Location

MIT Media Lab, E15-359

Description

Imagine a wealthy Swiss asks you to build a 12-unit apartment building today – but according to the envisioned standards of climate change neutrality in 2050.
Architect Anton Falkeis will detail the many advances in materials, building, and network design that led to a truly "active building" that takes up the challenge posed by the philanthropist Peter Marxer. He will show his designs of a house that not only stretches its wings towards the sun and harvests interstellar radiation for cooling, but also interacts with its neighboring buildings and responds to the challenging environmental conditions of the Liechtenstein Alps.
Based on extensive research by "falkeis.architects I building innovation lab," this new type of "active building" is equipped with a solar-active movable building envelope; its load bearing structures were developed according to growth analogies, and optimized by biological algorithms; and Phase Change Materials (PCM) store and release large amounts of energy.

Biographies

Anton Falkeis is Professor of Special Topics in Architecture Design and Dean of the Institute of Arts and Society at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna, Austria. Together with Cornelia Falkeis-Senn he is co-founder of the "falkeis.architects I building innovation lab" in Liechtenstein and Austria. His work has been exhibited at the Venice Biennale, and at design exhibitions in Kuala Lumpur, New York, and Europe. Among his most prominent projects are: the Mauthausen Concentration Camp Memorial; the Museum and Documentation Center of Austrian Resistance; the Roof Labs at the University of Applied Arts Vienna; the Curhaus of St. Stephan’s Square; and the Active Energy Building.

Host/Chair: Katja Schechtner