The Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia is proud to announce that the Vueling Airlines pavilion, designed and built in collaboration with Urbanitree and CODA Computational Design Affairs, has been awarded as the best stand at the International Tourism Fair FITUR Madrid 2024, which attracted over 250,000 visitors.
Photos by IMAGEN SUBLIMINAL Miguel De Guzman
“El Cielo de Vueling”, showcased last week at IFEMA Madrid, represented a concept that transcended traditional exhibition spaces, offering visitors an immersive journey through the company’s history.
In the universal aspiration to interpret the skies and represent them in an installation, IAAC designed Vueling’s wooden dome as a living representation of the more than 300 routes and 100 cities in which it operates. Each curved line drawn in the sky tells a story of connections and encounters, highlighting the very essence of travel.
The centerpiece is a wooden shell formed by the accumulation of simplified routes in geodesic curves that traverse the globe. The portion of the globe covered by Vueling’s network has been mapped onto a 6-meter diameter dome. The richness of the complexity of the route network allows for the formation of a wooden shell with great visual richness and structural feasibility.
The double curvature of the spherical cap not only represents the sky and routes but also optimizes the use of wood. This choice makes the wood work very efficiently, significantly reducing the necessary mass and decreasing the ecological footprint of the installation. The shell is composed of flat facets of plywood panels with folded sheet metal joints. This design optimizes numerical manufacturing and assembly for easy installation but also allows for the complete recovery of elements for various future assemblies.
El Cielo de Vueling inspired FITUR visitors to explore new dimensions in architecture and to consider sustainability as an essential component in the design of unique experiences. The project, now disassembled, will be reused at the World Mobile Congress to be held in Barcelona from February 26th to 29th, 2024.
Credits
Project by the Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia
In collaboration with
Urbanitree: Vicente Guallart, Daniel Ibañez, Enrique Arazuri
CODA: Gerard Bertomeu, Pep Tornabell, Enrique Soriano
About FITUR
FITUR, the International Tourism Trade Fair, is the global meeting point for tourism professionals and the leading fair for inbound and outbound markets in Ibero-America. Read more.