IntCDC Constructive Conversations. Certain Measures: Data, Media, Worlds

We are very honoured to welcome Andrew Witt, Associate Professor in Practice in Architecture at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, to our upcoming Constructive Conversations event on Wednesday, 14 June 2023 from 4:00-6:00 p.m.

Andrew Witt will give a lecture on Certain Measures: Data, Media, Worlds.

The event will take place both in person and digitally.

Lecture Abstract

Computation, data science, and AI are emerging as common languages across the social and physical sciences that enable data-literate designers to tackle trans-disciplinary and trans-scalar problems in profound new ways. Creative practices can leverage computation to re-imagine what the design office can be, and the kinds of problems it could engage, ranging beyond strictly architectural design to the material, social, and planetary. In this lecture, Witt will peruse trans-disciplinary and trans-scalar applications of quantified, mathematical and computational methods of machine learning and artificial intelligence in design, touching on cultural and material issues around radical waste reuse, the mapping of the visual space of style, and how our autonomous robots perceive and perhaps imagine us. Through projects of the office Certain Measures, research at Harvard, and the historical context of the intimate interactions of architecture and mathematics in his recent book “Formulations: Architecture, Mathematics, Culture,” Witt will outline a new form of mathematically-enabled and data-driven design practice capable of tackling problems across scales.

Andrew Witt

Andrew Witt is an Associate Professor in Practice in Architecture at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, teaching and researching on the relationship of geometry and machines to perception, design, construction, and culture. Trained as both an architect and mathematician, he has a particular interest in a technically synthetic and logically rigorous approach to form.

Witt is also co-founder, with Tobias Nolte, of Certain Measures, a Boston/Berlin-based design and technology studio that combines imagination and evidence for systemic and scalable approaches to spatial problems.

Witt was previously Director of Research at Gehry Technologies and a director at GT's Paris, France office, where he solved complex geometric challenges for clients including Gehry Partners, Ateliers Jean Nouvel, UN Studio and Coop Himmelb(l)au, and projects such as the Fondation Louis Vuitton and the Louvre Abu Dhabi. He also developed prototypes for new software design tools such as GTeam (now Trimble Connect, acquired by Trimble in 2014).

AdvanceAEC  – Join this and further AdvanceAEC Partner Seminars and receive an AdvanceAEC certificate!

This lecture is part of the AdvanceAEC Partner Seminar series. There will be eight Partner Seminars in 2023. Partner Seminars focus on cross-sectional and interdisciplinary topics and are open to all network partners. If you attend at least six of the eight seminars, you will receive a certificate of time attendance. You will need to register for this at the beginning of each event. The procedure for this will be briefly explained before each seminar.

The access data for this event is available to AdvanceAEC members. All researchers working in the field of AdvanceAEC are welcome to join the network. Please register or log in to access the event credentials.