The Master in Advanced Ecological Buildings and Biocities course at IAAC offers the opportunity to live at its forest campus, where students will learn about sustainable architecture.

School: IAAC
Course: Master in Advanced Ecological Buildings and Biocities
Location: Collserola Natural Park, Barcelona, Spain
Course dates: October 2025 to July 2026, extendable to a second year upon enrolment
Application deadline: 9 August 2025

The Master in Advanced Ecological Buildings and Biocities is a full-time, immersive programme hosted at IAAC's Valldaura Campus in the Collserola Natural Park in Barcelona.

Over ten or 18 months, students live, design and build within a working forest campus, engaging with the ecological, material and metabolic realities of sustainable architecture today.

Structured around hands-on prototyping and real-scale construction, the Master in Advanced Ecological Buildings and Biocities integrates design, fabrication and agroecology with advanced digital tools.

Each cohort develops a one-to-one ecological building – from tree harvesting to final assembly – within a curriculum that spans thermodynamic envelopes, circular metabolisms, robotic timber and collaborative urban systems.

The programme is aimed at architects, engineers, makers and designers committed to learning by living towards the regeneration of the built environment. Alumni form a growing community of practitioners exploring how buildings and cities can operate like ecosystems – resilient, self-sufficient and responsive to place.

Students join a wider culture of experimentation at IAAC, with access to leading researchers, international lectures and Europe's most advanced ecological fabrication infrastructure. Set in Barcelona, the World Capital of Architecture 2026, the programme also offers scholarships covering 30 per cent to 50 per cent of tuition fees for future students. More information is available on IAAC's website.

Applications to this course have now closed.

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