Supported by the Europe Forest Institute (EFI) and in collaboration with a number of organizations throughout Europe and beyond, Valldaura Labs has begun co-authoring the Green Book of Biocities, a seminal text which will define the new paradigm of Biocities and the key strategies to make them a reality.

By synthesizing inputs from stakeholders and all of the organizations involved – whose expertise span from sustainable forest management to agriculture, circular/bio-economics, health, ecology, nature-based solutions, social issues, architecture, urbanism and policy making – the ambition of the Green Book is to arrive at a consensus regarding the definition of Biocities which holistically incorporates all of these vital components.
The Green Book begins from the deceptively simple premise that Biocities are cities that follow the principles of natural systems to promote life.

Proceeding to the recognition that humans lived in harmony with nature for centuries prior to the industrial revolution and the widespread use of greenhouse-gas emitting fossil fuels; that the forms and functions of cities have historically evolved in direct response to the primary challenges faced by civilization during the era of their development; that cities now account for 75% of global greenhouse-gas emissions*; and that the human population is projected to increase by 2 billion majority urban individuals by 2050; the Green Book then acknowledges that a fundamental re-naturalization of the urban model is necessary both for existing cities and those destined to be built or expanded across the world if we’re to maintain any reasonable expectation of mitigating the most disastrous effects of global climate change.

The Green Book will be published in 2022, and will make clear how the technologies and knowledge available today can most effectively address these challenges, as well as which technologies and knowledge we must prioritize advancing.

Year Completed: 2021

Duration: 1 year

Budget: 200.000€

Project Coordinator(s): Giuseppe Scarascia-Mugnozza, Stefano Boeri (SISEF)

IAAC Project Managers: Vicente Guallart, Michael Salka

Partner Organizations: Italian Society of Silviculture and Forest Ecology (SISEF), Norwegian Institute of Bioeconomy Research (NIBIO), Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU), Croatian Forest Research Institute (CFRI), Public Interest Group on Forest Ecosystems (ECOFOR), KU Leuven (KULEUVEN), University of Hong Kong (HKU), Institute for Global Health Barcelona (ISGLOBAL), Humboldt Universität zu Berlin (HUB-GD), Politecnico di Milano (POLIMI), UK Forest Research (UKFR)

Stakeholder/Expert Panel Organizations: Food and Agriculture Organization of United Nations (FAO), Chinese Academy of Forestry (CAF-RIF), BOS+ More than Just Trees (BOS+), Area Metropolitana de Barcelona (AMB), Comune/Città Metropolitana di Bari (BARI), Urban Next/Actar Publisher (ACTAR), Secretaria Distrital de Ambiente Bogota (SDAB), TURENSCAPE Co. Ltd. (TUSC), University of Florence (DISIT), Sapienza University (PA-Rome), University of Sheffield (UNIS_LAND), ETIFOR, United States Department of Agriculture Forest Service (USDA-FS), RUDN University (RUDN)

Funding Organization: European Forest Institute (EFI)

COACT is an environmental technology accelerator and innovation hub, supporting the development of early-stage solutions to the world‘s most pressing ecological and climate-related challenges. COACT was founded by a group of climate technology enthusiasts, makers and successful entrepreneurs sharing a vision for technology that serves a purpose beyond profit. COACT focuses on innovative technologies in areas that have a high impact on mitigating climate change, including: reforestation; agriculture and food supply chains; ecosystem conservation; and the circular economy. COACT believes that the use of technology has separated us from nature and destabilised the balance of our climate. Therefore technology must find a new purpose; to repair our natural systems, help life to thrive, and to connect as many humans as possible to the processes of change. If short-sighted technology helped cause this dilemma, far-sighted technology can help fix it.

COACT’s incubation lab is located at IAAC’s Valldaura Campus in the hills 10 kilometres from downtown Barcelona, surrounded by 130 hectares of forest. Among the trees and state of the art prototyping tools, COACT invites participation by everyone from makers and software hackers to scientists and self-taught engineers; forming a diverse community of innovators from all around the globe. COACT provides space, lab access and customized mentorship to resident entrepreneurs and innovators, with the goal of offering all the tools and support necessary to develop radical solutions to the challenges facing our planet.

COACT appreciates that solutions come from a variety of different people, places, and organisational structures. Therefore COACT’s relationships with innovators are flexible and evolving. Unlike conventional accelerators, COACT maximizes impact over profit and is activating a community of change-makers for support. COACT’s most urgent purpose is to heal the damage we have caused our biosphere and our climate. Thus, COACT looks for innovators that share this vision, and are actively working on early to mid-stage technologies solving urgent environmental challenges in our focus verticals.

THE SPACE
The Valldaura campus, a renovated monastery, sits 20 minutes from the center of Barcelona set in 130 hectares of forest. Facilities include a FabLab, wood shop, a permaculture farm and biological science station to meet a wide range of green tech development needs.

ABOUT LIVING
COACT offers on site catering and accommodation for our innovators, allowing full project immersion during our incubation programs. Beautiful common spaces, bathrooms, and communal dining areas will meet the living needs of our innovators.

THE LAB
Residents can expect full access to a world class Green Fab Lab, a unique node in the global network of Fab Lab. Equipment includes full scale and desktop CNC mills, large and mid size laser cutters, 3D printers, electronics soldering station, and a biological science station.

THE WOOD SHOP
Not every problem demands a hi-tech solution. The hands-on wood shop provides tools & craft for low tech designs. Since the lab is based in the forest, prototyping materials for the wood shop can often be harvested zero kilometres from the work space.

Year Established: 2019

Duration: Ongoing

Site: Valldaura Labs, Barcelona, Spain

Project Coordinator(s): Tristan Copley-Smith (COACT), Jana Brauch (COACT)

Valldaura Labs Director: Vicente Guallart

IAAC Project Manager: Jonathan Minchin

Green Fab Lab Manager / Technical Coordinator: Michael Salka

Website: https://www.coactlab.org/

To date, quantifying the amount of carbon or energy embodied in an architectural project has been a complex procedure. This was by necessity, as obtaining accurate figures requires thorough tracing of each constituent component through every transformation from raw material to finished product throughout its entire respective life cycle. So-called life-cycle analysis/assessment (LCA) methodologies are critical tools in the effort to mitigate global climate-change and environmental degradation, and therefore must be conducted with the appropriate degree of scientific rigor. Unfortunately, the inability to quickly and easily understand, in empirical terms, the effect formal and material choices architects and designers make during the process of design development negates the possibility of using such valuable information as feedback to iteratively inform the evolution of the project, thereby optimizing the amount of carbon or energy invested in its ultimate realization. Furthermore, when such studies are completed, the associated documentation is often so dense that, rather than enabling rational decision making, the reports tend to paralyze stakeholders with information overload, or worse, be used to justify un-ecological choices via misinterpretation or misrepresentation of the data.

Fortunately, the vast majority of components integrated in architectural projects are not conceived entirely from scratch with each new commission, but rather drawn from established supply chains. At present, enough LCA studies have been completed for common architectural products and components that it has become possible for researchers to compile richly detailed databases, notably the Inventory of Carbon & Energy (ICE), which is available for free download from the Circular Ecology* website. Synthesizing an extensive library of past LCA studies, the ICE database provides designers and analysts with coefficients clearly communicating the amount of carbon or energy embodied in a wide variety of building products per unit of product mass.

In collaboration with the eminent data visualization company Bestiario, the Valldaura Labs team has leveraged the ICE database (among other related resources) to provide designers and architects with a last-mile solution for using embodied carbon and energy information as an efficiently comprehensible point of feedback for iteratively tuning the ecological performance of design proposals. Summarily, an interactive, user-friendly interface diagramming the proportional amount of carbon or energy embodied in the various components of a building, as well as the relationship between embodied carbon or energy and the source/destination locations of various building components, links to a 3D digital model of the proposed building in order to calculate the volume of its assorted materials and assemblies. Numerous softwares already exist for tuning the energetic efficiency of buildings in operation, but this new application signifies a revolutionary step in empowering architects and designers, for the first time, to refine and corroborate their decisions in order to optimize the amount of carbon or energy invested in the construction of a proposed building. Considering that, for buildings to be constructed between the present day and 2050, the proportion of operational to embodied energy is projected to be 50:50*, providing tools to tackle this half of the equation is a fundamental aspect of the campaign to secure an environmentally stable future.

*Notes:

https://circularecology.com/embodied-carbon-footprint-database.html
https://architecture2030.org/new-buildings-embodied/

Year Completed: 2020

Duration: 6 months

Directors: Vicente Guallart, Daniel Ibañez

Technical Coordinator: Michael Salka

Green Fab Lab Manager: Jordi Prat

Partner Organizations: Bestiario

Website: http://projects.bestiario.org/prototype/iaac/quarantine-cabin/#/

Barcelona will be the European Forest City of 2022 and will organize the annual conference of the European Forest Institute as decided by its annual Assembly held this year in Bonn. Barcelona, which presented its candidacy led by the Barcelona Metropolitan Area (AMB), the Institute of Advanced Architecture of Catalonia (IAAC), the Center for Ecological Research and Forestry Applications (CREAF) and the CForest Sciences and Technology Centre of Catalonia ( CTFC) competed with Madrid, Soria and Navi Sadf (Serbia) to organize the event in 2022.

The winning candidature proposes the celebration of activities throughout the year 2022, taking as a central topic of debate the impact of the Circular Bioeconomy in urban environments, overcoming the traditional dichotomy between urbanized spaces and natural spaces, which has come to be called the development of Biocities.

To make their case, the candidature presented the programs currently developed on the promotion of biodiversity in the Barcelona Metropolitan Area, the fight against climate change, the renaturalization of public space, citizen participation in the promotion of biodiversity in cities and the use of solutions based on nature and specifically the development of innovative wood construction projects.

The candidature also included an educational program on forests and Biocities in educational centers in the Metropolitan Area of Barcelona, an event where projects related to the reforestation of the planet and the intelligent management of existing forests and the promotion of biodiversity, are to be presented. A Film and Ecology Festival, an international contest of designers for the development of products related to Biocities, and the development of a seminar during the Smart City Congress were also proposed.

The main conference will take place during the month of October 2022, spread throughout several locations in the Barcelona Metropolitan Area, among others the Hospital de San Pau (where the EFI has a sub-headquarters) and Valldaura Labs of the IAAC, in the Collserola park. The Metropolitan Area of Barcelona has almost 40% of its 636 km2 as protected areas, including the Collserola Park, La Serralada Litoral or the Garraf Park.

The proposal also has the support of multiple organizations such as the Collserola Park Consortium, Barcelona Global, the Barcelona Urban Ecology Agency, the Col·legi d’Arquitectes de Catalunya, the Col·legi d’Enginyers Forestals de Catalunya , the Col.legi d’Enginyers de Camins de Catalunya, the Higher Council of Architects of Spain, the Technological Institute of Construction of Catalonia, the City Council of Cerdanyola, the Polytechnic University of Catalonia, the Fira de Barcelona, the Fundación Catalunya la Pedrera, the Hospital de San Pau, the Cercle d’Infraestrctures and the Estudi Ramón Folch.

The European Forest Institute (EFI) is an international organization established by the European States, of which 29 have ratified the EFI Convention. It has 130 Affiliate Members and organizations from 40 countries and is headquartered in Joensuu, Finland.

Year Completed: 2022

Duration: 1 year

Project Coordinator(s): Vicente Guallart

Partner Organizations: Barcelona Metropolitan Area (AMB), Center for Ecological Research and Forestry Applications (CREAF), Forest Sciences and Technology Centre of Catalonia (CTFC)

Funding Organization: European Forest Institute (EFI)

Website: https://efi.int/explore/city

The Valldaura estate comprises 135 hectares of forest within the 1300 hectare Collserola Natural Park. Looking at the stark contrast between this dense green mass and the surrounding urbanization of the Barcelona metropolitan area with an untrained eye, one would be forgiven for thinking the park represents an natural oasis unchanged since its primeval origins.

However, in modern history, the forest of Valldaura (like ~66% of the world’s total*) has been manipulated by people nearly as drastically as the city’s now iconic beaches, whose sandy shores were reconstructed on previously industrial lots in preparation for the 1992 Olympic games. As recently as the 1940’s the landscape was severely cleared, not a single tree left standing, to suit the monocultural agricultural strategies of the time. Fortunately nature is resilient and the mediterranean climate generous, thus 80 years later the valleys are once again verdant.

Nonetheless, ecological succession operates on a time scale far greater than us humans, with each phase lasting 100’s to 1000’s of years, if not longer.* Accordingly, what may already appear to be a well established forest in fact represents a pioneering ecosystem, dominated primarily by fast growing Aleppo pine (Pinus halepensis). To accelerate development of the regionally appropriate mature ecosystem evolutionarily optimized to enhance biodiversity, carbon sequestration, air purification and resilience, and dominated instead by slower growing trees such as evergreen/holm/holly oak (Quercus ilex), strawberry tree (Arbutus unedo), hazelnut (Corylus avellana), and the bay laurel (Laurus nobilis) from which Valldaura takes its name, sustainable forest management practices are therefore required. Grossly generalized, ~40% of the current forest biomass, mainly the aforementioned pines which grow so tall so quickly that species below are stunted by their shade, must be removed.*

In response, Valldaura Labs harvests approximately 40 trees each season. Every specimen is individually and carefully selected based on the Collserola Natural Park and Valldaura estate Forest Management Plans, diligently cataloged with regard to dimensions and coordinates, and evaluated against the internally developed criteria of L.O.V.E. (location, orientation, value, ecology) to guarantee their extraction both improves the long-term health of the forest and provides the resident Master in Advanced Ecological Buildings & Biocities (MAEBB) class high quality, fully traceable material from which they can construct architectural prototypes.

Finally, each trunk is felled and withdrawn using a combination of wedges, pulleys, cables and winches to minimize undesirable damage to neighboring organisms.

Moreover, the MAEBB students participate in the entire selection, harvesting and wood processing sequence, thereby gaining understanding and appreciation of the environmental systems sustaining our built structures.

*Notes:

http://www.fao.org/documents/card/en/c/ca8985en
https://www.khanacademy.org/science/biology/ecology/community-structure-and-diversity/a/ecological-succession
http://www.fao.org/3/a-i6338e.pdf

Year Completed: 2018 – Present

Duration: Recurring

Site(s): Valldaura Labs, Barcelona, Spain

Coordinates: 41.450209° N, 2.133474° E

Budget: ~5.000€ per annum

Parent Program(s): Collserola Natural Park Sustainable Forest Management Plan

Directors: Vicente Guallart, Daniel Ibañez

Operations Manager: Laia Pifarré

Technical Coordinator: Michael Salka

Partner Organizations: Collserola Natural Park (Consorci del Parc Natural de la Serra de Collserola), Bestiario

Consultants: Gerard Passola, Xevi Pujolar, Orio Molà, Kiku Pujol

To enable restaurants and bars to remain open during COVID-19 while respecting social distancing requirements, the city of Barcelona authorized more than 2.600 terraces to occupy what was formerly street or parking space. Though these reclamations represent an encouragingly widespread step toward further pedestrianization of the city, the unfortunate reality is they still feel very much like street space; chairs and tables are placed directly on the asphalt and, to separate patrons from traffic, officials have installed infamously ugly concrete Jersey barriers and obnoxiously yellow plastic bollards. Regardless, these temporary terraces have proven a crucial lifeline for bar and restaurant owners, as well for citizens’ wellbeing. Thus the need to make these temporary spaces not only safe, but also inviting and comfortable, is of the utmost priority.

Accordingly, within the FURNISH (Fast Urban Responses for New & Inclusive Spaces and Habitats) project funded by European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT) Urban Mobility group – an international initiative to make public spaces safer and more attractive for use during COVID-19 by combining local digital fabrication with tactical urbanism strategies – IAAC’s Valldaura Labs and Master in Advanced Ecological Buildings & Biocities (MAEBB) class of 2020/21 produced and installed a prototype urban element system comprising wooden platforms to raise the level of the terrace to match the level of the sidewalk and massive wooden curbs to replace the concrete barriers which are also capable of supporting a vast catalog of various ‘plug-in’ furniture components such as benches, planters, bike parking racks or railings.

The prototype was installed for testing at the terrace of The Coffee House Barcelona, on the corner of Carrer de Casanova and Carrer de Valencia. This particular site was selected due to its exemplification of the typical chamfered corner intersection characteristic of Barcelona’s Eixample district.

The system, called Open Terrace, is constructed from FSC certified and regionally sourced redwood pine and beech, and was fabricated entirely at Valldaura Labs in Barcelona’s Collserola Natural Park using computer-numerical-control (CNC) machinery, laser cutters, 3D printers and carpentry tools. All connections are made with wooden dowels or joints, and weather-proofed with bio-based linseed oil and turpentine. The 3D printed components are made of polyethylene terephthalate glycol (PET-G) filament. Therefore, all components are optimally disassemblable, compostable or recyclable. Open Terrace is a rapidly deployable, modular design; elements can easily be reconfigured to suit different conditions and uses. Open Terrace is also fully open-source. All fabrication files will be made available for free download from furnish.tech, such that Open Terrace can be replicated by anyone anywhere with access to basic materials and Fab Lab tools.

Year Completed: 2020

Duration: 3 months

Site(s): The Coffee House, Barcelona, Spain

Coordinates: 41.387369° N, 2.156037° E

Budget: 3.500€

Parent Program(s): European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT) Urban Mobility Covid-19 Response Call, Master in Advanced Ecological Buildings & Biocities (MAEBB)

Directors: Vicente Guallart, Daniel Ibañez

Instructors: Vicente Guallart, Michael Salka

Operations Manager: Laia Pifarré

Academic Coordinator: Fabio Capra-Ribeiro

Green Fab Lab Manager: Marc Garcia Ruiz

Designers (MAEBB Students): Akshay Sunil Mhamunkar, Amritha Prabhuram, Bart?omiej Najman, Christa Hörburger, Daphne Vakalopoulou, Engjëll Rodiqi, Fatemeh Nejatii, Ignacio Reyes Solis, Kevin Xi Lim, Marilia Fernández, Mona El Batrik, Paulina Sevilla, Philipp Wienkämper, Rebecca Baierwick, Yangchuan Tian

Sponsors: Barcelona City Council, Mausa

Consultants: Eduard Carrasco, Carles Casamor, Mia Serra, Xavier Matilla

Photography: Adrià Goula

Valldaura Labs values how, when and where materials and products used on the campus are sourced. The campus is not only active in the generation of energy, food and materials used for consumption, but in understanding how the processes for production and harvesting can be optimized and refined. As a result, Valldaura Labs actively traces the complete cycles of agriculture, forestry, food and energy.

Recently, we have produced pine and oak wood following the principles of complete traceability from the Sustainable Forest Management Plan. The literal origin of the wood as well as the ecological footprint can be certified through this unique production system.

In order to trace the use of each wood piece to its origin, an intricate marking system was used with patterns and colors along the cross section of each timber piece. This ensures that the particular markings and mapping strategy will remain intact even after the wood is cut into boards and distributed later for various uses.

The cut boards are 3 and 5 cm thick, with beams of up to 600x30x40 cm. For the purposes of forest management, trees have been selected to reduce density and foster growth during the months of February and March. These trees have been photographed, geo-located, cut and transported to the Green Fabrication Laboratory in Valldaura Labs.Subsequently, a mobile sawmill has followed with the production of boards and beams that will be used to build structures, building components and furniture for future projects.

Earlier this year, the Bio-Mass Plan was launched at Valldaura Labs, shifting energy consumption on the campus to a more ecologically conscious system. With the recent production of wood, which supports a wide range of uses including wood chips to fuel the Bio-Mass Plan, Valldaura Labs has moved one step closer to closing the circular bio-economy cycle, and demonstrate inspiring strategies in self-sufficient living.

Check out more MAEBB projects at the IAACBLOG website.