7 - 17 luglio 2012, Milano >[deadline: 23/06/2012]
The Architectural Association (AA) will conduct a summer school set within the emergent bio-farming network on the outskirts of Milan, site of the 2015 World Expo. ‘Cyber-GARDENing the city’ proposes a new form of bio-architectural design laboratory where multiple growing practices are explored as the means to critically assess the future of urban agriculture and its potential to evolve into new bio-architectural landscapes and radical urban lifestyles. The teaching model of the lab is grounded in the experimental tradition of the AA and the design philosophy of ecoLogicStudio, who will run the workshop. Set within the emergent bio-farming network on the outskirts of Milan, our first productive atelier will embark on a series of ‘growing’ experiments inspired by the achievements of the Slow Food movement, but radicalising its efforts through the deliberate crosscontamination of the traditional and the futuristic, the natural and the bio-engineered. Aspiring cyber-gardeners will be able to explore and invent new hybrid design practices by combining digital growth simulations with biological sensing, robotic actuation with hydroponic cultivation, and cutting-edge rapid prototyping with traditional crochet. These bio-architectural playgrounds will materialise as 1:1 prototypical spaces embedded with biological life, sensing and actuating potential and digital computational power. The workshop will be supported by a series of seminars, growing sessions with invited specialists, and dedicated algorithmic modelling and prototyping tutorials. Info: www.aaschool.ac.uk - www.ecologicstudio.com