Lars Spuybroek is the third Thomas W. Ventulett III Distinguished Chair in Architectural Design. He is also principal of NOX Architects in Rotterdam, Holland. Professor Spuybroek is a leading expert in the area of digital design and computation in architecture. His experimental work has won numerous prizes, including presentations at the 2000 Venice Biennale, the Centre Pompidou, the Victoria and Albert, and the Guggenheim Bilbao. He received international acclaim for his design of the Water Pavilion in Rotterdam in 1997, and a cluster of cultural buildings in Lille, France and the Son-O-House in Son en Breugel, Holland in 2004. Most recently, his 400 page monograph, Machining Architecture, was published by Thames and Hudson. Professor Spuybroek graduated cum laude from the Technical University of Delft in Holland. He has taught at several universities in Europe and the United States. Prior to his arrival at Georgia Tech, he was teaching at the University of Kassel in Germany, where he chaired the Digital Design Techniques Department, and a Visiting Professor at Columbia University in New York.
The endowed chair provides substantial funding for Professor Spuybroek to expand his research on emerging technologies and material practice. He teaches advanced design studios and seminars in digital design and computation, and works in collaboration with researchers and technical production personnel at the Advanced Wood Products Laboratory.
The Chair is endowed by and named for Thomas W. Ventulett III, a 1957 Georgia Tech alumnus whose global architecture firm, Thompson, Ventulett, Stainback and Associates, won the AIA National Firm of the Year Award in 2002, and designed many of Atlanta's landmark buildings, including the Proscenium, the Woodruff Arts Center, and the Georgia World Congress Center.