2025 Speakers
Everything but Immersion: On Sound and Other Media
Abstract: Principles of illusion and immersion have formed a continuous thread throughout the history of architecture. However, they have often been overlooked in favor of a dominant narrative that emphasizes the rationality generally associated with the modern aspiration for progress and scientific validity. This presentation will explore our contemporary understanding of immersion and the various media often linked to it as essential conditions for envisioning virtual spaces and experiences. It will also offer an opportunity to reflect on methods of notation and simulation in architecture from a long-term perspective.
Bio: Carlotta Darò is an architectural historian, Associate Professor at ENSA Paris-Malaquais, and currently a Senior Researcher at the Gramazio Kohler Chair in Digital Fabrication at ETH Zürich, where she leads the Immersive Models: Acoustic Simulation in Architecture and Spatial Sound Arts project (ETH and ZHdK). Her work lies at the intersection of architecture, sound technology, and media studies. She is the author of Avant-gardes sonores en architecture (2013), Les Murs du son: Le Poème électronique au Pavillon Philips (2015), and Paysage de lignes: Esthétique et télécommunication (2022), forthcoming from MIT Press (2025).
StructAIgents - Rethinking structural engineering paradigms in the age of agentic AI
Abstract: This talk examines the limitations of traditional data-driven ML/DL approaches in structural analysis and presents research on agentic systems in this context. Initial experimental outcomes demonstrate potential while also identifying future research needs related to agent roles and toolchains.
Bio: Since April 1, 2024, Michael A. Kraus has been a tenure-track assistant professor of structural mechanics at the Technical University of Darmstadt. His interdisciplinary research at the intersection of civil engineering, architecture, and computer science focuses on computational methods, particularly artificial intelligence (AI), to advance from current 'computer-aided' (CAx) to 'AI-assisted' (AIx) design, analysis, and planning. These novel computational and analytical tools integrate human intuition with the capabilities of computers and modern algorithms to enable a more sustainable, aesthetically appealing, and reliable built environment. As an academically active engineer, he adheres to the highest scientific standards to translate research findings into concrete and practical recommendations for industry applications, standardization, and professional publications.
Modelling the Unseen—The Future of Spatial Experiences in Extended Reality
Abstract: This talk explores how Extended Reality (xR) technologies are transforming our understanding of spatial design, framed by critical and feminist perspectives inspired by the female VR pioneers of the early 1990s and their concept of embodied virtuality. Paula presents her artistic research and the three xR models she developed as part of her design-led PhD: Rhetorical Bodies: An xR Dance Performance, Infra-thin Magick: An xR Ceremony, and Alison's Room: An xR Archive, to demonstrate how virtual and physical worlds can merge to expand our sensory and cognitive experiences. Finally, Paula introduces the concept of 'enveloped cognition,' which highlights the deep connection between our bodily perceptions and the xR environments we inhabit, and briefly previews her upcoming project, Mirrorworlds / Imagine: A Space of Us All, which she will develop over the next two years as part of the ETH Postdoc Fellowship under the mentorship of Fabio Gramazio.
Bio: Dr. Paula Strunden, Acting Professor for Emerging Technologies and Design at Bauhaus University Weimar, is a transdisciplinary artist who studied architecture in Vienna, Paris, and London. She worked for Herzog & de Meuron Basel and Raumlabor Berlin and completed her design-led PhD as part of the Horizon 2020 project TACK—Communities of Tacit Knowledge: Architecture and its Ways of Knowing. Her dissertation on multisensory perception through extended reality models (xRM) was awarded the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna Prize for Best Research Work 2023/24. Paula's room-scale xR models have been nominated twice for the Dutch Film Award Gouden Calf and exhibited internationally at film festivals and cultural institutions, including the Royal Academy of Arts London, Eye Filmmuseum Amsterdam, MAK Centre for Art and Architecture Los Angeles, Nieuwe Instituut Rotterdam, Ars Electronica Linz, and Museum der Moderne Salzburg. As part of her research into female pioneers in virtual technologies, she founded the educational online platform www.xr-atlas.org, runs a podcast on woman in xR, and taught at leading institutions across Europe including the Bartlett School of Architecture, Architectural Association London, University of Applied Arts Vienna, Academy van Bouwkunst Amsterdam, and UdK Berlin.
Architectural Machine Intelligence
Abstract: The talk by Anton Savov explores the principles and implications of the new computational paradigm entering the architectural discipline—generative AI enabled by Foundation Models. It aims to inspire practitioners, researchers, and students to shape and contribute to architecturally specific machine intelligence, addressing the challenges of open-ended design and decision-making processes. The talk highlights AI as a general-purpose technology that architects and society can harness to respond to three major transformation trends: the unavoidable transformation of the built environment, the ongoing shift towards an AI-based society, and the transformation of the architectural discipline itself.
Bio: Anton Savov is an architect and postdoctoral researcher at ETH Zurich, where he integrates Generative AI and Foundation Models with design to reshape the way we imagine and create the built environment. He works with Prof. Benjamin Dillenburger at the Chair of Digital Building Technologies and serves as deputy executive director of the Center for Augmented Computational Design (Design++), fostering transdisciplinary approaches across architecture, engineering, and computer science. Previously, Anton worked with Prof. Daniel Hall, developing fabrication-aware generative design for residential buildings using product platforms. He earned his PhD at TU Darmstadt’s Digital Design Unit, investigating how technology can amplify architectural co-creation at the intersection of Participatory Design, Generative Design, Game Design, and Crowd Wisdom. Among other outcomes, he developed “20.000 BLOCKS,” a Minecraft-based platform for collaborative generative design. His architectural perspective is enriched by working at Bollinger+Grohmann Engineers, teaching at the Städelschule Architecture Class, and exhibiting work at the Venice Art Biennale, the MAK Center for Art and Architecture in Los Angeles, and NODE Frankfurt.