The IAAC BITS journal is a collective container of knowledge developed by the Advanced Architecture Group of the Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia. The journal collects material stimulating, promoting and developing research in the diverse areas of Advanced Architecture through a multi-disciplinary approach.

With the 9th issue, Black Ecologies, IAAC BITS is entering a new editorial phase pushing research, generating dialogue and presenting novel ideas and solutions for the current global challenges.

In this issue the term “Black Ecologies” is a reference to the expression “Dark Ecologies” – coined by Timothy Morton in 2007. It translates a new interest aimed at exploring a “New Nature”, not only related to architectural space but in the framework of the environment as a whole, not necessarily from the standpoint of the generalized vision of the “ecological”.

Through displaying an architecture and urban metabolism that are based on notions of behavior, performance as well as on specific, literal and hyperrealistic protocols, “Black Ecologies” describes a new natural environment co-produced by all ecological, biological, technological and cultural agents. It verifies that there is no such thing as an outside, that there is no naked life, that there is no pure and transcendent nature that must be returned to.

The different formats that constitute the new IAAC BITS respond to criteria of documentary coherence and expository clarity: INTRO, main introductory inputs that help to frame each topic; PAPERS, a set of content dedicated to background articles and theoretical contributions, argued culturally, scientifically and bibliographically; DIALOGUES/INTERVIEWS exchanges between different approaches and research trajectories; RESEARCH PROJECTS, a sample of projects, experimental proposals and applicative essays.

Authors: Manuel Gausa, Areti Markopoulou, Jordi Vivaldi (editors),
Vicente Guallart, Mitchell Joachim, François Roche, Neri Oxman, Andrew Adamatzky, Marcos Cruz, Claudia Pasquero, Marco Poletto, Eduardo Kac among others.
Publisher: Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia, Actar Publishers.