School of Architecture, Georgia Tech

For more information contact:
Daniel Baerlecken, Architecture
Contact Daniel Baerlecken
404.385.1830

Ventulett Symposium: Textile Tectonics

Location: College of Architecture Auditorium, East Architecture Building

Event Date: November 8, 2008

Time: 9:00 AM—6:30 PM

2nd Ventulett Symposium
Organized by Lars Spuybroek, Thomas W. Ventulett III Distinguished Chair in Architectural Design

Saturday, November 8, 2008
College of Architecture Auditorium
Georgia Institute of Technology

Textile Tectonics
Generally structure is associated with simplicity and strength, while today digital tools allow us to understand structure as being integral to material complexity and aesthetic delicacy. Based on Gottfried Semper’s understanding of textile as the key component of architecture this symposium discusses tectonics as the expressivity of matter itself, arriving at a point where the classic opposition of structure and ornament, or abstraction and empathy, begins to dissolve.

Speakers:
9.30AM
Lars Spuybroek
Principal of NOX, Rotterdam
Thomas W. Ventulett III Distinguished Chair and Professor of Architecture, Georgia Tech, Atlanta, GA

Since the early 1990s Lars Spuybroek has been researching the relationship between architecture and media, and often more specifically the relationship between architecture and computing. He was editor-publisher of one of the first magazines in book format, NOX and Forum, and has made a video, Soft City, and interactive electronic artworks. In the last five years he has focused more on architecture, including the HtwoOexpo, V2_Lab, wetGRID, D-Tower, and Son-O-House. His work has won several prizes and has been exhibited all over the world, including a presentation at the 2000 Venice Biennale.

10.30AM
Mark Burry
Professor of Innovation in Spatial Information Architecture
RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia

As Executive Architect and Researcher to the Temple Sagrada Família in Barcelona, Spain, Professor Mark Burry has published widely on the life and work of the architect Antoni Gaudí. He is director of RMIT’s Spatial Information Architecture Laboratory (SIAL), a holistic transdisciplinary research environment dedicated to contemporary spatial design activity. The lab has a design-practice emphasis and acts as a creative think-tank accessible to both local and international practices, including ARUP in Melbourne and London, dECOi in Paris and Gehry Partners in Los Angeles. He is also a member of the Australian Research Council College of Experts and serves on the Advisory Board of Gehry Technologies in Los Angeles.

11.30AM
Evan Douglis
Principal Evan Douglis Studio LLC
Chair, Undergraduate Department
School of Architecture, Pratt Institute, New York.
Evan Douglis’ research is focused on computer aided digital design and fabrication technology, new materials and multi-media installations. He has previously taught at Columbia University and Cooper Union in New York, The International University of Cataluyna in Barcelona, Hubei Fine Arts Institute in Wuhan, China, the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing, and SCI-Arc in Los Angeles. His work has been widely published including Sign as Surface, INDEX Architecture, and Naked City, ARCHILAB Catalog (2004). He received the 2006 ACADIA Award for Emerging Digital Practice. His work was featured in Distinguishing Digital Architecture, The Brick:The Book, and Architecture Now 5 (2007).

2.00PM
Michael Hensel
Chairman OCEAN Research Network
Professor Research by Design AHO Oslo School of Architecture and Design
Director Emergent Technologies and Design, Architectural Association, London.
Michael Hensel is an architect, urban designer, researcher and writer, and has taught at the AA since 1993. He is a partner in OCEAN, an international, interdisciplinary and independent research network that conducts research by design at the intersection of architecture, urban and landscape design, industrial and product design, computational science, biology, music, engineering, climatology and other interdisciplinary fields. He is also a board member of BIONIS - Biomimetics Network for Industrial Sustainability, and the co-author of numerous books and journals including Versatility and Vicissitude (2008), Morpho-Ecologies (2008), and Emergence: Morphogenetic Design Strategies (2004).

3.00PM
Andrew Benjamin
Professor of Critical Theory and Philosophical Aesthetics
Centre for Comparative Literature and Cultural Studies,
Monash University, Melbourne.
Andrew Benjamin has written extensively on the work of Martin Heidegger, Theodor Adorno, Walter Benjamin, Julia Kristeva and Jean-François Lyotard. He has been Visiting Professor of Architectural Theory at Columbia University, Visiting Critic at the Architectural Association, and Professor of Critical Theory at the University of Technology, Sydney, Australia. He is the author of numerous books and publications including Style and Time: Essays on the Politics of Appearance (2006), Walter Benjamin and History (2006), Architectural Philosophy: Repetition, Function, Alterity (2001), and Reiser + Umemoto: Recent Projects (1998).

4.00PM
Cecil Balmond
Director Advanced Geometry Unit - Ove Arup and Partners Ltd
Paul Philippe Cret Practice Professor of Architecture
Department of Architecture, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia.
Cecil Balmond is an internationally renowned designer, structural engineer, author and Deputy Chairman of the multi-disciplinary engineering firm Arup. He the recipient of the Gengo Matsui Prize in 2002, the highest recognition for structural engineering in Japan, and the Charles Jencks Award for Theory in Practice of the Royal Institute of British Architects in 2003. He recently collaborated with Rem Koolhaas on the 2006 Serpentine Gallery Pavilion, and previously in 2005 with Álvaro Siza and Eduardo Souto de Moura. He is the author of Informal (2002), Number 9 (1998) and co-authored Serpentine Gallery Pavilion 2002 with Toyo Ito, and Unfolding with Daniel Liebeskind (1997).

Following this, there will be a Panel Discussion featuring all speakers at 5:30 PM.

The symposium is free and open to the public; however, reservations are requested before October 31, 2008. AIA credits will be available for this event.

For further information, please contact Daniel Baerlecken at daniel.baerlecken@coa.gatech.edu or 404.385.1830.

The Thomas W. Ventulett III Distinguished Chair was endowed by and named after the 1957 Georgia Tech alumnus whose global architecture firm designed many of Atlanta’s landmark buildings. The Chair is dedicated to research, outreach, and the intellectual development of an emerging scholar or practitioner.