Katrin Bohn in her lecture: ¨WHAT ABOUT URBAN AGRICULTURE? Designing productive urban landscapes for sustainable cities¨, yesterday at IAAC, talked about landscape ¨gestures¨ in the cities, landscape networks and agricultural opportunities given to the citizens of metropolitan cities. A package of ¨know how¨ and ¨try out¨ is offered to the citizens by projects that share the above sensibilities. The lecture of Katrin was flirting with questions and debates of process concepts rather finalities. Bohn and Viljoen architecture office works on projects and strategies that intend to give the possibility to the inhabitant to take decisive steps. It is the participation of the inhabitants that will determine the projects finality!

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/IAAC GLOBAL SUMMER SCHOOL 2012
Barcelona, 13-25 July
Key words: interactive structures, energy optimization, ecology, metabolism, artificial intelligence, open data, digital fabrication, parametric design, DIY tools

SMART itSELF is an agenda with research and education goals that combines science and technology with architecture and urban planning. Smart Cities, Smart Citizens, Self-Sufficiency, Self-Fabrication, Self-Organization, Self- Design and Self- and Collective Intelligence are some of the key words on which the academic agenda of the programme will focus.

The final outcome of the programme will include the design and fabrication of interactive and parametric structures for energy optimization

Faculty:
Tutors: Areti Markopoulou, Tomas Diez, Rodrigo Rubio
Computational Experts: Luis Fraguada, Alex Posada
Guest Jury: Carolina Vallejo, Andreu Ulied, Vicente Guallart, Willy Müller

Calendar: Programme duration: 13-25 July 2012

The programme is structured in three sections:
1. Digital Design and Parametric Modeling
2. Interactive and Informational Development
3. Digital Fabrication Prototyping

Software: Rhino, RhinoCam, Grasshopper, Ecotect, Arduino, Processing

Certification: All participants will receive an official certificate from IAAC and the Fab Lab BCN testifying to their participation in the course and accrediting their knowledge of the software used and expertise in Digital Fabrication techniques.

For more info click here

Previous IAAC Summer Schools: Visit the previous IAAC Summer Schools, which focused on:

1. Hyperhabitat /2008
2. Fab Lab Solar House /2009
3. Informalism /2010
4. Networked Smart Cities /2011

Josep Miás during his lecture presented some of the projects that his office has been developing while he explained why drawing is the basic element to measure the potential of each proposal.  Every new sketch must produce a new possibility, to be formalized in a three-dimensional construction, a model. As far as the drawings create new chances the project will move forward, going to and for, frantically.

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¨We do not force a form, we search for a form¨ said Christine Otto.

Christine Otto talked about the importance of the physical model experimentation for the structural security apart from others. Digital models on the other hand do not offer that! Her lecture included information on projects of her father Frei Otto as well as different projects that she is developing with students in workshops around the world.

The Emergent Territories studio just finished an intense 2 week workshop with Edouard Cabay. The aim of the workshop was to study, design and fabricate a responsive prototype of a component developed within their studio projects located in the Port of Barcelona. Students were able to study detailed diagrams of the systems proposed explaining the real time data to be collected, how it will be retrieved; and how this data would be implemented as a design strategy in terms of inputs & outputs in a responsive component.

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Image above: Critics discussion around a wind prototype.

MIT and IAAC´s  Self Sufficient Building studio has developed a common agenda of work during the last months. They had conducted a common workshop with both groups, at IAAC on April and 2 months later they conclude their projects in Boston in MIT.

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