Nicely executed

books:


	• Self-Sufficient Housing: 1st Advanced Architecture Contest Lucas Capelli, Vicente Guallart Actar, 2006 - 384 pages average customer review:based on 1 review view larger image
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Nicely executed

This hand-sized publication chronicles the results of the 1st Advanced Architecture Contest sponsored by the Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia (IAAC). With the goal of stimulating social, technical and cultural progress, the international competition's intention was to be a precursor to more extensive research to be performed at the IAAC on the theme of the Self-Sufficient House.

As you can imagine, attracting 529 participants from 6 continents, the entries demonstrate an impressive diversity of ideas and development. The editors managed to locate each entry ideologically within the eight categories of 'Bio and Bug', 'Blow and Form', 'Common and Related', 'Modulated and Cost', 'Position and Site', 'Territorial and Community', 'Theory' and 'Wrapped'. Admittedly, the categories are nebulous at times and this may be due partly to the fact that many entries simply straddle multiple ideas and defy categorization.

The format and layout is easy-to-use and predictable with each entry presented on two pages with several entries earning additional pages where warranted. What is impressive about the work as a whole is the level of sophistication of the majority of the entries. Some are very diagrammatically and ideologically well-developed while others delve into the reality of the assembly and fabrication of the proposed systems. Because of the compact size of the publication and limited pages dedicated to each work, you sometimes get the impression that you're not seeing the entire picture as it relates to each work individually.

There are a wealth of ideas to be discovered here and IAAC should be commended on the quality of their dissemination of the information. Now, if only all competitions resulted in similar publications.

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The Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia (IAAC) presents a detailed selection of entries presented during its 1st Advanced Architecture Contest: Self-Sufficient Housing. Created for students and professionals to inspire changes in how new buildings are designed and constructed, the Self-Sufficient competition challenged participants to design a self-sufficient and ecologically oriented dwelling. In the early 20th century, the concept of dwelling was defined as a machine for living," a reference to a new way of understanding the construction of inhabitable spaces that characterized the Machine Age. Today, a century later, we face the challenge of constructing a sustainable or self-sufficient dwelling, a living organism that interacts with its environment, exchanging resources, and which functions as an entirely independent entity. The Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia (IAAC) has collected a selection of entries presented during its 1st Advanced Architecture Contest: Self-Sufficient Housing.

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