank:Caja de Arquitectos in Barcelona (Spain) Account Number: 3183-0800-8200-0064-8636, IBAN: ES86 3183 0800 8200 0064 8636, BIC/SWIFT: CASDESBB

The course is in English, all sessions , conferences and meetings with supervisors are in English so there is no requirement of knowledge of Spanish language.

Visit the previous versions of the IaaC Summer school that were focused on:
1.Hyperhabitat ( www.hyperhabitat.net)
2.Fab Lab Solar House (www.fablabhouse.com)

More info contact:applications@iaac.net