Master in Advanced Architecture and Master in City & Technology Presentations Highlights

The Final Presentations of the first and second year of the Master in Advanced Architecture and the Master in City & Technology took place at IAAC two weeks ago. Over four days, each of the first and second year Research Studios has presented its outputs to an international jury.

A selection of the best students’ works around the theme of Living (in) Future Cities will be on display at the MUHBA Oliva Artes of Barcelona from June 28th until July 30th.

MaCT Designing with Fluxes: Visions on Barcelona's Future Mobility

Should we give up our car for a better environment? How complex information could be accessible to anyone? Master in City & Technology final projects answer those questions by proposing transformative solutions at the intersections of mobility and planning.

HeySants is an open design support system towards a better understanding of the Barcelona’s neighborhood and a more efficient decision making, while OwnIT generates a cooperative neighborhood to create change.

MAA01 DMIC: Responsive Materials and Bio-Machines

From semi-passive outdoor cooling systems based on the properties of super absorbent polymer Sodium Polyacrylate to a structural bio-machine articulating relations between user and space, using the biological properties of the Slime Mould.

Breathing Skin and Living Screens are some of the non-rigid, responsive and multi-functional systems which have been the focus of the Digital Matter Intelligent Constructions Studio.

MAA01 Intelligent Cities: Urban Regeneration in Rio de Janeiro

The theoretical reflections of Intelligent Cities Studio have been implemented this year in the territory of Rio de Janeiro through a series of projects.

Productive Neighborhood tackles the issue of food and energy production in 2050 by the use of vertical farms and agricultural robotics. Bio Connectivity creates opportunities for public contact by overcoming the barriers that separates hyper regions and slow areas of the city.

MAA02 C.Biom-A: Bio-Materials and Living Systems

From testing bioplastic foam as a structural binder, controlling by design fungus growth and resulting contamination risk, to investigating designs and fabrication using natural resin as affordable and translucent binding material.

Foaminant and Inlucent Cellulose Manifold are two of the new bio and environmentally integrated design strategies, exploring advanced computational models and novel bio-inspired materials, of C.Biom-A research line.

MAA02 Climatic Matter: Material Innovation and Urban Processes

Operative and performative acts around architecture’s physical materiality are the focus of the projects developed in the Climatic Matter studio.

In this framework Redefining Joinery focused on geometry and material innovation to enhance joints’ customisation through parametric design and digital fabrication, while ReCANYONing took the wind as the main engine to create new artificial geographies, stimulate ecosystem’s regeneration encouraging new urban processes.

MAA02 Self-sufficient Habitats: Autonomy and Productive Cities

Strategical plans and scientific knowledge are the focus of Self-sufficient Habitats thesis projects, which aim is to better understand and improve the construction of social communities in the cities.

9 Cents maps Barcelona’s waste picking to find patterns between the urban phenomena and the city’s sharing economy platforms, while Next Tokyo is an urban multi-scalar strategy that deals with sea level rise caused by global climate change in the next 150 years.

MAA01 Advanced Interaction: Interactive Installations and Dynamic Space

Advanced Interaction studio questions the limits of the contemporary technological phenomena and how it can augment the agency and impact of all kinds of interactions around us.

This year the course presented Living Room, an interactive installation realised by giving back life to abandoned objects, positioned in a dynamic space where users could act and react to them by transforming, combining and adapting them to all scenarios.

MAA02 Interactive Habitats: New Interfaces and Embedded Intelligence

From a computational framework for embedded intelligence in complex adaptive systems for habitation models to an interactive installationfor participative design conceived as an auditive experience.

Int_habit and Augmented Creativity are two projects from the Interactive Habitats research line focused around new interfaces between the human and built environments.

MAA01 Self-sufficient Buildings: Urban Ecology and New Educational Models

A new concept of ecology which goes beyond buildings, materials, light, space or shapes is the proposal of Self-Sufficient Buildings.

What if we could plant a seed and grow a building? Or transform waste into valuable goods? By using cloud seeding and hydroponics, Real Fiction aims at helping a city to breath again, while Biorefinery, is a research facility for Poblenou for transforming the Superilla into a flourishing wetland. and react to them by transforming, combining and adapting them to all scenarios.