DARC Open Lecture: Leire Asensio-Villoria, Senior Lecturer at Melbourne School of Design

The upcoming Digital Architecture Research Centre (DARC) Open Lecture will be given by Leire Asensio-Villoria, Senior Lecturer in Urban Design and Architecture at the University of Melbourne’s School of Design. Leire’s lecture, ‘Material Explorations: Translations from models to matter’ will take place on Tuesday 17 November at 18.00 GMT via Microsoft Teams; please use this link to join.

Leire Asensio-Villoria writes, “In his essay The Developed Surface, Robin Evans constructs an argument from drawing as a mediating accomplice in the exploration of design. It shows how representational techniques can function as means that affect the architect’s field of vision. Expanding on Evans’ position, it can be said that designers can transform their vision of form by adopting other means of representation beyond drawing. The widespread adoption of three-dimensional modeling offers the ability to develop design within a medium of representation that simulates the material world in a more tangible way than the abstraction inherent in orthographic surface drawings. Using digital methodologies, it is possible to access tools that allow the rigorous calibration of temperature, sound and humidity levels through simulations of material behavior, flows and energy exchanges. Designers can thus manipulate the material performance through stable experimentation in terms of geometry, achieving configurations that retain links with the tradition of space and form.

The conference presents the work carried out in a series of seminars led by Leire Asensio-Villoria at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, focused on the problem of modeling and prototyping, as well as projects developed together with David Mah as asensio-mah and the research that they conducted at Harvard University that lead to the publication Lifestyled: Health and Places (Jovis, 2016).”

Leire Asensio-Villoria is a Senior Lecturer in urban design and architecture at the University of Melbourne’s School of Design. Previously, Leire was a lecturer at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design and also taught design and theory at Cornell University’s Department of Architecture, as well as Landscape Urbanism at the Graduate Design School of the Architectural Association in London.

Together with David Mah, Leire is author of the book: Lifestyled: Health and Places (2016, Jovis), as well as active in the production of architectural and creative works. Her works has been exhibited internationally including at the Royal Academy of Art in London and The Storefront for Art and Architecture in New York and has been featured in professional books and journals published by Birkhauser, Evolo, Lars Muller, Actar and Routledge amongst others. Professionally, Leire has worked within a number of international design practices including Zaha Hadid Architects and Arup. Leire has been collaborating with David Mah as asensio_mah since 2002.

All welcome!