Immersive education in Valldaura Labs allows to keep the community active during the lockdown

The confinement allows the principles of self-sufficient habitat to be put into practice with greater intensity, which is being developed as a vital project in the IAAC laboratory located in the Collserola Natural Park.

On April 1, an online conversation was held between the architecture students of Taliesin (the center founded by Frank Lloyd Wright in 1932 in Phoenix Arizona) and Valldaura Labs. Both centers carry out immersive education, and therefore the majority of students from both centers decided to make the confinement in their habitat, which is also their educational center. From this virtual meeting, multiple common themes emerged, such as the construction of architectural prototypes as a learning method, the idea of organic architecture, or the development of a self-sufficient life, as part of the vital educational experience.

In Valldaura, the presentation of the final projects of the semester have been carried out online, and the students had the opportunity to present their self-sufficient urban buildings, made of wood, with multiple good ideas developing a new architectural trend that could be called Timber Constructivism.

Beyond this milestone, the life experience continues. Resident students and researchers now devote more effort to food production in the collective gardens (following the program of Ecological interactions directed by Jon Minchin) that translate into vegetables, honey, eggs and the collection of forest products, in order to produce most of the food with the resources of the environment.

Also the laboratory is still active making 3d printing of medical material for hospitals. From mid-April the course will continue to focus on building a new prototype of an advanced ecological buildings during the summer months. During the winter we have been carrying out sustainable forest management, so that we have been able to produce wood, following the principles of total traceability, with which we will build the prototype.

When the lockdown is lifted, everyone is more so welcome in Valldaura Labs!

Vicente Guallart.