[GSS > Barcelona]

Metallic
Spaces

The Barcelona node explored a series of methodologies to incorporate advanced design thinking, generative algorithms and dynamic material feedback to existing industrial processes. During the workshop participants explored form finding strategies through digital tools and scale model making, which later on have been built as a series of digitally fabricated architectural elements in 1:1 scale, embedded with smart sensorial interaction.

[GSS > Paris]

Distributed Food System

In the context of the Fab City Summit, the Paris node offered a hands-on opportunity to implement concrete strategies aimed at activating urban public spaces into sites where both agricultural products and energy are harvested.
Computation and robotics have been leveraged to explore design processes where participants used both digital and physical tools to shape an urban vegetable garden in the iconic green park of La Villette.

[GSS > New York]

Body Architectures

The New York node focused on creating body architectures, augmenting the body senses in relation to urban spaces and landscape systems that form the environment of our cities. These wearable devices served to bring a hyper-awareness to the senses, as closed-loop cybernetic systems that utilised Digitized biometric and environmental data through the use of computational tools, sensing technologies, and actuation.

[GSS > Melbourne]

Bio-Digital Futures

In an effort to reduce non-renewable consumption, Melbourne’s participants have collaborated with biologists, designers and architects to conduct research experiment with biomaterials and explore their fabrication potential. With the use of parametric design tools and computational modelling techniques, they investigated geometric solutions, inspired by biology and developed scaffolds and moulds that support the growth of biomaterials.

[GSS > Quito]

Re-Active Morphologies

Quito focused on the ongoing research conducted at the Institute of Building Structures and Structural Design (ITKE) regarding the design of lightweight structures. The workshop aimed at exploring non-standard dynamic articulations of form-active elements by bridging the gap between physical and digital models. During the workshop, participants could explore parametric and associative modelling environments and digital fabrication protocols.

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[GSS > Beirut]

Empowering Citizens

In its third edition, the GSS Beirut partnered with the Beirut Arab University (BAU) to explore potential applications of robotic fabrication in the construction industry, by activating a public square in the heart of Beirut city with a 1:1 architectural intervention. Participants have been challenged to rethink construction logics in the realisation of complex parametric models, exploring fully integral assembly strategies, as well as robotic wood tectonics.

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[GSS > Manila]

Wastewater Management

Urban regions around the world have grown exponentially in population and in land area. The Manila Node focused on the use of a variety of digital tools to provide speculative technical solutions to urban wastewater management. Since Filipinos are one of the largest users of social media, the workshops exploited vernacular use of technologies, in tandem with advance architecture software and equipment to create relevance in the context of Manila’s informal urban sphere.

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[GSS > Chandigarh]

Facade Digitisation

Chandigarh participants followed a series of steps to investigate the field of dynamic façades, designing modular structure systems that physically respond to stimulus. Contrary to standard design processes, where shape can be defined in advance, the final geometrical configuration of such flexible structures relied on the integration of programable electronics as the main agent driving the entire formation process.

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[GSS > Queretaro]

Digitization & Communication

The Queretaro node aimed this year at extending the communication beyond the digital, seeking a dialogue among different worlds and trying to represent Latin American cultures. Participants could explore the communication potential of new technologies in different real contexts, becoming aware of the new technological horizons for advanced exploration of space, and reflecting on the way we imagine, create, and above all, inhabit it.

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[GSS > Tehran]

Saving the Island

Urban environments and architectural spaces are getting smarter as they are collecting and then responding to the data which comes out of the life of citizens. Tehran aimed at designing a complex process of playing, discovering, hiding, acting and reacting, in order to engage people in activities for further observations. Through designing games embedded in architectural and urban spaces, participants wanted to increase the engagement of people in data-collecting processes.

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[GSS > Muscat]

The Future Of Mobility

The aim of Muscat this year was promote within government Institutions a culture of innovative solutions concerning transport and its components, shifting from the macro to the micro scale. The research agenda 2018 therefore addressed a deep investigation and exploration of morphology formation for the proposition of a bus/pods/drone stop that reflect terminal hub design proposals. The result of the investigation was a sophisticated shelter that reacts to the external stimuli.

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[GSS > Blog]

GSS Life Day by Day!

What is going on during IAAC Global Summer School? Each summer, different teams of students and professionals residing in several Institutes, Labs and Universities around the world take part to the IAAC GSS program. During this productive two week workshop, GSS participants are keen on the investigation and research of new design proposals to amplify their knowledge on physical computing , digital fabrication and more. Discover with us GSS nodes activities day by day!

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