IAAC’s Master in City & Technology (1 or 2-year program) is a unique program oriented towards redefining the analysis, planning, and design of twenty-first-century cities and beyond. The program offers expertise in the design of digitally enhanced, ecological and human-centered urban environments by intersecting the disciplines of urbanism and data science. Taking place in Barcelona, the capital of urbanism, the Master in City & Technology is training the professionals that city administrations, governments, industries, and communities need, to transform the urban environment in the era of big data.


From following instructions to autonomy

The project started with an experiment to see if an agent could follow a line and illuminate its path to see obstacles. The light is composed of isovits and only the ones in front of the agent are colored. The experiment went then to make the light 3D to illuminate buildings facades. Many approaches were … Read more

Agents from Outer Space

Introduction Simulations are a powerful tool for understanding the world around us as it exists, and also as it could be. The creation of models that reflect a given context by adhering to selected rules that are followed in said context, show how all the constitutive parts behave and evolve over time, and by doing … Read more

Fluid Dynamics

Introduction This exercise aims to create a customizable fluid simulator, to explore how microscopic particles interact with each other and their environment, ultimately building a foundation for understanding fluid dynamics at a smaller scale. The key challenge lies in computationally emphasizing the crucial behaviors of these particles. Fluids, despite appearing continuous, are actually comprised of … Read more

Computing Movements of an Urban Square

The research project imagined a tile of a underused urban plaza as a square-based petri dish to test the movement of points within the tiled surface. By defining a number of points within the geometry of the area, the density of tiles would decrease, relative to the closest point. The membrane between the ground plane … Read more

Empowering Vulnerable People with Adaptive Infrastructure

Every individual, regardless of age or economic status, can play a crucial role in shaping a sustainable future. In Viladecans, a gamified co-design process is recommended to turn this vision into reality. Challenges of an aging population, energy poor buildings, and coastal climate change vulnerability may be aligned with public program priorities to adapt Viladecans’ … Read more

Bits and Pieces

Pictures and symbols are valuable tools to communicate data. Pictures contain input data and representative symbols, generated from points, capture outputs. Pictures, or raster images, are often not geolocated and lack methodological explanation. Here, using the Bitmap+ plugin, pictures of urban conditions are tapped for the data they contain using the coloration of the image … Read more

Optimal Pathfinding in Digital Terrain

This exercise undertakes developing a shortest path simulation on varied terrains. Starting with basic point-to-point movements, I integrated agent behavior, enabling these agents to make decisions and take actions to move towards the destination point by choosing the best available option. The development of the simulation follows agent movement behaviors from two separate algorithms: Movement … Read more

Agent Simulation_Measuring Intervention Impact

Visualizing an urban simulation of free-agents affected by a specific intervention The Objective The objective of the project was to simulate the movement of people within a specific neighborhood in the city of Viladecans, Spain, and visualize the difference the movement patterns of the free agents would take prior to the intervention vs post intervention. … Read more

Urbanization and gene pools: A simulation study

The persistent expansion of urbanization poses a significant threat to wildlife populations. One under-explored facet of this impact concerns the genetic health of these populations. Genetic diversity, measured by the variation within a gene pool, is crucial for resilience and adaptation. This project utilizes Grashopper-led simulations to explore the dynamics between habitat fragmentation, animal movement, … Read more

Tracking Cross-Border Monetary Flows to measure Geopolitical Insecurity

Creating a streamlined pipeline to visualize and extrapolate financial data enabling a correlation with spatial geo-specific information. The World and all countries alike have been increasingly more susceptible to events and developments in the geo-political theatre. It is not surprising that the world’s top two economic and military superpowers play a pivotal role in this … Read more

City in Motion: Analyzing People Movement with Agent-Based Modeling

In the realm of urban design, understanding movement behaviors is paramount for creating efficient and people-centric city layouts. In this individual project, I delve into the intricacies of movement behaviors using computational tools and techniques, including agent-based modeling. By incorporating the loop evaluate field amplitude tool and employing vector display, scalar fields, heat maps, and … Read more

Unequal Blooms: Studying socioeconomic realities of Medellín’s “Eternal Spring”

Introduction In recent decades, the importance of urban green spaces and their potential impact on various aspects of urban life has gained significant attention from policymakers, urban planners, and researchers worldwide. The creation and maintenance of green spaces within urban environments have been associated with numerous benefits, including environmental sustainability, physical and mental health improvements, … Read more

WILDLIFE PATHWAYS

The “WILDLIFE PATHWAYS” is based on the “GREEN ALLY” project, that was developed at IAAC in the framework of the Master in City & Technology program, during the Internet of Cities Studio directed by Mathilde Marengo, Eduardo Rico, and Iacopo Neri. It provides a data informed approach that helps to integrate ecological needs within the … Read more

The City of Marvelous Disorder

The City of Marvelous Disorder is a study was conducted during the ‘CaaS studio (City as a Service): The future of cities’ services in the AI times’, that aims to built a methodology on mapping the creative sector and high education ecosystem of Barcelona, with a particular focus on social creative industry that works within … Read more

The Perks of Proximity

Clustering advanced industries to facilitate technology transfer in the Barcelona metropolitan region Spain has been at the forefront of pioneering research and innovation that have led to significant contributions to the world of technology. Technology Transfer Technology transfer from research to market seems like a straight-forward and linear process, but such is not the case. … Read more

Meteo sanctum

The project reflects on how people in ancient times defined natural and weather phenomena. The proposal is to create an open public space – Inspired by the concept of an ancient sanctuary with places that used to be built for worship and predictions of weather conditions, the Meteo Sanctum consists of digital indicators that allow … Read more

Bio-Digital Paths

“Bio-Digital Path” is a computational model of modular public spaces generated from emerging public movements within the existing urban fabric of Barcelona.  Global challenges consist of both environmental threats, but also social challenges and this project suggests that planners and architects actually have the tools to construct the public space not as a separate but … Read more

Digital space infrastructures

This is a short visual story about my personal digital space usage patterns and our need to be aware of our digital carbon footprint. Tracking my personal habits has revealed some shocking facts, which led towards reflecting on intangibility of the digital world, hopelessness in perceiving it as a hyper object and an urge to … Read more

SILENCED VOICES

An Exploration of the Epidemic of Femicide “How many more women must fall victims before we recognize that femicide is a real and pressing social problem that demands our attention? Despite its significance, many people are still unfamiliar with the term. Femicide is the ‘the intentional killing of a woman because of her gender‘. It … Read more

The Geography of Substance Use.

A Visual Story by: According to World Health Organization, 1/5 adolescents engage in some form of substance use. The Question of 100 School Phycologists: How planning could contribute towards the understanding of geographic patterns of substance use in order to distribute human resources all around the country? This visual story, seeks to explore the geographical … Read more

Towards Urban Democratic Adaptation

Adaptation districts towards prioritized urban interventions  in cities with limited green spaces.  The case study of the metropolitan area of Athens, Greece Athens, during the four last decades, has been extremely urbanized while changing the environment dramatically. By reclassifying open spaces and networks of urban mobility, this model aims to suggest strategies for prioritized urban … Read more