AA at INDIA
DIPLOMA UNIT 18: membranes
Enric Ruiz Geli, Edouard Cabay, Juliane Wolf

In a world where architecture is the main contributor to global warming, responsible for 40% of CO2 emissions, Diploma 18 continues its agenda following the five ‘pillars’ of Jeremy Rifkin’s Third Industrial Revolution and expanding the role of the architect into that of an activist. Through a series of events, projects, meetings and excursions Diploma 18 sought to increase awareness and gain knowledge while working across various scales, from molecular to infrastructural, attempting to raise a green consciousness in architecture. These endeavours included: a retrofitting project of the AA buildings using the facades to project animations that envisioned a Third Industrial Revolution building; a collaboration with artist Pep Bou, using soap bubbles to engage with membranes at a particle scale; and a trip that took us along the River Ganges where we analysed various UN-listed Global Warming Scenarios that we were able to discuss during meetings with the Indian Ministry of Earth Science, the United Nations Development Programme and UNICEF. Collectively, these experiences led to the following design thesis proposals: – Ganga Jal / Ganda Jal – Distributed iron fertilisation cleaning the polluted waters of spiritual India – A New Civilisation for Global Warming Refugees, a proposal for those displaced by the sinking Ganges delta – Democratic Energy Devices – self-generated electricity as ‘power to the people’ to fight against child poverty – T.e.r.r.a. – Bionic energy crops transforming rural landscapes into self-sufficient environments – Air Wells – Water harvesting using spider silk to supplement the seasonal River Ganges – Strategic Integration of Hydrogel with Land and Ecosystem Management – Rebuilding forests and biodiversity using the water availabile from the monsoon – Living Lab – Testing thermo-electric UV-protective technologies to prevent the disappearance of glaciers – A Methane Land Art Installation – Flames in the landscape of melting permafrost – Anthropology of Live Slaughter – a speculation on beef production exposing the meat industry

• 
  Zachary Fluker
  t. E. r. r. a. Transforming Rural Agricultural Practice Through Biochemical Energy Harvesting
• 
  TAYLOR MING DONG ZHOU
  The project is an attempt to use a bottom up framework to tackle the ever-growing global warming scenario, through understanding the natural and cultural environment of the Ganges, the proposal is to use the CO2 absorbing algae to help clean up the holy Ganges.
• Amir Yousefi
  As an individual who loves meat, I have understood that the beef industry is responsible of global warming, but the simplest fact is that our beef addiction is the real culprit. Retrofitting the city of London with the entire beef industry to present a speculative future of the beef industry and how beef production can define the morphology of a building to expose transparency and consciousness towards beef consumption and the problems with beef production.
• 
  Iker Flores
  Strategic Integration of Hydrogel with Land and Ecosystem Management to Combat Land Degradation and Deforestation: The research attempts to investigate and understand the properties, behaviour and performance of different super absorbent polymers [Hydrogels]; in order to develop a strategic implementation and deployment of these polymers through the articulation of material systems and logics that respond to local climatic conditions; temporarily stabilising the disrupted Hydro-geological conditions. Therefore, becoming a catalyst for the re-activation of the hydro-biological cycles, which are the foundations for the subsistence of the local settlements. This research tries to take advantage of the properties of Hydrogels to increase the soil moisture, water percolation, prevention of evaporation, reduction of nutrients loss and its translocation deep into the soil
• 
  Leila Meroue
  From a natural phenomenom of global warming to a physical and spiritual experience. The effect of global warming increasing temperatures causes the melting of permafrost releasing methane in the atmosphere which is 24 times more toxic than CO2. In Alaska, permafrost can reach 150 meters of thickness under the active layer. To prevent the release of methane from permafrost in the atmosphere, the project suggests to provoke the thawing of permafrost to controle the release of methane, capture it and use it on site. The project will be treating methane locally in Denali Park through CH4 structures burning methane as soon as it is released and producing a pink flame. The multiplication of these CH4 structures around the flames creates a serie of pink flames in the landscape demonstrating the amount of methane coming out of the soil underneath our feet. Indeed, the flame is constantly burning and will stop when the zone is free from methane. Therefore, the structures are moved to another zone to treat, leaving a deformation of the landscape caused by the ground collapsing when methane is released. Beside, methane produces electricity and charges batteries that will enlight small light devices when the structures are moved. Lighting devices in the landscape become the witness of methane treatment. The flame creates an “air field”, a virtual architectural space in between the flames driven by a temperature landscape. CH4 structures vaporize water through micro-nozzles generating a micro-climat humid and hot. When the density of the structures increase, the atmosphere around the flames is similar to a steam room. The installation becomes a living experience of global warming.

Supported by Nora Graw Konrad Hofmann Workshops with Pep Bou Mara Sylvester Nicola Combe (Buro Happold) Mark Dawson (Buro Happold) Alasdair Young (Buro Happold) Ben Morris (Vector Foiltec) Thanks to Jeremy Rifkin (The Foundation of Economic Trends) Thomas Koetz (EU) Joan Fericgla (BAF) Victor Llanos (Cloud 9) Marga Ruiz (Cloud 9) Marta Arranz (Cloud 9) Mila Moskalenko (Cloud 9) Mireia Pallarés (Cloud 9) Victor Molina Alegre (Cloud 9) Action Plan in India Gregor Von Medeazza (Unicef) Aidan Cronin (Unicef) SN Srinavas (UNDP) Murali Kallur (RarePlanet) Faiyaz A Kushdsar Guest Critics Alisa Andrasek Javier Castañón Mike Cook Xavier de Kestelier Catherine Greig Ben Morris Marco Poletto Nazaneen Shafaie Thedore Spyropoulos Brett Steele Charles Walker Alasdair Young

AA at BCN
DIPLOMA UNIT 18: ENERGY ATTACK / ARCHITECTURE THIRD INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION
Enric Ruiz Geli, Edouard Cabay, Nora Graw

Diploma 18 embraces the realities of an era referred to by American economist Jeremy Rifkin as the ‘Third Industrial Revolution’, and one defined by new forms of transportation, construction and energy. Over the year we have actively engaged architecture within the reality of its environmental condition, and have followed the macro trend of GGG (Global Green Growth), with a particular empathy towards science, human and nature.

• Agnes Mun Khwan Yit
  Re-edge the ice
• 
  Alina Beissenova
  The Walker
• 
  Danecia Sibingo
  Swarm Ice Attack
• 
  Joo Hyun Cho
  Green Growth Architecture
• 
  Kasang Kajang
  H2KWO
• 
  Sung Kwon Jung
  Hydro Bank

Each of the thesis projects produced this year are defined by the exploration of energy technologies that engage with a series of current conflicts produced by global warming and that trigger speculative scenarios based on the following queries:

• _How do we confront the death of richness of species in the Mediterranean?
• _Can we contain a hurricane crossing the Caribbean?
• _How do we reconnect the natural environment and rivers back to the city of Taipei?
• _Can we reactivate the oasis of Bahrain and fill the aquifer beds?
• _How do we prevent the Antarctic ice habitat from melting?
• _Can we capture the methane emitted by the Mongolian landscape?

We understand the proposals as architecture of particles as a result of its local environmental and cultural influences. Theses position themselves between science and fiction, and create visionary scenarios that attempt to provoke a consciousness by a debate on the scale of intervention in relation to the scale of physical and social phenomenas reaching up to the size of countries, continents and oceans, while contemplating not just the immediate present but projecting forward through decades into a distant future.

Our solutions develop large-scale interventions as performative membrane structures that not only imply minimizing mass, material and energy but also emit an ephemeral quality through their adaptability.

Thesises are developed as distributed strategies that adress the system logics, its driving energies, benefit and instant action of the proposal communicating an educational sensibility. The ongoing mission of Diploma 18 is to operate as a green architectural laboratory, with students acting as its activists.

UNIT MASTERS

Enric Ruiz Geli, Edouard Cabay, Nora Graw

STUDENTS

Agnes Mun Khwan Yit, Chi Sung Lee, Eugene Duck Jong, LeeZhuobin He, Alina Beissenova, Danecia Sibingo, Gideon Alcantara, Joo Hyun Cho, Kasang Kajang, Sung Kwon Jung, Valeria Garcia

DIGITAL TECHNIQUES

Eduardo McIntosh

WORKSHOPS

Pep Bou, Mara Sylvester

ENVIRONMENTAL DESIGNSTRATEGIES

Tecnalia Corporación Tecnológica, Vector Foiltec

GUEST CRITICS

Alisa Andrasek, Barbara Campbell-Lange, Brett Steele, Charles Tashima, Didier Faustino, Giles Bruce, Javier Peña, Kate Davies, Marco Poletto, Marta Male, AlemanyStefano Rabolli, Thomas Koetz, Adrian Priest

THANKS TO

Francisco Rodriguez, Konrad Hofmann, Luis Pedrosa, Mike Weinstock, Javier Castanon

The Diploma Unit 18 would like to thank all colleagues and friends at the Architectural Association for a lively debate with critical comments and encouraging remarks.