Iaac Blog

IaaC Conference Hall, November 3rd,  2009

¨Risk Contamination¨

Michel Rojkind
Michel Rojkind Arquitectos Director

Michel Rojkind was born in Mexico City where he studied architecture and urban planning at the Universidad Iberoamericana. After working on his own for several years, he teamed up with Isaac Broid and Miquel Adria to establish Adria+Broid+Rojkind (1998-2002).With the idea of exploring new challenges that address contempo­rary society, to design compelling experiences that go beyond mere functionality, and to connect at a deeper level with the intricacies of each project, he established an independent firm rojkind arquitectos (2002) recognized by Architectural Record in 2005 as one of the best ten “Design Vanguard” firms.
PHILOSOPHY:
By addressing users’ needs directly and seeing them as potential sources of inspiration and strength, rojkind arquitectos seeks new di­rections in architectural practice - evoking common identities through the exploration of uncharted geometries that address questions of space, function, technology, materials, structure, and construction methods related directly to geography, climate, and local urban experiences.
By pursuing all projects that represent a particular design challenge, rojkind arquitectos has been able to develop a wide an ever-growing spectrum of designs initiatives, from the intimacies of small objects to the intricacies of large buildings and master plans.

IaaC Conference Hall, November 10th,  2009

¨Attainability¨

Ben van Berkel (Utrecht, 1957)
UNStudio Co-founder / Director

Ben van Berkel studied architecture at the Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam and at the Architectural Association in London, receiving the AA Diploma with Honours in 1987.

In 1988 he and Caroline Bos set up an architectural practice in Amsterdam. The Van Berkel & Bos Architectuurbureau has realized amongst others projects the Karbouw office building, the Erasmus bridge in Rotterdam, museum Het Valkhof in Nijmegen, the Moebius house and the NMR facilities for the University of Utrecht.

In 1998 Ben van Berkel and Caroline Bos established a new firm: UNStudio (United Net). UNStudio presents itself as a network of specialists in architecture, urban development and infrastructure. Current projects are the restructuring of the station area of Arnhem, the mixed-use Raffles City in Hangzhou, a masterplan for Basauri, a dance theatre for St. Petersburg and the design and restructuring of the Harbor Ponte Parodi in Genoa. With UNStudio he realized amongst others the Mercedes-Benz Museum in Stuttgart, a façade and interior renovation for the Galleria Department store in Seoul and a private villa up-state New York.

Ben van Berkel has lectured and taught at many architectural schools around the world. Currently he is Professor Conceptual Design at the Staedelschule in Frankfurt am Main. Central to his teaching is the inclusive approach of architectural works integrating virtual and material organization and engineering constructions.

IaaC Conference Hall, February 06th 2009

“Experimental seeds - Resist, rise your hands and create!”

Marco Galofaro

To leave a sign we make use of the hand’s acceptance of agility and memory.
Building a model has nothing to do with the practice of architecture. The first step exists before the project; it is a neutral space that is home to the first seed. This space is without borders, there are no walls, it exists only to capture intentions and other energies. It does not have the direct responsibility that the project will assume later, that of ensuring results. Entering into this field has meaning if we are seeking fragments.
The seed is composed of two opposites, both long lasting: the ability to absorb nutrients from the soil and the ability to include part of its future and that of others in its evolution. It under¬stands evolution without demanding the right to survive at all costs.
The seed inhabits this ‘before’, in which there is no wrong or reason; reason is an enclosed capsule that uses its voice to be heard. Seeds have no voice. They can become present only in the mind.

MODELAB

Modelab was founded in 2002 by the architect Marco Galofaro. Modelab is about the investigation and use of new, experimental materials, such as resin and rubber 3d printer, in the construction of architectural and design models with the more traditional materials of plastic, wood and plaster.
Our primary objective is the construction of architectural and urban planning models; our primary concern is the creation of objects that are capable of surprising both our¬selves and our clients through the continuous reinvention of combinations and treatments of materials.

http://www.modelab.it/

IaaC Conference Hall, January 28th 2009
Stan Allen

Stan Allen is an architect working in New York and dean of the School of Architecture at Princeton University. After graduation from Cooper Union in 1981, he worked for Richard Meier in New York and Rafael Moneo in Madrid. Since that time, he has pursued parallel careers as educator, writer and architect. He has taught at Harvard, Columbia and Princeton, and his architectural firm SAA/Stan Allen Architect has realized buildings and urban projects in the United States, South America and Asia.

The emergence of landscape urbanism, along with the development of the protocols of digital design, must be counted one of the most significant developments in the field in the past decades. A catalog of practitioners and projects exists, academic programs have been developed, and an extensive theoretical literature is now available. To move forward from this strategic juncture, it is worthwhile to take stock of both the accomplishments and the limitations of the landscape urbanism approach, and to propose alternatives that complement and extend its potentials.

http://www.stanallenarchitect.com/

IaaC Conference Hall, January 23th 2009

Bjarke Ingels

Bjarke Ingels started his own office in 2005, Bjarke Ingels Group, after having
co-founded PLOT Architects in 2001 and collaborating with Rem Koolhaas at OMA. Through a series of award-winning design projects and buildings, Bjarke Ingels has created an international reputation as a member of a new generation of architects that combine shrewd analysis, playful experimentation, social responsibility and humour.

In 2004 he was awarded the Golden Lion at the Venice Biennale for the Stavanger Concert House, and the following year he received the Forum AID Award for the VM Houses. His latest completed project the Mountain Dwellings has already received numerous awards and nominations in 2008, most recently at the World Architecture Festival. By practicing what Bjarke Ingels likes to describe as ’programmatic alchemy’, BIG often mixes conventional ingredients such as living, leisure, working, parking andshopping into new forms of symbiotic culture.

http://www.big.dk/

IaaC Conference Hall, January 16th 2009

Michel Rojkind

Michel Rojkind began his professional practice in 1997 and founded rojkind arquitectos in 2002 with the idea of exploring new challenges that address contempo¬rary society, to design compelling experiences that go beyond mere functionality, and to connect at a deeper level with the intricacies of each project, he was recognized by Architectural Record in 2005 as one of the best ten “Design Vanguard” firms.

By pursuing all projects that represent a particular design challenge, rojkind arquitectos has been able to develop a wide an ever-growing spectrum of designs initiatives, from the intimacies of small objects to the intricacies of large buildings and master plans.

http://www.rojkindarquitectos.com/

IaaC Conference Hall, January 09th 2008

“Calorie Counting with Soft Materials.”

Commonwealth

Founded in 2005 by Architects Zoe Boira Coombes and David Boira, Commonwealth is an art and design studio based in New York City. Harnessing a new fluidity enabled by machine languages, Commonwealth’s interests are as material and emotional as they are technical.
Working within the world of contemporary art and industrial furniture design, Commonwealth aims to produce work that embodies a sense of elegant desire through an engagement with both the newest of tools and the oldest of techniques.

Zoe Boira Coombes and F. David Boira present a catalogue of recent solo-works and collaborative projects which illustrate this bipolar modus-operandi that has taken them through three years in and out of Architecture.

http://www.commonwealth.nu/

Sorry due to copy right issues this video is not available!

IaaC Conference Hall, December 19th 2008

“Design is One”

Elena Manferdini

Elena Manferdini`s work is based on the philosophy that design can participate in the new developments that are defining our culture, translating the complexity of contemporary technology into built form.
Her architectural projects have been exhibited internationally in both architecture and art museums: her work is currently showcased at IIC, in Los Angeles.
Two years ago, she was invited to design the West Coast Pavilion representing USA at the Beijing Biennale in the Chinese Millennium Museum. This year she is curating the West Coast USA session of the 2008 Beijing Biennale exhibition
Recently the firm has collaborated with numerous industries: MTV, Fiat, Nike, Alessi, Ottaviani and Valentino are selected examples. In addition to leading her design practice, Elena Manferdini teaches design studios and technology seminars at SCI-Arc.

http://www.ateliermanferdini.com/

IaaC Conference Hall, December 12th 2008

“The Making of Artificial Ecologies towards New Machinic Architecture”

EcoLogicStudio
Claudia Pasquerro and Marco Poletto

In an age of unprecedented interaction between the natural and the artificial realms we are confronted with the necessity to develop instruments of transformation equipped with an embedded capacity of constant adaptation and self evaluation. As nature is becoming more and more hybridized with embedded artificiality, the ethical paradigm of natural conservation is progressively losing its value and needs to be replaced with more adaptive mechanisms of management and direct evaluation of the effects of human transformation of natural ecosystems; we call this mechanism ecoMachines.
ecoMachines provide a material and operational framework to deal with change and transformation, the two main defining qualities of our new understanding of urban ecology; moreover they support interaction between heterogeneous systems, such as social, infrastructural, architectural and environmental ones; they allow us to sense, register and manipulate in our daily life the unfolding processes defining our cities, our houses and our artificial environments.
ecoMachines turns us all into ecologists in the most operational sense of the term.

http://www.ecologicstudio.com

IaaC Conference Hall, November 14th 2008

“Latent Ecologies: New Urbanisms of Infrastructure”

Clare Lyster

Latent Ecologies: New Urbanisms of Infrastructure explores how emerging infrastructural networks unfold as latent sites for alternative urbanisms. The lecture will present research on the sites, spaces and attributes of contemporary global infrastructures of ecology, mobility and information anchored through a presentation of the Federal Express Corporation and its superhub in Memphis, Tennessee, USA. Selected work from CLUAA (Clare Lyster Urbanism & Architecture) will augment the discussion as scenarios that support, test and interpret the research.