Collserola park appears starkly from the sky as an island of green, surrounded on all sides by the sprawling Barcelona metropolitan area. The park has been accurately referred to as Barcelona’s “green lung”, and its dense forest has become home to a truly ambitious project in the realm of ecological architecture. Just as the natural park supplies the city with a vital supply of oxygen from its trees, the Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia’s (IAAC) Valldaura Labs and its Master in Advanced Ecological Buildings & Biocities (MAEBB) program have committed to supplying the knowledge of the forest to the urban environment through design. Completing construction on two full-scale houses in just two years, MAEBB has thoroughly embodied the spirit of learning-by-making, demonstrating the value of putting design research to the test with built works.

This year’s project, designed and built by the class of 2019-2020 and the Valldaura Labs team in under 5 months, was constructed entirely from wood harvested within a 1km radius of the Green Fabrication Laboratory. The design of the project happened entirely under quarantine conditions, and emerges as an architectural response to the ongoing crisis. Intended for use as a quarantine cabin, the house can accommodate one occupant for 14 days, providing all material needs during self isolation.

The Voxel (Ecohouse V02 Prototype), or volumetric pixel, is a 12 square metre cross-laminated timber (CLT) structure made of Aleppo Pine (Pinus halepensis) that was milled, dried, processed and pressed on site at Valldaura.

The harvesting of these trees corresponds to a sustainable forestry mandate calling for the removal of 3% biomass per year from the park, which encourages the growth of new oak trees to spur biodiversity. The project exudes a deep respect for wood and a connectedness to the physical process that transforms living trees within an ecosystem into architectural materials finally assembled into a house.

By establishing a relationship with every step of the manufacturing process, the final result appears cohesively convincing; an homage to the rigor and love that goes into manifesting a full scale prototype. The most impressive aspects of this project come into focus when considering the constraints of the construction process: the build season lasted just 10 short weeks with an extremely tight budget and while under strict quarantine restrictions, delivery disruptions, limited access to tools and outside help due to the ongoing covid-19 crisis.

To supply the raw materials of the project, 40 pine trees were harvested and cut into 3cm boards and stacked to dry for three months. After they reached the proper humidity level, each board was taken into the Valldaura Labs carpentry to be processed into hundreds of pine lamellae. Each Lamella was then encoded into a specific sequence, tagged and pressed into 30+ structural CLT panels which were assembled into a 3.6×3.6m cube.

In a feat of obsessive commitment to locality and understanding the material flows of architecture, every lamella of every panel was tracked and traced, ensuring that every single wooden element of the house can be accurately traced back to the point where the tree it came from once stood. The panels were held together metal-free with lap joints and wooden dowels, inspired by a commitment to use less carbon intensive materials. The structure was then wrapped in a layer of cork insulation and mounted with an innovative series of rainscreen panels made from waste material created during the CLT production process. While processing raw pine boards to get perfectly rectangular lamelle, the organic edge of the board usually goes to waste. By reimagining this linear cycle of material selection and disposal into a more circular form, these off-cuts were turned into a facade that showcases the organic complexity of the tree that is usually hidden in most wooden constructions.

By advancing the design a step further, each off-cut was parametrically organized into a gradient that corresponds to functions within the cabin. Certain sections of the skin also extrude away from the cabin corresponding to metabolic components like water tanks and an outdoor shower.

The roof of the cabin features a series of garden boxes with elaborate joints milled with computer-numerical-control (CNC) machinery (no screws, no glue), which hold a variety of local plants and funnel rainwater into a collection tank below.

Valldaura Labs is known for its interest in exploring the limits of self-sufficiency, trying to provide for all living needs without relying too heavily on importation of goods or services. The Voxel strives for a similar independence to achieve its program as a quarantine cabin, made possible by a comprehensively designed water-energy-waste scheme. The cabin is equipped with three solar panels and an independent battery storage, specifically designed to power the lighting and devices for a single resident.

The water system incorporates both rainwater collection and grey-water recycling, as well as black-water treatment within a self-contained biogas system that generates usable cooking or heating fuel and sanitary fertilizer as by-products.

Now that the construction is complete, The Voxel stands as visceral proof of a forthcoming advanced and ecological architectural paradigm that uses hyper local materials and non-industrialized techniques. If extrapolated forward into our uncertain future, the Voxel stands for what might be possible within a less wasteful, more intentional relationship to architectural production. The cabin exudes a care and concern for the metabolic processes of production that extend far beyond its mere 12sqm footprint, inspiring future designers to imbue their work with a respect for where their materials come from, and what lessons the ecosystems that produce them have to give us.

Year Completed: 2020

Duration: 4 months

Site(s): Valldaura Labs, Barcelona, Spain

Coordinates: 41.450209° N, 2.133474° E

Budget: 12.000€

Parent Program(s): Master in Advanced Ecological Buildings & Biocities (MAEBB)

Directors: Vicente Guallart, Daniel Ibañez

Operations Manager: Laia Pifarré

Academic Coordinator: Michael Salka

Designers (MAEBB Students): Alex Hadley, Anfisa Mishchenko, Sena Kocao?lu, Camille Garnier, Dania Aburouss, Ester Camps Bastida, Filippo Vegezzi, Giada Mirizzi, Juan Gabriel Secondo, Maitri Joy Uka, Camila Fajardo, Nathalie Botbol, Shreya Sharma, Yue Zhang, Zhiqian Liu, Rafael Abboud, Irene Rodriguez Perez

Sponsors: Saltoki, Miogás, Mausa, Distribució Sostenible, Bestiario, Henkel, Cork 2000, Tallfusta

Consultants: Oscar Aceves, Miquel Rodriguez, Jochen Scheerer, Elena Orte, Guillermo Sevillano, Eduardo Chamorro, David Valldeoriola, Miguel Nevado, Jordi Prat, Gustavo Escudero

Volunteers: Bruno Ganem, Luis Leveri, Akshay Mhamunkar, Daniel Nahmias, Layth Sidiq, Kya Kerner

Photography: Adrià Goula

The Ecohouse V01 Prototype (The Niu Haus) is the collective final project of the Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia’s (IAAC) 2018-2019 Master of Advanced Ecological Buildings program (MAEB). The program is an immersive experience of learning by living in which students engage with the complete seasonal cycle as residents for 11 months at Valldaura Labs, a XIX-century estate renovated to host domestic spaces, a studio and auditorium backed by permaculture facilities, a digital fabrication lab and carpentry workshop in the midst of the 8,000 hectare Collserola Natural Park yet just 10 km from Barcelona’s center. In the program’s 2018 – 2019 inaugural edition, 19 participants from 10 different countries spent 6 weeks designing and 8 weeks fabricating and assembling the Ecohouse V01 Prototype with the support, guidance and technical assistance of sponsors, specialists, consultants and instructors.

The Ecohouse V01 Prototype showcases many inclusive, innovative, environmentally aware and self-sufficient solutions, including: an integrative design, synthesizing inputs from across the diverse building cultures and systems of the international student body; a fully traceable primary structure, fabricated completely from zero km pine harvested from the Valldaura forest; translation of a low-tech, universally established shingling system into a morphologically responsive, materially optimized envelope using advanced computation and fabricated from zero km oak harvested from the Vallldaura forest; and fully off-grid and self-sufficient metabolic systems.

The Ecohouse V01 Prototype is thus a tiny house proposing many big ideas, including a more ecologically aware system of design, construction and lifestyle.

One of the significant factors in the design and construction of the Ecohouse V01 prototype is the conscious effort to reduce the building’s ecological footprint through intelligent solutions in material use, transport and production. The Ecohouse V01 Prototype team made advantageous use of a harvest of timber from the Valldaura forest to produce the structure and envelope. In addition to being 0 km materials, the design further reduces the ecological footprint by limiting the processing and production of materials to local sponsors or in-house production at the Valldaura Labs carpentry and fabrication facilities. The result is locally harvested, locally processed and internally produced timber pieces which are innately beautiful – both because of the valuable timber, but also because of the system through which they were produced. Furthermore, each structural piece can be traced back to the exact location and specimen of tree it originated from. An engraved QR code displays this information to the user, in addition to the amount of energy and carbon the piece embodies.

The Ecohouse V01 Prototype privileges a fully off-grid energy system, powered by 4 PV panels with a combined capacity of 1200 watts. A dry toilet that composts waste with a cultivated microbiome is showcased for the first time in this project. The Ecohouse V01 Prototype also collects rainwater in a 10,000 liter built-in tank and reuses grey-water to irrigate a small garden. Conditioning is achieved passively by stack and cross ventilation in summer or by a wood-burning stove in winter. The ventilated facade further aids conditioning and provides cavity space for recycled cotton insulation, recycled paper and natural rubber membranes as well as metabolic installations, freeing the interior for comfortable habitation. All of these elements together ensure integrated, self-sustainable performance that can last up to 14 days without resupplying water or 4 days without sun.

Potential alterations to this system-based design were preconceived to allow for adaptations regarding local stipulations and client preferences.

Every aspect of Ecohouse V01 Prototype produces information that can be analyzed and benefitted from. The entire home is designed for the dweller to learn and better connect with their place of living and the surrounding environment.

Year Completed: 2019

Duration: 3 months

Site(s): Valldaura Labs, Barcelona, Spain

Coordinates: 41.450209° N, 2.133474° E

Budget: 20.000€

Parent Program(s): Master in Advanced Ecological Buildings (MAEB)

Awards: Bronze Prize in Architectural Design from the Design That Educates Awards 2020, Honorable Mention from the Bee Breeders Microhome 2019 Competition

Directors: Vicente Guallart, Daniel Ibañez

Project Manager: Michael Salka

Operations Manager: Laia Pifarré

Academic Coordinator: Marziah Zad

Construction Administrators: Daniel Ibañez, Marziah Zad, Michael Salka

Digital Fabrication & Prototyping Strategies: Nicolò Gnecchi

Designers (MAEB Students): Pilar Aguirre, Giulia Astrachan, Jesús Bueno Anguita, Julianna Carmona, Vincent Charlebois, Chen Yu-Wen, Chiang Yu-Ching, Pablo Corroto Pradillo, Nour El Kamali, Elisabet Fàbrega R. Roda, Kevin Matar, Qiao Liang, Jorge Luis Morales Fernández, Sinéad Nicholson, Michael Salka, Tian Yuanpei, Yu Zhipeng, Zhang Jie, Zu Heran

Sponsors: Visoren, Tallfusta, Saltoki, Premapreta, Distribució Sostenible, Alter-Entorn, Saneseco, Santa & Cole, Noumena, Mausa, Philips

Consultants: Oscar Aceves, Miquel Rodriguez, Jochen Scheerer, Luis Casado, Gustavo Torralbo, Laura Halminen, Nicu Pribago, Guillem Camprodon, Rodrigo Aguirre, Luis Sola, Gustavo Abreu

Valldaura Labs Staff & Faculty: Laia Pifarré, Marziah Zad, Nicolò Gnecchi, Jonathan Minchin, Jose Antonio Riosalido, Xavier Molons, Jordi Ubach, Francesc Val

IAAC Fablab Staff: Mikel Llobera, Ricardo Valbuena, Alaa Al Baroudi

Volunteers: Chelsea Sherman, Seçil Afs?ar, Pan Youjian, Tristan Copley,

Banjaman Scatt, Rutvij Patha, Alejandro Caballero, Demi Pradolin, Judy Mahfouz, Alec Nicholson

Photography: Chelsea Sherman, Adrià Goula

Website: https://niu-haus.com/

Supported by the Europe Forest Institute (EFI) and in collaboration with a number of organizations throughout Europe and beyond, Valldaura Labs has begun co-authoring the Green Book of Biocities, a seminal text which will define the new paradigm of Biocities and the key strategies to make them a reality.

By synthesizing inputs from stakeholders and all of the organizations involved – whose expertise span from sustainable forest management to agriculture, circular/bio-economics, health, ecology, nature-based solutions, social issues, architecture, urbanism and policy making – the ambition of the Green Book is to arrive at a consensus regarding the definition of Biocities which holistically incorporates all of these vital components.
The Green Book begins from the deceptively simple premise that Biocities are cities that follow the principles of natural systems to promote life.

Proceeding to the recognition that humans lived in harmony with nature for centuries prior to the industrial revolution and the widespread use of greenhouse-gas emitting fossil fuels; that the forms and functions of cities have historically evolved in direct response to the primary challenges faced by civilization during the era of their development; that cities now account for 75% of global greenhouse-gas emissions*; and that the human population is projected to increase by 2 billion majority urban individuals by 2050; the Green Book then acknowledges that a fundamental re-naturalization of the urban model is necessary both for existing cities and those destined to be built or expanded across the world if we’re to maintain any reasonable expectation of mitigating the most disastrous effects of global climate change.

The Green Book will be published in 2022, and will make clear how the technologies and knowledge available today can most effectively address these challenges, as well as which technologies and knowledge we must prioritize advancing.

Year Completed: 2021

Duration: 1 year

Budget: 200.000€

Project Coordinator(s): Giuseppe Scarascia-Mugnozza, Stefano Boeri (SISEF)

IAAC Project Managers: Vicente Guallart, Michael Salka

Partner Organizations: Italian Society of Silviculture and Forest Ecology (SISEF), Norwegian Institute of Bioeconomy Research (NIBIO), Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU), Croatian Forest Research Institute (CFRI), Public Interest Group on Forest Ecosystems (ECOFOR), KU Leuven (KULEUVEN), University of Hong Kong (HKU), Institute for Global Health Barcelona (ISGLOBAL), Humboldt Universität zu Berlin (HUB-GD), Politecnico di Milano (POLIMI), UK Forest Research (UKFR)

Stakeholder/Expert Panel Organizations: Food and Agriculture Organization of United Nations (FAO), Chinese Academy of Forestry (CAF-RIF), BOS+ More than Just Trees (BOS+), Area Metropolitana de Barcelona (AMB), Comune/Città Metropolitana di Bari (BARI), Urban Next/Actar Publisher (ACTAR), Secretaria Distrital de Ambiente Bogota (SDAB), TURENSCAPE Co. Ltd. (TUSC), University of Florence (DISIT), Sapienza University (PA-Rome), University of Sheffield (UNIS_LAND), ETIFOR, United States Department of Agriculture Forest Service (USDA-FS), RUDN University (RUDN)

Funding Organization: European Forest Institute (EFI)

COACT is an environmental technology accelerator and innovation hub, supporting the development of early-stage solutions to the world‘s most pressing ecological and climate-related challenges. COACT was founded by a group of climate technology enthusiasts, makers and successful entrepreneurs sharing a vision for technology that serves a purpose beyond profit. COACT focuses on innovative technologies in areas that have a high impact on mitigating climate change, including: reforestation; agriculture and food supply chains; ecosystem conservation; and the circular economy. COACT believes that the use of technology has separated us from nature and destabilised the balance of our climate. Therefore technology must find a new purpose; to repair our natural systems, help life to thrive, and to connect as many humans as possible to the processes of change. If short-sighted technology helped cause this dilemma, far-sighted technology can help fix it.

COACT’s incubation lab is located at IAAC’s Valldaura Campus in the hills 10 kilometres from downtown Barcelona, surrounded by 130 hectares of forest. Among the trees and state of the art prototyping tools, COACT invites participation by everyone from makers and software hackers to scientists and self-taught engineers; forming a diverse community of innovators from all around the globe. COACT provides space, lab access and customized mentorship to resident entrepreneurs and innovators, with the goal of offering all the tools and support necessary to develop radical solutions to the challenges facing our planet.

COACT appreciates that solutions come from a variety of different people, places, and organisational structures. Therefore COACT’s relationships with innovators are flexible and evolving. Unlike conventional accelerators, COACT maximizes impact over profit and is activating a community of change-makers for support. COACT’s most urgent purpose is to heal the damage we have caused our biosphere and our climate. Thus, COACT looks for innovators that share this vision, and are actively working on early to mid-stage technologies solving urgent environmental challenges in our focus verticals.

THE SPACE
The Valldaura campus, a renovated monastery, sits 20 minutes from the center of Barcelona set in 130 hectares of forest. Facilities include a FabLab, wood shop, a permaculture farm and biological science station to meet a wide range of green tech development needs.

ABOUT LIVING
COACT offers on site catering and accommodation for our innovators, allowing full project immersion during our incubation programs. Beautiful common spaces, bathrooms, and communal dining areas will meet the living needs of our innovators.

THE LAB
Residents can expect full access to a world class Green Fab Lab, a unique node in the global network of Fab Lab. Equipment includes full scale and desktop CNC mills, large and mid size laser cutters, 3D printers, electronics soldering station, and a biological science station.

THE WOOD SHOP
Not every problem demands a hi-tech solution. The hands-on wood shop provides tools & craft for low tech designs. Since the lab is based in the forest, prototyping materials for the wood shop can often be harvested zero kilometres from the work space.

Year Established: 2019

Duration: Ongoing

Site: Valldaura Labs, Barcelona, Spain

Project Coordinator(s): Tristan Copley-Smith (COACT), Jana Brauch (COACT)

Valldaura Labs Director: Vicente Guallart

IAAC Project Manager: Jonathan Minchin

Green Fab Lab Manager / Technical Coordinator: Michael Salka

Website: https://www.coactlab.org/