Previous Lectures

TEX-FAB HOUSTON KEYNOTE
COMPLICITY AND SIMPLEXITY
Thursday 02/10/11, 6:00PM UNIVERSITY OF HOUSTON COA AUDITORIUM (All Lectures are free and open to the public)

Branko Kolarevic holds the Chair in Integrated Design and co-directs the Laboratory for Integrative Design (LID). Prior to his appointment at the University of Calgary, he was the Irving Distinguished Visiting Professor at Ball State University in Indiana. He has taught architecture at several universities in North America, most recently at the University of Pennsylvania, and in Asia, in Hong Kong. He has lectured worldwide on the use of digital technologies in design and production and has authored, edited or co-edited several books, including the recently published “Manufacturing Material Effects: Rethinking Design and Making in Architecture” (with Kevin Klinger), “Performative Architecture: Beyond Instrumentality” (with Ali Malkawi) and “Architecture in the Digital Age: Design and Manufacturing.” He is the past president of the Association for Computer Aided Design in Architecture (ACADIA) and is the recipient of the ACADIA 2007 Award for Innovative Research.

VLAD TENU
REPEAT COMPETITION WINNER

MINIMAL COMPLEXITY
Friday 02/11/11, 5:30PM UNIVERSITY OF HOUSTON COA AUDITORIUM

Vlad Tenu is a Romanian Architect based in London. His ongoing research focuses on the integration of computation, science and technology in the architectural design process, involving generative computational methods, digital fabrication techniques and interactive design. He studied architecture in Iasi, Lisbon and in London at the Bartlett, UCL, where he was awarded a Msc in Adaptive Architecture & Computation and a Certificate in Advanced Architectural Research.

Vlad is involved in teaching at the Bartlett as an assistant for the Embodied and Embedded Technologies module within the Msc AAC. HIs professional experience covers a wide range of projects and competitions. Currently Vlad is working with Surface Architects, an award winning design practice based in London.

L. William Zahner, CEO / President
Zahner®

ADDING INTELLIGENCE TO BUILDING SURFACE
Friday 02/11/11, 4:30PM UNIVERSITY OF HOUSTON COA AUDITORIUM

L. William Zahner, President and CEO of Zahner®, is a prolific writer and a sculptor. Well known for his passion for metal, he authored two books over the past twenty years, sharing his wealth of knowledge derived from being a fourth-generation expert in the field of metals. He has contributed to a number of high-profile projects using metal as a major building material, including the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain, the Experience Music Project in Seattle, and the de Young Museum in San Francisco.

Zahner® has been engineering and producing advanced sheet metal surfaces for over 100 years. Under the management of L. William Zahner, the company began a rapid shift from regional projects to high-profile architecture working with internationally acclaimed artists and architects like Walter De Maria, Foster & Partners, Frank Gehry, Zaha Hadid Architects, OMA / REX, Martin Puryear and Moshe Safdie.

Joe Meppelink + Andrew Vrana
METALAB / University of Houston

APPLIED DIGITAL FABRICATION
Friday 02/11/11, 3:30PM UNIVERSITY OF HOUSTON COA AUDITORIUM

METALAB is a licensed architectural practice with previous experience as metal fabricators and project managers. With extensive and practical knowledge of materials, processes and methods of construction we offer an array of professional services from design to delivery and management of projects.
Joe Meppelink is an Adjunct Assistant Professor at the University of Houston, co-teaching courses in digital fabrication with Metalab partner Andrew Vrana. Joe also serves as Faculty Research Coordinator at the College of Architecture, where professional and academic efforts coincide in the development of Green Building components and products, such as the SPACE. Andrew Vrana is an Architect who has structured his practice around design enhanced by advanced computation and parametric digital design. He has worked in the office of Renzo Piano Building Workshop and now is applying his interests and experiences professionally with Joe Meppelink at Metalab and in academia as a Visiting Assistant Professor at the University of Houston.

Patrick Hood-Daniel
Build Your Own CNC

FUNDAMENTALS OF CNC
Friday 02/11/11, 2:00PM UNIVERSITY OF HOUSTON COA AUDITORIUM

Patrick Hood-Daniel is an Urban Designer, a cross between an architect and a city planner that designs at a larger scale with public’s input, trained as an architect from the University of Miami with honors with reception of the Henry Adams Medal and went on to get a Graduate degree at the University of California, Berkeley for a Masters of Urban Design. Prior to that Patrick was a computer programmer for about 10 years working in the field of rotating machinery to determine problems through their vibration. As a part of his computer programming business, Patrick has experience in Novell Networks (physical and administrative), and programming for client server applications. Currently, Patrick shares his time teaching college level technical, mechanical and architectural courses, works part time as the director of Planning, Urban Design and Devleopment for Downtown Houston and runs this website as the means of his sole passion and desire to create a resource for spreading the knowledge of automated fabrication.

Axel Paredes
Universidad Francisco Marroquín, Guatemala

DESIGN RULES
Wednesday 02/03/10, 5:00PM UTA SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE AUDITORIUM

Axel Paredes teaches design studio and digital fabrication courses at Universidad Francisco Marroquin in Guatemala, where he is also director of the Digital Fabrication Laboratory. He has taught workshops on digital design and manufacturing at the TEC of Monterrey in México and at the Izmir School of Economics in Turkey. He received a Master of Architecture degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with his thesis entitled Generative Opponents: A New Architecture for Native Soil, receiving the Imre Halasz Thesis Prize; as well as an M.A. degree in History and Theory of Architecture at the Architectural Association of London. Among his professional projects, his practice Axel Paredes Arquitectura recently won a competition in association with two other firms to design and build a sixty five thousand square meter building complex in Guatemala City, due to begin construction in 2010.
(Right image credit: Fabric formed concrete system done with students at UFM)

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Scott Marble
Marble Fairbanks / Columbia GSAPP, NYC

DESIGNING PARAMETERS / DESIGNING ASSEMBLIES
Thursday 02/04/10, 7:30PM DALLAS ARCHITECTURE FORUM

Scott Marble is a founding partner of Marble Fairbanks and a faculty member at the Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation (GSAPP). His early engagement with digital technologies at Columbia University, teaching one of the first “paperless” design studios, has allowed Marble Fairbanks to pioneer innovative uses of digital fabrication and unique assemblies in theirbuilt work. Scott is a frequent lecturer in the areas of digital technologies and building information modeling (BIM). Scott received his Master of Architecture degree from Columbia University and his Bachelor of Environmental Design degree from Texas A&M University. In 2008 Marble Fairbanks was commissioned by the Museum of Modern Art in New York to design a speculative project addressing the potentials of digital design and fabrication for the exhibition Home Delivery: Fabricating the Modern Dwelling.

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