(a listing in progress)
| Researcher |
Department |
Institutition |
Area |
Email |
| Manish Agarwal |
Computational Design Lab |
Carnegie Mellon University |
The engineering and consumer product applications of grammars |
 |
| Erik K. Antonsson |
Engineering Design Research Laboratory |
California Institute of Technology |
Applying computation to the preliminary phase of engineering design |
|
| Ken Brown |
Department of Computing Science |
University of Aberdeen |
Intelligent assistance for synthesis problems, |
|
| Jonathan Cagan |
Department of Mechanical Engineering |
Carnegie Mellon University, |
theory, methods, and tools for design conceptualization |
|
| Donald Carter |
|
General Motors Corporation |
|
|
| Scott Chase, |
Department of Architectural and Design Science |
University of Sydney, |
design grammars |
|
| Hau Hing Chau |
School of Mechanical Engineering |
University of Leeds |
the mechanical applications of shape grammars to industrial design |
|
| Birgul Colakoglu |
School of Architecture and Planning |
Massachusetts Institute of Technology/Yildiz Technical
University - Istanbul |
practical application of shape grammars and their use in architectural design education |
|
| Alan de Pennington |
Department of Mechanical Engineering |
University of Leeds |
|
|
| Jose P. Duarte |
School of Architecture and Planning |
Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
customizing housing design for mass production |
|
| Chris Earl |
Department of Mechanical, Materials and Manufacturing Engineering |
University of Newcastle |
|
|
| Athanassios Economou |
College of Architecture |
Georgia Institute of Technology |
Applications of shape grammars in architectural design |
|
| James L. Elshoff |
Vehicle Analysis and Dynamics Lab |
General Motors R&D and Planning |
applying shape grammars to brand character design |
|
| Susan Finger |
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering |
Carnegie Mellon University |
|
|
| Ulrich Flemming |
Architecture |
Carnegie Mellon University |
|
|
| James Gips |
Computer Science |
Boston College |
|
|
| Steven Griffin |
|
National Science Foundation |
Division of Information, Robotics and Intelligent Systems |
|
| Terry Knight |
School of Architecture and Planning |
Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
Theoretical and practical aspects |
|
| Ramesh Krishnamurti |
Department of Architecture |
Carnegie Mellon University |
Computer implementations and configurational design |
|
| Andrew Li |
School of Architecture and Planning, |
Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
Design education |
|
| Lionel March |
|
University of California Los Angeles |
Architectonics |
|
| David Marimont |
|
Xerox PARC |
Computer vision |
|
| Jay McCormack |
Department of Mechanical Engineering |
Carnegie Mellon University |
Engineering applications of shape grammars |
|
| William Mitchell |
School of Architecture and Planning |
Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
Architecture in the digital age |
|
| Kevin Otto |
Center for Innovation in Product Development, Department of Mechanical Engineering, |
Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
|
|
| Douglas Sery |
The MIT Press |
Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
|
|
| Kristina Shea |
Department of Engineering |
University of Cambridge |
developing structural grammars, and creating engineering design tools based on grammars |
|
| George Stiny |
School of Architecture and Planning |
Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
theoretical aspects |
|
| Mark Tapia |
School of Architecture and Planning |
Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
Computer Implementations |
|
University Manish Agarwal
is a Ph.D. candidate in the department of Mechanical Engineering at
Carnegie Mellon University. His research is in the area of design
theory and methodology including product design, qualitative
optimization and formal design techniques. He has been involved in
developing shape grammar based design representations for a number of
application domains. Manish received his B.Tech. from the Indian
Institute of Technology, Kanpur, India in 1995 and his M.S. from
Carnegie Mellon University in 1997, both in Mechanical Engineering.
Erik K. Antonsson
received the B.S. degree (with distinction) from Cornell University
(1976), and the S.M. (1978) and Ph.D. (1982) degrees from MIT.,
Cambridge, MA, all in Mechanical Engineering. He was an Instructor and
a Research Associate in the Mechanical Engineering Department at MIT.
in 1982. In 1983 he joined the Mechanical Engineering faculty at the
University of Utah, as an Assistant Professor. In 1984 he became the
Technical Director of the Pediatric Mobility and Gait Laboratory, and
an Assistant in Bioengineering (Orthopedic Surgery), at the
Massachusetts General Hospital. He also simultaneously joined the
faculty of the Harvard University Medical School as an Assistant
Professor of Orthopedics (Bioengineering).
In September 1984 he
joined the faculty of the California Institute of Technology as an
Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering, and organized the
Engineering Design Research Laboratory. In June, 1990, he was promoted
to the rank of Associate Professor, and since January, 1997 he has held
the rank of Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Caltech. He teaches
courses in engineering design, computer aided engineering design,
machine design, mechanical systems, and kinematics. His research
interests include application of computation to the preliminary phase
of engineering design, representing and manipulating imprecision.
Ken Brown is a
lecturer in the Computing Science Department at the University of
Aberdeen. He received a BSc in Mathematics from Glasgow University, an
MSc in Logic from Manchester University, and a PhD in AI and
Engineering from Bristol University. He has held post-doctoral research
appointments at Bristol and at Carnegie Mellon University.
His main interest is
in providing intelligent assistants for synthesis problems, including
design, configuration, planning and scheduling. He has published a
number of papers describing grammatical systems for generative design
and manufacturing planning, including automated methods of
interpretation and control of the generation. He has worked for a
number of years with the Rover Group, and is now developing
applications in the oil industry.
Jonathan Cagan is a
Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University, with
appointments in Biomedical Engineering and Computer Science. His
research, teaching, and consulting are in the area of design theory,
methodology, automation, and practice. He received his B.S. in 1983 and
M.S. in 1985 from the University of Rochester, and his Ph.D. in 1990
from the University of California at Berkeley, all in Mechanical
Engineering. Dr. Cagan is the recipient of the National Science
Foundation's NYI Award and the Society of Automotive Engineer's Ralph
R. Teetor Award for Education. He is a member of the Phi Beta Kappa,
Tau Beta Pi, and Sigma Xi National Honor Societies, and the ASME, AAAI,
SAE, and AAEE Professional Societies. Dr. Cagan is a registered
Professional Engineer.
Donald Carter received a
Bachelor of Architecture degree from Louisiana State University in
1972. He has held academic positions at Lawrence Technological
University, Detroit Institute of Technology. Currently pursuing a MBA
in Design Management from the University of Westminster, London
England, his current responsibility is to formulate strategic design
applications that enhance the portfolio and brand character studio
processes. This entails developing interactive interfaces between large
screen displays, multiply designer workstations and corporate staffs;
plus assess shape computation technology in automating 2D & 3D
brand character cues and instrument cluster layouts. He is interested
in the symbolic link between words and images. For the past two years,
he had the responsibility for planning and implementing the renovation
of General Motors Design Center facilities to accommodate the VLE
process. For twenty years, he has been involved in formulating
strategic, business and process development plans for GM-Design Center
and General Motors. He has conceptualized and developed applications
ranging from three-dimensional graphics, project management tools,
laser scanning devices, and virtual reality. In addition, he has been
involved with Architecture and Facilities Management for twenty-five
years as a consultant to various architectural and computer companies
throughout the mid-west and southeast United States.
Scott Chase is a lecturer
in Design Computing in the Department of Architectural and Design
Science and is affiliated with the Key Centre for Design Computing and
Cognition at the University of Sydney. He received a BS (1978) in Art
and Design from MIT, and an MA (1987) and PhD (1996) in Architecture
from UCLA. Following receipt of the PhD, he was a National Research
Council Postdoctoral Research Associate in the Manufacturing
Engineering Laboratory at the National Institute of Standards and
Technology.
Since the mid 1980's,
he has worked in various capacities in the areas of AEC CAD and
computer graphics development at Bechtel Civil, IBM, and Skidmore,
Owings and Merrill. He has also been a researcher on the EDM project in
product modeling at UCLA and the Technical University of Delft.
His research interests
lie in design grammars, logic based paradigms for design modelling, and
standards development for design data models. A current project
concerns the development of user interaction models for grammar based
design systems.
University of LeedsHau
Hing Chau gained his degree in mechanical engineering with first class
honours in 1996 at the University of Leeds, and was awarded the IMechE
Project Prize in the same year. He was the best second year student in
the course in 1993. He is now a PhD student at School of Mechanical
Engineering at University of Leeds, and currently holds an Overseas
Research Award, a Tetley and Lupton Scholarship, and a Keyworth
Scholarship.
Chau has seven years
of experience in design and development of consumer audio products
mostly at Sound Fair Electronics Co Ltd in Hong Kong. He led a team of
six mechanical engineers for four years and co-managed a 22-people
engineering department during 1992--94.
His research interests are in the mechanical applications of shape grammars to industrial design and computational geometry.
Birgul Colakolgu is
Ph.D. students in Design and Computation program in School of
Architecture and Planning at MIT. She holds teaching position in Yildiz
Technical University and is currently on leave for her P.h.D study. She
received her Bacheolor and Smarch degrees in architecture from Yildiz
Technical University.
Her current work
focuses on the uses of shape grammar method for interpolations in
historic settlements. She is looking for answers "how can shape grammar
method be incorporated into design process for interpolations in
historical settlements and in architectural design studio education.
Alan de Pennington
studied at UMIST, receiving his B.Sc. (1965), M.Sc. (1967) and Ph.D.
(1970) from the University of Manchester. Two years were spent working
in the Production Automation Group of Philips Research Laboratories in
Eindhoven, The Netherlands. He was appointed Professor of Computer of
Aided Engineering in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the
University of Leeds in 1984. Memberships of national committees include
the Advanced Manufacturing Technology Committee of DTI (Department of
Trade and Industry/SERC (Engineering and Physical Sciences Research
Council) between 1991-94.
He co-founded the UK
CADCAM Data Exchange Technical Centre (CADDETC) in 1986. He has served
as Chairman and a member of a number of IMechE (Institution of
Mechanical Engineers) Committees.
Over the 17 years between
1980-97, his research work has been carried out in conjunction with
manufacturing companies with support from the Research Councils. It has
covered geometric modeling, involvement in an Alvey Large Scale
Demonstrator, Design to Product, Information Support Systems for Design
and Manufacture and Exploiting Product and Manufacturing Models in
Simultaneous Engineering.
As Program Director for
Computer Integrated Engineering for the National Science Foundation in
Washington DC during 1986/1987, he contributed towards the
establishment of a new Division of Design, Manufacturing and Computer
Integrated Engineering.
In 1993 he was awarded
the OBE (Officer of the Order of the British Empire) in the Queens
Birthday Honours for service to the manufacturing industry. In April
1993 he was appointed Engineering at the University of Leeds. This is
an inter-disciplinary research institute with five collaborating
departments.
His research interests
include: modeling in the design process, product data engineering and
enterprise integration. Emerging research topics include the interplay
between process and the higher levels of abstraction needed in design
technology.
Christopher Francis Earl
gained a BA degree in Mathematics from Oxford University, followed by
an M.Sc in General Relativity in Roger Penrose's group studying new
descriptions of the geometry of space time. At the Open University he
studied for his Ph.D. under Lionel March on configurational
descriptions of designs. Subsequently he held Post Doctoral Research
positions and a Faculty appointment (1982-85) to the Department of
Design at the Open University, conducting research on the kinematic
design of mechanisms and robot manipulators using generative methods.
This research continued with applications to Automated Manufacture,
Assembly and Construction at University of West of England at Bristol,
where Chris led the Manufacturing and Design division in the Faculty of
Engineering. Application of parallel computing to intelligent
manufacturing was a particular theme of this work. Since 1991 at
Newcastle University, in both the Department of Mechanical, Materials
and Manufacturing Engineering and Newcastle Engineering Design Centre,
Chris has concentrated on shape, design descriptions, associated
computational processes, and planning. Currently he is developing
interdisciplinary work with the Departments of Planning and Management.
He has led, or contributed to, several Research Council, European Union
and Industry sponsored research projects in Design, particularly in the
areas of Geometric Features, Shape, and Generative Design
Athanassios Economou
is assistant Professor in the College of Architecture at Georgia
Institute of Technology, Atlanta. Dr. Economou earned his Diploma in
Architecture (First Professional Degree) at the National Technical
University of Athens, Greece (NTUA) in 1990, his Masters of
Architecture (Second Professional Degree) at the University of Southern
California, Los Angeles (USC) in 1992, and his Ph.D in Architecture at
the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) in 1997. His doctorate
studies focused in the study of symmetries of 3-dimensional space and
their applications in visual and sound design systems.
Dr. Economou is
currently teaching graduate architectural studios and a series of
elective classes in design and computation. The work of his graduate
studios at Ga. Tech has received various awards and honorable mentions
and has been exhibited and published. The classes on computational
design focus on shape grammars and spatial transformations and provide
a common foundation for projects ranging from architectural projects to
java applications.
Dr. Economou's research interests involve the application of 3-dimensional shape grammars in design practice.
James L. Elshoff is
Principal Research Scientist at General Motors R&D Center. He
received a B.A. (1966) in Applied Mathematics from Miami University,
and an M.S. (1969) and Ph.D. (1970) in Computer Science from
Pennsylvania State University. He has been with GM R&D since 1970.
He has also taught at Oakland University and the University of Detroit.
At GM R&D, he
spent the first 11 years in the area of software engineering. His focus
for the next 9 years was on-board microprocessor software development
and validation. In the early 1990's he managed a series of projects
developing applications of neural networks and fuzzy logic. Since 1996
he has led a number of projects on computer graphics and visualization.
Although general area
of grammars is not new to him, shape grammars are. He is particularly
interested in the potential application of shape grammars to brand
character design.
Alan de Pennington
studied at UMIST, receiving his B.Sc. (1965), M.Sc. (1967) and Ph.D.
(1970) from the University of Manchester. Two years were spent working
in the Production Automation Group of Philips Research Laboratories in
Eindhoven, The Netherlands. He was appointed Professor of Computer of
Aided Engineering in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the
University of Leeds in 1984. Memberships of national committees include
the Advanced Manufacturing Technology Committee of DTI (Department of
Trade and Industry/SERC (Engineering and Physical Sciences Research
Council) between 1991-94.
He co-founded the UK
CADCAM Data Exchange Technical Centre (CADDETC) in 1986. He has served
as Chairman and a member of a number of other IMechE (Institution of
Mechanical Engineers) Committees.
Over the 17 years between
1980-97, his research work has been carried out in conjunction with
manufacturing companies with support from the Research Councils. It has
covered geometric modeling, involvement in an Alvey Large Scale
Demonstrator, Design to Product, Information Support Systems for Design
and Manufacture and Exploiting Product and Manufacturing Models in
Simultaneous Engineering.
As Program Director for
Computer Integrated Engineering for the National Science Foundation in
Washington DC during 1986/1987, he contributed towards the
establishment of a new Division of Design, Manufacturing and Computer
Integrated Engineering.
In 1993 he was awarded
the OBE (Officer of the Order of the British Empire) in the Queens
Birthday Honours for service to the manufacturing industry. In April
1993 he was appointed Engineering at the University of Leeds. This is
an inter-disciplinary research institute with five collaborating
departments.
His research interests
include: modeling in the design process, product data engineering and
enterprise integration. Emerging research topics include the interplay
between process and the higher levels of abstraction needed in design
technology.
Jose P. Duarte is a Ph.D.
candidate and Teaching Assistant at MIT. He has practiced as an
architect and worked as a Research Assistant for the National
Laboratory for Civil Engineering in Lisbon, Portugal. He received his
"Licenciatura" in Architecture from Lisbon Technical University, and a
S.M.Arch.S. from MIT.
He has done pioneering
work on linking computer implementations of shape grammars with rapid
prototyping systems for the automatic generation of designs and
physical models. He has developed a shape grammar for Siza's housing
schemes at Malagueira and he is now working on its computer
implementation. The goal of his current research is the generation of
designs that fit given design contexts. He is interested in the use of
shape grammars to customize housing design for mass production.
Susan Finger is on the
faculty of the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department at
Carnegie Mellon University. She is also affiliated with the Engineering
Design Research Center, the Robotics Institute, and the Department of
Mechanical Engineering. Dr. Finger received her B.A. in Astronomy from
the University of Pennsylvania in 1972, her M.A. in Operations Research
from the University of Pennsylvania in 1974, and her Ph.D. in Electric
Power Systems through Civil Engineering from the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology in 1981. She was on the faculty in
Manufacturing Engineering at Boston University and was a Visiting
Assistant Professor in Mechanical Engineering in the Laboratory for
Manufacturing Productivity at MIT. In 1985, she went to the National
Science Foundation as the Program Director for a new research program
in Design Theory and Methodology. In 1987, she joined the Robotics
Institute at Carnegie Mellon where she was a member of the research
faculty until the fall of 1991. She serves on numerous advisory boards
and review panels and, with John Dixon, is a founder and
Co-editor-in-Chief of the journal Research in Engineering Design .
Dr. Finger's research interests include representation languages for
designs and integration of design and manufacturing concerns.
Ulrich Flemming received
his professional degree in architecture from the Technical University
of Berlin, where he worked in close association with O. M. Ungers,
whose Berlin office he managed for one year before joining the graduate
Master's program at MIT. He returned to Berlin for his Ph.D. in
computational architectural design, which introduced a formal
representation of rectangular floor plans that has become widely used
since.
He has been living and
working in the U.S since the mid-seventies, first at SUNY Buffalo,
later - and to the present day - at CMU in Pittsburgh. He has held
guest appointments at UCLA and the Technical University of Denmark.
He has been teaching
professional courses, especially design studios, at each of the
universities where he held permanent appointments. At CMU, he succeeded
Chuck Eastman in leading the research group and Ph. D. concentration in
computational design. He became associated with the Engineering Design
Center (EDRC), where he lead the «form/function synthesis
thrust» and generally participated in interdisciplinary research.
His research was
initially focussed on generative design systems, where he made
contributions not only to the geometry of layouts, but also to the
application of shape grammars to the analysis of corpora of designs in
that early phase where this applicability needed to be established. His
research has since branched out to include knowledge-based design
systems (including case-based design), integrated design systems,
design databases, design space navigation, and human/computer
interaction in design and drafting. This branching out has been
motivated not only by intellectual curiosity, but also by the practical
necessities that come with working in an externally funded research
program. He has published widely in all of these areas.
James Gips received an
S.B. from MIT in 1967. At MIT he worked on three projects on the
generation and recognition of shapes with George Stiny, a fellow
undergraduate. He received an M.S. In Computer Science from Stanford in
1968. From 1968 through 1970 he worked at the National Institutes of
Health. In 1970 he and George Stiny spent three months in Los Angeles
developing the idea of a shape grammar. The resulting paper,
«Shape Grammars and the Algorithmic Specification of Painting and
Sculpture», was presented at IFIPS Congress '71 , the
major international conference in Computer Science, in Ljubljana,
Yugoslavia, where it was awarded the prize for «Best Submitted
Paper».
In 1974 he received a Ph.D. in Computer Science from Stanford. His dissertation, Shape Grammars and their Uses ,
was published by Birkhaüser Verlag in 1975. From 1974 through 1976
he held an appointment at the Department of Biomathematics in the
School of Medicine at UCLA. During that time he worked with George
Stiny developing ideas in aesthetics and design. The resulting book, Algorithmic Aesthetics: Computer Models for Criticism and Design in the Arts, was published by University of California Press in 1978 and received the Alpha Sigma Nu Book Award.
Since 1976 Professor Gips has been on the faculty of the Computer Science Department at Boston College. His
current research involves the design and implementation of new
technologies for use by people with profound physical disabilities. He
is the principal inventor of EagleEyes, a technology that allows a
person to control the cursor on the screen of the computer through five
electrodes attached to the face. Two dozen children who are unable to
voluntarily move any parts of their body below their neck and are
unable to speak are using EagleEyes to control the computer by moving
their eyes and head. EagleEyes was a finalist in the 1994 Discover
magazine Technological Innovation of the Year award and has been
featured in the New York Times, the Times of London, the Los Angeles
Times, the Disney channel, and other media.
Stephen M. Griffin is a
Program Manager in the Division of Information, Robotics and
Intelligent Systems at the National Science Foundation (NSF). He is
currently Program Director of the Digital Libraries Initiative,
sponsored jointly with the Department of Defense Advanced Research
Projects Agency (DARPA) and the National Aeronautics and Space
Administration (NASA).
Prior to his current
assignment, he served in several research divisions, including the
Divisions of Chemistry and Advanced Scientific Computing, the Office of
the Assistant Director, Directorate for Computer and Information
Science and Engineering, and staff offices of the Director of the NSF.
His responsibilities included program planning, development, analysis
and assessment. He has initiated numerous activities directed at
building topical research communities, and support and coordination for
new areas of interdisciplinary research.
Mr. Griffin has been
active in the Federal High Performance Computing and Communications
Program (HPCC), authoring and editing HPCC publication material and
serving as Executive Secretary of the Information Infrastructure
Technologies and Applications Working Group.
His educational
background includes degrees in Chemical Engineering and Information
Systems Technology. He has additional graduate education in
organizational behavior and development and the philosophy of science.
His research interests are in topics related to interdisciplinary
communication.
Terry Knight received a
B.F.A. from the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, and an M.A. and
Ph.D. from the Architecture and Urban Design program at UCLA. Her
graduate work at UCLA focused on shape grammars. In her Ph.D. of 1986,
she developed a model for describing stylistic change and innovation in
design through transformations of grammars. This work was elaborated on
in her recent book Transformations in Design .
From 1988 to 1995, she
was a faculty member in the Architecture and Urban Design program at
UCLA. She is currently an Associate Professor with tenure in the School
of Architecture and Planning at MIT.
Ms. Knight has published
numerous papers on grammars. She developed color grammars, a
generalization of shape grammars which incorporates non-compositional
aspects of designs. Her recent work examines the practical and
theoretical issues involved in implementing shape grammars and color
grammars in design practice.
Ramesh Krishnamurti read
Electrical Engineering at the University of Madras and Computer Science
at (what is now) the University of Canberra, Australia graduating with
honours. He was admitted to the graduate program in Systems Design at
the University of Waterloo, Canada, earning his Ph.D. in 1980.
In 1978 at the invitation
of Lionel March, he went to The Open University's Centre for
Configurational Studies where he worked primarily on spatial
enumeration problems and shape grammar implementation. In 1984, at Aart
Bijl's invitation, he went to the University of Edinburgh's EdCAAD
group to work on the application of artificial intelligence to
architectural design and the integration of graphics and natural
language. In 1988, he briefly left academia to work at Bolt Beranek and
Newman (Scotland) on semantic modeling and war game simulation. In
September 1989 he joined Carnegie Mellon University where he is
currently a Professor in Architecture.
He was a project reviewer
(1986-89) of the European Strategic Programme for Information
Technology (ESPRIT). He has been a regular reviewer for the journal
Planning and Design. He is a member of the editorial advisory board for
Languages of Design and is the Regional Editor (Americas) of the international journal Building and Environment.
Andrew Li is interested in explaining the wood frame construction system of the twelfth-century Chinese building manual Yingzao fashi
to modern designers. This involves two main tasks. The first is to
characterize the knowledge contained in the text. The other is to do it
in a way that makes sense to designers, in fact to discover what such a
"designerly" approach is. Shape grammar provides a way of approaching
both tasks formally.
He has an L.Mus. with
distinction in piano performance from McGill University, an A.B. cum
laude in East Asian languages and civilizations from Harvard College,
and an M.Arch. from the Harvard University Graduate School of Design.
He studied Chinese architectural history at the Nanjing Institute of
Technology (now Southeast University) as a student in the
CanadaÐChina exchange program. He worked as an architect in Boston
and taught architecture at Tunghai University, Taiwan. He is now a
Ph.D. candidate in design and computation at the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology and an associate professor of architecture at
the Chinese University of Hong Kong.
On the personal
recommendation of Alan Turing, Lionel March was admitted to Magdalene
College, University of Cambridge, to read mathematics under Dennis
Babbage. There he eventually gained a first class degree in mathematics
and architecture. In the early sixties, he was awarded an Harkness
Fellowship of the Commonwealth Fund at the Joint Center for Urban
Studies, Harvard University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
He returned to Cambridge and joined Sir Leslie Martin and Sir Colin
Buchanan in preparing a plan for a national and government center for
Whitehall. He was the first Director of the Centre for Land Studies,
Cambridge University. As founding Chairman of the Board of the private
computer- aided design company, Applied Research of Cambridge (later
owned by McDonnell Douglas), he and his colleagues were among the first
contributors to the «Cambridge Phenomenon» -- the
dissemination of Cambridge scholarship into high-tech industries. In
1978, he was awarded the Doctor of Science degree for mathematical and
computational studies related to contemporary architectural and urban
problems.
Before coming to Los
Angeles, he was Rector and Vice-Provost of the Royal College of Art,
London. During his Rectorship, he served as a Governor of Imperial
College of Science and Technology. He has held full Professorships in
Systems Engineering at the University of Waterloo, Ontario; and in
Design Technology at The Open University, Milton Keynes. At The Open
University, as Chair, he doubled the faculty in Design and established
the Centre for Configurational Studies. He can to UCLA In 1984. He was
Chair of the Architecture and Urban Design program from 1985-91. He is
currently a Professor in Design and Computation, School of the Arts and
Architecture. He was a member of UCLA's Council on Academic Personnel
from 1993, and its chair for 1995-96.
He is General Editor of Cambridge Architectural and Urban Studies (1972 - ), and Founding Editor of the journal Planning and Design (1974 - ). Among the books he has authored and edited are: The Geometry of Environment, Urban Space and Structures, The Architecture of Form, and R. M. Schindler: Composition and Construction. He has published a companion volume to Sir Rudolf Wittkower's Architectural Principles in the Age of Humanism entitled Architectonics of Humanism avaiable through John Wiley & Sons, Academic Press.
David Marimont received
an A.B. from Princeton in Economics (1975), an M.S. from Stanford in
Computer Science (1980), and a Ph.D. from Stanford in Electrical
Engineering (1986). His dissertation was in the area of computer
vision; it developed techniques to estimate the spatial relationship
between the camera and objects in the scene from one or more images. He
spent 1986-87 in the Perception Group of SRI International's Artificial
Intelligence Center, 1987-88 in the Robotics Department of Philips
Laboratories in Briarcliff Manor, New York, and since 1988 has been at
the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center in Palo Alto, California.
Since his
dissertation, Dr. Marimont's research has primarily been in various
areas related to image analysis, including image sequence analysis,
color science, image representation, and computational geometry. More
recently, however, he has been working on visualization, user interface
design, document layout analysis, and document collection analysis.
Jay McCormack is a Masters degree student at Carnegie Mellon
University. With his advisor Jon Cagan, he shares an interest in the
engineering applications of shape grammars.
William J. Mitchell is
Professor of Architecture and Media Arts and Sciences and Dean of the
School of Architecture and Planning at MIT. He also serves as
Architectural Adviser to the President of MIT
Among his publications are
City of Bits: Space, Place, and the Infobahn MIT Press, 1995)
The Reconfigured Eye: Visual Truth in the Post-Photographic Era MIT Press, 1992)
The Logic of Architecture: Design, Computation, and Cognition MIT Press, 1990)
The Poetics of Gardens, with Charles W. Moore and WilliamTurnbull Jr. MIT Press, 1988)
Computer-Aided Architectural Design Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1977
His most recent book is the edited volume High Technology and Low-Income Communities, with Donald A. Schon and Bish Sanyal (MIT Press, 1999). And his E-Topia: Our Town Tomorrow,
which explores the new forms and functions of cities in the digital
electronic era, will be published by the MIT Press in Fall 1999.
Before coming to MIT,
he was the G. Ware and Edythe M. Travelstead Professor of Architecture
and Director of the Master in Design Studies Program at the Harvard
Graduate School of Design. He previously served as Head of the
Architecture/Urban Design Program at UCLAÕs Graduate School of
Architecture and Urban Planning, and he has also taught at Yale,
Carnegie-Mellon, and Cambridge Universities. In Spring 1999 he will be
visiting the University of Virginia as Thomas Jefferson Professor.
He holds a BArch from
the University of Melbourne, MED from Yale University, and MA from
Cambridge. He is a Fellow of the Royal Australian Institute of
Architects, a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and
a recipient of honorary doctorates from the University of Melbourne and
the New Jersey Institute of Technology. In 1997 he was awarded the
annual Appreciation Prize of the Architectural Institute of Japan for
his "achievements in the development of architectural design theory in
the information age as well as worldwide promotion of CAD education."
Kevin Otto is a Professor
of Mechanical Engineering at MIT. He earned an B.S. in Mechanical
Engineering from MIT, and a Ph.D. from Caltech.
Professor Otto has
explored most all areas of mechanical product design research, and has
worked industrially on several product development projects. Notable
research includes uncertainty modeling to support preliminary design
decision making, including computational models, group decisions, and
integration of design and manufacturing. He is looking for answers to
questions about using grammars to transform a product concept, product
specifications into generated product layouts to which equations can be
attached for analysis and optimization purposes.
Douglas Sery is an editor at the MIT Press. He is editing
George Stiny's forthcoming book on shape.
Kristina Shea is a
Lecturer in Engineering Design at Cambridge. Previously, she held a
post-doctoral research appointment at the Swiss Federal Institute of
Technology (EPFL) in Lausanne, Switzerland. She received her Ph.D, M.S.
and B.S. all from the Mechanical Engineering Department at Carnegie
Mellon University.
Dr. Shea's thesis work
involved the use of grammars and stochastic search to generate essays
of spatially innovative, but functional, planar and three-dimensional
discrete structures. The resulting structures reflected purposes of
structural efficiency, economy, and elegance. Her current interests
include applying a similar approach to spatial and functional layout of
mechanical systems, developing more specific structural grammars, and
creating engineering design tools based on grammars. She's especially
interested in using grammars to generate innovative designs and
discover intriguing relations between form and function.
George Stiny is Professor
of Design and Computation at MIT. He has held academic positions at
UCLA (Professor of Design and Professor of Architecture and Urban
Design), at the Royal College of Art (Dean), and at the Open
University. He received an S.B. in Humanities and Engineering from MIT,
and an M.S. and Ph.D. from UCLA in Engineering.
Professor Stiny pioneered
the field of shape grammars, opening numerous lines of research in
shape computation, design, and aesthetic and stylistic analysis. His
current work focuses on the uses of ambiguity in computations with
shapes, and on the extension of the shape grammar formalism to embrace
a multiplicity of interacting descriptive devices. He is looking for
answers to questions about the relationships among shape, structure,
and physical and intentional properties.
Taking a circuitous route
to academia, Mark Tapia received his B.S. in Mathematics from Stanford
University in 1969 and an M.Sc. in Computer Science from the University
of Toronto in 1971. He then worked in a variety of positions in
academia and industry, focusing on the concerns of the end-user and
acting as a liaison between technical issues and user needs, advising
users on computer systems, developing software for student use, guiding
the technical issues and interface issues of pilot projects to provide
electronic mail in the financial and academic sectors, and managing a
large software project to provide real-time public transit information
to riders. Deciding that his training needed to be updated and
challenged, he returned to the University of Toronto full time to test
the waters. After completing four graduate level courses, he was
accepted as a Ph.D. candidate in the Computer Science Department where
he pursued his interest in human computer interaction, receiving his
Ph.D. in 1996.
A search for a topic
combining an interest in the architecture and computer science revealed
an article by Ulrich Flemming on shape grammars and Queen Anne houses.
Spurred by this article and others, he visited UCLA where he met with
George Stiny at the Graduate School of Architecture and Urban Design.
With George's encouragement, he conducted research as a Visiting
Scholar at UCLA. The dissertation treated the computer implementation
of shape grammars systems as a complete system, addressing the problems
of representation and computation, and presentation and selection.
With his specific
interest in shape grammars and his more general interest in the
philosophy and practice of design computation, he is teaching a course
in architecture at M.I.T. where he is a Rsearch Scientist. He has also
taught courses in design and architecture as a Visiting Assistant
Professor in the Design Department at the UCLA. From 1996-1997, he was
a Visiting Assistant Researcher in Design and Computation; from
1997-1998 he was an Assistant Rsearcher in the professional research
series.