The Master in Advanced Ecological Buildings and Biocities (MAEBB) postgraduate program is an 11-month immersive academic program focused on learning how to design and build a new generation of buildings and cities to respond to the planet’s emerging climate challenges. The program is carried out in Valldaura Labs, in Barcelona, a 135 He property located in the Collserola forest. Here, students will live and work surrounded by nature while using the most advanced technologies and design techniques in the pursuit of what is also IAAC’s long term initiative, to create self-sufficient and ecological environments.
Wark reflects on how modern nature tourism often prioritizes “second nature”—human-made environments—over authentic nature. On her family trip to Mount Zion, the park’s vast canyons and rock formations inspire awe, but this grandeur is soon filtered through rituals like taking selfies. Wacker’s RV transforms the wild into a comfortable, controlled space, making nature feel familiar. … Read more
An Analysis / Interpretation on Katherine Hayles, ‘How We Read’, ADE Bulletin 150 (2010), pp. 62-79 Close Reading in our brave new world seems to be, indeed, an act of bravery—rarely practiced and disfavored by contemporary multimedia. Technology has stripped reading of its old contemplative value, scattering it across illuminated fields of tabs and battering … Read more
McKenzie Wark, during the chapter “Adventures in Third Nature” of the book “New Geographies #9” uses her own family vacation as a sociological observation study to address the distantiation between humanity and nature. Everything built that shapes the natural environment and promotes comfort for mankind is part of the so-called “second nature”, like the own … Read more
“If you suffer from the misconception that most of the world is still too poor to buy anything at all, you risk missing out on the biggest economic opportunity in world history … Strategic business planners need a fact-based worldview to find their future customers” – Hans Rosling, in another instance at a business lecture. … Read more
“The end of the “wilderness.” In every region of the globe, erstwhile “wilderness” spaces are being transformed and degraded through the cumulative socio-ecological consequences of unfettered worldwide urbanization.” – Neil Brenner & Christian Schmid’s Planetary Urbanization from Implosions and Explosions (2013), p.65 source: Pinterestedited by author Earth, An Urban Organism Planetary urbanization challenges the idea … Read more
“The task before us then would seem to be…to find ways to nourish and sustainthe drive to change even in a world ofordinary, nonmiraculous causation,transforming Reagan and Thatcher’sslogan that “there is no alternative tocapitalism” to Suvin and Jameson’s that“there is no alternative — to utopia.’”(Canavan, p. 15) Image credit: Bladerunner 2049 This micro essay places … Read more
Micro-Essay by Isabel Flores “a new conceptual lexicon must be created for identifying the wide variety of urbanization processes that are currently reshaping the urban world and, relatedly, for deciphering the new emergent landscapes of socio-spatial difference that have been crystallizing in recent decades.” (Neil Brenner & Christian Schmid, p. 02) Planetary Urbanization” (2013) explores … Read more
In our seminar with Michael Salka and Mariano Gomez Luque, we explored the meaning of ecology and the multifaceted challenges of sustainability, materiality and humanity’s relationship with the planet. Over eight weeks, we delved into two distinct but deeply connected approaches to build with ecological thinking and addressing climate change as well as envisioning a … Read more
MICRO-ESSAY On Gerry Canavan, If Those Goes On Green Planets: Ecology and Science Fiction’, 2014 & Benjamin Bratton, ‘Planetary Sapience Technology & The Human’, 2021 Both Bratton’s “Planetary Sapience” and Canavan’s “If This Goes On” touch upon the concept of intentional terraforming, albeit in significantly different contexts. Bratton frames it as a necessary outcome of … Read more
Micro-Essay by Georgia Hoyer “When we contemplate ruins, Christopher Woodward writes, we contemplate our own future.”(Canavan, p. 11) Benjamin Bratton’s “Planetary Sapience” and Gerry Canavan’s “If This Goes On” intersect in their exploration of humanity’s precarious relationship with the planet, emphasizing the power of imagination and speculative thinking to confront ecological and technological crises. Both … Read more
MAEBB01 / M02 ECOLOGICAL INTELLIGENCE / MICRO-ESSAY On Benjamin Bratton,‘Planetary Sapience’, NOEMA (2021), pp. 1-10. On Gerry Canavan,‘Introduction: If This Goes On’, Green Planets: Ecology and Science Fiction (2014),pp. 1-19. “In stark contrast to the untold riches and total freedom they are imagined to provide, distant space colonies — whether on inhospitable moons or orbiting … Read more
MAEBB01 / M02 ECOLOGICAL INTELLIGENCE / MICRO-ESSAY On McKenzie Wark,‘Adventures in Third Nature’,pp. 179 – 182. The idea of second nature1comes from the layer of physical transformations that humans have built all around our environments: houses, cities, and even RVs. Second nature operates through tangible items and mechanisms that directly affect the physical environment. It … Read more
Revolutionizing Architecture with 3D Sand PrintingA Case Study Analysis by Reuben Diamond In recent years, the intersection of computational design and 3D printing has pushed the boundaries of what architecture can achieve. The article “Printing Architecture: Castles Made of Sand” by Benjamin Dillenburger and Michael Hansmeyer explores how 3D sand printing—a cutting-edge additive manufacturing technology—can … Read more
MICRO-ESSAY BY REUBEN DIAMOND “ A new conceptual lexicon must be created for identifying the wide variety of urbanisation processes that are currently reshaping the urban world” (“Planetary Urbanization,” Brenner, N., & Schmid, C., p. 13) BOUNDARIES DISSOLVED As planetary urbanization reconfigures social, economic, and spatial relations, the traditional frameworks of urban studies encounter profound … Read more
During a week, 10 students from MAEBB, MAA, MaCT and MDEF got together as part of the Ecological Interactions class, that took part at the village at Benifallet, placed by the Ebro River. During this period, the students got in touch with the faculty’s land in order to come up with analysis, thoughts and solutions … Read more
As a designer in today’s world, you need to stay on the cutting edge of technology to remain competitive. One essential skill is learning parametric design tools like Grasshopper to create complex geometries and forms. Grasshopper is a visual programming language that enables computational design. With Grasshopper, you can generate intricate patterns, optimized structures, and … Read more
AGENDA The objective of this course was to design elements for the upcoming exhibition Macquina Climatica, in Parque de la Ciutadella, renovated to serve as an exhibition space; this historic precursor to the emerging paradigm of urban agriculture is currently under construction. For this course, our group was assigned to design a table 4.5m long … Read more
This ambitious initiative envisions a future where Barcelona embraces self-sufficiency by cultivating its own food in the heart of the urban environment. Through the medium of captivating imagery, we aim to spark the collective imagination and prompt thoughtful reflections across diverse social and political circles. As we reimagine the city with greenhouses on its rooftops, … Read more
Our collaborative design project kicked off for Máquina Climática Exhibition based on farming and harvesting local varieties of fruits and vegetables which will be held at the greenhouse in Parque de la Ciutadella, Catalonia. The exhibition focused on urban food production, requiring tables and chairs for hosting various activities like workshops and dining. Our goal was … Read more
“Notched In” is the final project developed as part of the Collaborative Design Studio course, which aimed to produce a shelving system to be used as a vertical farm at the Máquina Climática exhibition that will take place at the Invernadero from Parque de la Ciutadella (Barcelona/Catalonia). Shelving System For Vertical Farming No glues, No … Read more
Ensuring food security is a major challenge for cities worldwide. The vision of Bio-cities includes that of food self-sufficiency, tackling the environmental impact of current agriculture systems which contribute to environmental concern through food miles, land and habitat loss, soil erosion,and reliance on fossil-fuel derived fertilisers. The Àrea Metropolitana de Barcelona (AMB) has 636km3 of … Read more
In the first term, while working on the Collaborative Studio Design project, I took up the task of documenting and compiling into a 3-minute-ish video all of the goings on in all of the groups working on the project: the Shelves Team, the Chairs Team, the Armchairs Team, the Traceability Team, the Visualization Team, the … Read more
The first trimester’s Collaborative Design Studio Project we focused on the conception, design, and execution of a vertical farming system. The system is intended for exhibition at Barcelona’s Ciutadella Park in February 2024, in an exhibition titled MÁQUINA CLIMÁTICA. Our primary objective has been to create a vertical farming system that harnesses hydroponic techniques utilizing … Read more
1. Table The main goal of this assignment was to get familiar with the basic commands of the grasshopper and create variations of the principal design. All the solids created derive from the same coordinate points, differing only in the way they were manipulated in order to generate the table base. Starting from five points, … Read more
