

Envisaged as an architectural prototype based on the equalization of the Form/Matter/Flow relationship, the PLANTA project is organized in thermodynamic key to achieve a triple program: museum, thermal machine, and observatory, simultaneously display
This public facility houses an adult education center, a language standardization consortium, and a hotel on a triangular plot in the Les Corts district. Two of the three sides of the site are defined by the heritage-listed frontage of the former Pla
The aim is to eliminate the character of ‘building,’ reducing its image to that of a ‘machine’ in the landscape. A concrete ‘cap’ covers the buried elements (two wells and the atrium); to the exterior only a fissure of 1 meter in height is visible on
The city of Almere, within the metropolitan area of Amsterdam, is on the verge of experiencing a large population growth geered by urban plans like that of Oosterwold or Almere 2030, which foresees the construction of 60,000 new homes. In this contex
Far from being an aggressive presence in its neighbordood of the district of Vallecas, in the city of Madrid, the e-chimneys of this factory for the production of energy by cogeneration tries to give shape to what is a public space in every sense, so
The lack of detail maps of the most populous city of Nigeria and the second in Africa, being as it is under constant transformation, prompted to develop a map reflecting the relationship between the local conditions and the specific urban context.&nb
On the same plot where the Vallès School of Architecture goes up, the project won a competition in which three challenges were posed: to provide accommodation for architecture students, to achieve the Minergie Swiss energy certification (staying belo
All the urban activity that Avenida Diagonal concentrates in its long itinerary through Barcelona’s Ensanche was trapped, transformed and outstretched towards the sea by (as it was tagged during the celebration of the Forum of Cultures) the‘esplanade
World’s Largest Fusion Reactor Begins Assembly. The pieces are finally coming together on the long-delayed ITER experiment to create nuclear fusion. Humans are an energy-hungry species, and our current sources of power are not cutting it. Nuclear fus
City air makes us free; city air kills us; and city air saves us. Urban humanity lived a drama in three acts: the bourgeois revolution ended feudal or class servitude, because as the medieval German saying goes, Stadtluft macht frei; the industrial r
Ice cracks, and so does our future. The polar regions control the planet’s weather system, and the gradual loss of marine or glacial ice is altering significantly the global dynamics of climate. To the lower reflection of solar radiation we must add
The measurement of architecture’s energetic and enviromental impact depends on complex analyses having to do with thermodynamics, but also with economics.
A well-known Barcelona architect, when introducing Harquitectes during a recent seminar, referred to the new aesthetic proposed by “that school of Vallès.” That “vallesana” imagery is not coincidental, but in fact emerges from an approximation to for
Harquitectes is a collective that represents well a way of doing in today’s context. A small collective with a clear focus on an issue at once broad and narrow, and that we could sum up in two words: matter and air. Their work includes an interesting
Although climate-change-denier recently assumed power in the USA, all knowledgeable sources agree that the planet has entered a new geological phase, defined by Paul Crutzen as the ‘Anthropocene.’ After two centuries of intense human-produced gases r
The energy crises of the seventies left their mark on the generation which entered the architectural profession then, and the current climate crisis is having a similar effect on architects starting their practice in the first decade of the 21st cent
What is the significance of energy for architecture? What might an architectural agenda for energy be? Unfortunately, these are difficult questions for architects because, in architectural discourse, energy is a vague term with imprecise denotations.
Climate change and fossil fuels are two key factors of the contemporary crisis, so ‘sustainability’ and ‘energy’ have become essential terms in the current debate. Three recent books help to define these concepts and emphasize their relevance. Ian Mo
The debates of the last decade on energy have brought the controversies sparked by the oil crises of 1973-74 and 1979 up to date, and throw new light on architecture and the city.
Jorge Cortina Evolución de la tecnología eólica en España
Luis Fernández-Galiano Lisa Heschong
Tallinn 2018
Eesti Kunstakadeemia - 64 Pages
Kiel Moe
2013
Routledge - 301 Pages
Kent E. Portney
2015
MIT Press - 235 Pages