e-cloud9

At Cloud 9 studio, we’ve been building resilience towards climate change since coming across Jeremy Rifkin’s Third Industrial Revolution framework back in 2003. Now we are seeing this change happening in real time.

A building’s first line of defense and climate adaptation is its envelope. A Trombe wall is a passive solar design strategy that uses a thick, dark-colored masonry or concrete wall to absorb solar heat. In Villa Nurbs, we used two layers, one made out of ceramic and one EPDM layer, performing this phenomenon.

The Ceramic Skin (Villa Nurbs, Empuriabrava, 2000-2010) patent features 406 large-format ceramic pieces that utilize high thermal inertia, baking under the intense Mediterranean sun during the day, absorbing the thermal energy so it doesn’t pe*****te into the house, and then slowly releasing it when the temperature drops at night. These pieces were designed digitally (in collaboration with artist Frederic Amat, ceramicist Toni Cumella), and feature a computer-calculated, organic geometry that allows them to function as scales, shading the building when the sun is at its highest point.

It’s suspended on a system of tensioned cables that supports each ceramic piece, allowing for independent movement of each layer of the facade. This suspension of the ceramic skin creates an open air chamber between the scales and the inner wall.

Meteored weather map 7/2/26: https://www.tiempo.com/mapas-meteorologicos/

Toni Cumella Casa Gallego

Media-ICT model. 2008.

The photoluminescent mineral paint applied to its metallic structure absorbs sunlight during the day and releases it at night, making the building’s skeleton glow in a self-sufficient way.

It’s like a jellyfish!

Villa Nurbs was born on the ping-pong table in my garage (the biggest table we had to work on).

We were using Autodesk 3ds Max, a software typically used for movie visual effects and 3D animation, not architecture.

When choosing the geometry type, we selected ‘NURBS’: a type of curve that is non-uniform nor rational. It’s the closest we can get to nature.

Divendres passat vam obrir les portes de la nova oficina Cloud 9

Mil gràcies al Sr. Emili Donato i a tots els que us heu acostat ☁️

C. Cardenal Sentmenat, 37, pb, Sarrià

Sabeu on trobar-nos ;)

Media-ICT. 22@, Barcelona, Catalonia.
Best Building of the World by WAF 2011.

elBulli1846. Cala Montjoi, Cap de Creus, Catalonia.

The Millenium Project. Valladolid, Spain.