I.Mirtsopoulos receives EDCE Mobility Award
© 2020 EPFL
Ioannis Mirtsopoulos, PhD student at the Structural Xploration Lab, SXL, is a winner of the EDCE PhD Mobility Award, October 2020. This award is given by the doctoral program in Civil and Environmental Engineering (EDCE) to encourage the best PhD students within the program to go for an academic visit to an external research institution. Read Ioannis’ testimony about his PhD research and his future academic visit to MIT.
As part of the Structural Xploration Lab (SXL), I work at the interface between architecture and structural engineering with the aim of exploring the design space of structurally-aware structures. My research mainly focuses on the development of a novel design computational workflow that generates reticulated structures in static equilibrium at an early design stage, as a result of user defined force-driven rules rather than numerical variables. Its implementation is reflected on a user-controlled, form-finding engine which unveils unprecedent structural typologies through the extensive exploration of the design space. Part of the research objectives is the human-machine collaboration and the exploitation of intelligence and logic sourcing from both sides.
During my academic visit to the Digital Structures research lab of Prof. Caitlin Muller, at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), I aim to integrate artificial intelligence into the developed computational workflow. This approach will upgrade the machine as a collaborative partner during the design process, that contributes with its own intelligence towards the final design. Overall, the guidance and experience gained there will allow me to extend my research towards a more intelligent and multidisciplinary approach.