Workshop leaders
Maria Aceytuno Poch
Grimshaw Architects
Maria is a London based architect and computational design specialist with a Masters in Emergent Technologies & Design from the Architectural Association, and is currently employed by Grimshaw Architects. As a result of her dissertation (E.Polychronaki, M.Manousaki, M.Aceytuno, C.Perea (SimAUD 2017) Urban Glitch: A VR Platform for Participatory Design) Maria has engaged in various virtual reality workshops and volunteered in the latest edition of the National Saturday Club at the Tate Modern London where new materials such as bamboo were used for the construction of 1:1 structures. She is actively involved in computational design competitions and research: Maria was part of the design and make team behind the Entwine pavilion exhibited at Timber Expo UK 2017; with Grimshaw Computational Design Group, she won the ArchTriumph 2019 pavilion competition and was shortlisted for the Tallin 2019 Biennale; and she is a collaborator at the University of Bath’s Healthy Housing for the displaced and at the AA Technical Studies Materials course.
Jan Pilipp Drude
University of Hannover
Jan Philipp Drude is a research assistant at Leibniz University Hannover. After finishing his Master Thesis on robotic dry-stone construction in summer of 2017 he joined the team of Prof. Mirco Becker.
Coming from a background of digital modelling as well as architectural practice, Jan Philipp changed to the field of digital architecture in his postgraduate studies. Jan Philipp started the development of Project DisCo for his PhD. It has been tested in several workshops and design studios in university. Jan Philipp also taught a workshop at AAG 2018, as well as VR-related workshops at Leibniz University Hannover and at Technical University Darmstadt.
Robin Oval
University of Cambridge
Dr. Robin Oval is a Postdoctoral Research Associate in the Structures Group at the University of Cambridge. Robin is working on automated construction and computational design of structures. During his PhD with the Block Research Group at the ETH Zurich and the Laboratoire Navier at the École des Ponts ParisTech between 2016 and 2019, Robin developed compas_singular, a plugin for COMPAS to perform topology finding of patterns in structural design.
Andrea Rossi
University of Kassel
Andrea Rossi is an architectural researcher and computational designer. He is a doctoral candidate at the DDU Digital Design Unit at TU Darmstadt, as well as research associate at the Experimental and Digital Design and Construction chair at the University of Kassel.
His current focus is on discrete design and robotic fabrication strategies. This led him to develop Wasp, an open-source Grasshopper plug-in for discrete modelling. Previously, he has been a research associate at ETH Zurich, robotic fabrication specialist at Coop Himmelb(l)au (Vienna), as well as robotics specialist at IndexLab (Politecnico di Milano). He taught workshops on digital tools and fabrication in Italy (Politecnico di Milano), Germany (HfG Offenbach, Leibniz University Hannover), USA (University of Buffalo) and Israel (Technion Haifa). He holds a BSc in Architecture from Politecnico di Milano and a Master of Architecture from the Dessau International Architecture Graduate School.
Eike Schling
University of Hong Kong
Eike Schling is an Assistant Professor at the University of Hong Kong, Department of Architecture, where he is teaching parametric methods, architectural geometry and structural behavior with the vision of enabling construction-aware design. Eike’s focus lies on interdisciplinary research with mathematicians and engineers to simplify complex lightweight structures without sacrificing the design-freedom. Eike completed his doctorate “Repetitive Structures” in 2018 with distinction at the Chair for Structural Design, Technical University in Munich. His architectural practice has produced innovative, strained gridshells in Munich and Ingolstadt. Eike’s work is coined by collaborations with international architecture offices, such as PLP in London and K+P in Munich.
Tom Van Maele
ETH Zürich
Dr. Tom Van Mele is Senior Scientist and co-director at the Block Research Group, where he leads the computational and technical developments, supervises the postdoc team, and advises and supports the PhD candidates on a day-to-day basis. Tom is the lead developer of COMPAS, the open-source computational framework for collaboration and research in architecture, structures and digital fabrication. Tom received his PhD from VUB, Belgium in 2008.
Pierluigi d'Acunto
TU Munich
Pierluigi d'Acunto received his Diploma in Building Engineering and Architecture with Honours from the University of Pisa (Italy) in 2007 and a Master of Architecture with Distinction from the Architectural Association School of Architecture in London (UK) in 2012. In 2018, he obtained his PhD degree with Distinction at the Chair of Structural Design at ETH Zurich. Since 2006, he has been gaining professional experience as an architect and an engineer in various private practices in Italy and Switzerland. Pierluigi is currently Lecturer and Postdoctoral Researcher at the Chair of Structural Design at ETH Zurich, and the director of the architectural office xmade GmbH at Basel. His research is primarily focused on exploring the convergence of architecture and engineering through geometry and graphic statics. He has widespread experience in co-organizing and tutoring workshops on computational structural design (IASS 2015 Amsterdam, AAG 2016 Zurich, AAG 2018 Gothenburg, fib
2019 Madrid, and IASS 2019 Barcelona).
Vahid Moosavi
ETH Zürich
Vahid Moosavi is a senior researcher at the Chair for Digital Architectonics. He was previously trained as a systems engineer from 2004 to 2010, where he was involved in several system analysis and modelling projects at different scales and different sectors such as manufacturing, health and energy in Iran. Nine years ago, he shifted his focus to multidisciplinary and complex challenges in urban, environmental and spatial systems and technological opportunities of machine learning and Big Data streams. From 2011 to 2015 he was a graduate researcher at the simulation platform of the Future Cities Laboratory of Singapore-ETH Centre. Since May 2015, he has been a senior researcher and lecturer at ETH Zurich. Parallel to his research, starting in 2016, he has been teaching machine learning and data-driven modelling to graduate students in architecture and civil engineering. Since 2019 he’s been an invited visiting professor at the department of architecture, Southeast University in China, teaching digital urban modelling with Big Data. In addition to academic projects, he has been collaborating with several construction and real estate development companies.
Catherine Rankine
Arup London
Catherine Rankine is a creative Structural Engineer at Arup with a passion for integrated design. Alongside dual qualification in both architecture and engineering, her broad experience on a range of small to high-profile projects has strengthened her ability to connect disciplines and deliver unique structural solutions. From beyond-zero carbon buildings to structural reuse and refurbishment, Catherine embeds principles of sustainable structural design in her work. Developing this further through structural topology optimisation research, Catherine continues to strive towards a reduction in material use through innovative design solutions aligned with core structural engineering principles
Viktoria Sandor
Karamba3d
Viki Sandor is an architect and researcher. Currently, she holds a senior lecturer position at the University of Innsbruck while working on her PhD as part of the SFB “Advanced Computational Design” collaborative research program. Viki earned her Master degree (Mag. arch) in
architecture at the University of Applied Arts, Vienna, in January 2017. In the last few years, she has collected several scholarships and awards which have been supporting her work in the field of responsive urbanism and temporary architecture. Since 2017 she has been involved as organizer and tutor in several workshops and summer schools such as the ’Society in Motion’ 3-year Erasmus+ summer school program, parametric design workshops at the University of Applied Arts Vienna, University Liechtenstein and Tallinn Architecture School. Viki has taught design studios and has been invited to design critiques at the TU Innsbruck, TU Kassel, University of Applied Arts Vienna and TU Berlin. In 2019 and 2020 she was part of the Advanced Geometry team at the Studio Olafur Eliasson. See more: www.vikisandor.com
Elena Shilova
Grimshaw Architects
Elena Shilova is an architect and researcher, with a degree in Emergent Technologies & Design from the Architectural Association, London. Her research projects were exhibited in Central House of Architects in Moscow, at MArkHi 2016 Conference and Timber Expo in Birmingham, published in Pasajes de Arquitectura, and presented at SimAud conference. Her previous experience in organising robotic fabrication workshops includes AAG 2018 and office-based Robotic Hot Wire cutting at the Bartlett B-Made.
Taole Chen
Zaha Hadid Architects
Taole Chen is a designer and maker with an interest in algorithmic design thinking and computational fabrication methods. He received his Master of Architecture and Urbanism from the Architectural Association Design Research Laboratory and holds a B.Arch with high distinction from the California College of the Arts in San Francisco where he received the AIA Henry Adams Medal of General Excellence. For his dissertation, he developed an additive manufacturing framework in the context of custom-tailored housing in London. he has previously led workshops at Tongji University, Chalmers University of Technology and the Royal Danish Academy. He is currently working at Zaha Hadid Architects.
Thomas Oberbichler
TU Munich
Thomas Oberbichler is an architect and civil engineer. Currently he is working as a research assistant at the Technical University of Munich, Department of Civil, Geo and Environmental Engineering. His research is focused on constrained driven design and isogeometric analysis, as well on formfinding and -optimization. He is creating interactive tools to integrate numerical methods into the design workflow e.g. Bowerbird, a plugin which enables the analysis and development of asymptotic gridshells within Grasshopper.
Vincenzo Reale
Arup London
Vincenzo Reale holds a Master with distinction in Structural Engineering and Architecture from the Bologna University and a Master of Science from the Architectural Association in London. Having worked with several contemporary architectural and design practices, including Zaha Hadid Architects, Antony Gormley Studio and Tom Wiscombe’ Emergent Architecture, he currently holds the position of senior structural engineer at Arup in London. He is also teaching assistant at Landscape and Urbanism master programme at the Architectural Association, unit master at AA visiting school Jordan and accredited trainer of several parametric courses for engineers at the Arup University. In 2014 his works have been exhibited at the Venice Biennale of Architecture and at the Royal Academy of Arts in London. Concurrently with his academic activity, he has also been involved in the organisation of several workshops of computational design and scripting such as Super Surface Fabrication workshop at the Architectural Association, PY24hrs at McNeel in Barcelona, Parametric Engineering at Imperial College London.
Jonas Schikore
TU Munich
Jonas Schikore is a structural engineer working as research assistant at the Technical University of Munich, Department of Architecture. His teaching activities reach from basic structural design to experimental structures and parametric design. His research focus lies on elastic grid mechanisms, which are also the scope of his doctoral thesis in progress. He uses parametric structural modelling and simulation tools to evaluate the spatial kinetic behaviour of grids. As independent engineer, his projects include both conventional and special building structures such as membrane and elastic grid structures. He has worked at LEICHT s.e.a.s.c. in collaboration with ARUP and TAYO and collaborated with BARTHEL&MAUS.
Matthew Tam
Karamba3d
Matthew Tam is an architectural designer based in Vienna. As part of the Advanced Geometry department at Bollinger + Grohmann engineers he works at the interface of architectural, structural and computaonal design. Matthew received his Master in Architecture from the University of Applied Arts Vienna and a Bachelor of Architectural Studies from the University of Melbourne. As core of the Karamba3D team, he regularly organises and leads workshops on digital design and parametric structures such as the Design Modeling Symposium 2015, Smart Geometry 2014, annual workshops at Control Mad in Madrid and the Karamba3D workshops in Vienna. Matthew has taught design studios and has been invited to design criques at the UC Bartle, TU Innsbruck, TU Graz and University of Applied Arts Vienna. From 2009-2019 Matthew was co-director of the laser cung studio “themakelab”based in Melbourne which focuses on interdisciplinary digital, analog design and fabrication techniques.