The paradigm of mixed cities has transformed the urban environment in spaces for interaction, work, culture, food production, and energy collection.
Cities are playing a major role in the transformation of politics, in the configuration of a new role of citizenship, multicultural and hyperconnected. Urban habitats are becoming accelerators of economical, social and environmental changes that are already defining the Global Agenda of the World. Defining a strategy for production and manufacturing however, still plays a minor role in Cities and has been systematically disregarded by planners for years. Ironically, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations 800 million people worldwide grow vegetables or fruits or raise animals in cities, producing an astonishing 15 to 20 percent of the world’s food.
How can we define a real strategy for the implementation of urban agriculture?
How can technology drive this change, turning public spaces into productive environments empowered by sensors and robotic mechanisms to monitor the context?
How can we design and make distributed food systems?
The Distributed Design Market Platform is a Creative Europe project that aims to foster the development and recognition of emerging European Maker and Design culture by supporting makers, their mobility and circulation of their work, providing them with international opportunities and highlighting the most outstanding talent. DDMP will improve the connections among makers, designers and the market, providing thus tools, strategies, guides, contents, education, events, networks in order to enable them to commercialize their creations. This project aims at promoting and improving the connection of makers and designers with the market (Maker to Market) by strengthening the creative community of Fablabs.io, the online social network of the international Fab Lab community with more than 13,000 registered users located in more than 40 countries and in more than 1,200 Fab Labs.
In the context of the Fab City Summit, organized by the Fab City Grand Paris Association, the Fab City Collective, and the City Hall of Paris, IAAC GSS18 – Paris is offers a hands-on opportunity, to propose and implement concrete strategies aimed at activating urban public spaces into sites where both agricultural produce and energy are harvested. During the program, participants will use both digital and physical tools to shape an urban vegetable garden in the iconic green park of La Villette in Paris. Computation and robotics will be leveraged to explore design processes in response to qualitative and quantitative factors affecting both crop production and the technological systems implemented to monitor performance.
Aldo Sollazzo, director of IAAC Global Summer School, faculty at Design by Data, co-director of the new Master of Robotics and Advanced Construction at IAAC and member of the Advanced Architecture Lab, will be leading GSS18 in Paris from the 2nd to the 14th of July 2018.
Starsky Lara, currently Product Development Engineer at Noumena, and Jonathan Minchin who is serving as Coordinator of the Green Fab Lab at Valldaura Labs will be co-teaching the program.
Adrien Rigobello, Academic Coordinator of the Advanced Master Design by Data (École des Ponts ParisTech, Paris), will also be co-teaching GSS18 in Paris.
IAAC Global Summer School is a full-time two week course beginning on the 2nd of July and ending on the 14th. Participants are provided with both practical and theoretical knowledge through the expertise of their tutors. The curriculum also includes the lectures of professionals and academics of renown in their respective fields on topics that tie in directly with the themes explored during the hands-on learning undertaken throughout the program.
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Attendees of this year’s edition of IAAC’s Global Summer School in Paris will also have the opportunity of experiencing the Fab City Summit. Organized by the Fab City Grand Paris Association, the City Council of Paris, and the Fab City Collective, the summit represents an annual international gathering that brings together experts and communities alike around a shared interest in the circular economy, urban planning, digital fabrication, new business models, civic engagement and sustainable design and production. Fab City’s annual summit was inaugurated in Amsterdam in 2016 with the second event held in Copenhagen the following year. Paris will be hosting the 2018 edition of this international summit at the famed Parc de La Villette on the 11th, 12th, and 13th of July.
The summit is part of a larger Fab City project and network built by international innovators, makers, researchers, designers, policy makers and citizens seeking to foster a new urban model for cities. Their common goal is to produce and meet the needs that sustain human activities locally while collaboratively sharing information and knowledge at the global scale. To date, 17 cities, regions or countries have followed Barcelona’s example pledging to produce 100 percent of their consumption by 2054 as stated in the Fab City Pledge launched in 2011 by the City Council of Barcelona.
Launched by IAAC | Fab Lab Barcelona, MIT’s CBA and the Fab Foundation in 2014, the Fab City initiative grew out of the urban sciences developed in Barcelona throughout the past century and a half with roots in the publication of Ildefons Cerdà’s seminal General Theory of Urbanization. Combined with the technology leadership concentrated in Boston, Fab City blossomed into a full movement when it caught on within the international community created around the digital fabrication laboratories that emerged in the last 15 years when a collaboration between the Center for Bits and Atoms (CBA) and National Science Foundation (NSF-USA) resulted in the first Fab Labs.
This year’s Fab City Summit also represents the first time the summit will be held in conjunction with the annual and international FAB14 gathering. This event, which is dedicated to to Fab Labs will take place in Toulouse from July 16th to July 20th.
Design by Data is also partnering with IAAC for the 2018 edition of GSS’s Paris node. The Advanced Masters program organized by the prestigious and long-established Ecole des Ponts ParisTech is a cross-disciplinary computational design program that grants its students a comprehensive knowledge of cutting edge technologies in the fields of parametric architecture, robotics, digital manufacturing and 3D printing for the construction industry. It’s format offers a variety of courses, fabrication and prototyping workshops, conferences, digital talks and networking events. Furthermore, Design by Data represents a pillar of the computational design and digital fabrication community in Europe, bringing outstanding faculty to its students. Among these are the tutors of the Paris edition of GSS 2018, Aldo Sollazzo along with Noumena team Adrien Rigobello. As such, GSS – Paris 2018 is one of the many events Design by Data organizes to complement its official curriculum/ In the case of GSS – Paris18, the summer school ties in directly with the Noumena led module titles ‘From Data to Information’ which is in turn part of a larger EU funded project on the topic of Robotics in Microfarming (ROMI). GSS – Paris18 provided the perfect context to discover all that Design by Data offers its students as well as to meet current students participating in the summer school.
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He cumulated 10 years of professional experience in numerous firms, including the Atlanta firm Mack Scogin Merill Elam Architecture. He also joined the structural engineering office RFR, located in Paris, where he especially worked in the “Complex Geometry” department, among others. There, he contributed to the University of Vienna research program about optimization algorithms and their application in architecture, and additionally worked on highly sophisticated shapes, such as the LVMH Fundation. In 2011, Minh Man Nguyen co-founded the architecture firm WAO.
He also co-founded WoMa, la fabrique de quartier in early 2014, a place promoting the collaborative use of skills, tools, and work.
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Most recently he founded the P2P Food Lab to experiment new technologies for agroecology and community-based food systems. He is currently working on the topic of sustainable, community-based food systems. Such food systems are based on agroecological principles. They are also collaborative and decentralised.
As a computer scientist, he is interesting in the role that technology can play in such systems. Aware, however, that technology can only solve part of the equation. That is why he also has a strong interest in the “Commons” as a concept to deal with many of the socio-economic questions related to food systems.
IAAC’s GSS is open to creative and innovative individuals who are interested in fields such as architecture, urban planning, agriculture, digital fabrication, and design among others. It is geared towards those seeking a multidisciplinary experience in an international environment. Although attending the course necessitates no prerequisites, previous experience with CAD, programming and digital fabrication is welcome. The program will be taught in English. At the end of the course, participants will have acquired theoretical and applied knowledge in advanced design strategies. Moreover, they will have become fluent in parametric design, data visualization and the use of digital fabrication tools.
Applicants traveling to the program from outside of the Schengen Area may require a visa. All participants to whom this applies are responsible for undertaking their visa procedure through the relevant administrations, consulates and embassies or other, in their country of residence or origin. The program will provide a letter of acceptance confirming participation upon admission and remain available to assist where possible.
In order to apply for IAAC’s Global Summer School, prospective participants are invited to submit an online application form. In addition to personal information, applicants are required to submit their CV. A portfolio is not required. GSS18 is scheduled for July 2nd through July 14th 2018. Applications close on June 27th.