Air Architecture

This UPM International Summer School course converges upon the possibilities contained in air structures and artifacts to enable alternative ways of social interaction and urban activation. While urbanity is typically defined by hard and heavy matter placed in space, the activation of that space depends just on the contingency it contains; on the events that happen inside. Our aim is to activate ultra light material by enclosing air or other gases within its boundaries. This gas can take the form of helium or heated air, which has a lower density than the atmospheric air surrounding the membrane. This physical principle will make the structure float in the air, providing a new space between the ground and itself for social interaction.

Course leader

Isabel Collado & Ignacio Peydro

Target group

Bachelor-, master- or doctoral-level architecture, interior architecture or engineering students or future students or people from another background that are interested in this topic.

Course aim

Understand the creation of living spaces through air or gas, design, research and make with “air” – or another gas – through an experimental workshop, develop skills in this type of tectonic production through prototyping thanks to the simplicity of production and the economy of materials, create a habitable human-scale structure

Fee info

EUR 1400: Course tuition fees and weekend activities

Scholarships

Students who register before 29 February will be charged a discounted rate.