During the academic year 2011-2012 I am involved in teaching several modules in the Postgraduate Taught Masters programme including ARC6750 Computer Aided Architectural Design, ARC6848 Introduction to Computational Design, and ARC6849 Advanced Computational Design (all with Dr Chengzhi Peng). I also supervise Undergraduate, MArch and Postgraduate dissertation projects.

My overriding research preoccupation involves an effort to understand the role of digital tools in the architectural design process, and each of the modules that I teach engages students in the process of forming their own critical approach to this topic. My teaching is a source of data for research, but more importantly it is informed by research and wherever possible involves students as active participants in current projects. Current research topics which are directly related to my teaching include an ongoing study of the impact of code-based approaches to design on architectural education and the form of the design studio; and the use of data visualization to enhance and inform the student's understanding of their own code-based design process.

Member of IT Committee, SSoA

Member of Postgraduate Taught Masters Admissions Committee

My research involves the intersection of physical and digital design, engaging topics in architecture and computer science and employing research methods specific to both disciplines. The following descriptions represent the range of topics that I am currently engaged with.

1. Augmented Environments: The ubiquity of technology for sensing in the built environment offers unique opportunities for the architect. Information about air, climate, and the activities of people is often used as a means of producing more efficient buildings; my research has focused not so much on this instrumental use of technology as on the cultural and typological implications of responsive buildings and other augmented environments. Using prototypes to explore the integration of dynamic information in the architectural environment, I have been interested in the visualization of dynamic information and the effects of integrated digital information on the perception of the city.

2. Digital Forms of Making: The processes by which buildings are designed have been challenged by the global dispersion of the design team and the introduction of digital design and communication tools. This is a topic that I have looked at primarily through the development of proposals for the future of the architectural design studio: working with code and algorithmic design methods is an important way in which architects can take charge of the digital tools at their disposal, and I am involved in developing models for studio education that include extensive hands-on involvement with computational tools for design and fabrication.

3. Digital Culture: The widespread use of social networking software and the availability of these applications on mobile devices have led to new social practices and new ways of experiencing familiar environments such as the home or the public urban realm. These practices also introduce new forms of interaction between physical and digital architectures, among these the augmentation of physical environments with digital information. I am particularly interested in the use of tangible interfaces for digital information in the urban context, and the implications of these practices for the experience of the city and the ways in which cities are used and understood.

4. Visualizing Data: Data visualization is the branch of computer science research which deals with visually understanding and communicating data using the digital medium. It involves the translation of data into a visual language, revealing inherent characteristics that become legible as patterns. Data visualization is based on the use of computation to support data analysis, the generation of graphic output, and interactivity. My research in this field has focused on the physical integration of digital data in the building and the city.

Food Urbanism Initiative: Participant and grant co-author, Swiss National Science Foundation grant (2010 – 2012), 630,000 CHF, Principal Investigator Craig Verzone.

FIFO Innovation Grant: Recipient of the EPFL Provost´s grant for doctoral research, 150,000 CHF.

Superstudio: Participant and grant co-author, Swiss National Science Foundation grant (2009 – 2011), 333,000 CHF, Principal Investigator Jeffrey Huang.

Team Learning Module: Grant co-author and project coordinator, Harvard Provost´s Innovation Grant (2003), $50,000.

New Material Technologies: Work exhibited at Deutsche Telekom Headquarters, Bonn (2010). A thermochromic panel used to visualize indoor air quality data was included as part of a one-year exhibit of projects involving new materials.

Yang Yu, "Fusion of Physical and Digital Representations in Architecture:
A Mixed Reality Modelling Approach" (with Dr Chengzhi Peng as first supervisor).

Maryam Fazel, "Time space in diagrams: An arrow from spatiotemporality to temporality in diagramming" (with Dr Stephen Walker as second supervisor).

Sukaina Almousa, "Temporary architecture: Tracing narrative and the body/mind journey in installation art" (with Dr Stephen Walker as first supervisor).

Aslan Arzaghi

Meagher, M., van der Maas, D., Abegg, C. and Huang, J. (2009) Dynamic ornament: The design of responsive surfaces in architecture. Proc. ACSA Southeast Regional Meeting, 2009.

Meagher, M., Van Der Maas, D., Abegg, C., and Huang, J. (2009). Dynamic ornament: Climatically responsive surfaces in architecture. In Proc. CAAD Futures ´09. CAAD Futures, 2009.

Meagher, M., Huang, J., and Gerber. D. (2007) Revisiting the open plan: Ceilings and furniture as display surfaces for building information. In Proc. 11th International Conference Information Visualization IV ´07, pages 601– 606, 4–6 July 2007.

Meagher, M., Bielaczyc, K. and Huang, J. (2005) OpenD: Supporting parallel development of digital designs. In Proc. Designing User Experience (DUX ´05), 2005.