Ep. 003 _ Geoffrey Thün & Kathy Velikov

Geoffrey Thün and Kathy Velikov are Associate Professors at the University of Michigan Tuabman College of Architecture and Urban Planning, and founding principals of the design-research practice RVTR. Their work and writing explores the agency of architecture and urban design within the context of dynamic ecological systems, infrastructures, energies, materially and technologically mediated environments, and emerging social organizations. Their body of work in “responsive envelopes” has been developing composite material systems that operate as thick, sensing skins that are integrated with sensing, intelligence, kinetic action, and interaction capabilities. This work has been published in Leonardo, IJAC, JAE, eVolo, [bracket] Goes Soft, and featured in in Hypernatural: Architecture’s New Relationship with Nature by Blaine Brownell and Marc Swackhamer, Paradigms in Computing by David Gerber and Mariana Ibanez, Performative Materials in Architecture by Rashida Ng and Sneha Patel, and High Performance Homes by Franca Trubiano. Most recently, their “Infundibuliforms: Kinetic Tensile Surface Environments” project received a 2016 R+D Awards honorable mention from Architect Magazine. Thün and Velikov also undertake work at the urban scale of infrastructures and territories. They have recently co-authored Infra Eco Logi Urbanism (Park Books, 2015), and were collaborators on EXTRACTION, the Canadian Pavilion exhibition at the 2016 Venice Architecture Biennale.