Co-Technical Chair: Aaron Sprecher
Assistant Professor, McGill University
URL: www.o-s-a.com, www.mcgill.ca/architecture
Aaron Sprecher is co-founder and partner of Open Source Architecture (www.o-s-a.com). He completed his graduate studies at the University of California at Los Angeles. His research and design work focuses on the synergy between information technologies, computational languages and automated digital systems, examining the way in which technology informs and generates innovative approaches to design processes. Beside numerous publications and exhibitions, he has lectured in many institutions including the University of Pennsylvania (Conversation | Information In-formation N-formations), MIT (In-fluence Af-fluence Con-fluence | Notes on N-dimensional proxemics), Rice University (Dissipative Architecture) and Harvard University (From Formal to Behavioral Realities). Aaron Sprecher is co-curator and co-editor of the groundbreaking exhibition and publication The Gen(H)ome Project. He is a recipient of numerous awards, among others, Fellow of Syracuse University Center of Excellence. Aaron Sprecher is currently Assistant Professor at McGill University School of Architecture.
Co-Technical Chair: Shai Yeshayahu
Associate Professor, Southern Illinois University
URL: www.shaiy.net
Shai Yeshayahu is the co- founder of VerS, an international research and design practice responsive to how ancient, emerging, and local data informs making. The office has built, exhibited and published in Latin America, Canada, Israel and the UK. Shai obtained a M.Arch. from Ohio State University and concluded with special studies in linguistics and art history at the Fundación Ortega y Gasset. In 2004, Shai joined the faculty at SIUC School of Architecture and founded the "df_lab", to promote digital culture across the university’s curriculum. Through his practice, teaching and research he seeks to extend the senses as instruments that broaden operative modes in architecture. In 2007, he organized and curated Aesthesia, a symposium and exhibition about the future of digital architecture.
Site Chair: Pablo Lorenzo-Eiroa
Associate Professor of Architecture Adjunct The Cooper Union
URL: www.pabloeiroa.com, www..cooper.edu
Pablo Lorenzo-Eiroa has been integrating theory and professional practice through his firms eiroa architects and DLO (www.pabloeiroa.com). His projects develop analog and digital strategies, as continuous and discontinuous signs of information, through different media-based interfaces that recognize but critique the most stable canonical structures through topological transformations to overcome predetermination. He introduced these concepts at the Cooper Union to integrate the legacy of hand craft and the deep understanding of innovative architecture representation within contemporary digital strategies. His recently published: Instalaciones: Sobre el trabajo de Peter Eisenman, includes theoretical discussions based on Eisenman's installations after his collaboration on more than ten relevant international projects. Mr. Lorenzo-Eiroa is a Fulbright and National Endowment for the Arts scholar, graduated from Princeton University and the University of Buenos Aires and is currently an assistant professor of architecture design and advanced computer studies at the Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture at The Cooper Union. He has lectured in many other institutions worldwide and is the recipient of many scholarships and design awards.
Co-Exhibition Chairs: Chandler Ahrens
Architect Partner, Open Source Architecture
URL: www.o-s-a.com
Chandler Ahrens completed his studies with an M. Arch. from the University of California Los Angeles in 2002 and received a B. Arch. from Savannah College of Art and Design in 1995. His focus is integrating material systems with a conceptual framework for the communication of ideas. In 2006, he was a co-curator of the Gen(h)ome Project at the MAK Center for Art and Architecture. Chandler has lectured at various academic institutions and is frequently a guest critic at universities around Los Angeles.
Co-Exhibition Chairs: Axel Schmitzberger
Associate Professor, California State Polytechnic University, Pomona
E: schmitzbergeATcsupomona.edu
URL: www.11dot1.com, www.starfish-prime.com, www.csupomona.edu/~arc
Axel Schmitzberger is currently teaching as Assistant Professor at California State Polytechnic University. Prior to this engagement he has taught at various academic institutions both in Los Angeles (Art Center College of Design Pasadena, Otis College of Design) and Austria (Techno-Z Fachhochschule Salzburg) in the areas of Architecture, Multimedia and Graphic Design. He received his architectural master degree from the Technical University Vienna, Austria, and practiced in various architectural design offices on internationally recognized projects. Since 2005 Axel Schmitzberger hosts a quarterly public lecture series at Cal Poly Pomona, featuring over 50 international, young and renowned guest lecturers to this date. Aside of his academic pursuits he currently manages the practice 11.1 design | research along with partner Arshia Mahmoodi exploring contemporary built architecture at all scales; in 2009 the firm hostcell transformed into the graphic design enterprise starfish-prime as a collaboration in contemporary graphic design with partner Ice Lee.
Co-Exhibition Chairs: Michael Su
Visiting Assistant Professor, Pratt Institute
URL: www.sensoryarchitecture.org
Michael Su holds a B.S. in Magnetic Confinement Fusion and a M.S. in Magnetic Confinement Fusion, he graduated with a B.Arch from the Cooper Union School of Architecture and received his M.A. from Princeton University where he is currently a PhD candidate, doing researching on the interchange between science and architecture in the early works of R. Buckminster Fuller. He is an assistant professor at Pratt Institute where he conducts the degree project research and architecture design studio focused on Sensory Architecture. He is the co-editor of Sensory Architecture a publication at Pratt Institute and developed research with Peter Eisenman.