IE School of Architecture & Design Newsletter - February 2022

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time to focus on

ECOSYSTEMS

In order to unearth the ancient hillocks of Tikal in Guatemala, archeologists have had to fight nature - removing trees, vegetation and soil - in their attempt to uncover an artifact of human culture. On the other hand, over in Miami-Dade County, Florida, aged human artifacts-sunken underwater - vessels, oil platforms and military tanks - have formed astonishing ‘artificial reefs’, giving rise to new natural ecosystems.

Each case represents a different approach to the relationship between non-human nature and human culture. While the first establishes a clear difference between the two, the second creates a hybrid, symbiotic relationship. 

These two examples remind us that a building’s life cycle does not start with construction, but with the raw materials and resources needed to create and transport all its component parts. Although buildings are created by human culture, they were also once part of nature. Our built environment is therefore an ecosystem that should not choose between the human result or the non-human natural, beginnings, but rather be understood as a hybrid between both. 

In his provocative book ‘The World Without Us’ (2007), Alan Weisman describes a future in which all traces of humankind gradually vanish. Infrastructures will collapse without human maintenance, while trees, vegetation and wild animals retake the streets. Beyond Weisman's catastrophic vision lies an ecological call - the unstoppable return of nature.

But rather than fighting against nature, as archeologists did in the Mayan ruins, it is possible to think of architecture more like artificial reefs, which create hybrid ecosystems by opening paths within human culture for water, soil, moss, vegetation, insects and birds. When we see our built environment as part of an ongoing and evolving ecosystem, we will be a step closer to a sustainable and positive relationship between non-human nature and our human activities.

Manuel Pérez Romero

Chair of the Center for Sustainable Cities,

IE School of Architecture and Design

Shine bright:

Exhibition puts lamp

design in the spotlight

Whether on the floor, the ceiling or the table, lighting design to illuminate our interiors has long captured the attention of the great masters of design. From Italian brothers Achille and Pier Giacomo Castiglioni’s ‘Arco’ lamp to Danish architect Poul Henningsen’s ‘Artichoke’ lamp, leading designers everywhere have channeled their creativity into these everyday objects that have illuminated our homes throughout the last century. 

Lamps formed the central concept of an exhibition of new works by IE School of Architecture and Design’s first-year design students that took place at Segovia’s Real Casa de la Moneda, presenting a journey through the diverse types, sizes and materials of these enduring and constantly evolving pieces of lighting design. 

According to faculty member Andrea Caruso, co-founder of Ciszak Dalmas, who led the students in this design process, “lamps combine different requirements together, such as being structural, safe, pleasant, adjustable and multi-purpose.” While they may seem obvious characteristics from an end-user point of view, Caruso says this logic behind a well-designed product is something that aspiring designers must learn by doing.

New Master in Architecture: Stepping into professional practice

Professional licensure in architecture is granted upon successful completion of a Master in Architecture degree in Spain. IE School of Architecture and Design is pleased to announce that the application process is now open for candidates who wish to join an accredited program taught in English and with the participation of outstanding international faculty, including Ben van Berkel, renowned architect of Amsterdam-based UNStudio, who serves as Thesis Chair.

Commencing in January 2023, the program consists of three elements: an intensive architectural design and building construction studio, based on sustainable technologies and architectural strategies; the design management module, which builds on our legacy of excellence in entrepreneurial thinking; and the thesis project. This program is open to all students with a five-year undergraduate architectural studies degree fom an accredited Spanish university, while those with a comparable degree from other countries can also gain access through a series of custom-made courses.

"This is the degree that makes you an architect in Spain, and, by extension, the European Union," explains David Goodman, Associate Dean of IE School of Architecture and Design. "It's also a way to open yourself up to international practice, to gain expertise about the business of architecture and to dig your hands into new technologies. The key thing is that you should want to redefine architectural practice and open doors to be able to work internationally."

Emerging from uncertainty: Interior design for a flexible future

Whether staying at home to reduce infection risk or thinking twice about the indoor areas in which to socialize, interior spaces have taken on new meaning during the pandemic. The design of these spaces is therefore more crucial than ever to creating thriving environments, whether at home, at work or in public places. Hybrid working patterns mean companies of all sizes need new, flexible interior design solutions, argues Julia Mingorance, senior consultant at real estate firm CBRE and alumna of our Master in Strategic Interior Design. Such ‘flex models’ confront the uncertainty of the pandemic with agility, with design solutions responding to workers’ current needs, allowing for combinations of physical and digital presence and offering safe environments focused on well-being. “Organizations are evolving organisms,” says Mingorance, “and therefore require a space that is a dynamic, flexible ecosystem.”

This urban life:

Five trends to watch

in 2022

With 68% of the world’s population expected to reside in cities by 2050, the global significance of the daily urban experience is constantly increasing. According to Cristina Mateo, Associate Dean of IE School of Architecture and Design, there are five key issues that we can expect to see shaping urban life in 2022. These range from evolution of the office environment into a symbolic space for interaction and belonging, to the growing distrust of algorithms and artificial intelligence systems, which poses a challenge to smart city projects and other new urban models that rely on data gathering, biometrics and surveillance. Mateo believes that designers and architects are not simply subject to these forces - rather, they play an active role in driving them. “Our built environments shape us but we have a hand in shaping them too,” she says. “We are not only the inhabitants of our urban areas but the creators.” 

Lilly Reich and the Barcelona Pavilion:

Invisibilization of women in architecture

The Barcelona Pavilion, built for the city’s 1929 EXPO and still considered a masterpiece of modernist architecture, was designed by German architects Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Lilly Reich - but new research by Laura Martínez de Guereñu, associate professor at IE School of Architecture and Design, argues that Reich was not given due credit as a co-creator. Awarded the first Lilly Reich Grant for equality in architecture, Martínez de Guereñu set out to illustrate how the erasure of Reich’s name from the crediting of the Pavilion - and therefore from the historiography of architecture - indicated the levels of gender bias in the architectural field at the time, resulting in the invisibilization of many leading female figures. The article, published in the Grey Room journal, is a prompt to consider the injustices women still face in the architectural field today. “We are in a much better position now of course,” says the author, “but still there is a path to navigate.”

Beyond Scale:

Ben van Berkel

February 9, 6pm CET

IE Tower and Online

Although cities have often been criticized for a lack of neighborliness, “enforced distancing has in fact highlighted our innate need for human contact and our drive to care for each other,” said architect Ben Van Berkel in an interview with designboom. Van Berkel’s Amsterdam-based practice UNStudio is known for its work from master planning and large-scale projects for transportation to adaptable furniture systems. They also recently unveiled plans to design a high-tech ‘10 minute city’ in Seoul, transforming an old, 125-acre industrial site into an interconnected, ‘smart’ neighborhood. Ben van Berkel will lecture in Madrid (and online) for our Beyond Scale public lecture series, where he’ll be discussing community-building, placemaking and connectedness as essential facets of design as well as of human health and wellbeing.  

Beyond Scale:

Christian Kerez

February 25, 1pm CET

IE Segovia and Online

Stepping inside the Bahrain Pavilion currently on view at EXPO 2020 in Dubai, the visitor weaves through a network of over a hundred 24m-high steel columns that hold up the structure. Designed by Swiss architect Christian Kerez, this spatial experience urges audiences to consider the future possibility of building in a densely populated world. Kerez, whose architectural practice is based in Zurich and Berlin, challenges pre-established assumptions about structural morphology and their role in the spatial organization of a building. His work questions scale, through structural systems whose elements seem to be in unstable balance. In his upcoming talk, part of our Beyond Scale special lecture series, Kerez joins us to shed light on his approach to form, space and structure. 

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