Last Friday October 30th, BIArch held its first public seminar on the subject of “Energy” in the L’Entresol room of La Pedrera de Caixa Catalunya. The two-day seminar was divided into three sessions. The fist session featured lectures by Julio Martínez Calzón, Principal of MC2 Estudio de Ingeniería; Aleksandar Ivancic , coordinator of energy projects at Barcelona Regional; and a roundtable moderated by Lluís Ortega, partner at F451 Arquitectura, former director of Quaderns and Assistant Professor at the Harvard GSD. The session focused on the tensions between large- and small-scale conceptual and practical or infrastructural approaches to the harnessing and useof energetic resources –or between limits and limitlessness– and the challenges this tension poses to contemporary architectural practice.

Lluís Ortega

After a brief introduction by Agustí Obiol, founding parter of BOMA and BIArch Board of Directors member, Ortega set the tone for the evening by quoting a recent article from Volume magazine that denounces the ease with which the profession has adopted sustainability as a catchword and the subsequent superficiality of most of the debates surrounding energy and architecture. Following this underlying critical thread, the evening’s speakers emphasized the difficulty in grasping the concept of energy in all its complexity and understanding the multiple sides to the phenomena, as well as tracing a solid plan for action in terms of a balanced or efficient exploitation of energy resources.

Julio Martínez Calzón

Martínez Calzón presented an an overarching (practically epic) view on “The Formulation of Energy”, with the intention of establishing the reach of “energy” as a scientific and cosmological macroconcept (much like “matter”). Boasting an incredible synthetic capacity, he enlisted the numerous forms of energy, on both massive and micro scales, controllable and uncontrollable: from supernovae and colliding gallaxies, to monster hydrological projects in China and massive wind and solar power “energy farms” in southern Spain, to rather humble solutions for harnessing power such as photovoltaic balloons and seemingly DIY home geothermal energy kits. His point was clear: we are surrounded a vast array of untapped energy resources. Energy pervades everything: studying energy is studying life.

Alexsandar Ivancic

Bringing things down a notch but maintaining an overarching viewpoint, Aleksandar Ivancic chose a deceptively simple strategy of asking “9 +1 (General) Questions on Energy”. Ivancic’s questions (and answers) shed light on various subjects: the role that political interests (particularly on behalf of fossil-fuel companies) play in deterring radical, large-scale changes in energy policy; the absurdity of hoping that a single technological (magical) solution might revert the negative environmental impact of our current energy resource exploitation schemes, or that technological innovation alone might be the answer to our ongoing energy crises; the high costs of funding and developing alternative models; the slowness of change in dominant energy models and the impossibility of entirely “benign” energy sources. In short, wondering if the problem with energy isn’t really that it’s a scarce resource, but that our technical and social capacities for efficient and balanced use are limited.

Ivancic highlighted the problems with some of the alternatives mentioned by Martínez Calzón, explaining for instance that biomass was fundamentally a “topical” alternative, and it would take the surface equivalent of 3 medium-sized European countries dedicated exclusively to growing “energy crops” to cover around 9% of the continent’s energetic demand, or that providing electricity for Spain through solar power would require photovoltaic farms spanning twice the surface of Barcelona. (And who wants their city burried under photovoltaic umbrellas, anyway?) In the end, Ivancic proposed thinking of which could be the less problematic solution, or the alternative that could better adjust to both our energy and lifestyle requirements and our contemporary landscape conditions.

The roundtable discussion took the problem of scale as a point of departure. Ortega brought up the issue of network infrastructures, digital technologies and the impact they might have on energy models in the near future. Ivancic had declared himself somewhat reluctant to the idea of adopting network strategies in the context of energy infrastructures, but in the end the potential of network infrastructures and mobile technology as a link cross the large and small scales (through processes of decentralization, aggregation and mobility) was recognized. Still, numerous problematic questions remained regarding inequality –particularly in terms of geopolitics– hindering the adoption of more effective energetic strategies; the need for a widespread, informed conscience regarding sustainable practice as a vital compliment to technological advancement; and finally, the long, costly road ahead for the development and deployment of environmentally sound energy technologies, and the exploration of new scales (especially the micro or nano scales).

Next: Reviews of sessions 2 and 3 of BIArch’s “Energy” seminar.

Most of the catchwords associated with early 21st-century “green technologies” are tied to energy: biofuels, carbon neutrality, ecological footprints, microclimates, zero emissions, and so on. Despite the vagueness surrounding it, energy is no passing fad, and it cannot be taken lightly. We’ve seen Sydney turn red under billows of dust, ice caps melt, and entire cities drowned by storms in Southeast Asia and the coast of the Gulf of Mexico. Droughts and

temperature variations are gradually (radically) affecting entire ecosystems––and human life–around the planet. If the current economic crisis seems like the most pressing issue for architects at the moment, the advancing energy and climate crisis might be the most serious one in the long term.

BIArch’s forthcoming “Energy” seminar will challenge the more superficial and reductive takes on issues surrounding the relationship between architecture and energy, going beyond the limits of the discipline, bringing together a variety of perspectives from fields as diverse as civil and structural engineering, urban design, R+D, and technological innovation, with the purpose of offering a broad, comprehensive view of the what is at stake. The choice of theme was no coincidence: one of the research strands of BIArch’s Masters program is precisely Energy and Building Technologies.

The program for “Energy” also reflects BIArch’s aim of bridging professional practice and academic knowledge. The event will open to the public and will offer valuable insights from active, authoritative figures dealing with the subject of Energy in their everyday professional experiences and environments from different points of view, including conceptual approaches and more tangible notions of policy formulation, construction, building materials and structural design. For further details on the sessions and participants, please download the program for the event here.

BIArch’s activities kicked off with the Advisory Council Meeting earlier this year, under the premise of change in the practice and teaching of architecture in face of continuing economic strife. With “Energy”, BIArch reafirms its determination in generating debate and knowledge around issues that are crucial for the redirection of the profession.