7th International Symposium
Formal Methods in Architecture 2024
Keynote Speakers
Meta Berghauser Pont is professor of urban morphology and urban design at Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg. She leads the research area SMoG (Spatial Morphology Group), which is engaged in research in the areas of urban morphology, space syntax and design theory. Through primarily analytical and quantitative methods, properties of built form are described and its significance for people’s (and other species’) use and experience of the city is investigated. Meta has published the book Spacematrix. Space, Density and Urban Form (2023) where the concept of density is critically examined. The book specifies the relationship between density and urban form as well as the environmental, economic and social effects of density. In addition to research, Meta teaches urban design. She is also the Head of program for Architecture with responsibility for the educational development of architectural education at bachelor’s and master’s level.
Wassim Jabi is the course director of the MSc Computational Methods in Architecture programme at the Welsh School of Architecture, Cardiff University in Wales. His research interests are in digital design methods, in particular, the use of digital tools in the conception and representation of architectural space, parametric design investigations, building performance simulation, robotics, and fabrication. His main expertise is in parametric design, algorithmic architecture, digital and robotic fabrication, digital lighting, and energy-building simulation. He earned his MArch and PhD from the University of Michigan and taught at various universities in the USA before moving to the UK, in 2008. While teaching in the USA, he secured a National Science Foundation grant as a Primary Investigator. Professor Jabi has published widely on topics ranging from parametric and generative design to the role of light in architecture and building performance simulation. He has authored a book titled “Parametric Design for Architecture” (Laurence King Publishing, London). In 2013, Professor Jabi won funding from the university’s internal competitive funding scheme to purchase a large 6-axis high-accuracy industrial robot to investigate innovative digital fabrication processes. His current research is at the intersection parametric design, the representation of space, building performance simulation, machine learning, and robotic fabrication in architecture. Professor Jabi has recently concluded a grant from the Leverhulme Trust as Primary Investigator to study spatial topology in building information modeling (BIM), which resulted in a software library called Topologic.
Bachelor’s degree from the Faculty of Architecture of the Technical University of Lisbon (FA / UTL), a Masters in Design Enquiry and a PhD in Design and Computation from MIT, USA.
He is currently Full Professor at FA / ULisboa (on leave of absence) and at Stuckeman School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture, Penn State, where he holds the Chair in Design Innovation and directs of the Stuckeman Center for Design Computing.
He was Professor and Researcher at Instituto Superior Técnico (IST / UTL) and Visiting Scientist at MIT.
At FA, Duarte was coordinator of the PhD in Architecture and member of the Scientific Committee of the PhD in Urbanism and the school’s Scientific Council.
At IST he was the coordinator of IST’s Architecture Section and founder of IST Architecture Research Laboratories (ISTAR Labs).
At MIT, he worked on the Changing Places project (former House_n) as coordinator of the Mass Customization of Housing project and member of the Living Labs project.
His main research interests are the customization of production in architecture, urban planning and design and the development of design and manufacturing methods based on new technologies.
Professor Tasos Varoudis is a qualified architect and computing engineer with research focusing on architecture, machine intelligence and spatial computation. He is an Associate Professor in Architecture and Machine Intelligence at the Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL and has a long teaching experience with UCL and AA and a number of international workshops (ACM CHI, Space Syntax Symposium, NTUA).
Since 2011 he drives the spatial computation and machine intelligence research for the Space Syntax Laboratory at the Bartlett School of Architecture (UCL) where he is developing new methodological and computational innovations combining spatial data-driven models with machine learning and agent-based models. He leads ‘depthmapX’ spatial network analysis software that has attracted more than 150000 downloads since its open-source release in 2012.
He co-created and leads the Machine Learning Urbanism Research Cluster 14 (RC14) for the MArch Urban Design and the Spatial Analytics and Computation at the MSc in Spatial Design: Architecture and Cities. His personal research interests are driven by the concept of ‘spatial dynamics’, the interaction between architectural space and machine intelligence, and are now under the umbrella of the Machine Intelligence Lab ( MIL: https://www.machineintelligencelab.org ).
With over 20 years of professional experience as an Architect that ranges from a wide diversity of project types from master planning to project execution/construction phase.
An experienced BIM software user since 2000, highly knowledgeable and skilled user of several Autodesk products that also has an international working experience in countries like Portugal, Spain, UK, Brazil, Angola and Kuwait.
His previous roles as BIM Coordinator at Ahmadiah and as BIM Manager at Quadrante – Engenharia e Consultoria S.A. (Lisbon) supports his knowledge and international experience.
Currently is a senior BIM and Design System Coordinator at Foster and Partners using his knowledge in BIM processes, Revit and Navisworks combined with the technical architectural and leadership abilities to work in collaboration environment and solve project issues.
He lectures at several academic institutions as a guest lecturer and he actively lectures at NossoBIM on the International Master BIM Manager program and with ISEP-Instituto Superior de Engenharia do Porto, providing a high level of expertise in the BIM software training field.