Energy Attack Team: Architecture and the ‘Third Industrial Revolution’

Architecture is responsible for 40 per cent of the CO2 released into the atmosphere, making it the number one cause of global warming. Diploma 18 will engage with global warming in developing a body of research that transforms the architect’s role into that of an activist. We will take our cues from Jeremy Rifkin’s The Third Industrial Revolution, which defines four foundational pillars for a novel paradigm in the discipline of architecture: the use of renewable energies, understanding buildings as power plants, developing means of storing energy and the creation of a distributed energy system. The following ‘storage silos’ of a self-sustaining investigation will construct the core of a thesis that will be articulated in a book:

1. A collective case-study of a retrofitting project using the buildings of the AA, culminating in an intervention on the facade to project a particle animation of the energetic mechanisms of the school. The event will be supported by a lecture and book launch by Jeremy Rifkin.

2. Case studies of existing membrane structures will give us an understanding of the characteristics of lightness in large-scale architecture.

3. Experimentation with soap-film characteristics will extend our work with the artist Pep Bou in Madrid and in the studio.

4. Energy, CO2, methane, hurricanes, water, evaporation, pollution and materials are phenomena that occur dynamically at a particle scale. We understand architecture to be alive, and therefore we will animate at this particle scale using Maya.

Each student will be working on a UNlisted global warming scenario such as hurricane activity in the Caribbean, melting ice in Antarctica, loss of biodiversity in the Mediterranean Sea, methane emissions in Mongolia, mobility in large urban contexts, the damaged aquifer of Bahrain, water pollution in Taipei, etc. After exploring the scenario the student will draw up a strategy of action, defining an articulated infrastructural system that is not only scalable and distributed but shows an awareness of energy and context, as well as a policy for communication. Between technological and infrastructural innovation, lies empathy, the human quality that connects all human beings and encourages awareness of our environment. The unit proposes a researchbased agenda which will compel students to craft an independent position towards the environment through the building of knowledge and discoveries. Education is the future and the future is about a green consciousness.

We will benefit from the close support of a team of experts including architects Nora Graw and Konrad Hofmann and London-based engineering firm Buro Happold.

Unit Staff

Enric Ruiz Geli studied architecture in Barcelona. He founded Cloud 9 in 1997, an interdisciplinary architectural team in Barcelona that works on the interface between architecture and art, digital processes and technological material development.

Edouard Cabay graduated from the AA in 2005. He has worked for Foreign Office Architects and Anorak and is currently working with Cloud 9, where he runs various international projects.

Juliane Wolf is an architect and studied environmental design at the AA. She worked for Studio/Gang/ Architects and is co-founder of büro blickpunkt, a research team focusing on material expression and identity.