Research's IaaC - Students Research -

MATAERIAL – a brand new method of additive manufacturing. This patent-pending method allows for creating 3D objects on any given working surface independently of its inclination and smoothness, and without a need of additional support structures. Conventional methods of additive manufacturing have been affected both by gravity and printing environment: creation of 3D objects on irregular, or non-horizontal surfaces has so far been treated as impossible . By using innovative extrusion technology we are now able to neutralize the effect of gravity during the course of the printing process. This method gives us a flexibility to create truly natural objects by making 3D curves instead of 2D layers. Unlike 2D layers that are ignorant to the structure of the object, the 3D curves can follow exact stress lines of a custom shape. Finally, our new out of the box printing method can help manufacture structures of almost any size and shape.

MATAERIAL is the result of the collaborative research between Petr Novikov, Saša Jokić from the Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia (IAAC) and Joris Laarman Studio. IAAC tutors representing Open Thesis Fabrication Program provided their advice and professional expertise. During the course of the research we developed a brand new digital fabrication method and a working prototype that can open a door to a number of practical applications. The method that we call Anti·gravity Object Modeling has a patent-pending status.

Faculty: Vicente Guallart, Javier Peña, Rodrigo Rubio
Guest Tutors:
Josep Pique, Director 22@
Artur Serra, Anthropologist
Luis Gordo, Acciona

The objective of the Self Sufficient Buildings Studio is to develop projects of self-sufficient buildings and city blocks.

The self-sufficient buildings and blocks are the new paradigm for the cities construction. In Europe they will be obligatory from 2020. But for constructing buildings and blocks that are self-sufficient we have to create new methods of architectural design in which the "metabolism" of the buildings (including the production and management of energy, water etc) is designed in a form that is intergraded with the natural structure and their function.

In the case of Barcelona different blocks are chosen out of the neighborhood 22@, blocks that are already in the process of transformation, so that we could work in real cases, both functionally and environmentally, so that we can develop prototypes of urban re-generation for dense cities.

The design process includes:
-Environmental analysis – and analysis of the natural site
-Functional analysis "Environmental Design Solutions macro-micro design solutions using parametric software"

The final presentation will be a model of a building in 1:100, which will focus on the production efforts of the research done from the beginning of the studio. For the development of the studio, different experts related with urban buildings and especially with barrio 22@ are invited to be part of this studio.

Faculty: Willy Müller
Assistant: Maite Bravo
Guest Tutors:
Michel Rojkind, Architect, Rojkind Architects, Agent,México
Alberto Villareal, Designer, Agent, México
Antoni Brey, Engineer, General Director, Urbiótica
Luki Huber, Industrial designer

During this studio we will be working on large infrastructure areas in Barcelona called ´Rondas´, a network of mobility and its surroundings, consisting of different large scale projects. In these we will investigate the relation between the programmatic decisions, both formal and spatial as well as structural, in relation to their capacity to interact, give and receive information and the need to invent new devices.

Devices that become part of the urban design and are capable of monitoring in real time what is happening in the city as far as waste, CO2 emissions, traffic, and energy use are considered. In these areas of mobility is where the major logistic concentrations such as the airport, the Zona Franca, the new and old port , the Olympic port, the beaches, the Marine Zoo and the Forum are found; all the large urban scenes of Barcelona in the last years. Nevertheless it is exactly there where we will be able to investigate and regenerate a ´re-informed city´, introducing new concepts of design that could bring in ´small intelligence actions´ capable of acting in three main concepts of a city of zero emissions:

- what the city spends
- what the city saves on
- what the city produces

According to these parameters we will try to develop projects on a varied urban scale, from small devices and street furniture to intelligent buildings and big interventions that intend to create new conditions of urbanity for the 21st century.

FABRICATION ECOLOGIES

Faculty: Claudia Pasquero, Marco Poletto 

‘Social ecosophy will consist in developing specific practices that will modify and reinvent the ways in which we live as couples or in the family, in an urban context or at work, etc [...] Instead of clinging to general recommendations we would be implementing effective practices of experimentation, as much on a micro social level as on a larger institutional scale. ’

GUATTARI, F. The Three Ecologies. Continuum, London 2000.

The Fabrication Ecologies Research Studio embraces a radical attitude towards digital fabrication by experimenting new eco-systemic fabrication protocols; our core ambition is to embed the mechanisms of digital fabrication within specific design milieu, manufacture related 1:1 design prototypes and trigger the emergence of speculative architectural scenarios.

Within this design framework digital fabrication expands beyond the technical domain and becomes an instrument of polemic that can be tuned to contribute to a wider debate; in particular the studio discusses the role of digital design technology in:

-supporting the transition from a system of mass production to one of mass customization

-engaging contemporary environmental concerns

-defining the emergence of a new socio-economic figure, the digital craftsmen.

The studio’s disciplinary contribution is articulated through:

-the parallel advancement of both technical and cultural paradigms of digital fabrication in architecture.

-the invention of new digital fabrication techniques involving an innovative use of programmable robots.

-the development of new 1:1 scale architectural prototypes and related design scenarios.

This year our material research focuses on natural fibrous systems; in particular we will start form hemp, which in the 20th century has been the extraordinary protagonist of a controversial industrial war. Once the most diffused material in the world, in the early ‘30s hemp became the key competitor of the growing petrochemical industry, which then took control of the market until today; the studio will plot a surprise comeback by inventing new hemp based components and related fabrication protocols.

Our design method includes several steps from the initial creation of a “hemp garden”, to experiments in material self-organisation, digital simulation and robotic fabrication; each step is supported by dedicated seminars and design workshops. In the 3rd term each group of students is required to manufacture a 1:1 architectural component and describe a related design scenario.

FABRICATION ECOLOGIES - Projects Archive

Faculty:  Willy Müller, Maite Bravo
Technical Experts: Alex Posada, Luis Fraguada, Edouard Cabay, David Dalmazzo

The scale, complexity and relevance of problems affecting contemporary cities of the 21st century are bringing forward new levels of urban interventions that arguably constitute the most significant design agenda for architects of this century. Within this context, the territory of architecture could be redefined as a hybrid terrain embracing the whole built environment, merging the traditional boundaries existing between the disciplines of architecture, urbanism, landscape and infrastructure.

Emerging design agendas today are able to explore the symbiotic relationship between buildings and the urban environments they in-form based on fields of fluctuating data, developing morphologies capable of adapting to real time information. This studio brings forward fundamental concepts related to the importance to propose symbiotic systems of organization based on real time data, that can be further articulated into responsive systems and metabolic organizations, where small decisions can have a large impact at urban scale. The need to investigate the capacity of the city to interact, give and receive information and invent new devices capable of monitoring in real time what is happening in the city in terms of traffic, waste, CO2 emissions, and energy use, it’s being investigated by a science that combines urbanism and robotics: Urbiotica. The fluctuating data collected thru sensors provide detailed information of minimums and maximums, instead of the traditional rigid design approach based on averages. This information may be used to design adaptive systems able to create a relationship between programmatic, formal, spatial, and structural decisions.

According to these parameters, projects will be developed on a varied urban scale, from large interventions to intelligent buildings to small devices or components that may create new conditions of urbanity for the 21st century. Students will identify and explore diverse scales, from urban formations to the definition of singularities such as buildings, houses, or components. Therefore, students may decide to work at an urban scale, or maybe at a building scale, or perhaps into a smaller component scale.

Emergent Territories 2011 - 2012 Projects Archive

POBLENOU

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SELF MADE STREET

By Nuri Choi, Zeynep Birgunol, Elif Gongur, Roopa Sharma, and Youssef Hassan Rashdan.

The approach of the project focuses in a behavioral and sociological transformation; throughout a series of one-on-one surveys and live experiments, data was extracted from users to map out .activities and behaviors.

The thesis was based on how to provide the users with tools to reach their needs, how to design mechanisms to let the user choose rather than imposing a solution.

The current state of the street is a static place filled with readymade elements. If every user had the choice to create their own need the street would become a dynamic pulsating mesh of activities, a self-made street.

Facuty: Javier Peña and Rodrigo Rubio
Assistant: Oriol Carrasco
Technical Experts: Guillem Camprodon, Spyros Stravoravdis, Luis Fraguada

The self-sufficient buildings and blocks are the new paradigm for the cities construction. In Europe they will be mandatory from 2020. But for constructing buildings and blocks that are self sufficient we have to create new methods of architectural thinking in which the (metabolism) of the buildings (production and management of matter and energy cycles, water and waste, information, etc) is designed in a form that is intergraded with the natural structure and their function.

The objective of the Self-Sufficient Buildings Studio is to develop autonomous buildings, self-sufficient structures at a block scale following this metabolic idea. From the big numbers of the block energy balance until the small scale of the domestic strategies.

Each team will choose a different environmental research-line (higrothermics, geothermics, windflows or sunlight cycles) and a different BCN block to generate a network of specialized case-studies. Blocks will be chosen out of the 22@ neighborhood, area that is already in a process of transformation, so that we could work in real cases, both functionally and environmentally. We will develop a prototypes catalog of urban re-generation for dense cities.

Self Sufficient Building 2011 - 2012 Project Archive

Faculty: Willy Muller
Assistant: Maite Bravo

Faculty: Vicente Guallart
Assistants: Areti Markopoulou, Luis E. Fraguada

Faculty: Willy Müller
Assistant: Berardo Matalucci