Research Depts

Advanced Architecture Group

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The Advanced Architecture Group (AAG) is an interdisciplinary research group investigating emerging technologies of information, interaction and manufacturing for the design and transformation of the cities, buildings and public spaces.

Big & small data, responsiveness, smart energy systems, artificial intelligence, robotics, advanced materials, and additive manufacturing are few of the key topics developed by the AAG and applied to novel visions and solutions for the architectural and urban fabric. Through innovative educational programs and a hands-on based methodology, AAG works on redefining the paradigm of design education in the Information and Experience Age.

Through the realisation of professional projects, AAG works on real-scale pilot projects and real-world situations merging basic and applied research in collaboration with the industry and a series of multidisciplinary experts.

Within the current critical environmental, economic and social framework, and at a moment of a novel intersection and crossing between bits (digital) and atoms (physical), AAG explores how technologies can contribute in activating, socialising and establishing new responsive inhabitation models.

 

EDUCATIONAL PROGRAMMES

Master in Advanced Architecture – MAA

In Barcelona, IAAC offers an international Master programme in Advanced Architecture (MAA). The MAA is oriented towards architects, engineers and designers from all over the world, eager to imagine the future of our cities and societies and committed to building it in the present.

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Master in City & Technology – MACT

The Master in City & Technology (MaCT) is a unique programme which is orientated towards training change makers that city administrations, governments, industries, and communities need, in order to develop projects for the transformation of our cities in the era of big data.

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Master in Robotics and Advanced Construction – MRAC

In Barcelona, IAAC offers an international Master programme in Advanced Architecture (MAA). The MAA is oriented towards architects, engineers and designers from all over the world, eager to imagine the future of our cities and societies and committed to building it in the present.

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otf

OTF – POSTGRADUATE IN 3D PRINTING ARCHITECTURE

In Barcelona, IAAC offers an international Master programme in Advanced Architecture (MAA). The MAA is oriented towards architects, engineers and designers from all over the world, eager to imagine the future of our cities and societies and committed to building it in the present.

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EUROPEAN FUNDED RESEARCH

BUILDS

EU Project BUILDS – Building Urban Intelligent Living Design Solutions (2019-2021) Description “BUILDS” aims to fill the gap in the biotechnology sector applied to smart architecture and design by bringing intelligent living solutions for cities to the market through research, education, entrepreneurship and industry leaders cooperation. EU Call Erasmus + Total Funding 999,072 € IAAC…

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Creative Food Cycles

EU Project Creative Food Cycles (2018-2020) Description “Creative Food Cycles” enhances innovative and creative practices between food, architecture and conviviality in a transnational and European perspective. EU Call Creative Europe Programme Total Funding 198,000 € IAAC Department Advanced Architecture Group Partners Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Universität Hannover (Germany), Universitá Degli Studi di Genova (Italy) Website https://creativefoodcycles.org/

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KAAU

EU Project KAAU – Knowledge Alliance for Advanced Urbanism (2015-2018) Description KAAU group works for the sensitive integration of ICT in cities, taking in consideration cultural heritage, environmental and social dimension issues. This project aims to promote an innovative understanding of “Advanced Urbanism” that requires changing traditional design and urban planning practices towards more open, collaborative…

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Valldaura Self-sufficient Labs

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Valldaura Self-sufficient Labs is a project promoted by the Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia for the creation of a self-sufficient habitat research centre. Located in the Collserola Natural Park, in the heart of the metropolitan area of Barcelona, it has laboratories for the production of energy, food and things, and develops projects and academic programmes in association with leading research centres around the world.

The Valldaura Campus is a large park and testing ground for innovation that features the latest technologies in the fields of energy, information and fabrication.

The core of this innovative project developed by the Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia (IAAC) is a laboratory to implement investigation and set a new benchmark for self-sufficiency. The Valldaura Self-sufficient Labs express a new concept for sustainability established by IAAC with the aim to create a sustainable, consciously designed ecology using both cutting edge technology and traditional craftsmanship.

The Valldaura Self-sufficient labs and its three Laboratories, Food Lab, Energy Lab and Green Fab Lab; allow to research the specificities of the production of key elements involved in self-sufficiency: food, energy and things, combining ancestral knowledge that connects us to nature with the latest advanced technology.

EDUCATIONAL PROGRAMMES

Master in Advanced Ecological Buildings – MAEB

The Master in Advanced Ecological Buildings is an 11-month immersive academic programme with an emphasis on using a practice-oriented approach to train professionals with advanced expertise in the design and construction of ecological buildings. The programme takes place in the Valldaura Labs, in Barcelona, Spain.

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Fab Lab Barcelona

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Fab Lab Barcelona, part of the Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia, is one of the leading laboratories of the worldwide network of Fab Labs. The centre develops several educational and research programmes related to the applications and implications of digital fabrication, and it is also the headquarters of the global coordination of the Fab Academy programme in collaboration with the Fab Foundation and the MIT’s Center for Bits and Atoms.

The Fab Lab Barcelona also develops projects in different scales, from smart devices for data collection by individuals (Smart Citizen), the new generation of Fab Labs (Green Fab Lab), to new production models for cities (Fab City Project).

Context & Agenda

Fab Lab Barcelona empowers communities to design and make possible futures. The centre develops its activity around four main actions: dwell, eat, produce and share.

Dwell is comprised here as an essential part of living in communities and sustainable housing, building smart cities and exploring new materials through technology in order to develop different kinds of habitat.

Eat is explored in projects that handle different thematic such as environment, ecosystem, technology and waste. These projects address to this human basic function a great power in advancing research and development of robotics through an everyday action. Although starting as an individual action, the act of eating is a formidable cultural and political constituent that defines whole civilizations.

Produce has a central role in every project Fab Lab accomplishes. Based on the transition of the PITO (Product In Trash Out) model into the DIDO (Data In Data Out) model, it is essential that the prototypes are thought, designed and produced within a holistic view. The Fab Lab community includes all types of makers and people who are curious about producing things themselves, exploring and playing with technology.

Share comes as a principle and a natural consequence for the Fab Lab network. The principle of envisioning communities of producers and change makers can only be possible with the share of knowledge, technology and information. It is also a consequence while most of the projects are inviting the community to participate and to be actors on the changes they want to have in their cities and neighbourhoods.

What is a Fab Lab?

A Fab Lab is a technical prototyping platform for innovation and invention, providing stimulus for local entrepreneurship. A Fab Lab is also a platform for learning and innovation: a place to play, to create, to learn, to mentor, and to invent.

To be a Fab Lab means connecting to a global community of learners, educators, technologists, researchers, makers and innovators – a knowledge sharing network that spans 30 countries and 24 time zones.

Because all Fab Labs share common tools and processes, the program is building a global network, a distributed laboratory for research and invention.

EDUCATIONAL PROGRAMMES

Master in Design for Emergent Futures – MDEF

The Master in Design for Emergent Futures (MDEF) is organised by the Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia and ELISAVA Barcelona School of Design and Engineering, in collaboration with the Fab Academy and the Academy of Almost Anything.

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Fab Academy

Fab Academy is a Digital Fabrication programme directed by Neil Gershenfeld of MIT’s Center For Bits and Atoms and based on MIT’s rapid prototyping course, MAS 863: How to Make (Almost) Anything.

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Fabricademy

Fabricademy is a transdisciplinary course that focuses on the development of new technologies applied in the textile industry, in its broad range of applications, from the fashion industry to the upcoming wearable market.

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EUROPEAN FUNDED RESEARCH


Making Sense

EU Project Making Sense (2015-2017) Description Making Sense shows how open source software, open source hardware, digital maker practices and open design can be effectively used by local communities to appropriate their own technological sensing tools, make sense of their environments and address pressing environmental problems in air, water, soil and sound pollution. EU Call…

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OrganiCity

OrganiCity (2015-2019)

OrganiCity brings software, hardware and associated human processes flexibly together into a new living city that is replicable, scalable as well as socially, environmentally and economically sustainable. EU Call Horizon 2020 Total Funding 7,266,583 € IAAC Department Fab City Research Lab Partners Aarhus Universitet (DK), Intel Corporation – Intel (UK), Alexandra…

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Made@EU

EU Project Made@EU (2014-2016) Description Made@EU aims to foster the third industrial revolution by radically changing the production and distribution status quo, and strongly influence society as a whole, from a cultural, social and economic platform. This initiative attempts to remove existing barriers for the widest use of digital fabrication technologies amongst European creatives. EU…

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