Master in Advanced Architecture — Second Year Thesis Presentations

The second year thesis presentations of the Master in Advanced Architecture are a moment to take stock — of how far research has come, and where it is heading. Over the past weeks, students presented their work across five thesis clusters, each one a distinct lens on the future of architecture and the built environment.

Students explored smart, bio-based, and recycled materials as the building blocks of a new architecture — one that responds to its environment, grows with its users, and closes the loop on waste. From urban mining to living systems, the projects in this cluster made a compelling case for materials not as a passive component of design, but as its driving force.

Neurotechnology, generative AI, mixed reality. The Interactive Architecture cluster pushed architecture into genuinely new territory, investigating how responsive environments, intelligent systems, and evolving interfaces are transforming the way we experience and inhabit space. These were not speculative exercises — they were serious explorations of a near future where the line between architecture and interaction design has already blurred.

Students in Digital Urban Landscapes tackled biodiversity loss in cities head-on, developing projects that integrate nature-based solutions, ecological monitoring, and interspecies infrastructure into the urban fabric. The work went beyond green roofs and pocket parks — it proposed new spatial logics for cities that work for human and nonhuman inhabitants alike, connecting ecosystems and building resilience from the ground up.

Across two clusters, students explored how generative AI, parametric design, and data-driven methods are transforming architecture from the inside out. From foundation models and spatial representation to predictive tools and adaptive building strategies, the work investigated new forms of digital production, human–machine collaboration, and computational creativity. Technically rigorous and conceptually sharp, these projects raised fundamental questions about authorship, performance, and what it means to design in an increasingly algorithmic built environment.

Taken together, the second year thesis presentations confirmed what makes the Master in Advanced Architecture at IAAC genuinely different. This is a community of researchers and designers who are not waiting for the future — they are building it, one prototype at a time.