Research's IaaC - Students Research - Research Studios

Introductory Design Studio I - ArboReal Home (Treehouse)

Faculty: Areti Markopoulou, Luis Fraguada
Advisor: Gerard Passola
Guest Tutor: Michel Rojkind
Students: Kfir Gluzberg, Matheus Nava, Brian Peters

This proposal began with a one month intensive study of our specific tree specimen and the species' behaviour in general. Our treehouse focus was drawn from the Casuarina's defensive nature towards foreign species and cultivation and support of its own. As such, we began to research ways of extending one tree in order to meet another such that we could create a 'treehouse' that would enhance or support the trees' mutually supportive reltaionship.

The structure was treated as an extension of the tree's natural growth in tension.

The skin was designed as a growing fabric of Spanish Moss that is known to naturally cohabit with the Casuarina species.

The result of our research was a canopy as extension of any given casuarina specimen. The canopy could be multiplied to create a continuous field from one tree to another. The space below would be part of the continuous matrix that exists between the tree's roots, defensive carpet of needles and fruits, and dense but translucent canopy.

Introductory Design Studio I - ArboReal Home (Treehouse)

Faculty: Areti Markopoulou, Luis Fraguada
Advisor: Gerard Passola
Guest Tutor: Michel Rojkind
Students: Mia Layco, Melissa Mazik

Introductory Design Studio I - ArboReal Home (Treehouse)

Faculty: Areti Markopoulou, Luis Fraguada
Advisor: Gerard Passola
Guest Tutor: Michel Rojkind
Students: Moises Gamus Duek, Jessica Yuen Chi Lai, Gianluca Santosuosso

TREE-LAB

OBJECTIVE
A tree is no less than a reactive living organism, continuously adapting to its environment. Whilst it acts as a site for a house to be built upon itself, it also reacts -respectively to all external forces.

The TREE-LAB aimed to establish a closer dialogue between the human and a tree. It deals with a reactive and adaptive behavior. The house is a research tool, a living organism spatially and structurally related to the tree, always moving and shifting its shape following environmental conditions and the behavior of the tree. The TREE-LAB is designed to allow for its adjustment in form in responses to the movements of tree, external forces and internal human activities, but more essentially its form is prepared to be transformed with respect to the evolution of the tree in a longer sense of time.   

THE BUILDING (refer to sequence diagram)
Sequence of the structural/envelope systems are developed as follows:

1. VOLUME Based on the digital model of the tree that we have generated in the earlier phase of the project, an optimum volume of space between branches was obtained as the basis of our house.
   
   
2. FLOOR Floor slabs were placed at every level where tree branches supports are located in the closest proximity;
   
   
3. ENVELOPE The envelope structure (mullions) were then connected floor-to-floor at perimeters of floor slabs by ‘roller joints’ – that allows a flexible movement in all directions. Every spherical ‘roller joint’ can further be developed to a device that assist to collect and translate numeric data;
   
   
4. OUTER SKIN STRATEGY initially we evaluated the density of the tree house’s exposure to solar radiation through our preliminary solar study. By employing Grasshopper we were then enabled to strategically locate the points for solar devices along the perimeter of structural rings that is determined by our solar exposure study. Vertical connections (ropes) were then drawn from level to level and therefore became our outer skin fabric. (pictures to describe);
   
   
5. INNER SKIN fabric that attaches to the envelop structure that follow the movement of building.

The skin is a sensitive envelope that reacts to the tree as well as the environment: its substructure is defined by a parametric system that monitors climate conditions and reacts to them, becoming a mechanized organism able to interact with its environment, bringing closer the dialogue between human and nature.

The IaaC works beyond the conventional scales of territorial design, town planning,building or fabrication in designing a multiscale habitat.
As in the design of ecosystems, each level has its own rules of interaction and relation,and at the same time must comply with certain parameters that pertain to the systemas a whole.
The Emergent Territories group works on projects that range in scale from the territoryto the neighbourhood.
The idea of Emergent Territories is related to two issues:
On the one hand, the IaaC is interested in understanding those countries and citiesaround the world with emerging economies and cultures that, by virtue of theirregional or economic position, can contribute value to the planet as a whole. In recentyears we have studied Brazil, Croatia, Taiwan, Romania, Colombia and Tunisia, or in the near future will be studying India and the countries of North Africa, the Persian Gulf and Sub-Saharan Africa.The work done in these countries seeks to identify the particular urban and territorial values of these places in order to construct more intelligent territories anywhere in the world, moving on from the Western idea that there is a single model of city (be it European or American) to work on the basis of more complex and more open values.
The other issue related to emergent territories has to do with the creation of intelligent territories that function in a multiscalar way, in order that the relationship between natures, networks and nodes can foment the ‘emergence’ of an urban intelligence.
To this end we are interested in pursuing what we call ‘Hyperhabitat’  esearch as a process of developing a general theory of the multiscalar habitat that can be applied anywhere in the world and at any scale, as a basis for the construction of complete complex ecosystems.
This group also focuses on Barcelona as a site for ongoing urban experimentation, with a view to contributing to the discussions and refl ections in relation to the urban progress of the city.
Areas of research:
• Emergent Territories
• Hyperhabitat
• Research Trips
• Barcelona-Metapolis

Project images:Charging city,Mongolia

http://www.iaacblog.com/emergentcities/?cat=19

Architecture goes beyond buildings.

A building is a concentration of activities in a particular location which should be responsive to concrete cultural, social, economic and technological conditions. In the 21st century, the buildings are more than machines for dwelling in. They should be living organisms, capable of interacting with their environment, following the principles of ecology or biology rather than those of mere construction. In effect, a building should be like a tree, which is able to rooting itself in a particular place, generating its own energy, interacting with the natural networks around it and creating complex ecosystems and landscapes together with other trees. This being so, the Self-sufficient Buildings group works on scales that range from the macro-building to the individual home, developing principles and techniques that serve to organize the materialization of programmatic nodes of activity based on natural rules and principles.

As a result, the building goes beyond being a mere interface for the economic activities it houses to being an environment that stimulates its inhabitants and functions as an active part of the ecosystem in which it is inserted. Buildings also need to respond to specific cultural conditions, and the multicultural global vision that the IaaC represents allows can be applied, via debate and research, to architecture projects anywhere in the world. This group devotes special attention to housing and the new forms of social organization of our time, by way of buildings with shared spaces, or macrobuildings that incorporate all the functions of a city. This group is working to introduce innovative techniques such as local energy generation, the development of self-sufficient buildings, the incorporation of hydrogen into the building and the use of new materials, responding to each situation with ad-hoc techniques and principles.

Project images: Sustainable tower

http://www.iaacblog.com/self-sufficientbuildings/?cat=6

With the advent of the information society, architecture is no longer built but manufactured. The techniques of digital production have put the architect back at the centre of the construction process because the information generated in the design process is literally used to manufacture the various parts of a building. Digital technology has thus gone beyond the representation stage to take its place precisely in the production phase of architecture. In the light of this, parametric design makes it possible to approach the architecture project on everything from the territorial scale to the urban design of the building, in an open fashion, integrating algorithms and dynamic formulations in the project-design process itself.
With the development of new software, scripting techniques can now be integrated into architectural design, transforming the old plastic principles by the insertion of mathematical logics into the project.
In order to experiment with these project-design processes, digitally control machines are used to produce scale models of the designs and prototypes of projects at 1:1 scale. The IaaC has a workshop for the production of full-scale prototypes equipped with digital fabrication machines, including a 320 x 120 cm CNC cutter, a laser machine, a 3d printer, a 3d scanner and several electronic equipment.

http://www.iaacblog.com/emergentcities/?cat=17

http://www.iaacblog.com/emergentcities/?cat=6

To reduce the footprint of the city it is important to reduce sprawl by building up instead of out, as well as reducing automobile infrastructure, by creating more dynamic systems for pedestrians and bicycles. Reducing infrastructure can also be done by creating an efficient central nucleus of public spaces that can be used by the entire community. A Hierarchy of multi dimensional spaces: conference rooms with fine arts, a public library with private cafe, gymnasiums for the local school and business as well. Endless combinations of uses to create spaces that can be used by the entire community for any need. The basic idea of mixing uses in terms of plan as well as vertically(building up) and the idea off adding spaces according to the needs at a specific moment, lead up to the our first attempt to design a building unit. This unit will start forming from a central core, where spaces of different uses will be added. This core will be the source of energy for each building (wind turbines). In order to reduce its footprint, our task will be to design the city for minimum infrastructure and energy consumption.

http://www.iaacblog.com/emergentcities/?cat=3

http://www.iaacblog.com/emergentcities/?cat=16

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