IaaC lecture Series Mar 12, 19:30h

Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia
Pujades 102 baixos, Poble Nou, 08005 Barcelona
tel. (+34) 93 320 95 20

EDUARDO RICO
Director of Groundlab and Co-founder of Relational Urbanism

Eduardo Rico is a Civil Engineer and Ma Landscape Urbanism Graduate currently working in Arup. He is also director of Groundlab and co-funder of Relational Urbanism.  He is currently engaged in strategic advice on infrastructure and transportation for urban master planning in the ILG team in Arup, combining it with teaching in the AA Landscape Urbanism and research in the contemporary design practices feeding infrastructural inputs into architectural urbanism.

ENRIQUETA LLABRES
Director of DNA-Collective and Co-founder of Relational Urbanism

Enriqueta Llabres is an architect graduated at the UPC in 2002.  In 2003 she became part of MAP Architects team whose principal is Prof. Josep Lluis Mateo. During this period she was a team member of important winning competitions for the practice, ending up the architect responsible for the Netherland projects. In 2007 she leaves the office and moves to London co-founding together with Eduardo Rico Relational Urbanism. Currently she combines her research in Relational Urbanism with her own architectural practice, DNA-Collective.  

Lecture: Relational Urbanism

The Young Laureates Programme

Since its beginnings a century ago, Rolex has recognized and supported individual excellence and achievement. Now the leading Swiss watchmaker is pleased to present the Rolex Awards for Enterprise: Young Laureates Programme, which enables visionary young men and women to tackle the most pressing issues facing our world.

Rolex launched this year the Young Laureates Programme to foster innovation in the next generation. The programme will seek out budding pioneers and provide them with funding and encouragement to implement their original ideas and gain the experience to become tomorrow’s leaders.

The programme rewards creativity in five areas: science and health, applied technology, exploration, the environment and cultural preservation. The young Laureates will be announced in April 2010.

What are the rewards?

The Awards provide financial support – US,000 over two years – to advance each person’s project. Rolex will also promote the winners through international media coverage. The Young Laureates will become active members in the Rolex community of innovators, taking advice from former Laureates and Associate Laureates, and, in turn, passing on their knowledge to other young people.

Who is eligible?

Candidates must be between 18 and 30 years old when the Award is presented and need to have bright, feasible ideas with potential social or scientific benefits. All candidates must be nominated and cannot apply directly.

The Young Laureates Programme complements the original Rolex Awards for Enterprise, it does not replace it: the two variations of the programme will thus alternate on a two-yearly basis. The original Awards for Enterprise will resume with the 2012 series for which application forms will be available in mid-2010.

Rolex Philanthropy

Rolex’s other major philanthropic programme, the Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative, also reflects an ongoing commitment to promoting excellence in the next generation. The Arts Initiative brings together emerging artists with recognized masters for a year of one-to-one collaboration in music, dance, literature, theatre, film and the visual arts.

Both the Arts Initiative and the Young Laureates Programme provide the gift of time to exceptional young people at a critical juncture in their lives. Through Rolex’s support, these promising individuals are able to take their work to a new level and help invigorate their surrounding communities and the wider world.

SmartGeometry 2010 Workshop and Conference at:

Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia
Pujades 102 baixos, Poble Nou, 08005 Barcelona
March 19-24, 2010

Workshop:
March 19-22, 2010

Advanced Design Exploration: Functioning Prototypes that Prove and Test Concept and Design

Each year, the SmartGeometry workshop attracts tutors and attendees from across the worlds of academia and professional practice, including many of the brightest students. The workshop hosts 150 participants for four intensive days of design and collaboration on innovative design ideas and projects. The result – some amazing prototypes!

Date and Location:
The SmartGeometry 2010 Workshop takes place March 19-22, 2010, at the world-renowned Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia in Barcelona, Spain.

Who Should Attend:
The Workshop provides a unique opportunity for building professionals, along with architectural and engineering students, to explore advanced design objectives enabled by the latest technology.

Apply to attend.

The Tutors
Twenty-five preeminent professionals from architectural practices and design institutes on the cutting edge of generative design lead the workshop. Among them are: Dr. Axel Killian, assistant professor, School of Architecture, Princeton University; Achim Menges, director of the Institute for Computational Design, Stuttgart University; Shane M. Burger, associate and head of Computational Design Unit, Grimshaw; Brady Peters, Ph.D. Fellow, CITA, Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, School of Architecture; and Dr. Robert Woodbury, professor, School of Interactive Arts and Technology, Simon Fraser University.

The Workshop Challenge: Working Prototypes
The four-day workshop carries the theme “Working Prototypes” and focuses on functioning prototypes developed to prove and test concept and design.

IAAC is the ideal venue for the SmartGeometry 2010 Workshop Challenge as it contains a fabrication lab with different machinery and equipment for digital fabrication, even on a 1:1 scale, allowing for creation of material stress, physical thinking, and mental gymnastics. This puts the physical at center stage in challenging participants to design, assemble, and test working prototypes.

The Design Studios
The workshop will be organized around 10 hands-on design studios, hubs of expertise comprised of people, knowledge, tools, materials, and machines. These studios will facilitate the development and testing of working prototypes and provide a nucleus for exploration, discussion, processes, and techniques. Each design studio embraces a wide spectrum of approaches and engages eight to 16 participants, championed by at least two tutors who are pioneers in their field.

The SmartGeometry 2010 Workshop design studios are:

    Deep Surfaces: Articulation and Fabrication of Spatial Systems from Tensioned Fabric Elements

    Nonlinear Systems Biology and Design

    Manufacturing Parametric Acoustic Surfaces

    High-Tech Design - Low-Tech Construction

    Parametrics and Physical Interactions

    Explicit Bricks

    Rapid R&D to Rapid Assembly: snap fit, push on, and so forth

    Design to Destruction

    Inflatable Fabric Envelopes

Applications to Add Design Studios
In addition to applying for a specific design studio, exceptional candidates can submit proposals for projects to be accomplished during the workshop that would inspire a new design studio. Applicants in this category must accept that, although SmartGeometry will do all it can to help, it cannot guarantee provision of materials and machinery.

With this in mind, applicants must detail all requirements for the provision of materials and machinery usage and how they would provide these if required.

Letter From the Fab Academy, Part 2

In this series, "Letters from the Fab Academy," Shawn Wallace, member of AS220, the Providence, RI community arts space, shares his experiences with the Fab Academy, a distributed learning collaborative built on the infrastructure of the Fab Lab network. - Gareth

Making and programming circuit boards

By Shawn Wallace

Our assignment this time around was to design a circuit board, mill it, and program it in Assembly language. Each student had to become acquainted with the following work flow:

• Designing the board
• Machining
• Stuffing components
• Programming

Read more at Make Magzine

Empieza la construcción de un prototipo de vivienda plenamente autosuficiente desde el punto de vista energético
Unacasa solar con el sello Barcelona

ANTONIO CERRILLO
Barcelona El diseño arquitectónico
barcelonés ha primado
los componentes
funcionales, artísticos
y espectaculares
por encima de otras consideraciones.
Pero, ahora, puede ampliar
su rumbo. Las nuevas generaciones
de arquitectos incrementan
el compromiso con la
protección del medio ambiente y
empiezan a idear casas que producen
energía limpia. Y estos
nuevos cimientos culturales sustentan
el prototipo de casa solar
(denominada FabLabhouse) que
ha empezado a construirse en el
Institut d'Arquitectura Avançada
de Catalunya (IAAC). El diseño
barcelonés debe estar al servicio
de las nuevas preocupaciones, como
son la crisis de la energía o el
cambio climático, sugiere Vicente
Guallart, director del IAAC.
La casa ha sido concebida para
aprovechar todo el potencial de
la energía solar, por lo cual la cubierta
no es plana sino redondeada,
para absorber la radiación a
lo largo del recorrido del sol en
cualquier latitud. Y, por eso, frente
a los grandes paneles fotovoltaicos
prefabricados de líneas rectas,
las placas se van ensamblando
una a una para adaptarse a la
peculiar geometría.
La casa será autosuficiente
energéticamente. Inicialmente,
toda la producción eléctrica procederá
de las placas fotovoltaicas;
pero estará conectada a la
red eléctrica exterior. Así, cuando
haya exceso de electricidad se
enviará a la red, y cuando ocasionalmente
no tenga bastante energía
almacenada, se tomará del exterior,
según explica Jorge González,
director de proyectos de
Schneider Electric España.
Hasta ahora, las casas mediterráneas
siempre son cubos, pero
las formas redondeadas permiten
un mejor aprovechamiento
de la energía del sol, según esta
novedosa propuesta, en la que ha
participado Neil Gershefled, promotor
de una red mundial (vinculada
al MIT) especializada en fabricar
objetos y edificios inteligentes
a partir de técnicas digitales.
De hecho, la casa propone en
este sentido un nuevo sistema de
construcción e industrialización.

Every other year the Solar Decathlon takes place in Europe, and this year it will take place in Madrid in June. European entries are beginning to show and are certain to be just as fabulous as the houses we saw in the fall on the mall in Washington DC.

Much like the US competition, each team designs their home for a specific location with a specific climate and solar resource. The FabLab House was designed as an ellipsoid structure prefabricated from wood that is formed into a rib-like structure. Although this specific house was designed for Madrid’s solar resource, it could easily be adapted to other climates by changing the ellipsoid. Built on top of three legs, the home has a space underneath to allow for air to circulate and help ventilate it naturally.

Smart systems help monitor and control the home’s temperature and energy use, while passive design increases efficiency and minimizes consumption. A customized photovoltaic skin coats the roof, which also acts to collect rainwater. When the home is built for the competition, it will also come with a garden capable of growing food. It looks like a really exciting and impressive start to the Solar Decathlon: Europe Edition, and we can’t wait to see more great solar prefab designs.

REPORTAJE: URBANISMO

La ciudad del futuro

IBM, Cisco, HP, el MIT y universidades de medio mundo planean otros modelos de urbe - La edificación de Songdo, en Corea del Sur, y de Masdar City, en Abu Dabi, ejemplos inmediatos - Todas se piensan verticales y sostenibles

IaaC Nations

El IaaC presenta FabLab House, la casa energéticamente autosuficiente.

Cada dos años se celebra el Solar Decathlon, un concurso internacional entre universidades de todo el mundo sobre construcción sostenible. La primera competición Solar Dechathlon Europe se celebrará el próximo mes de junio en Madrid, y el IaaC (Instituto de Arquitectura Avanzada de Cataluña) ha sido uno de los primeros participantes en presentar su FabLab House, una vivieda 100% autosuficiente.  

Cada equipo participante debe diseñar su propia casa para una localización específica, con un clima determinado y una cantidad concreta de energía solar. En la fase final del concurso se construirán in situ entre 15 y 20 casas de las presentadas.......

Everyday during the afternoon viewing of the Solar House prototypes is open to the public.

The Fabrication  Launching  for the first Solar House in Barcelona, the Fab Lab House, within the frame of the solar Decathlon 2010 Competition took place on Jan 21st, 2010. Click here for a glimpse of the ceremony on TV·

Event Schedule:

Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia (IaaC)

C/ Pujades 102, 08005 Barcelona

13.00h: Introduction:

Javier Nieto, IaaC president

13.15h:Presentación del proyecto:

Vicente Guallart, IaaC Director

Neil Gershenfeld, Director of The Center for Bits and Atoms

Jorge González, Project Director of  Schneider

Electric, Spain

13.30h: Launching of Fabrication, with the participation of:

Ramon García Bragado, Cuarto Teniente de Alcade. Area

de Vivienda, Urbanismo y Regimen Interior, Ayuntamiento