CIEE - Global Architecture & Design
INTRODUCTION
Imagine working with leading architecture and design experts and innovators to complete a real-world design project. Study with the latest thinkers and practitioners to gain an understanding of architecture and design within an emerging global context. Pursue hands-on design work in a state-of-the-art studio using the latest technology to address an aspect of the current global environmental crisis. And observe 2,000 years of architectural history up close at historical and current architectural sites throughout Spain – all with CIEE.
PROGRAMME OVERVIEW
Study abroad in Barcelona and you will:
- Take part in the Future Cities Design Studio, which features IAAC’s interdisciplinary approach on architecture, urbanism, computational design, and digital fabrication,
- Conceive and execute design projects in studio space located at the Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia (IAAC) in the 22@ area of Barcelona,
- Use the FabLab facilities at the IAAC, a cutting-edge education and research academic institution dedicated to the development of an architecture that meets the challenges of the 21st century,
- Have access to one of the most equipped laboratories of digital fabrication in the EU, the Fab Lab Barcelona, and learn how to work with digital fabrication in an academic environment with the highest ratio of students per machine (5 to 1).
- Conduct research by developing projects to expand the boundaries of architecture, in collaboration with experts from multiple disciplines,
- Share a life-changing experience with a community of extraordinary students and staff from more than 70 different countries,
- Discover Barcelona, one of the best cities in the world and the one who is setting the trends in design, architecture and urban sciences,
- Become part of a consolidated network of people – Alumni, Researchers and Faculty – who will be your family, your business partners, and will shape the future hand in hand with you,
- Become able to critically communicate ideas about cities, urban and community development, technologies, participation, social space, and the built environment.
CIEE - GLOBAL ARCHITECTURE & DESIGN
HANDS-ON DESIGN STUDIO AND WORKSHOPS
At the Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia (IAAC), you’ll create projects that push the limits of what’s possible with technology today. You’ll design projects that optimize, conserve, or reuse natural and built resources, provide healthful environments, and reduce the environmental impact of the built environment through carbon-neutral design, bioclimatic design, and energy efficiency. The Global Architecture and Design program consists of 3 courses: Future Cities Design Studio (6 Credits – 90 Hours/Term), Science, Engineering and Technology Worksop (3 Credits – 45 Hours/Term) & Future Cities Seminar (3 Credits – 45 Hours/Term):
FUTURE CITIES DESIGN STUDIO
Continuing the IAAC research agenda, and using Barcelona as an experimentation laboratory, this studio will explore the relationship between city, technologies, and citizens, seeking innovative ways to improve this connection through speculative design and experimentation. Challenged with the necessity for self-sufficient public space and infrastructure of future cities, we will propose a unique typology and technological intervention that can have a profound impact not only on local surrounding but can be applied on any context with similar issues. The chief directives will be the shrewd intersection between technology and environment, especially under the rubric of ecology and computational design.
In this course, students will focus on emergent design strategies based on algorithmic design logic. From the physical spaces of our built environment to the networked spaces of digital culture, algorithmic and computational strategies are reshaping not only design strategies but the entire perception of Architecture and its boundaries.
The main tool of the studio will be McNeel’s Rhinoceros v6 and Grasshopper 3D. The adoption of Rhino as the main 3D tool is due to its ability to interface with many different file formats. In many ways, Rhino will act as the bridge between many applications, 3D and 2D alike. As a complementary tool for Rhino, we’ll focus on the associative design platform of Grasshopper3d, a graphical algorithm editor tightly integrated with Rhino’s 3-D modeling tools. Unlike RhinoScript, Grasshopper requires no knowledge of programming or scripting, but still allows designers to build form generators.
SCIENCE, ENGINEERING & TECHNOLOGY WORKSHOP
This course seeks to introduce participants to the role of computational design and digital fabrication in the architectural creative process. Through technical and practical exercises students will learn different strategies that will allow taking a digital model towards a built output.
The aim of the course is to explore the design opportunities arising from three common digital fabrication process: Laser Cutting, CNC milling and 3D Printing. Assignments will be supported by an iterative exploration of each technology and material, going through conceptual and prototyping process of design each week. By the end of the course, every student should be familiar with digital modelling, fabricating, documenting and assembly of a structure. Students should be able to invent strategies to translate geometry into an articulated constructible solution, produce the CAD – CAM file for production and use the CNC machines by themselves. During the course, students will also learn the principle of a FabLab and learn how to use this collaborative makerspace in a safe, clean and respectful way.
FUTURE CITIES SEMINAR
The course will investigate a series of interrelated themes of fundamental importance to the health of cities: political will and political failure in the determination of urban policy; the role of the automobile in the propagation of suburban sprawl; demographic challenges (shrinking versus expanding cities); the enduring influence of specific modern urban movements (Garden City, modernism, postmodernism, “Critical Reconstruction,” “New Urbanism”); contrasting patterns of racism, poverty, and immigration; the emergence of a “planet of slums;” security in an age of war, chronic criminality and terrorism; the threat of disease and epidemics. Global warming and environmental degradation will be a central concern. The accelerated consumption of oil and energy, the unregulated creation and dispersion of pollution, the alarming increase of CO2 emissions, and the consequent alterations to the earth’s climatic equilibrium are no longer phenomena that can be ignored by architects and urban planners.
PROGRAMME FACULTY
Head of Studies: Dr. Mathilde Marengo
Coordinator: Kevin Matar
Faculty:
Daniel Sorial – Future Cities Design Studio
Valentino Tagliaboschi – Science, Engineering & Technology Workshop
Mariano Gomez-Luque – Future Cities Seminar
Faculty Assistant:
Victor Engelhard Suarez – Future Cities Design Studio
Neslihan Gülhan – Future Cities Seminar
Student Assistant:
Swohm Chattopadhyay – Science, Engineering & Technology Workshop