Early this year, I was invited with some colleagues to San Francisco to test a new technology called FLUX.IO. The idea behind flux is quite smart: You design a building using parametric tools and coding, like Grasshopper, Dynamo or GenerativeComponents. Instead to save your model and “code” in your... more...

Este año tuve la oportunidad de enseñar durante dos semanas en la Facultad de Arquitectura de la Universidad de Talca en Talca. Fue una experiencia interesante porque era la primera vez que enseñaba en Sudamérica y sobre todo porque Chile es mi País. Cuando surgió la oportunidad, pensé que sería u... more...

Cezemat (Centrum Zaawansowanych Materiałów i Technologii) organized a design competition in 2011 for his new laboratory in Warsawa. IDOM made a proposal composed in 3 building blocks. One building for parking, the second building for administration and the third for laboratory-research. Between the... more...

The past year, I was involved in a design project to refurbish a mid 50's government office building. The project scope included: The structure, the interior design, the MEP system and the facade. The building facade was made by concrete prefabricated panels, distributed in a regular grid. Since the... more...

Emergence is a natural system characteristic. The agents interaction in the system are difficult to understand. We are able to understand the initial rules because they are clear defined, for example if we have 3 live agents, the closest agent to the right will die. At the end of the process, the ou... more...

In the most basic form, a complex system is based in a large number of simple agents self-organized. Without the benefit of any central controller. The complex system works as a collective whole with the capability to create patterns. In some cases take advantage of information to learn and evolve.... more...

One of the main problems in the AEC industry is the HVAC consumption in buildings. The reasons varies why it is necessary reduce the energy consumption. There are clear economic reasons, because a good energy consumption strategy could drive in reduce energy costs and impact in financial cost saving... more...

Space layout plan is a time consuming complex task yet for experienced professionals. There are many strategies to face this challenge: Define the corridors first and distribute the spaces around them. Define big surface areas to subdivide in the spaces later. No matter, which approach is taken, all... more...

An urban centre is an open system involved almost an infinite number of parameters looking the right balance. It's no coincidence cities have the same problems: Traffic jams, Pollution, Crime and Terrorism, Resource management, Etc. Resolve problems in complex systems is not a matter of luck and... more...

Genetic algorithms performs highly efficient when all the parameters are connected, and is not possible to maximize one value without affect the others. For this experiment a GA is used as a design exploration tool. A binary list 1,0,1,0,0,0,1 represent a series of cubes stacked together to create... more...