Nowadays, architecture causes 40% of CO2 emissions and is one of the main causes of global warming. The aim of the studio is, following the ideas of Jeremy Rifkin, to turn this number around and envision buildings as power plants, smart buildings that will provide us with the energy we need, and become activists of the Third Industrial Revolution. In order to achieve this, the studio follows the thesis of bringing nature to the cities. Natural behaviours are studied in order to gain efficiency in terms of energy saving and apply them to buildings.

The studio studies the integration of fauna and flora to the cities in order to have a better standard of living and to reduce CO2 emissions and the ecological footprint. The natural environment for working with particles surpasses proprietary software and introduces environments that are more generic. They are managed by the use of free programming environments through intelligent behaviour over time, thus progressing from the exterior morphology of the project to the performance of its parts or internal composition.

The Self-sufficient Buildings Research Studio works on scales that range from urban blocks to individual buildings developing principals and techniques for homes that serve to organise the materialization of programmatic nodes of activity based on natural rules and principles. As a result the building goes beyond being a mere interface for economic activities, becoming an environment that stimulates its inhabitants and functions as an active part of the ecosystem in which it is inserted.

The Self-sufficient Buildings studio is directed by Enric Ruiz Geli and Mireia Luzárraga.