IAAC – Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia
Global Summer School Program 2020
Online Course: AI Urbanism // mapping with computer vision and machine learning
Duration: from the 6th until the 10th July 2020

AI URBANISM
MAPPING WITH COMPUTER VISION & MACHINE LEARNING


Ph credits: Noumena.


We are living in exciting and unique times. Advancements in technology are unleashing an unprecedented production of Data as surprising as the
growing capacity to store these massive amounts of bytes. Unfortunately, the ability to analyse these data volumes increases at much lower rates.

Surprisingly the majority of the unstructured data produced comes from image-based contents, but, in this era of data expansion, novel extraction
techniques can be introduced to describe an image’s semantics. 

The emerging field of visual analytics focuses on handling these massive, heterogeneous, and dynamic volumes of information by integrating
algorithmic approaches based on deep learning architectures. As a result, cognitive methodologies are achieving higher levels of computer vision
functionalities: detection, localisation, recognition, and understanding which are very useful for semantic knowledge exploration and image understanding. 

And we’re just at the beginning! When considering how far analytics has come in a few short years, is it just possible to imagine how image analytics
will influence spatial configurations and design decision.

This course will introduce participants to the exciting world of computer vision and machine learning, showcasing how to decode image contents
implementing image analytics. 

Main tools:

  • Python
  • Opencv
  • Yolov.4
  • Mask R-CNN


WEEKLY SCHEDULE & TIMETABLES

Option 1 – Synchronous calendar (Barcelona time – GMT+2)
Recommend to  European, African, Asian and Australian participants.
From Monday 6th until Friday 10th July 2020
Teaching activities will run from 10.00 to 14.00 GMT+2
– 10 hrs of live teaching
– 10hrs of live mentoring and exercises review
– 1 hr of IAAC summer lecture

Option 2 – Asynchronous calendar (America time – GMT-4)
 Solution recommended to participants from all the time zones who are looking for a more flexible schedule.
From Monday 6th until Saturday 11th July 2020
Live teaching activities will run from 11.00 am to 1.00 pm (GMT-4)
– 10 hrs of recorded teaching
– 10hrs of live mentoring and exercises review
– 1 hr of IAAC summer lecture


Faculty

Aldo Sollazzo is a technologist, with expertise in robotics, manufacturing, and computational design. At IaaC, Institute for Advanced Architecture
of Catalonia, he is directing the Master in Robotics and Advanced Construction focused on the emerging design and market opportunities
arising from novel robotic and advanced manufacturing systems. 

Since 2011, he is the director of Noumena, leading a multidisciplinary team towards the definition of new design strategies informed by tech-driven
applications. He is also the Director of Reshape – digital craft community, a distributed platform promoting cutting-edge ideas merging design and
manufacturing. In the same institution, Aldo is also directing the Global Summer School, since 2015. Aldo has been part of the Fab Academy
program as a mentor of Fab Academy Paris and Frosinone from 2015 to 2017.

In 2018 Aldo has received, from the Italian President of the Republic, the title of Knight of the Order of the Star of Italy for the promotion of
national prestige abroad as a recognition of his projects and activities.

Faculty Assistants

Soroush Garivani is an architect and researcher, interested in the multidisciplinary and multiscalar approaches in architecture. He holds a Master
in Advanced Architecture (2018) followed by a Master in Advanced Robotics and Construction (2019) from IAAC, Barcelona. His research explores
the integration of new fabrication methods, intelligent material systems, and computational tools. He has collaborated as Computational designer
with Appareil, Barcelona and The Alliance, Tehran.Currently, he is working as a roboticist at Noumena.

Iacopo Neri’s research lies at the intersection between architecture, computer science and urban planning. He holds a Master of Science in Architecture
 with Distinction at The Polytechnic University of Milan, and attended a Master in City and Technology at the Institute for Advanced Architecture of
Catalonia (IaaC, Spain) after presenting a paper about Swarm Intelligences for crowd-based analysis during the Responsive Cities Symposium (2017, Barcelona).
He has been involved as a teaching assistant since 2015 at the University of Florence, later, at The Polytechnic University of Milan, and finally at IAAC where
he is currently part of the City and Technology computational research team. He also works as a computational designer at External Reference Architecture
Bureau, Barcelona.