Research Trip's IaaC

|| SUMARY ||
IaaC continues its research agenda and research trips with MAA 2009-10 research trip to India. Visits to New Delhi, the capital city and Chandigarh, the first planned city in Independent India by le Corbusier are part of the itinerary besides Mumbai where the larger part of study and proposals will be made. In order to read a diverse cross section of Indian cities, focus rests on studying in Delhi, historical evolution, role of monuments beyond a background context, the colonial plan and its landmark un-utility vis-a-vis congested city growth post independence, the six decades of an ‘un-Indian’ city Chandigarh in India, criticized by some for its imposition of modern plan in an Indian context and Mumbai, the ‘maximum city’ driven as much by global economics as by indigenous structure of commerce and struggle. 

|| MASTER TRIP ||
IaaC will be working in Mumbai exploring current conditions and dynamics of the territory. Changing coastal conditions, learning from slums as the largest housing type, critiquing the unjustified escalation of land value and the various actors that work within this mechanism would be part of the study. Rapid growth in the population of cities and hurried development in second tier and third tier cities of India which ape their metropolitan contemporaries, would also be part of the exploration. In line with the core agenda of eco cities and self sufficient buildings, proposals would be made in relation to key sites current issues. IAAC collaborates with BSSA, Mumbai (http://university.nmims.edu/B.Arch/) as partner for the research trip and possible future common programs.

It will be crucial to understand the idea of self-sufficiency in the context of urban growth with poverty and congestion and rural potential. The trip is considered educational with respect to what can be learnt from the situation in India cities and the process of proposing with these constraints. The application of new technology with indigenous/local techniques and materiality would be an opportunity to invent new planning strategies and programs.

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BARCELONA> MUMBAI > NEW DELHI > CHANDIGARH> BARCELONA

|| SUMARY ||
HyperEurope is research of a territorial nature that was being developed in the IaaC Institute (Institut d’arquitectura avançada de Catalunya) in Barcelona throughout 2005 and that takes the new multiple, open Europe as a framework and the area where Slovenia and Croatia meet as the particular project field. This project was being developed with the collaboration of the Croatian Consulate in Catalonia. Twelve institutions were supporting and taking part in the study process. The result of this research was displayed in Barcelona in December 2005, and afterwards shown in Slovenia and Croatia. A catalogue was published of the final results and, within the exhibitions themselves, several meetings were organized in order to promote public debate of the results

|| MASTER TRIP ||
 On-site analyses: trends analyses, forecasts and projections; and qualitative analyses of driving forces. The work consisted in on-site analyses of factors, and trend studies; a set of questions concerning territorial latencies and potentials; the mapping prospective and prognosis; intentional crossing and strategic document elaboration and horizontal visualizations. Thematic seminars: a group of thematic or geographical experts that are specialists in their fields leaded reflections on the relevant aspects of the project. This input will take the form of seminars and has taken place in each site to be visited. Reflections were provided by specialists from trans-disciplinary institutes. They provided their local knowledge and access to the database which has already been developed.

|| ROUTE ||
BARCELONA > VENICE > RIJEKA > KOPER >LJUBLJANA > DUBROVNIK >PLO?E > SPLIT > RIJEKA > VENICE > BARCELONA

|| PARTICIPANTS ||
VICENTE GUALLART, MANUEL GAUSA, WILLY MULLER, JOSE MIGUEL IRIBAS, LUIS FALCÓN,  IZASKUN CHINCHILLA, CHOTIMA AG-UKRIKUL, BLAZ KRIZNIK, HENRYK GAJEWSKI, TADEJ GLAZAR, HIROSHI KOHNO,  DAIGAKU FUJIOKA, MIRANDA VELJACIC, IVAN SAREZI, RADOVAN PETRICEVIC MARIANO ARIAS, JASNA BAJLO, ROMAN CORDERO, CLAUDIA DRESSLER, ANA GARZA, PETER JENNI NEKTARIOS KEFALOGIANNIS, LOREDANA MODUGNO, DINKO PERACIC, ALEJANDRA RODRIGUEZ WILM SCHWARZPAUL, ROMAN SILJE, SPELA STERN, FRANCISCO VILLEDA, MONICA POTVIN, ANA KUNST, ÁUREA BUCIO.

|| SUMARY ||
Taipei is a world capital, constructed in the 20th century by means of processes of high-speed development that have nevertheless generated a territory of great urbanity very different from the urban agglomerations of Europe. Taipei is built on an orthogonal grid that encloses an area defined between two rivers and a mountain. Its central grid measures app. 400x 400m, similar to Barcelona’s super-blocks. The urban structure of Taipei is a dynamic grid which responds to geographical or functional conditions and which generate a great flexibility, in its conception and future development. This grid can be seen as a new model for urbanity, in which it is possible to discern and acquire new formats of temporal and spatial interaction that functionally expand the limits of our traditional urban systems.

|| MASTER TRIP ||
 Observations and analyses of Taipei. In a 10-day trip students have been measuring meticulously the streets, night markets and crossing points of Taipei, in order to register the spatial and functional constellation of the city and to discover and describe its most remarkable elements. This project has been developed in collaboration with Taipei-based architectural office The Observer Design Group of J. M. Lin and its collaborators. Additional to the field research there has beenpresentations and discussions with experts in the field of urban planning in Taipei who provided us with valuable background information.
Back in Barcelona Taipei has been precisely registered, drawn and mapped from big scale to small scale, approving its dynamic character in all scales. The results reflect the most interesting and essential ingredients of the unique urban structure of Taipei in a very specific way. IAAC will, in collaboration with Actar, publish a bilingual book about this research. The presentation of this book is foreseen for the end of March 2007.

|| ROUTE ||
BARCELONA> TAIPEI > KEELUNG > TAIPEI > BARCELONA

|| PARTICIPANTS ||
VICENTE GUALLART, JOU MIN LIN, LUCAS CAPPELLI, CAROLIEN LIGTENBERG, CHENG-YU CHANG, YESENIA CONCHUCOS ANDRES, JULIETTA ZINDROU, MARIA DOLORES SORDO SOBRINO, ANGELIKI KOUVELI, GABRIEL ARANDA MORALES, ANA CANCAR, KYUNG MO YANG, SANTIAGO RIONDA, ARETI MARKOPOULOU.

|| SUMARY ||
With the fall of the Iron Curtain in 1989, Romania started a series of political and economic reforms that allowed it to join the European Union on January 1, 2007. That sudden geopolitical, economic and social shift has made it nowadays a mixture of post communist heritage and capitalistic influence, what is an intriguing field of investigation.
The objective of our field trip is an extensive territorial investigation and analysis of the two main cities: Bucharest, the capital and the largest city in Romania, and Constanta, an industrial and touristic node on the coast, in order to propose urban and planning strategies for the country.

|| MASTER TRIP ||
Observations and analyses of Bucharest and Constanta. The group of students divided into two parts, have been analyzing and mapping both cities in order to discover and register its spatial conditions, functional solutions and cultural characteristics. The methodology that we will apply will be based on the HyperHabitat research that has been developed by IaaC since several years. The research supports the idea of multiscalarity, which is trying to test if urbanity could be working with the same logics in different scales.  Therefore students have been exploring 4 different scales in four days of the trip, trying to focus every day on different aspects – from big infrastructures to microarchitectures. The outcome of the field trip will be develop further in Barcelona, reaching the global understanding of Romanian reality, aiming to propose series of urban and planning methodologies for the country of Romania.

|| ROUTE ||
GROUP 1 : BARCELONA > BUCHAREST > BARCELONA
GROUP 2 : BARCELONA > BUCHAREST > CONSTANTA > BUCHAREST >  BARCELONA

|| PARTICIPANTS ||

GROUP 1 (Bucharest Group)
Advait Potnis, Agata Kycia, Akriti Sood, Alessio Carta, Anastasia Fragkoudi, Andrea Katsavra, Bianny Poueriet, Enrique Mora, Francisca Aroso, Hemant Purohit, Javier Olmeda Raya, Javier Pittaluga, Krzysztof Gornicki, Luis Odiaga, Maria Papaloizou, Michael Piasecki, Nazli Ilgit Yucel, Peerapong Suntinanond, Renu Gupta, Rohan Khurana, Sarkawt Noori, Stefania Sini, Uday Goswami, Vagia Pantou, Vikrant Sharma;

GROUP 2 (Constanta Group)
Alexander Harris, Ben Howard, Dorota Kabala, Eduardo Mayoral, Eugenio Adame, Evangelia Vlachopoulou, Gabriele Pileri, Georgia Voudouri, Georgios Machairas, Higinio Llames, Ifigenia Arvaniti, Ismini Koronidi, Juergen Weiss, Krystian Kwiecinski, Magda Osinska, Maite Bravo, Maria Eftychi, Mariana Paz, Monica Szawiola, Rafael Gutierrez, Ramon Velazquez, Rodrigo Avila, Vasco Portugal, Verena Vogler, Vladimir Samoukovic