The 2011 ACADIA AWARD for EMERGING DIGITAL PRACTICE

is presented to:

PHILIP BEESLEY

Professor, University of Waterloo

This award recognizes creative design work that advances the discipline of architecture through development and use of digital media. The award honors extraordinary individuals at the beginning of their careers.

Phillip Beesley’s architecture, sculpture and design practice presents a rich body of digitally enabled work that goes well beyond digital technique to digital enablement of practice. His projects feature interactive kinetic systems that use dense arrays of microprocessors, sensors and actuator systems arranged within lightweight ‘textile’ structures. These environments pursue distributed emotional consciousness within synthetic and near-living systems. His mesmerizing exhibit, “Hylozoic Ground” transformed the Canadian Pavilion at the 2010 Venice Biennale with an environment made of tens of thousands of digitally-fabricated components fitted with meshed microprocessors and sensors.

Phillip’s work is widely published and exhibited, and has been distinguished by awards including VIDA 11.0 and FEIDAD, and by the Prix de Rome in Architecture (Canada). He was educated in visual art at Queen’s University, in technology at Humber College, and in architecture at the University of Toronto. He is currently a professor in the School of Architecture, University of Waterloo. Phillip has consistently involved students in his professional work. Many have been gifted with an accelerated start to their careers through Philip's graceful guidance. In addition we are fortunate to note that Philip has been a leader in the ACADIA community for several years.

 

The 2011 ACADIA AWARD for INNOVATIVE RESEARCH

is presented to:

ELLEN DO

Associate Professor, Georgia Institute of Technology

This award recognizes innovative research that contributes to the field of digital design in architecture. The award distinguishes research with the potential to transform contemporary architecture.

Ellen Yi-Luen Do has been creating design tools that incorporate user needs since the mid-90's, connecting design thinking and cutting edge technology. Her work engages designers, programmers and interdisciplinary partners in creating new interfaces that feel natural. Her research comes from careful observation, insightful analysis, a can-do attitude and a persistence that allows her work to reach the highest standards of excellence. Her careful analysis of conceptual sketching in architectural design allowed her to translate specific sketch actions into computer input for tools such as the Electronic Cocktail Napkin. The initial program spawned a whole set of prototype applications (such as 2D glyph recognition for database retrieval, 3D annotation, 3D modeling) which proved that sketch input could be a natural, viable way to design with computers.

Ellen smoothly transitioned from sketching applications to gesture-based computing and tactile interfaces. Her teams have been agile at incorporating motion detectors and cameras into design tools and healthcare applications. She has effectively worked with inter-disciplinary teams to make environments for improved patient outcomes.

Ellen is an associate professor in the College of Architecture, and the College of Computing, at Georgia Institute of Technology. Before joining Georgia Tech in 2006, Ellen co-directed the Computational Design Laboratory CoDe Lab at Carnegie Mellon University. and the Design Machine Group at University of Washington. Prior to UW, Ellen worked at University of Colorado at Boulder (94-99) as a researcher and instructor for the Sundance Lab for Computing in Design and Planning.

The 2011 ACADIA AWARD for TEACHING EXCELLENCE

is presented to:

JOHN FRAZER

Professor and Chair of Design Science, Queensland University of Technology

This award recognizes innovative teaching in the field of digital architecture. Teaching approaches that can be adopted by other educators are recognized in particular.

Professor John Hamilton Frazer is a pioneer of the use of computers in architecture specifically with the development of intelligent and interactive building design systems and evolutionary design computation. He created of one of the first tangible construction kits for creating virtual models, and has been an inspiration for much work in our field. His work has been instrumental in developing many methodologies that are used today. His first book, An Evolutionary Architecture, published in1995, documents his early teaching at the AA in London and is regarded as the seminal work in the field.

John holds the Chair of Design Science at Queensland University of Technology where he is in both the Faculty of Science and the Faculty of Engineering and where previously he was the Head of the School of Design. He trained as an architect at the independent Architectural Association in London and started his career as a lecturer at Cambridge University and the Architectural Association. He was Head of School and Professor at the University of Ulster before moving to the Hong Kong Polytechnic University where he was Swire Chair Professor and Head of School of Design. He was then appointed as International Research Co-ordinator for the Gehry Technologies Digital Practice Ecosystem. He holds honorary Professorships from the Universities of Dalian, Fudan and Shandong in China as well as being a Visiting Professor at the Universities of Salford and Brighton. He is an elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and a Fellow the Chartered Society of Designers.