Architect Dr. Mania Aghaei Meibodi is Assistant Professor of Architecture at Taubman College, and a leader in developing novel computational design and fabrication methods suitable for large scale manufacturing in the building industry. She has taught previously at The Master of Advanced Studies ETH in Architecture and Digital Fabrication, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Lulea University of Technology, and Carlton University.
Laida Aguirre is an architectural designer and director of stock-a-studio. Interested in the circulation of materials and commodities, their research focuses on the way our built environment is affected by the politics of resources, aesthetics and the virtual. They are currently an assistant professor of architecture at Taubman College.
Matthew Au is a founder of the Los Angeles based architectural design studio Current Interests. Matthew’s academic work is deeply influenced by the history of conceptual art practice as he examines the spaces and tools of production, and the lines of communication that connect the worlds of design and building. He holds a Bachelor in Studio Art and Art History from the University of California, San Diego, and a Master of Architecture from Southern California Institute of Architecture.
Mollie Claypool is Director of Automated Architecture (AUAR) Ltd and Co-Director of Automated Architecture (AUAR) Labs at The Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL. Her research is concerned with the cultural (social, political, economic) consequences of increasing automation in architectural production. Her approach draws from firsthand experience in architectural practice, as well as expertise in the history, theory, and design of automation in architectural production.
McLain Clutter is an associate professor and Chair of the architecture program at the University of Michigan’s Taubman College, and a partner in the architecture practice EXTENTS. Clutter’s work focuses on the role of architecture within the multidisciplinary milieu of contemporary urbanism, and the interrelations between architecture and media culture.
Dana Cupkova holds Associate Professorship at the Carnegie Mellon School of Architecture and is a Co-founder and Director of EPIPHYTE Lab, an architectural design and research collaborative. In her research, she interrogates the relationship between design-space and ecology as it engages issue of environmental ethics through computational methods, materiality, embodied energy and cradle-to-cradle advanced manufacturing frameworks, with a particular focus on thermodynamics, and material waste-streams.
Peggy Deamer is Professor Emerita of Yale School of Architecture and the founding member of the Architecture Lobby. She is the editor of Architecture and Capitalism: 1845 to the Present and The Architect as Worker: Immaterial Labor, the Creative Class, and the Politics of Design and the author of Architecture and Labor.
Shelby Elizabeth Doyle, AIA is an Associate Professor of Architecture and Stan G. Thurston Professor of Design Build at the Iowa State University College of Design, Director of the ISU Architectural Robotics Lab (ARL), and co-founder of the ISU Computation & Construction Lab (CCL), which works to connect developments in computation to the challenges of construction: through teaching, research, and outreach.
Dr. Matias del Campo is an Associate Professor at Taubman College, co-founder of the architectural practice SPAN, and director of the AR2IL—The Architecture and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory at UoM. Here he conducts research on advanced design methods in architecture, primarily through the application of Artificial Intelligence techniques in collaboration with Michigan Robotics and the Computer Science department.
Emily Ebersol is a Master of Architecture candidate at Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning at the University of Michigan. She completed her Bachelor of Science in Architecture from the University of Pittsburgh in 2019. Emily is interested in a transdisciplinary design approach, working at the intersection of architecture, organizing, writing, and curation.
Mira Henry is a founder of the Los Angeles based architectural design studio Current Interests. Mira’s formal research and writing focus on architecture, race, and materiality. She is the recipient of the 2019 Architectural League Prize, Henry Adams AIA Award, and Archiprix International Gold Medal. Mira holds a Bachelor in Art History from the University of Chicago and a Master of Architecture from UCLA.
The impact of architectural thinking and making upon society is central to Irene’s professional and scholarly work. She is assistant chair of architecture at Taubman College and finishing Get Practiced (Routledge, 2021), a book about the value of an architectural education, and why getting one is absolutely worth it.
Daniel Jacobs is an architect and co-founder of the research and design practice HOME-OFFICE. He is currently an adjunct faculty member at the Gerald D. Hines College of Architecture and Design at the University of Houston and serves as the secretary of the National Organizing Committee of The Architecture Lobby.
Perry Kulper is an architect and Associate Professor of Architecture at the University of Michigan. He taught a SCI-Arc for 17 years. His interests include: the generative potential of architectural drawing; the spatial opportunities offered by utilizing diverse design methods; broadening the conceptual range by which architecture contributes to our cultural imagination. In 2013 he published Pamphlet Architecture 34, ‘Fathoming the Unfathomable: Archival Ghosts and Paradoxical Shadows’ with Nat Chard.
Meredith L. Miller is an architect and Associate Professor at the University of Michigan, Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning. She is a founding member of T+E+A+M, an award-winning architecture practice based in Ann Arbor.
Steven Lauritano’s research examines the reciprocal relationships that connect historiography and design. His interests include hybrid practices of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century architect-antiquarians; the survival of antiquarian methodologies in contemporary design culture; and the history of world-architectural-histories, from the seventeenth century to the present. Lauritano teaches at Leiden University where he is a member of the Centre for the Arts in Society.
John McMorrough is a writing architect. He writes about the relationship between architectural design and culture, and he designs as a partner of studioAPT (Architecture Project Theory). He is also an associate professor at the Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning at the University of Michigan.
Professor Achim Menges is a registered architect and Professor at the University of Stuttgart, where he is the founding director of the Institute for Computational Design and Construction since 2008. His practice and research focuses on the development of integral design processes at the intersection of morphogenetic design computation, biomimetic engineering and computer aided manufacturing that enables a highly articulated, performative built environment.
Catie Newell is an Associate Professor of Architecture at Taubman College and founding principal of Alibi Studio based in Detroit. Her work and research captures optical and material effects, focusing on the development of new atmospheres through the exploration of textures, volumes, and the effects of light or lack thereof.
Vyta Pivo is a postdoctoral scholar and assistant professor specializing in architectural and urban history, environmental studies, and the U.S. in global context. Her current project, Baptized in Concrete: A Material History of the US Empire, documents the global ambitions of the U.S. cement and concrete industries along with the environmental and social consequences of their unfettered expansion.
Mireille Roddier is an associate professor in Architecture and Women’s and Gender Studies at the University of Michigan. Her writings and teaching focus on urban representation through the lens of class and gender. Her design practice with Keith Mitnick has received numerous awards, including the Architecture League’s Young Architects Prize and Architectural Record’s Design Vanguard.
Jose Sanchez is an Associate Professor at Taubman College, Architect, Game Designer, and Theorist based in Detroit, Michigan. He is the director of the Plethora Project, a research studio investing in the future of the propagation of architectural design knowledge. His research “Architecture for the Commons” designs and interrogates social media platforms as tools with the potential to author architectural content in the public domain.
Anya Sirota is an American architectural designer and educator. She is a founding principal of Akoaki, a Detroit-based practice of architects and urban designers specializing in public spaces and experimental cultural infrastructure. She teaches at the University of Michigan’s Taubman College, where she also serves as Associate Dean of Academic Initiatives.
Rebecca Smith is a researcher, educator, and designer who works at the intersection of digital technology and urbanism. She holds an M.Arch from the University of California, Berkeley, and is currently a PhD candidate in architecture at the University of Michigan, where her dissertation is entitled “Technologies of Legibility: Representation and the Digital Infrastructures of the City.”
Geoffrey Thün is Associate Vice President for Research in Social Sciences, Humanities and the Arts at the University of Michigan Office of Research, Professor of Architecture at Taubman College, and a founding partner in the research-based practice rvtr. His research and creative practice ranges in scale from the regional territory and the city to high-performance buildings, to full-scale prototype-based work exploring responsive and kinetic envelopes that mediate energy, atmosphere, and social space.
Kathy Velikov is Professor and Associate Dean for Research and Creative Practice at the University of Michigan Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning. She is a licensed Architect, founding partner of the research-based practice rvtr, and the Vice President of ACADIA (Association for Computer Aided Design in Architecture).
Peter von Bülow is an engineer and architecture and has worked in Germany and the United States. He spent a year at the University of Stuttgart’s Institute for Lightweight Studies under Frei Otto, and later completed a doctorate there under Werner Sobek. His area of research focuses on the use of evolutionary computation for exploration and optimization of structural systems.
Tsz Yan Ng is an Assistant Professor of Architecture at Taubman College and principal of an independent architecture and art practice. A common thread to her research investigates questions of labor in various facets and forms – underscoring broader issues of industrial manufacturing innovation, of human labor, crafting, and aesthetics.