Recently students from the first and the second year of the Master in Advanced Architecture (MAA) went together on a site visit to the tallest wooden building in Spain called “Terrazas para la vida”, designed by Urbanitree. The trip brought together the MAA01 course of ‘Self Sufficient Buildings Studio’ led by Edouard Cabay and Daniel Ibañez and the MAA02 course ‘Sustainable Architecture Thesis Cluster’ led by Daniel Ibañez and Kevin Matar.
During the site visit, Daniel Ibañez, IAAC Director and co-founder of Urbanitree along with Vicente Guallart, explained the project ‘Terrazas para la Vida‘—an eight-story social housing building designed and constructed using CLT. Located in the San Martí neighbourhood, the building comprises 40 units oriented around a central patio, providing access to a series of large terraces and outdoor spaces. It aims to optimize construction speed and reduce emissions associated with the construction, proposing a new model of ecological development with the potential for cultivating food and generating its own energy
While MAA01’s Self Sufficient Buildings Studio is structured along the development of a series of two successive design missions:
1. Machine Room: using digital fabrication and physical computing students invent and construct a physical object that is both a machine that stages and performs an energy phenomenon and a room, and a 1:5 architectural space for one person, where the patterns of inhabitation are both affecting and being affected by the energy behaviour. The design methodology is centred around the use of the milling machine and the use of plywood, a material with properties close to the one of real construction.
2. Self Sufficient Building: a housing project for a medium to large community. During this phase, students critically address the large jump in scale. On an energy level, they are invited to develop large-scale climatic strategies within a higher level of complexity and relating them to context. Moreover, students examine questions of organisation, distribution, circulation, as well as all of its constructive aspects. This phase of the studio works with computational tools, integrating them within a drawing base design development methodology.
The second year of the MAA with the Sustainable Architecture Thesis Cluster is centred around the development of an individual thesis project, which is supervised by the Thesis Advisors. In order to support the thesis project development and strengthen the professional and academic profile, students have the opportunity to follow several seminars, workshops and site visits.
About the Master in Advanced Architecture
The Master in Advanced Architecture focuses on training architects, designers and engineers, acquiring multidisciplinary skills, to practise radical architecture that creates positive cultural, environmental and social impact.