After two years of focusing on the exploration of global warming related to problematic scenarios, Diploma 18 took this year to dive into the exceptional ecosystem of the Galapagos Islands. This environment, where nature dominates, served our unit as a live laboratory for studying an apparently virgin system. To work in this context, the unit explored the lightest buildings to date, gaining knowledge of membrane materials and inflatable structures, which allowed 

us to delve into science and fiction. This extended our long-term relationship with artist Pep Bou, who exposed us to the world of bubbles, form, ephemerality and ambient conditions of humidity or light while examining the phenomenon of physics. We also studied computational dynamics that mimic and simulate animal behaviours of local species in the lead up to our visit to the Galapagos. The expedition to the archipelago was an occasion for us to understand a context that lives according to the rhythms of nature, but is thoroughly organised as an ecosystem in which man is irremediably implicated through political dynamics, social actions, scientific research and environmental threats. 

The projects that unfold from this confront the Galapagos and other regions of the world. They propose empathic solutions from infrastructural to molecular scale, and they attempt to raise a green consciousness in architecture.

 

Protocol Island – learning from animal species and their self-sufficient character

Light Trails – an exploration of coastal maritime environments that target illegal fishing

@ekwti – an empathic attack on the urban fabric of Kuwait propagated on Instagram the Schizophonic Retreats – explorations into the materiality of sound

Scavenging Celebration – a shift in organisation of communities of the River Citarum Cloud Inhabitant – acoustic condensation system in Peru 

Galapagoisation – artificial aerial river for the Galapagos Islands 

Degrowth Industry – shifting electromagnetism, facilitating ecological rehabilitation

Educating in Nature – a new pedagogical model that instrumentalises nature

 

Unit Staff

Enric Ruiz Geli

Edouard Cabay

 

Pablo Ros

 

Workshops with

Pep Bou

Mara Sylvester

Thomas Koetz

 

Guest Critics

Nuria Alvarez Lombardero

Alisa Andrasek

Peter Karl Becher

Eric de Broche

des Combes

Francisco Gonzalez de Canales

Javier Castañón

Ray Hall

Ali Mangera

Nacho Martí

Jesús de la Quintana

Areti Markopoulou

Adrian Priest

Theodore Spyropoulos

Brett Steele

Marco Vanucci

 

Ada Yvars