MILAD SHOWKATBAKHSH, MATHIAS NAVASAITYTE, KATYA BRYSKINA, KARASTATHI, JOSE PAREJA
TRUMMER, GEORG VRACHLIOTIS, ANA NICHOLAS, MATHIAS MAIERHOFER, RASA REISNER, DANIEL KOEHLER, ALDO SOLLAZZO
ABOUT B-PRO
B-Pro is a group of ve graduate programmes. These programmes welcome a diverse international student cohort, with highly structured access to the realisation and application of research, and the production of new schemes of conception and construction in architecture and urbanism.
Throughout the year, B-Pro tutors and students develop numerous seminars, workshops, lectures and public events to encourage collaboration and the discussion of ideas which further our understanding of the future of design, the urban environment and architecture.
Through a shared vision of creative architecture, B-Pro is an opportunity for students both to participate in a new community and to a rm the singularity of their individual talents. These programmes are not only an open door to an advanced architectural practice but also form the base from which each student can de ne their particular approach and architectural philosophy, in order to seek a position in the professional world.
Attracting high-calibre sta from all over the world and led by Chair of School Professor Frédéric Migayrou, B-Pro includes a number of research ‘labs’ dedicated to advanced experimentation in architectural and urban theory.
B-Pro AD Programme Director: Tyson Hosmer
B-Pro UD Programme Director: Roberto Bottazzi
B-Pro Programmes:
Architectural Design (AD) - (MArch)
Urban Design (UD) - (MArch)
Architectural Computation (AC) - (MSc/MRes)
Architecture & Digital Theory (ADT) - (MRes)
Bio-Integrated Design (BioID) - (MArch/MSc)
B-PRO AD RESEARCH CLUSTERS
2024-2025
RC2 [SOFT]ROBOTIC ARCHITECTURE
Design: Valentina Soana and Shahram Minooee Sabery
Technical: Valentina Soana, Shahram Minooee Sabery, Aya Meskawi
Theory: Provides Ng
This year, RC2 explores emerging design possibilities of autonomous systems. It investigates the role of robotics in architecture beyond their use as fabrication and construction tools, moving towards a novel concept of architectural robots. For a long time now, designers have envisioned building systems that can respond and adapt to multiple human, environmental and structural conditions. Recent technological advancements in robotics enable machines to be self-aware, plan and react to undetermined circumstances. The integration of robotic solutions into material systems can create novel structures that are able to self-form, reconfigure and achieve multiple states, operating and interacting at architectural and human scale.
The cluster focuses on the development of novel material-machine-kinetic systems where robotic operations are embedded within material systems and controlled in real-time by a cyber-physical network. Behaviours emerge, in turn, through negotiation between human, designer, material and machine interaction.
RC3 LIVING ARCHITECTURE LAB
Design: Tyson Hosmer, Octavian Gheorghiu and Philipp Siedler
Technical: Ziming He, Baris Erdincer, Sergio Mutis
Theory: Jordi Vivaldi Piera
RC3 interrogates the notion of ‘living architecture’ as a coupling of living systems with the continuous [re]assembly and [re]formation of architecture. The lab holistically reappraises the unsustainable linear life cycles of buildings, learning from living systems extraordinary scalable efficiencies of adaptive construction with simple flexible parts. It focuses on developing autonomously reconfigurable buildings integrating AI-driven generative spatial design platforms, novel robotic material systems, and cyber-physical simulation, sensing, and control trained. Each project develops the three subsystems in relation to each other, considering both the constraints of the design algorithms and the robotic material systems, enabling intelligent spatial adaptation with a continuous feedback chain. Experimental design models are embedded with the ability to self-organize, self-assess, and self-improve using deep reinforcement learning to train both the adaptive design algorithms and adaptive robotic assembly behaviour in the simulator. This year`s research hasevolved around varied collective robotic construction (CRC) systems as ecologies of varied modular robots working collaboratively with passive reversible building parts. We have focused on developing robotic material systems integrating natural, recycled, and waste materials.
RC5 PRODUCT ARCHITECTURE
Design: Stefan Bassing and Marios Tsiliakos
Technical: Zehao Qin,Calin Craiu,Paul-Andrei Burghelea,JJ Lee
Theory: Daria Ricchi
Research Cluster 5 focuses on redefining the boundaries between digital and physical products within architecture by investigating how end-to-end applications can transform spatial experiences. We are targeting the transformation of the traditionally service-oriented architectural design industry towards scalable, automated solutions that can be market-ready products, rather than single-use prototypes.
RC5 is impact focused and structured around four primary pillars: circular economy, net-zero agenda, biodiversity, and sustainable retrofitting. Students are asked to identify distinct spatial problems and address them with product-oriented solutions that support regenerative and sustainable urban environments.
Through computational design and local knowledge bases constructed with state-of-the-art LLMs, students develop web-based configurators and interactive platforms that produce site-specific architectural designs. These designs are optimized for digital fabrication workflows, enabling direct translation into CNC-milled or 3D-printed physical components.
RC6 BECAUSE OF CASTING
Design: Guan Lee, Daniel Widrig and Christopher Fischlein
Technical: Bartlett BMade
Theory: Mark Garcia
RC6 advocates for the use of materials and the examination of design processes that go beyond mere practicality. This year, we turned to casting as both method and metaphor for design thinking and production. How can architecture, grounded in material behaviours and forming techniques, engage with processes that foreground unpredictability and value deviation as a form of knowledge? How can casting evolve from a fixed production tool into an open-ended, spatial, and collaborative act? Is this merely a shift in scale, both physical and conceptual, or a deeper shift in how we understand form itself? Making is a vital part of the design and architectural world, enabling architects to realise ambitious and complex projects that push the boundaries of architecture and challenge formal idealism. By hacking into existing know-how, we not only question what we build but how we build.
RC7 BIOSPATIAL TENDING
Design: Richard Beckett and Christopher Whiteside
Technical: Hangchuan Wei
Theory: Yota Adilenidou
Operating at the intersection of biology and architecture, RC7 continues its ongoing research into integrating living biological systems and materials into buildings. This year, the cluster explores the use of living material composites for shaping architectural tectonics that intentionally engage biological concepts of ageing, decay and necrosis. These form the basis for architectures that are resilient through their non-permanent agencies, utilising ecological concepts of continual change, adaptation and regeneration. The projects examine how these materials can be designed, grown and applied to buildings using environmental driven design methodologies. Strategies of monitoring and sensing are developed to understand and diagnose metabolic activity. These data sets are then used to inform new approaches for multi-species cohabitation whereby these material systems and their spatial tectonics are continually reformed and adapted using biological organisms, growth protocols and digital fabrication as part of a process we call ‘biospatial tending’.
RC8 AUGMENTED MULTIMATERIALITY
Design: Kostas Grigoriadis and Alvaro Lopez Rodriguez
Technical: Samuel Esses and Hanjun Kim
Theory: Ilaria Di Carlo
Research Cluster 8 focuses on multi-material design in architecture and building construction. The cluster aims to explore new methods of designing and building with material gradients to redefine component-based assemblt and the standard practice of twentieth-century mechanical connectivity.
In previous years, the cluster has studied the use of robotic fabrication for in-situ 3D printing of building facades and the merging of materials to create component-less, continuous envelopes. This year, students will research the origins of the materials used in multi-material topologies, with a focus on recycled sources. They will implement and combine AR technology with 3D printing methods to achieve hybrid systems that optimize production and materials.
RCX AI TECTONICS
Design: Federico Borello, Cesar Fragachan and Gilles Retsin
Technical: Christoph Geiger
Theory: Alejandro Veliz Reyes
RCX is a research cluster focused on innovation in Architecture, Engineering, and Construction (AEC) through advanced design technologies. It explores generative tectonics, rule-based systems, and participatory design using game engines, digital fabrication, and AI/ML frameworks. Drawing from methodologies in gaming, automotive, and aerospace industries, RCX gathers user-centric data to inform spatial layouts that align with both occupant needs and fabrication constraints.
The cluster integrates Design for Manufacture and Assembly (DfMA) with Industrialised Construction to develop parametric, production-aware components. These are tested through agent-based simulations and multiplayer game environments to prototype sustainable, mixeduse developments. RCX aims to enhance community wellbeing and social cohesion by creating adaptable, high-performance spatial systems for future urban environments.
In 2001, Michael Landy’s Break Down marks a ritualistic undoing of ownership and consumption, staged poignantly in a shuttered London department store. Over two decades later, consumption itself shifts—its spaces fracture between decaying high streets and the immediacy of digital platforms. RC11 explores this condition as both cultural artefact and spatial phenomenon.
From Cedric Price’s Fun Palace to Koolhaas’ Projects for Prada, architecture speculates on the merging of culture, commerce, and public space. Today, agship stores serve not only as points of sale but as spatialised narratives—architecture becomes branding, and vice versa. Yet while brands claim visibility through built form, the logistics of digital shopping remain hidden, reshaping the city invisibly.
Shopping becomes a continuous act, woven through every aspect of life. Public and private blur; experience is commodi ed; the citizen becomes consumer. RC11 investigates how this shift rede nes architecture—not to optimise it, but to explore its contradictions. It uses machine learning, algorithmic ltering, and speculative design to probe the digital plenty of consumer culture, navigating between decay and emergence, spectacle and infrastructure.
RC14 SENSORIA URBANISM – MACHINE
INTUITION
Design: Roberto Bottazzi, Margarita Chaskopoulou, and Tasos Varoudis
Technical: Margarita Chaskopoulou and Vassilis Papalexopoulos
Theory: Provides Ng
The introduction of machine learning [ml] models in creative disciplines such as urban design represents more than a mere technological or functional improvement of the current status quo. By projecting and correlating data onto each other, they provide new representations of cities and widen the range of design operations possible. This new condition cannot be grasped by the technical literature alone, as it gives rise to profound questions regarding the methods and aims of design. Firstly, this new affordance transforms the role of the urban designer closer to that of a curator, a data curator. Also, it expands the range of qualitative aspects of urban environments possible to engage and manipulate through design. Think of this condition as a new sensorium (the totality of your sensory apparatus) or, better, in its plural form, as new Sensoria consisting of multiple ways in which to sense urban life through form, sound, colour, perception, health, etc. Mediated by algorithms, this new sensorial approach allows students to imagine new spatial, cultural, social forms of organisation for urban design.
RC14 explores the implications of ml urbanism by engaging the ephemeral, abstract aspects of data to conjure up new forms of organisation and experience of London.
RC15 PERVASIVE URBANISM
Design: Vincent Nowak and Annarita Papeschi
Technical: Vincent Nowak
Theory: Ilaria Di Carlo
Building on last year’s investigations, RC15 continues to explore how pervasive forms of spatial injustice are embedded in the contemporary urbanscape. In London, generations of systemic inequality—shaped by colonial legacies, migration policies, and market-driven redevelopment—have produced contested sites where access, belonging, and visibility remain unevenly distributed. Yet today’s advances in AI and data science, paired with low-tech tools for in-situ sensing, offer powerful new ways to trace these dynamics and amplify marginalised voices.
This year, RC15 deepens its experiential and participatory approach to design research, experimenting with wearables for situated sensing of environmental and biometric data. Working in the River Lea Valley, students mapped emotional and cognitive responses to space, constructing layered portraits of place that link human and non-human ecologies.
Combining these methods with online data-scraping, machine learning and immersive storytelling, the studio gener-
ated design scenarios that act as spatial prosthetics: responsive infrastructures that operate across scales to reveal, reframe, and resist inherited patterns of exclusion.
At the intersection of emerging cognitive technologies and post-humanist approaches to spatial design, RC15 prototypes a distributed design methodology that reimagines collective authorship and proposes new forms of infrastructural agency grounded in situated knowledge, emotional resonance, and reciprocal modes of spatial care. actice to explore the emerging new relationship of digital networks, cities, and citizens.
Cities are layered landscapes, shaped by the strati cation and sedimentation of cultures, evolving over centuries throughout continuous cycles of construction, destruction and renewal. Each generation leaves its mark on the urban fabric, transforming the city to re ect technological, social and economic priorities. Twentieth century modernism, with its radical rethinking of architecture and urban planning, left a dual legacy for contemporary cities. It gave the city an expansion but localised its interventions. While modernist buildings and infrastructures represent an invaluable cultural and architectural heritage of the mobilisation of instrumental reasoning and consequently to an ever expanded urb, their localised presence made them failed utopias .
Vanishing City seeks to transform that way we think the vanishing city through its decay. It suggests an opportunity to foster new forms of life and value. By exploring the intersection of architecture, ecology, and urbanism, the studio challenged students to rethink the role of cities in the Post-Anthropocene, envisioning designs that are extended and ecologic.
Vanishing City seeks to transform that way we think the vanishing city through its decay. It suggests an opportunity to foster new forms of life and value. By exploring the intersection of architecture, ecology, and urbanism, the studio will challenge students to rethink the role of cities in the Post-Anthropocene, envisioning designs that are extended and ecological..
RC17 PLANETARY URBANISM
PARLIAMENTS WITH THINGS
Llabres-Valls and Zachary Flucker
Design: Enriqueta lLlabres-Valls and Zachary Flucker
Theory: William Huang
Technical: Dimitra Bra, Enriqueta Llabres-Valls, Huang Sheng Yang
Theory: Huang Sheng Yang
In RC6, material is the starting point and key driver for our design projects. The most critical and practical aspect of architecture for us is the matter we make with and why. This year, we will study materials used in art for the conception, production and inhabitation of architecture. What is the signi cance of materials in making art, and what can we learn from it? Are the key differences of utility and scale? What happens when an art fabricator makes architecture, and what if a builder of buildings were to make artwork? Methods and media in art production are varied and often do not conform to any single criteria, yet they are pointed and speci c. Like art, the material we choose to make architecture has environmental, geographical, cultural and political weight. Can the material of art be more than the sum of its parts? How do we explore the art of material use?
RC18 explored a transformative approach to urban design by integrating non-human actors and platform ecosystems. Drawing from Bruno Latour’s concept of the “Parliament of Things,” the Research Cluster challenged traditional design hierarchies by recognising the agency of both human and non-human entities—rivers, bees, AI, and data. RC18 emphasised the role of platform ecosystems, metaverse tools, and generative AI to rethink participatory design in the face of ecological crisis. Students developed urban prototypes and digital twins, using advanced mapping, sensing, and simulation technologies. These prototypes aimed to foster new forms of collaboration, disrupt linear design processes, and reimagine urban engagement.
The cluster encouraged co-creation as a radical design methodology, critically interrogating how creative and technological innovations can build equitable, sustainable futures within the climate emergency. RC18 ultimately situates design within complex socio-environmental systems for inclusive, adaptive urban strategies.
PRODUCTS & PLATFORMS
10:00am13:30pm BST
PANEL:
DANIEL KOEHLER, MATHIAS MAIERHOFER, CLAIRE KUANG, SEBASTIAN ANDIA
10:10 RC5 CUBIX
Students: Wenjie Wang,Yongchang Xu,Yiwen Jiang,Zilu Wang
Design: Stefan Bassing and Marios Tsiliakos
Technical: Zehao Qin, Calin Craiu, Paul-Andrei Burghelea, JJ Lee
Theory: Darria Ricchi
Cubix is a smart design system for retrofitting abandoned factories into affordable, modular workspaces for creative workers in London. Combining environmental simulation with AI-driven layout optimization, it transforms underused industrial sites into flexible office environments. Through a data-driven backend, Cubix analyses site conditions—light, wind, acoustics—alongside user input to generate optimized layouts. Its modular furniture system, fully 3D-printable and detachable, enables easy on-site customization. By reusing factory infrastructure instead of rebuilding, Cubix minimizes cost and carbon, offering a scalable solution for adaptive reuse and net-zero transformation of urban industrial relics.
Design: Federico Borello, Cesar Fragachan and Gilles Retsin
Technical: Christoph Geiger
Theory: Alejandro Veliz Reyes
STRATA is a modular densification strategy that activates underutilised air rights to build new housing atop existing structures, avoiding land consumption and preserving urban fabric. Using prefabricated, mortarless, 3D-printed components, it creates lightweight compression-only skeletons that integrate seamlessly with London’s historic architecture.
These neo-Victorian exoskeletons provide a flexible framework for incremental, resident-led habitation, reducing construction costs and enabling user customisation. STRATA collaborates directly with property owners, financing development through mortgages on air rights, thereby increasing asset value while addressing the city’s housing shortage. The result is a participatory, cost-efficient model of vertical urban expansion—adaptable, scalable, and embedded in London’s evolving built environment.
Technical: Zehao Qin, Calin Craiu, Paul-Andrei Burghelea, JJ Lee
Theory: Darria Ricchi
Tessera Vitalis is a data-driven façade regeneration system that integrates biodiversity and sustainability into building retrofits. Leveraging 3D scanning, satellite imagery, and environmental data analysis, the platform identifies opportunities to accommodate local flora and fauna displaced by urbanization. Users select site-specific ecological interventions, generating parametric, modular cladding designs 3D-printed from eco-friendly materials. Easily assembled and replaced onsite, these modules retrofit existing facades to support species habitats and resilient urban ecosystems. Tessera Vitalis transforms building envelopes into living infrastructure, merging regenerative design, circular material use, and adaptive strategies for net-zero, biodiverse cities.
12:10 RC5 AIRWEAVE
Students: Cervantes Guillermo,Yingxuan Liu,Yuelin Li,Zhen Yan
Design: Stefan Bassing and Marios Tsiliakos
Technical: Zehao Qin, Calin Craiu, Paul-Andrei Burghelea, JJ Lee
Theory: Darria Ricchi
AirWeave is a environmentally responsive façade retrofit system designed to combat urban air pollution while advancing the net-zero agenda. Utilizing responsive auxetic geometries and data-driven environmental analysis, AirWeave adapts surface configurations to optimize pollutant capture in real-time. Modular, 3D-printable components embed advanced filtration materials, enabling efficient pollutant removal and easy replacement. Maintenance is streamlined through reversible deformation, minimizing disruption and waste. By transforming existing building envelopes into smart, air-purifying infrastructure, AirWeave empowers cities to retrofit for cleaner air and environmental resilience, merging advanced computational design with impactful, regenerative urban interventions.
12:50 RCX CIVIC CANVAS
Students: Ling Xinyi, Yi Zhenglong, Tang Yihan, Yang Qiyun
Design: Federico Borello, Cesar Fragachan and Gilles Retsin
Technical: Christoph Geiger
Theory: Alejandro Veliz Reyes
Civic Canvas is an interactive participatory platform that bridges top-down planning processes with bottom-up civic input. It equips planners and developers with data-driven tools to analyse public feedback, while empowering citizens to express spatial and programmatic visions for their communities. Rooted in a critique of traditional urban renewal’s exclusionary practices, the platform adopts a game-based framework where participants take on dual roles—as both community developers and future users. Within this environment, users explore real-world trade-offs between cost, livability, and regulatory constraints, fostering systems thinking and collaborative negotiation. By simulating budgetary, zoning, and demographic pressures, Civic Canvas enables stakeholders to co-create scenarios that balance feasibility with public value. The result is not a static plan, but a dynamic process of co-design that integrates collective civic intention into actionable urban strategies. Civic Canvas redefines engagement, transforming it into a constructive and iterative tool for inclusive urban transformation.
15:00am18:30pm BST
PANEL:
RASA NAVASAITYTE, KATYA BRYSKINA, HANNES SCHAFELNER, MATHIAS
MAIERHOFER, MOSTAFA ELSAYED
15:10 RC2 SHADOW BLOOM
Students: DU DU, TING YIN, CHENXIAO LI, NUO XU, LIYUN MEI
Design: Valentina Soana and Shahram Minooee Sabery
Technical: Valentina Soana, Shahram Minooee Sabery, Aya Meskawi
Theory: Provides Ng
This project introduces a responsive soft robotic structure that adapts to both environmental and human needs. Constructed from textured plywood and bending-active rods, it features a flexible, patterned surface that enables dynamic transformations and casts intricate light and shadow. Carbon fiber rods ensure structural stability across multiple configurations. Integrated gesture and light sensors allow manual control and autonomous response—enhancing comfort and supporting plant growth. Envisioned as an outdoor tent or pavilion, it accommodates diverse uses, from reading and meditation to play and gatherings. A companion app provides intuitive control and modular ordering for easy assembly. Combined with vegetation, the structure becomes more than shelter— emerging as a sculptural, living element that fuses architecture, robotics, and landscape.
15:50 RC3 KYRBOT
Students: Zhuoran Zhao, Zishu Yuan, Yuqing Peng
Design: Tyson Hosmer, Octavian Gheorghiu and Philipp Siedler
Technical: Ziming He, Baris Erdincer, Sergio Mutis
Theory: Jordi Vivaldi Piera
This research proposes a novel architectural system that integrates modular robotics with sustainable material strategies, aiming to establish a framework for real-time, reconfigurable construction. By utilizing recycled paper waste as a primary building material, the system not only redefines the lifecycle of discarded resources but also invites public participation in circular design practices. The architecture itself is conceived as a composition of passive and active elements—passive components provide structural presence, while active robotic modules enable adaptive assembly, disassembly, and spatial transformation in response to evolving environmental and social needs.
16:30 RCX CIVIC MATRIX
Students: WEIKE XU, JIAJIE MAI, SOURABH KHEDKAR, XIAO LI
Design: Federico Borello, Cesar Fragachan and Gilles Retsin
Technical: Christoph Geiger
Theory: Alejandro Veliz Reyes
Civic Matrix is a speculative design framework that challenges the traditional link between increased floor area and domestic comfort. It replaces fixed spatial layouts with a dynamic system combining a static architectural scaffold and reconfigurable elements such as movable partitions and robotic furniture. This infrastructure enables real-time spatial adaptation to changing occupancy patterns. The system is governed by layered algorithms: macro-level controls manage overall spatial logic and constraints, while micro-level algorithms direct robotic components to optimize space use without compromising comfort. By decoupling quality of life from fixed square meters, Civic Matrix redefines living environments as flexible, performance-driven systems. It opposes the trend of shrinking living spaces by enabling high-density, adaptable homes that evolve with occupants’ needs. The project offers a novel approach to urban housing, proposing responsive, negotiable spatial frameworks suited to the complexities of future cities.
Design: Valentina Soana and Shahram Minooee Sabery
Technical: Valentina Soana, Shahram Minooee Sabery, Aya Meskawi
Theory: Provides Ng
This project proposes an alternative architectural approach for music performance spaces, merging soft robotics, choreography, and bodily interaction. Challenging conventional static architecture, it introduces a soft robotic structure that reconfigures through pneumatic actuation in response to human movement. Inspired by contemporary dance, the installation frames spatial transformation as choreography—a dynamic dialogue between body and structure. It offers a new spatial typology where architecture actively participates in music and movement, enhancing the emotional and sensory dimensions of performance. In this context, the boundary between performer, audience, and space dissolves, allowing architecture itself to become part of the act.
17:50 RC3 M.O.R.E
Students: JINGYI LIANG, AFRIN SURAIYA UMMER FAROOK, VAISHNAVIE RAVICHANDRAN, WEN HUANG, HAN YAN
Design: Tyson Hosmer, Octavian Gheorghiu and Philipp Siedler
Technical: Ziming He, Baris Erdincer, Sergio Mutis
Theory: Jordi Vivaldi Piera
What if buildings could adapt like living systems: changing their form and use overtime through intelligent collaboration? The M.O.R.E (MOdular / MOnocoque + Reconfigurable + Ecology) explores this question by combining modular design, natural fiber composites with a collaborative robotic system. Using an AI-driven online platform, users generate spatial assemblies with recyclable panels tailored to their needs, while a distributed, collaborative tri-robot system (wheel, cable, and arm robot) assemblies and reconfigures lightweight monocoque structures on site. M.O.R.E integrates natural fiber composites offering a sustainable, low-carbon alternative to conventional systems, combining recycled materials and bio-based envelopes. Ultimately, M.O.R.E envisions an autonomous building process where humans and machines co-create adaptive environments with natural fiber based materials.
03.07 10:00am13:30pm BST
10:10 RC6 FLUID FORM
Students: ADITI BASAVARAJ BOMMAI, JOSEFINA GONZÁLEZ, JOSÉ
MIGUEL IBÁÑEZ, ZEYNEP BEGÜM AFACAN
Design: Guan Lee, Daniel Widrig and Christopher Fischlein
Technical: Bartlett BMade
Theory: Mark Garcia
Fluid Form critically examines conventional casting methods by challenging both its process and its outcomes. Departing from the standard reliance on fully predetermined moulds and exact replication, the method adopts an incremental, process-led approach that allows the fluid behaviour of concrete to influence the final form. Rather than fixing the outcome in advance, the process allows form to evolve through sequencing, material flow, and situational adjustments. Design is hereby embedded within the act of casting itself, rather than imposed beforehand.
10:50 RC8 VERTICAL POND
Students: Lyu Yechen, Liu Youjing, Liu Youjing
Design: Kostas Grigoriadis and Alvaro Lopez Rodriguez
Technical: Samuel Esses & Hanjun Kim
Theory: Ilaria Di Carlo
This project investigates a retrofittable, multi-material façade system designed to foster biodiversity and enhance interior lighting quality. By integrating advanced 3D printing techniques with bioreceptive and structurally supportive materials, the system introduces a nuanced architectural solution that adapts to diverse environmental needs. The façade incorporates elements with variable transparency, optimizing daylight penetration while simultaneously creating niches for micro-ecological habitats. Drawing inspiration from the complex dynamics of pond ecosystems, the design supports the growth of flora at multiple scales. An embedded water circulation mechanism promotes sustainable retention and microclimatic regulation, transforming the building envelope into a living interface where architecture and nature interact symbiotically.
11:30 RC6 SOFT FORM HARD MATTER
Students: MALAK FATHY, SHIRIN KARBALAEIAN, WEN SHI, CANYUE WANG
Design: Guan Lee, Christopher Fischlein and Daniel Widrig
Technical: Bartlett Bmade
Theory: Mark Garcia
Soft Form Hard Matter explores the use of pipe insulation foam as a mould for cement casting. By treating foam as the primary material, the research generates dynamic, geometric forms through a fabrication system shaped by arrayed pipes, intersected by precise incisions and angled joints. The process involves cutting, stacking, angling, taping, and pouring cement into the assembled mould. Once cured, the foam core is removed and repurposed. The resulting casts are robust and richly textured, bearing ridges, seams, and soft impressions that register the fabrication process. The project expands the potential of mould-making within architecture, opening new directions for material experimentation and form.
12:10 RC8 OPTICRETE
Students: GUNEL SEYID-ZADA , DANIEL MORGENSTERN RAPOPORT
ABISHEK NARAYAN RADHAKRISHNAN SHIJA & JUAN PEREZ VARGAS OL-
IVIERI SANGIACOMO
Design: Kostas Grigoriadis and Alvaro Lopez Rodriguez
Technical: Samuel Esses & Hanjun Kim
Theory: Ilaria Di Carlo
This project bridges the theoretical foundations of topology optimization with its practical applications in research and construction. Fabrication strategies ranged from sprayed concrete on rebar to casting with 3D-printed, dissolvable PVA and PLA formworks, leading to a method combining 3D-printed joinery and sprayed concrete for optimized lattices. Material mixtures and casting techniques were tested for structural performance. Digitally, tools like nTop enabled the generation and mass reduction of geometries through latticing. Several architectural iterations and typological studies were developed, one becoming a speculative project. The outcome is a proposed method for building with this integrated technique.
Design: Guan Lee, Daniel Widrig and Christopher Fischlein
Technical: Bartlett Bmade
Theory: Mark Garcia
Cast Void explores Huī Sù, a traditional Chinese material historically used for ornamental architectural façades. The project seeks to preserve its aesthetic and cultural significance while enhancing its structural performance. By modifying its material composition and proportions, Huī Sù is reengineered to achieve greater hardness, faster setting times, and reduced weight. These improvements enable a shift from purely decorative element to a viable construction material. Through a modular design strategy, the project tests the materials feasibility through the casting of Huī Sù bricks and the assembly of a pavilion-scale structure to demonstrate its potential in contemporary architectural practice.
15:00am18:30pm BST
PANEL:
KATYA BRYSKINA, NIKOLETTA
KARASTATHI, ALDO SOLLAZZO, JOSE PAREJA
15:10 RC8 SOLAR ECHO
Students: CAI MINJIE, ALARA TASKIN, GUO SIHAN & WANG ZHENZHONG
Design: Kostas Grigoriadis and Alvaro Lopez Rodriguez
Technical: Samuel Esses & Hanjun Kim
Theory: Ilaria Di Carlo
The façade is a critical architectural element that regulates light entry and thermal comfort within buildings. Contemporary designs often employ curtain wall systems, which, despite their aesthetic appeal, contribute to excessive solar heat gain and glare. In contrast, mechanical facades like those of the Al Bahr Tower in Abu Dhabi offer dynamic shading but pose challenges related to cost, complexity, and environmental impact. Solar Echo addresses these issues by exploring clay-based façade systems. Through the strategic variation of ceramic forms in shape, density, and glaze color, the project aims to mitigate solar exposure and glare in tropical environments using passive, sustainable methods.
15:50 RC7 BIO_TESSERA
Students: Can Yardimci, Zhiyuan Wu, Ziyi Liu, Qing Wang, Yaoyao Yang
Design: Richard Beckett and Christopher Whiteside
Technical: Hangcuan Wei
Theory: Yota Adilenidou
Bio-Tessera explores a new paradigm of architecture where ageing, repair, and biological agencies are no longer seen as failures but as opportunities for adaptation and resilience. By integrating living materials such as mycelium into the architectural lifecycle, the project challenges the modernist pursuit of permanence, inertness and cleanliness. Through digital fabrication, machine learning, and climate-responsive strategies, Bio-Tessera proposes a dynamic building system that grows, decays, and tends itself over time.
Design: Federico Borello, Cesar Fragachan, Gilles Retsin
Technical: Christoph Geiger
Theory: Alejandro Veliz Reyes
UtopiaLab is an interactive planning platform that transforms ideal housing visions into collaborative, data-driven community design. Combining game-based simulation, AI-assisted design, and modular housing systems, it enables residents to participate actively as co-designers of their neighbourhoods. Players select housing locations, customise layouts, and engage with virtual neighbours to explore social and spatial dynamics. Real-time user preferences inform planning decisions, ensuring inclusivity and responsiveness. The platform’s modular housing logic adapts flexibly to diverse site conditions and lifestyles, while an AI-powered 3D visual engine offers immediate feedback for iterative refinement. By integrating individual aspirations with collective insight, UtopiaLab shifts urban planning from top-down control to participatory co-creation, empowering citizens, architects, and policymakers to collaboratively shape adaptable, people-centred communities that align everyday life with sustainable urban design.
Design: Tyson Hosmer, Octavian Gheorghiu and Philipp Siedler
Technical: Ziming He, Baris Erdincer, Sergio Mutis
Theory: Jordi Vivaldi Piera
RoBotanica envisions adaptive architecture through the synergy of regenerative materials and coordinated robot swarms to respond to the intertwined social, environmental, and economic pressures confronting Britain’s coastal regions. The scheme follows a modular strategy: lightweight building blocks fabricated from locally harvested seaweed with reversible joints are capable of being reconfigured to satisfy shifting requirements of user composition, programmatic needs, and environmental conditions. A Multi-Agent LLM engine uses user prompts to generate context-aware layouts while a WFC_ML algorithm performs multi-objective optimisation to determine efficient, resilient configurations. Cooperative robots are used to assemble and reconfigure the modules. By merging ecological materials, robotic autonomy, and advanced algorithms with AI, RoBotanica develops buildings as regenerative, self-adjusting organisms attuned to evolving human and environmental needs.
17:50 RC7 TECTONIC TENDING
Students: Yumo Zhao,Yiming Yao, Shu Zhang, Rui Wang,Yumen Wang
Design: Richard Beckett and Christopher Whiteside
Technical: Hangchuan Wei
Theory: Yota Adilinidou
The ability to grow materials for buildings popularly engages futures of carbon neutral construction. However, less explored is the relational and ecological nature of biomaterials with human living. Designing with biomaterials must acknowledge their propensity to erode and decay, challenging conventions of permanance, maintenance and control. Compared to traditional maintenance methods, the framework of ‘Biomaterial Tending’ engages ecological thinking, more than human design, and the biopolitics of material care. The project develops a environmental-data-driven, biomaterial tending framework. Periodic scanning cycles and point cloud data analysis diagnose varying degrees of material degradation on buildings. These serve as a basis for ongoing cycles of tending and reforming using digital fabrciation and growth protocols.
Design: Federico Borello, Cesar Fragachan, Gilles Retsin
Technical: Christoph Geiger
Theory: Alejandro Veliz Reyes
Meta-CLT redefines urban development by challenging static planning models and introducing a dynamic platform based on adaptability and participatory processes. Instead of fixed density and rigid structures, it promotes flexible architectural systems that evolve over time through negotiation and dialogue. Central to this approach is an innovative timber-based construction system that replaces traditional modular units with continuous, reconfigurable assemblies. This system enables porous, non-hierarchical spaces that support temporal use, shared ownership, and long-term adaptability. Operating across multiple scales, Meta-CLT offers a resilient framework responsive to ecological, social, and economic changes. By shifting construction from static objects to a generative, iterative process, the project fosters a fluid relationship between planning, building, and habitation—allowing urban environments to grow and transform in harmony with the needs of their communities and the environment.
10:30 RC5 HOLOLAB
Students: Marco Cappelletti,Wang Gao,Daley Hall,Jiayi Sima
Design: Stefan Bassing and Marios Tsiliakos
Technical: Zehao Qin, Calin Craiu, Paul-Andrei Burghelea, JJ Lee
Theory: Darria Ricchi
HoloLab reimagines architectural construction by transforming demolition waste into intelligent, customizable design systems. Through an integrated digital workflow that combines material categorization, environmental analysis, parametric design, and machine learning, HoloLab enables the creation of modular, scalable structures using recycled materials. Custom 3D-printed joints and innovative assembly methods support construction across urban, residential, and public spaces. With a strong focus on circularity, the platform empowers architects and designers to reduce waste, lower material costs, and build more sustainably. HoloLab turns construction debris into high-performance architecture, offering a forward-thinking approach to a more responsible and adaptive built environment.
Peatlands are unique and rare ecosystems where waterlogged conditions prevent plant material from fully decomposing. Although they cover only about 3-4% of the Earth’s land surface, they store up to one-third of the world’s soil carbon - twice as much as all the world’s forests combined. Focusing on this particular ecosystem, our group proposes an exchange between physical and virtual worlds through practical connections and Metaverse. By extracting real-time weather and geographic data from peatlands, we create a digital twin in the form of a parliament building - a space where design decisions are co-developed. Participants can experiment with different perspectives, both human and non-human, to explore how each decision might impact the ecosystem. Through this platform, we aim to empower the peatlands and the non-human species inhabiting them, allowing people to reconceptualize and rethink these overlooked landscapes.
11:30 RC15 A LIVING ARCHIVE
Students: XIANGLAN HE, YILING WANG, BORUI ZHOU
Design: Vincent Nowak, Annarita Papeschi
Theory: Ilaria Di Carlo
This project explores how the layered histories of Leamouth can be reactivated through participatory spatial recollection—where visitors engage with the site’s past through embodiment and storytelling. Despite its central role in the operations of the East India Company, much of the site’s colonial history remains unacknowledged in the contemporary landscape. The project investigates how culturally diverse historical narratives might be experienced by broader audiences. To this end, the group analysed a wide range of historical literature—across British, Indian, and Chinese sources—using sentiment analysis to visualise cultural differences in tone and framing. This was paired with sentiment analysis of video materials and fieldwork combining biometric sensing with in-situ interviews. The project proposes a situated “living archive”: a participatory system combining an online platform with AR gateways embedded in the docks. As visitors move through the site, they access spatialised virtual archives and contribute biometric-enriched experiences, creating an affective, multicultural memory network navigable through the perspectives of others.
12:15 RC2 MOBAS
Students: ZAID KHAN, XIAN ZHOU, ASAF GULUZADE, NAMAN DHIMAN, ZHIJING YAN
Design: Valentina Soana and Shahram Minooee Sabery
Technical: Valentina Soana, Shahram Minooee Sabery, Aya Meskawi
Theory: Provides Ng
MOBAS is a responsive architectural system that reimagines how spaces adapt to the needs of work and study environments. Built on the Elastic Robotic Structures (ERS) framework, it integrates large-scale fabrication, prototyping, and AI to respond to human behavior.
Using a Bending-Active Tensile-Hybrid (BATH) system, MOBAS enables real-time spatial transformation. Natural language processing and sentiment analysis via large language models(LLM) allow users to interact through voice or text. The system interprets tone and intent to adjust lighting, layout, and enclosure.
Modular and reconfigurable, MOBAS is suited to exhibitions, co-working spaces, and pop-up events.
It redefines architecture as an adaptive, intelligent system that evolves with its users.
Students: CARLOS GUATAME GARCIA, HUANQI XIA, YUTONG WANG
Design: Julian Besems, Andrew Porter
Theory: Philippe Morel
The transformation of housing into a tourist product redefines the city: no longer a place to live, but a setting for consumption. Urban space, once shaped by coexistence, is now curated for fleeting desire, filtered through digital platforms and aestheticised for visitors. The centre of Athens functions as a resort—not by design, but by extraction—where value is measured in ratings, not relationships. Yet the ordinary persists. Traces of memory and resistance remain inscribed in the urban fabric. Athens Resort moves within this tension: by intersecting real housing typologies with visual, performative and literary representations, it reveals how commodified urban life can be disrupted by new ways of seeing, naming and occupying space—reclaiming spectacle to restore presence in the centre. If the city already operates as a resort, the next step is simple: turn citizens into guests. Perhaps, to reclaim the city, we must first inhabit its irony.
04.07 15:00am18:10pm BST PANEL:
PETER COOK, GEORG VRACHLIOTIS, YAEL REISNER, PETER TRUMMER, PAUL
NICHOLAS, DANIEL KOEHLER, ALDO SOLLAZZO
15:15 RC8 FIBRE ENCLOSURES
Students: Çağla Türkoğlu, Zhang Lixingyue, Elif Nur Hologlu & Fu Jiaqi
Design: Kostas Grigoriadis and Alvaro Lopez Rodriguez
Technical: Samuel Esses & Hanjun Kim
Theory: Ilaria Di Carlo
We are at a pivotal moment in architectural practice—shifting from using digital tools as extensions of pre-digital thinking toward a fully integrated computational approach to design and construction. This project proposes a reimagined building envelope that challenges conventional façade paradigms through material experimentation, geometric exploration, and a continuous construction methodology. At its core is the integration of material behavior with computational design and digital fabrication. The result is adaptive, future-oriented architecture that leverages digital technologies alongside sustainable strategies—marking a shift from representation to material agency in architecture.
15:30 RC6 REPACKAGED
Students: LARASYA MAITRI ANJANI, YUMIN JEONG, MIN YEN LIU, KAREN DIXIE MARCES, SUBIN YUN
Design: Guan Lee, Daniel Widrig and Christopher Fischlein
Technical: Bartlett BMade
Theory: Mark Garcia
Repackaged investigates the architectural potential of found materials, with a particular focus on the structural and expressive qualities of cardboard. Omnipresent yet overlooked, cardboard accumulates in urban spaces: stacked on doorsteps, discarded on streets, woven into the fabric of everyday life. This research engages with cardboard through casting, leveraging its structure for lightweight rigidity and its adaptability as a formwork material, shaped through cutting, folding, and laminating. By embracing impermanence, the project reframes decay as integral to the material’s lifecycle, transforming cardboard into a dynamic medium where each iteration leaves not ruin, but a trace of ongoing reinvention and spatial experimentation.
16:15 RC16 REBORN IN MEMORY
Students: Yuchen Liu, Xiaoxuan Yu, Xi Li, Chutian He
We are at a pivotal moment in architectural practice—shifting from using digital tools as extensions of pre-digital thinking toward a fully integrated computational approach to design and construction. This project proposes a reimagined building envelope that challenges conventional façade paradigms through material experimentation, geometric exploration, and a continuous construction methodology. At its core is the integration of material behavior with computational design and digital fabrication. The result is adaptive, future-oriented architecture that leverages digital technologies alongside sustainable strategies—marking a shift from representation to material agency in architecture.
Repackaged investigates the architectural potential of found materials, with a particular focus on the structural and expressive qualities of cardboard. Omnipresent yet overlooked, cardboard accumulates in urban spaces: stacked on doorsteps, discarded on streets, woven into the fabric of everyday life. This research engages with cardboard through casting, leveraging its structure for lightweight rigidity and its adaptability as a formwork material, shaped through cutting, folding, and laminating. By embracing impermanence, the project reframes decay as integral to the material’s lifecycle, transforming cardboard into a dynamic medium where each iteration leaves not ruin, but a trace of ongoing reinvention and spatial experimentation.
Design: Tyson Hosmer, Octavian Gheorghiu and Philipp Siedler
Technical: Ziming He, Baris Erdincer, Sergio Mutis
Theory: Jordi Vivaldi Piera
What if architecture could build and rebuild itself? Autopoiesis envisions a future where recycled matter and distributed robotics co-create adaptable spaces. Modular blocks, carved from reclaimed stone and waste plastic, interlock into ever-changing structures assembled by swarms of custom robots that learn, navigate, and collaborate. Spatial agents choreograph form; encoded behaviours bring motion to matter. The system grows, heals, and rearranges like a living organism with zero waste and zero hierarchy. Merging robotic autonomy, material circularity, and algorithmic design, the project proposes architecture not as a finished object, but as an evolving, sentient ecology.
B.L.U.R explores the application of ‘engineered living materials’ for architecture that exhibit animate material properties of self-healing, and environmental responsivness. The project explores the potential of Bacterial Cellulose as a dynamic architectural material, emphasising the importance of continuous tending and care throughout its lifecycle. Given its degradable and ephemeral nature, bacterial cellulose challenges conventional notions of permanence and restorative approaches in architecture, driving instead a strategy that embraces decay as a design catalyst. Digital technologies are integrated into biomaterial workflows to monitor material degradation and environemental data-sets to inform biomatreial tending interventions.
