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.
A Bee Survival Game Context – Bee-Careful starts in Lisbon, Portugal. Where social (vulnerable young community), environmental (ecological unbalance and fragmentation), and mobility (elderly retired community) problematics are adressed through one common medium; greenery. Greenery forms the binder in which the previous elderly community of Lisbon convverges with a new and young community across a … Read more
Case Study of Ecological Restoration, Human Presence and Design of Co-Existence Introduction Fish Tail Park is located in the center of Nanchang City, a historic city in southeastern China with approximately 6.6 million residents, has experienced rapid urban growth and high-tech industrial expansion along the Gan River. Is a large-scale ecological restoration project designed by … Read more
This project investigates Parc del Centre del Poblenou through the lens of Designing for More than Humans. The park, although permeable and vegetated, is spatially structured around human circulation and programmed activity. As a result, human occupation is continuous and dominant, while non-human life remains fragmented and residual. Through rule-based speculation, the project tests how … Read more
entrance image Started off in 1504 as a Renaissance-era fortification system, designed to resist cannon warfare. Over the years, it has undergone many reconstructions, with the latest turning it into a managed heritage park in the early 2000s (Planted rows of trees) . Ecology has played an important role in each of its eras, as … Read more
This project explores how power operates spatially through counter-cartography and autoethnography in Poblenou, Barcelona. Combining observation, mapping, and self-tracking, the research examines how infrastructure, urban objects, rules, and rhythms shape behavior, movement, and perception. Benches, pedestrian streets, and smoking practices reveal how freedom, restriction, and permission are unevenly distributed. Findings show that movement is widely … Read more
Cities are often described in terms of movement. We often tend to move through them in familiar loops – leaving home to catch the metro, commuting to work, coming back in the evening, running errands, going to appointments. Over time, these repeated paths shape how we think about urban space and can seem to define … Read more
We had an incredible, whirlwind five days co-creating public spaces with Pablo Muñoz, Luisa Torres, Josefina Ovalle Parot, and the amazing community of Santa Coloma de Gramenet. It felt like a rapid-fire game—running around the park, talking to people, collecting stories, analyzing data in GIS and Grasshopper, figuring out who to design for, and then … Read more
Santa Coloma de Gramenet, located to the north of Barcelona, is bordered by the Besòs River on the west and the Marina Mountain Range on the north. The city’s terrain features an irregular relief that rises to 303 meters at Mount Castellar, its highest point, a topographical character also visible within Parc dels Pins. The … Read more
Abstract: Framing the Question This research begins with a simple but unresolved question: how can modular housing design become local. In the twenty-first century, architects face a housing crisis shaped by financialisation, scarcity, and displacement. Modularity is often presented as a global solution that promises efficiency and scalability. Yet when implemented, these systems rarely connect … Read more
An exploration how to enhance independent mobility for blind individuals by addressing psychological and systemic barriers. Using a participatory design approach, it goes beyond assistive tech to build an ecosystem of tools, behaviors, and spatial strategies that support confident navigation. A taxonomy with blind participants organise emotional, spatial, and user insights into a practical design … Read more
Project Introduction Urban environments are constantly evolving, shaped by the movement of people, the flow of traffic, and the presence of infrastructure. Yet, understanding these patterns at the street level — especially across an entire neighborhood — can be difficult, time-consuming, and highly subjective. In this project, we present a computer vision–based visual audit of … Read more
Abstract Building upon the knowledge acquired in the Agent-Based Design & Machine Learning course, we developed a bot designed to collect data from the population of Rundu, the city we are focusing on for our project within the Vulnerability Studio: Computer-Aided Mobility Justice. We face the challenge of accessing qualitative insights that could help us … Read more
Overview Visualizing Visibility of Women+ Safety is a research initiative aimed at evaluating how the design of public spaces influences perceptions of safety for women+ in India, particularly in Delhi. The central question driving this study is: “How can we assess the current paradigms of urban design to better understand and improve perceptions of safety … Read more
Diving deeper into building a reliable rating algorithm The Importance & Significance of the F&B establishments in the City Food and Beverage (F&B) service outlets are significant indicators of urban progress as they reflect evolving consumer preferences, economic vitality, and the integration of social spaces within urban landscapes. These establishments act as hubs for community … Read more
When we locate Sants within Barcelona, it appears to be on the city’s edge. However, when considering the metropolitan area as a whole, Sants is actually closer to the center. Historically, Sants was one of the towns surrounding Barcelona until its annexation in 1897. Its agricultural and industrial roots contribute to a unique neighborhood identity—one … Read more
