Thomas Wortmann received his Diplom-Ingenieur in Architecture at the University of Kassel, where he studied under the pioneering digital architect Lars Spuybroek and Manfred Grohmann, one of the founders of the well-known structural engineering firm Bollinger + Grohmann.

After working three years at NOX, Lars Spuybroek’s practice in Rotterdam, he continued his education with a Master of Science in Design and Computation at MIT. In 2018, he received his PhD in Architecture and Sustainable Design from Singapore University of Technology and Design. His PhD thesis received the university’s “Best Dissertation” award. Before joining the ICD at the University of Stuttgart as Tenure-track Professor for Computing in Architecture, Thomas taught at National University of Singapore and held a position at Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University in Suzhou, China.

His research interests are the use of computational methods such as optimization, multi-variate visualization and machine learning in architectural design processes. He is the lead developer of Opossum, an award-winning, machine-learning based optimization tool that has been download over 5.000 times.

Helmut Pottmann is a professor of Applied Mathematics and Computational Science at KAUST and founding director of the Visual Computing Center at KAUST. He has had faculty positions in the US and in Germany and has been a Professor of Applied geometry at TU Wien since 1992. His research interests are in Applied Geometry, Visual Computing and most recently in Geometric Computing for Architecture and Manufacturing. He is a Fellow of the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics and recipient of the Eurographics Outstanding Technical Contributions Award, the Bezier Award of the Solid Modeling Association and the John Gregory Award for fundamental contributions to geometric modeling.

Stefana Parascho is a researcher, architect, and educator whose work lies at the intersection of architecture, digital fabrication and computational design. She is currently an Assistant Professor at EPFL where she founded the Lab for Creative Computation (CRCL).

Through her research, she has explored multi-robotic fabrication methods and their relationship to architectural design. Her goal is to strengthen the connection between design, structure, and fabrication, and boost the interdisciplinary nature of architecture through the development of accessible computational tools and robotic fabrication methods.

Before joining EPFL, Stefana was an Assistant Professor at Princeton University, where she led the CREATE Lab Princeton. She completed her doctorate in 2019 at ETH Zurich, Gramazio Kohler Research. Previously, she received her Diploma in Architectural Engineering from the University of Stuttgart and worked with DesignToProduction Stuttgart and Knippers Helbig Advanced Engineering.

Achim Menges is a registered architect in Frankfurt and full professor at the University of Stuttgart, where he is the founding director of the Institute for Computational Design and Construction (ICD) and the director of the Cluster of Excellence Integrative Computational Design and Construction for Architecture (IntCDC). In addition, he has been Visiting Professor in Architecture at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design and held multiple other visiting professorships in Europe and the United States. He graduated with honours from the Architectural Association, AA School of Architecture in London, where he subsequently taught as Studio Master and Unit Master in the AA Graduate School and the AA Diploma School.

The focus of Achim Menges’ practice and research is on the development of integrative design at the intersection of computational design methods, robotic manufacturing and construction, as well as advanced material and building systems. His work is based on an interdisciplinary approach in collaboration with structural engineering, system engineering, production engineering, computer science, material science, natural science as well as social science and the humanities. He is the director of the interdisciplinary Cluster of Excellence Integrative Computational Design and Construction for Architecture (IntCDC). With an initial funding period of seven years, a Cluster of Excellence is the most significant and substantial grant awarded by the German Research Foundation. For the very first time, a Cluster of Excellence has been awarded to the field of Architecture.

Achim Menges has published several books on this work and related fields of design research, and he is the author/co-author of numerous scientific papers and articles. His projects and design research has received many international awards, has been published and exhibited worldwide, and form parts of several renowned museum collections, among others, the permanent collection of the Centre Pompidou in Paris and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.

Achim Menges is a member of several international research evaluation boards (i.e. SNF Swiss National Fonds, ISF Israel Science Foundation, AVNUR Italian Ministry of Education and Research, FCT Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology) and a member of numerous scientific committees of leading peer-reviewed international journals and conferences (i.e. TECHNE Journal of Technology for Architecture and Environment, IJAC International Journal of Architectural Computing, Architectural Design Journal, CAD Journal, ACADIA Association for Computer Aided Design in Architecture, AAG Advances in Architectural Geometry, ALGODE Algorithmic Design, FABRICATE Digital Fabrication in Architecture).

Jan Knippers is a structural engineer and since 2000 head of the Institute for Building Structures and Structural Design (ITKE) at the University of Stuttgart. His interest is in innovative and resource-efficient structures created at the intersection of research and development and practice.

In 2001 he co-founded „Knippers Helbig Advanced Engineering“ with offices in Stuttgart, Berlin and New York and was co-lead for the first years of the practice’s growth. Some of his key projects from this time are the EXPO Axis for Shanghai in 2010, the Thematic Pavilion at EXPO 2012 in Yeosu, South Korea and the Gallery at the Staatsoper Berlin, completed in 2017. In 2018 he founded “Jan Knippers Ingenieure“ in Stuttgart to give more personal attention to innovative projects from concept to completion. The current focus of the practise is on the design and construction of novel fibre composite and timber structures

From 2014 to 2019 Jan Knippers was the lead coordinator of the DFG collaborative research centre TRR141 „Biological Design and Integrative Structures“, a collaboration between the Universities of Stuttgart, Tübingen and Freiburg. Since 2019 he is Deputy Executive Director of the Cluster of Excellence “Integrative Computational Design and Construction for Architecture” and Vice-rector for Research of the University of Stuttgart.

He is author of several books, numerous scientific publications, is a member of various advisory boards (i.e. German Science Foundation) and is frequently invited to speak at national and international conferences.

Kathrin Dörfler is a researcher and educator at the interface between architecture, computational design, and robotics. In 2019, Kathrin joined the School of Engineering and Design at the Technical University of Munich (TUM SoED) as a Tenure Track Professor to set up a research group for Digital Fabrication at the Department of Architecture. The research interests of her group are focused on collaborative fabrication processes, on-site robotics, and fabrication-aware design.

Before, she was a doctoral student (since 2013) and postdoc (since 2018) at Gramazio Kohler Research at the National Centre of Competence in Research (NCCR) Digital Fabrication, ETH Zurich. She has a Master’s degree in Architecture from TU Vienna (2012) and a PhD degree from ETH Zurich (2018).

https://www.arc.ed.tum.de/df