2009 Conference

René Davids

Martin Bechthold

Annette LeCuyer

Jason Oliver Vollen

Keynote Speakers

René Davids, FAIA, Professor

René Davids (born Santiago, Chile) is a principal at Davids Killory Architecture, and on the faculty at the University of California, Berkeley. The office is a laboratory for the exploration of new materials and technologies as well as the reinterpretation of traditional building types, the potential for landscape to influence architectural form, and the development of architecture responsive to social change. Davids received his bachelor of architecture degree from the Universidad de Chile and on a British Council Fellowship, a master’s degree in environmental design from the Royal College of Art in London. He headed a Diploma School Unit at the Architectural Association School for eight years and also taught at the Royal College of Art and the Macintosh School in Glasgow. Before becoming a professor at the UC Berkeley School of Architecture, he taught architecture at the University of California, San Diego, the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile in Santiago and the University of New Mexico. René Davids is member of the American Institute of Architects and the Colegio de Arquitectos de Chile. He was awarded a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship and a Progressive Architecture Award for research on the hillside elevators of Valparaíso, Chile and is currently working on a book that examines the relationship between technology, topography and urbanism in selected North and South American cities.

Martin Bechthold, Professor of Architectural Technology

Martin Bechthold is Professor of Architectural Technology, Director of the Fabrication Labs, and Co-director of the Master in Design Studies Program at the GSD. His teaching and research focus on building structures and technology, innovative construction and fabrication methods, lightweight structures, and new materials. His work revisits design through the lens of emerging technologies that may allow for new opportunities in the design and making of physical artifacts. Bechthold received a "Diplom-Ingenieur" degree in architecture from the Rheinisch-Westfalische Technische Hochschule in Aachen, Germany, and a Doctor of Design Degree from the Harvard Graduate School of Design. He is a registered architect in Germany and has practiced in London, Paris and Hamburg. During this period he was associated with firms such as Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, Santiago Calatrava, and von Gerkan, Marg & Partner. More recently he co-founded MM-design, a firm engaged in product design, architecture and structural consulting. Bechthold's research primarily deals with computer-aided design and manufacturing applications in architecture, with a current focus on structural systems, construction automation, and robotics. His work on the design and fabrication of surface structures has won several awards.

Plenary Panel Session Leaders

Annette LeCuyer: Concept+Construct

Annette LeCuyer is a professor of architecture at the State University of New York at Buffalo where she teaches design and construction technology. She studied at the Architectural Association in London and is a licensed architect in the United Kingdom. She worked for Foster Associates and was an Associate at Allies and Morrison Architects, where she led the design teams for award winning projects in London and at Cambridge University. Professor LeCuyer is the author of several books on contemporary architecture and building technology including ETFE – Technology and Design (Birkhauser 2008), Steel and Beyond – New Strategies for Metals in Architecture (Birkhauser, 2003) and Radical Tectonics (Thames and Hudson, 2001). She is co-author of All-American: Innovation in American Architecture (Thames and Hudson, 2002); an editor of buffaloBOOKS; and a contributor to Arch +, AD and The Architectural Review.

Jason Oliver Vollen: Local Complexities: Integrating Technology
and Ecology

Jason Oliver Vollen is a Registered Architect and Associate Professor at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in the Built Ecologies Graduate Program and researcher at CASE, Center for Architecture Science and Ecology, co-sponsored by RPI and SOM. Prior to joining RPI, Vollen was an Assistant Professor at the University of Arizona working in the Emerging Material Technologies Research Group. His research is focused on emerging material technologies, specifically, the integration of energy per-formative structural ceramics, dynamic and environmental simulation, and digital fabrication. Vollen is a principal with Binary design, a collaborative practice focusing on energy effective architecture and emerging material processes. He has worked with Matter Architecture Practice in New York and as a project manager, designer, and fabricator with the Cranbrook Architecture Office. Vollen received his Bachelors (B.Arch) from The Cooper Union Institute for the Advancement of Science and Art and his Masters (M.Arch II) from Cranbrook Academy of Art.