Research's IaaC - Research Group -

http://www.iaacblog.com/digitaltectonics/?cat=8

The impact of new information technologies on living space is explored here. We will construct real-scale prototypes in order to experiment with the integration of communication technologies into the physical spaces of the domestic environment by means of new interfaces using advanced data networks, integrating information into everyday life and approaching the construction of new spatial and information structures through the optimum combination of intelligent logic and physical form. Media House Project: Metàpolis / MIT Media Lab / Fundació Politècnica de Catalunya / Escola Elisava / I2Cat.

This research group takes as its dual basis the production of models for effective forecasting and evaluation, and the exploitation of the benefits of transportation network administration and analysis, database management, statistical analysis, mapping software and graphic software. The aim of the topic Strategy Simulation for Evolutionary Design is to analyze the ordering patterns underlying the processes of transformation of space at different scales. Natural forms are not the product of any prior design; they are the effect of an ongoing evolution and adaptation. Living forms have fractal geometries and their structures are self-regenerating. Natural geometry is not so much a formal design as a strategy. In contrast, artificial forms are designed in line with finalist visions, with artists imposing a new cultural order on nature. The most interesting developments in the field of artificial intelligence consist in designing not systems but strategies, capable of enabling artificial systems to acquire intelligence through their interaction with the environment and other systems.

With the concept of new habitats, the IaaC puts forward a line of research that ensures the definition of habitable environments in keeping with a new mixed conception of the city. Here the city becomes a habitable place, different and diversely adaptable to people and to a new interaction with the environment. This is a cluster city where the concepts of culture, ecology, nature, solidarity and sustainability are interwoven to make a high quality of communal life a reality; to improve living standards through a process of hybridization and revival of the landscape and the recycling of our surroundings; to increase environmental sensitivity in order to work with renewable energies and intelligent systems for environmental treatment; and to create social awareness for a better and richer human interaction.

Agenda 21 for the Industry of Architecture is oriented towards the development of a R+D program for sustainable, ecological, advanced construction. The challenge is to generate an agenda for the architecture industry ranging from the development of new materials and the intelligent use of the natural environment to the application of new research and production technologies in the definition of habitable space. This means involving manufacturers, major trade sectors and industry-based researchers in order to create points of reference for the development of new concepts such as eco-construction, self-generation of energy in proximity to its consumption, and energy efficiency in production processes and the recycling of materials.

A new kind of ‘geo-urban’ territoriality defines the city today, resulting in a high degree of complexity and an infrastructural diversity that proclaims its own multiple nature of interlinked events and spaces. Just as we recognize the existence of a plural city, we also have to recognize the existence of a multiple city: a multi-city. The definition of the ‘metapolis’ goes beyond the modern metropolis, involving the existence of a vibrant territory, similar at the general (global) and diverse at the particular (local) level. The contemporary metapolis is defined as a dynamic and mutable system made up of collisions, encounters and intersections that end up yielding an extensive variety of combinations and scenarios, both real and virtual, specific and plural. This city can no longer be defined as an island: it must be seen as a wide spectrum of situations — ‘cities inside the city.’ This is the essence of the contemporary metapolis: that is, to become a ‘hyper-place,’ a ‘place of places.’ The study of its strategic orientation, its network of articulation, its evolutionary capability and its qualitative development will be the objectives of this line of investigation.

In the US, roughly 40% of the total energy (and 70% of the electricity) is consumed by buildings, with the greatest demand being for heating, cooling, and lighting. Preliminary trials have found that as much as 30% of this can be recovered by intelligent building infrastructure so that, for example, air handlers are turned off when windows are open, illumination is adjusted in response to natual light, and energy is not expended heating and cooling unoccupied spaces. This makes intelligent infrastructure one of the most accessible opportunities for significantly reducing the environmental and economic impact of energy consumption, but the challenge is that the contribution lies in a \\"long green tail\\" of a large number of small savings. To date, the cost and complexity of the required systems has been prohibitive. This event will review the background and discuss planning for a proposed large-scale testbed, initially on MIT\\'s campus, to collaboratively develop, deploy and evaluate the impact of intelligent infrastructure for energy efficiency. This effort will span from enabling research to rapid-prototyping of solutions to scalable commercial implementations.

http://cba.mit.edu/events/07.05.energy/

The European Parliament adopted a written declaration on establishing a green hydrogen economy and a third industrial revolution in Europe through a partnership with committed regions and cities, SMEs and civil society organisations with 420 MEPs signing the declaration. The President of the European Parliament Hans-Gert Pöttering announced at the beginning of the session in Strasbourg, that with more than half of all MEPs signing the declaration it had been adopted. The written declaration calls upon the EU Institutions to: - pursue a 20% increase in energy efficiency by 2020, - reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 30% by 2020 (compared to 1990 levels), - produce 33% of electricity and 25% of overall energy from renewable energy sources by 2020, - institute hydrogen fuel cell storage technology, and other storage technologies, for portable, stationary and transport uses and establish a decentralised bottom-up hydrogen infrastructure by 2025 in all EU Member States, - make power grids smart and independent by 2025 so that regions, cities, SMEs and citizens can produce and share energy in accordance with the same open-access principles as apply to the internet now. more see...->

http://www.europarl.europa.eu/news