Mass is More
Regenerative and decarbonizing design for a warming planet
October 1–9, 2022
Mass is More is an architectural intervention at the Mies van der Rohe Pavilion by the Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia (IAAC) and Bauhaus Earth that exposes the multi-layered processes behind the construction of the built environment and explores the alternative use of regenerative, decarbonized materials in architecture. As an answer to the material paradigms of the modern architectural movement, demonstrated so vividly in the original Barcelona Pavilion by Mies van der Rohe and Lily Reich, Mass is More promotes new material approaches, construction techniques, and urban management methods that seek to create and reinforce a mutually beneficial relationship between cities and forests. By reconsidering the materials used in the original pavilion in our era of accelerating climate instability, the installation proposes a means to repair and grow both our cities and forests through the use of materials that combine low production emissions with the capacity to store significant amounts of atmospheric carbon.
The exhibition invites visitors to directly experience the ways in which new advances in mass timber technology can elevate and improve our contemporary building practices. Built with Cross Laminated Timber (CLT) panels sourced from the nearby radiata pine forests of Galicia, a temporary structure bridges the Pavilion’s garden and cantilevers over the garden wall to demonstrate the novel performative, structural, thermal, and tactile capacities of this ancient building material. While creating a respectful conversation with the original pavilion, the installation proposes a radical departure from the material palette of modernism—concrete and steel—in favor of renewable, carbon storing and sustainably sourced biomaterials. Through a series of seven interventions, the installation engages in a material dialogue between the past and the future of construction, proposing a new age of radical decarbonization where buildings and cities are transformed from emissions sources into massive atmospheric carbon banks.
Mies’ seminal motto, “less is more,” encapsulated the lightness, slenderness, and openness of the architecture of modernity but it harkened a dramatic increase in the extractive and fossil-fuel intensive practices that would enable such forms and methods of building. “Mass is more” proposes a return to massive construction using regenerative materials and a design process underpinned by careful attention to the potential impacts to source landscapes and the broader global ecosystem that material extraction, transport, and the processes of manufacture incur in the building process.
This reconfigured space serves as the venue for the launch of Mass Madera, a Spanish mass timber building network promoted by Built by Nature. The installation was produced by Finsa and Xilonor, a Galician timber company, and incorporates a visual representation of comparative environmental impact developed together with Bestiario. “Mass is More” is part of a series of events in the European Forest City 2022 program in Barcelona that was organized by the European Forest Institute with the support of the Metropolitan Area and the Barcelona City Council.
Project by Daniel Ibañez, Vicente Guallart (IAAC) and Alan Organschi (Bauhaus Earth).
Granted by Built by Nature.
Entities involved: Fundación Mies van der Rohe, Mass Madera, Finsa, Xilonor, Bestiario, European Forest Institute (EFI) in partnership with the Metropolitan Area of Barcelona (AMB), Barcelona City Council, Barcelona Provincial Council and the Generalitat de Catalunya.
Further information is available upon request.
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