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Keynotes

This collection of keynotes from the ISP workshops represents relevant research into facets of the material, processes and knowledge pertinent to digital craftsmanship in the build environment. Expert speakers joined the BuildDigiCraft ISP Participants online, due to COVID-19 restrictions, to outline their work into various aspects facing researches in this realm. From ‘bio-based material paradigms’ to ‘the morality of digits’, ‘DNA-based nano architecture’ to ‘fibre-reenforced polymer composites’, these are the lectures that inspired us.

ISP4

Day 1: “History of architectural revolution of the first half of the 20th century - waste of time or useful knowledge?”

Prof. Jadwiga Urbanik, Wroclaw University of Science and Technology

Jadwiga Urbanik lectures on urban planning from ancient time till 20th century and on the area of research. She is taking part in historical urban researches of Wrocław and studies on Wrocław housing estates from the period 1872-1939. Her publications include many papers and reports concerning history of architecture and town-planning of 20th century. She has participated in many international conferences and in design projects concerning conservations of Modern Movement building. Her main fields of interest are: history of architecture and town-planning, specially of 20th century, revaluation of architectural heritage of Modern Movement.

Day 2: “The Integration of Art and Technology”

Robert Sochacki, Wroclaw Art Academy

The lecture will focus on how artists incorporate the latest technology into their artistic strategies and at the same time engage in the discourse of the contemporary world. It is about how their art tries to be a significant voice in the discussion on the future and the creation of new models of relations, not only the internal human ones, but also the non-human ones. The tools used by contemporary artists are so diverse that their spectrum covers analogue, digital, but also everyday, ordinary activities, or those that define our common relations as collective consciousness. Performative lecture, with elements of AI system collaboration, collage of external materials and live discussion.

Day 3: “The New Society and the New Man in Its Environment”

Leif Høgfeldt Hansen, Aarhus School of Architecture

The lecture will focus on Bauhaus and the prevailing culture surrounding its impact from a social and cultural perspective. Presented by Lief Høgfeldt Hansen from his research.

Day 4: “Teacher – the Architect of Learning Process”

Olga Ludyga, Gdansk University of Technology

Olga Ludyga is an academic teacher, pedagogist, Cambridge ESOL examiner and learning designer, who is working also as an intercultural teaching methodology specialist. Currently her research focuses on innovative teachers in narrative interviews. How do we learn? Who do we learn from? When do we know that we have learnt something? Is it necessary to know things when nowadays we carry all the knowledge in our pockets, thanks to smartphones and the Internet? These questions are in the mind of many people living in digital era. We are going to look at education in the past and now, taking under consideration what we actually need to learn.

Day 4: “New Degree in Design, University of Navarra”

Fernando Pedrero, Gdansk University of Technology

"New Degree in Design” Universidad de Navarra, is an experience that fits perfectly within the framework pursued by the "New European Bauhaus wave" at Interdisciplinary education models, it is a teaching methodology that integrates the theoretical, digital, practical, technical, and creative contents, which acquire their whole meaning applied to a project. The students, through the practical and creative exercise of the project, can connect and understand the whole constellation of subjects, ideas and teachings offered to them. Fernando Alonso Pedrero (Zamora 1992) PhD Architect (2020) based in Pamplona (Navarra). Graduated from the University of Navarra, Spain, where he is currently researching and teaching in the research line "critical analysis of digital culture in architecture" In his career as an architect, his work is physical and virtual: Architectural Projects, Installations, Sculptural Models, Sheets and Articles; focused on the dissemination and critical reflection of formal digital concepts. He did his international doctoral thesis in Philosophy of Applied Creativity in Architecture.

ISP3

Day 1: “Digital: Disturbing Delight”

Jüri Soolep, Estonian Academy of Arts

Jüri Soolep is the Head of Doctoral School in the Faculty of Architecture, Estonian Academy of Arts. He has been Professor in NC State European Center in Prague, Czech Republic and Guest-Professor in Umeå School of Architecture, Sweden. He has been the Rector of the Nordic Academy of Architecture as well as dean and professor of the Faculty of Architecture in the Estonian Academy of Arts. He has lectured in the universities of Tartu, Oulu, Porto, Cork, Portsmouth, Liverpool, and Hosei Tokyo. Jüri Soolep is in the editorial board of journals Ehituskunst and ArchiDoct and has been a member of steering boards for Strong Research Environments ResArc and Making within Swedish Research Council Formas grant. Since 2001 he has been partner and lead architect in the architectural studio AB Medium. Most of his designs are built in Pärnu and Tallinn. The recent book: Architecture, Imagospheric Horizon and Digital Universe. Archimedium 2018 (https://soolep.ee ). His current field of research include studies in the representational systems of architectural phenomena in the Digital Age.

Day 3: “Prefabricated Craftsmanship”

Lauri Tuulberg, CEO of Welement

The construction industry is facing huge problems. Productivity is low, there is a lack of skilled labor and it is a major contributor to the facing climate disaster. To meet the growing demand and lower the cost, we need to build more, with less time. But can digital tools and automation solve the problem or do we need to rethink how we approach the whole value chain? Does it make sense to bring robots to the construction site, and will automation drive out skilled craftsmen? Studied Industrial Engineering and Logistics Management at Hong Kong University and Civil Engineering at TalTech. Has worked as a site engineer and project manager on projects ranging from large-scale apartment buildings to tunnels and private villas. Been part of real estate development projects from preliminary architectural design to client hand-over and ownership stages. For the past 5 years mostly been involved with managing Welement AS.

Day 4: “On Situated Knowing, Digitalisation and Two Burning Buildings”

Henric Benesch, University of Gothenburg

Henric Benesch is an architect, educator and researcher with a PhD in Design, based in Gothenburg, Sweden. Ongoing inquiries includes Curating the City (with Ingrid Martins Holmberg, Clare Melhuish and Dean Sully), addressing environmental and cultural heritage dilemmas posed through and over time in built environment through site-based methodologies; The Right to design (with Onkar Kular), rethinking design education and design learning within and beyond its institutional and professional setting, in relation to “rights” and as a form of readership, as a mean to foster and claim more sustainable ways of life. Currently, he is a Senior Lecturer at HDK-Valand – Academy of Art and Design at the University of Gothenburg as well as co-coordinator within the Centre for Critical Heritage Studies (CCHS), and since September 2019 – Deputy Dean at the Faculty of Fine, Applied and Performing Arts at the University of Gothenburg.

Day 4: “Building from History: For a Low-carbon Future”

John Ochsendorf, MIT Architecture

John Ochsendorf is the Class of 1942 Professor of Architecture and Civil and Environmental Engineering at MIT, where he directs research on preindustrial construction traditions. He is the designer of numerous award-winning structures internationally and is the author of Guastavino Vaulting: The Art of Structural Tile (Princeton Architectural Press, 2010). Ochsendorf is a partner in the firm ODB Engineering and he served as Director of the American Academy in Rome from 2017-2020.

Day 5: Symbiosis of The Past and The Future”

Didzis Jaunzems, Didzis Jaunzems Architektūra

ISP2

Day 1: “Digital Craft in a Bio-based Material Paradigm”

Mette Ramsgaard Thomsen, Royal Danish Academy

Mette Ramsgaard Thomsen examines the intersections between architecture and new computational design processes. During the last 15 years her focus has been on the profound changes that digital technologies instigate in the way architecture is thought, designed and built. In 2005 she founded the Centre for IT and Architecture research group (CITA) at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts, School of Architecture, Design and Conservation where she has piloted a special research focus on the new digital-material relations that digital technologies bring forth. Investigating advanced computer modelling, digital fabrication and material specification CITA has been central in the forming of an international research field examining the changes to material practice in architecture. This has been led by a series of research investigations developing concepts and technologies as well as strategic projects such as the international Marie Curie ITN network Innochain that fosters interdisciplinary sharing and dissemination of expertise and supports new collaborations in the fields of architecture, engineering and fabrication and the Sapere Aude Advanced Grant Complex Modelling examining new modelling paradigms in computational design.

Day 2: “Urban Futures and Designing the Digitalized City: from Parametric Design to Parametric Urbanism”

Marc Burry, Swinburne University of Technology

Professor Mark Burry will offer a brief overview of his experiences pioneering parametric design for architectural scale projects to precinct and city scale projects. He will argue that parametric design is more than BIM, and that parametric urbanism is more than PIM and CIM (Precinct and City Information Modelling). His address will refer to his 37 year-long contribution to the design team completing Gaudí’s Sagrada Família Basilica in Barcelona and how it relates to the recent establishment of ‘iHUb’ across 4 major cities in Australia – a national urban research platform to bring the people to the digitalization on the built environment, and vice versa. He will consider the question around how much closer are we to designing cities with people rather than simply for them? What new agency does digitalization and the Internet of Things offer to citizens today?

Day 3: “Fibre Reinforced Polymer Composites in an Architectural Context”

Vicki Thake, Royal Danish Academy

Vicki Thake studied at Royal Danish Academy and has an industrial PhD, which introduces an architecture form-led by an advanced composite, with a focus on the relationship between space, material and light. Through an experimental study conducted in different scales, the thesis examines the integration of FRPs (Fibre Reinforced Polymers) within an architectural context as a special material-geometry with a focus on the internal composition between the composite’s two elements: fibre thread (Reinforcement) and matrix (Mass). The aim is to seek new ways of composing the tectonic principles of fibre geometry with textile, fluid and form- led properties, in the creation of a translucent material logic for architectural space, element and assembly.

Day 3: “DNA-based Nanoscale Architectures”

Anton Kuzyk, Aalto University

Anton Kuzyk (born 1981, Lviv, Ukraine) received his Doctor of Philosophy degree in 2009 from University of Jyväskylä. After graduation, he was postdoctoral researcher at Technical University of Munich (2010-2012), Aalto University (2012-2013) and Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems (2013-2016). Anton‘s research focuses on DNA-based self-assembled systems with functionalities tailored for biosensing, nanophotonics and biomimetics. He is well known for his contribution to the field of self-assembled plasmonics and his research has been published in, e.g., Nature, Nature Materials, Nature Communications and Science Advances.

Day 4: “Big or Small Data for Big and Small Problems?”

Helle Rootzen, CEO andhero

Day 5: “Do Digits Have Morality?”

Lars Botin, Aalborg University

Day 5: “Baukultur” Actionable Insights with Natural Language Processing

Vincent Kuo, VXT Research

VXT Research is a boutique machine-learning company, based in Finland. Our story began in 2016 when we secured our first large AI procurement contract with Business Finland (previously Tekes), the official agency for innovation and research funding in Finland. We were then just a group of naive researchers, though with a burning passion for textual artificial intelligence and semantic technologies. Despite our underdog attitude, we were very proud to have triumphed in the procurement contest amid seasoned industry adversaries. As a way to honour the spirit of theory- practice union and the endless potential of machine learning for the masses, VXT was born. Through VXT, we exercise our passion of combining our research and industrial expertise to transform how our customers and partners approach traditional niche problems. Our mission is to inspire all to think about semantic technologies and machine learning, without the fear. In doing so, we strive to help people realize that big old niche problems can be solved through the fusion of creativity, integrity and technical excellence.

ISP1

Day 1: “What is the world we want to live in?”

Chris Luebkeman, ETH Zürich

Chris Luebkeman’s career has spanned professions and geographies. His multidisciplinary education (geology, civil engineering, structural engineering, entrepreneurship and a PHD in Architecture) was encouraged by his Mid-Western family of educators. His journey included Vanderbilt, Cornell and the ETH in Zurich. He became an academic gypsy teaching courses on Design and on Technology at the University of Oregon, the Chinese University of Hong Kong and at MIT. He joined Arup in London to lead the Research and Development group in 1999 and became a corporate intrapreneur by founding the Foresight, Innovation and Incubation teams. He established the Drivers of Change program and is proud to have been accused by the Guardian to have a mindset “in league with the future”. He is deeply passionate about curating constructive dialogue, insatiably curious, relishes the opportunity to discover the opportunities which will be created by change and to evolve positive solutions to the profound challenges we face today. For twenty years he travelled the globe sharing his observations and insights by leading projects focused on the future for Arup, Arup’s clients and for many of the world’s leading institutions. He has spoken at TED, hosted conversations at, and for, WEF and keynoted dozens of conferences around the world.

Day 2: “What is Baukultur?”

Inga Glander, German Federal Foundation Baukultur

Inga Glander: Dipl.-Ing. Architecture. Studied at Technical University Braunschweig and Universitat Politècnica de València. Project managment for several architecture firms in Berlin, including braun.busse.architekten and Pott Architects. Correspondence course in journalism at Freie Journalistenschule. Assistant of the board of the Federal Foundation of Baukultur since July 2018.

Day 3: “Craft in a Digital Era. A Search for Earthly Paradise”

Clas Caldenby, Chalmers University of Technology, Gothenburg

Claes Caldenby is professor emeritus in theory and history of architecture at Chalmers. He is also an architectural critic and an editor of the Swedish review of architecture. As a historian his interest has been mainly 20th century architecture and the history of ideas as an important aspect of architecture.

Day 4: “Engineering Architectural Arguments”

Kristoffer Negendahl, Denmark University of Technology

Assistant professor Kristoffer Negendahl represents the Technical university of Denmark and his research in application of scaled analysis of sustainability and circularity in early design stages. His background in building physics (Energy, thermal comfort and computer fluid dynamics) with the aspects on design optimization has been applied in practice as well as his work in research and teaching. Kristoffer has been part of forming the internal r&d unit within Bjarke Ingels Group called BIGIDEAS, and have worked with BIG since 2015. Kristoffer is cofounder of Procedural.build which exists to organize and scale environmental-, life cycle – and sustainability analyses for architects and designers