Architectural Designer }{ Creative Technologist
//I am Avakouchak, an architectural designer finding her place in-between architecture, art and technology.
//My work focuses on the relationship between the human body-mind and the spaces which it might inhabit. I create soft wearable technologies that amplify the cross-modal connection of vision and touch to blur the boundaries between tangible and intangible, physical and digital, and human and machine.
I use performance and film as mediums to envision silicontopias in which my human-machine organisms can exist. Silicontopia fuses the worlds of hard and soft machines to link back microcontrolers and transistors to their origins of sand, quartz and crystals.
//Parallel to my explorations with embodied technologies, I am interested to address and challenge the embedded, enactive and extended dimensions of lived experience to establish more adaptive, responsive and respective design solutions for now and the Future.
Education
Experience
Exhibitions/
Screenings
//PHD CANDIDATE in ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN (JAN 2017 - PRESENT)
Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL, London, UK
Supervisors: Professor Stephen Gage, Dr. Christopher Leung
//MASTER OF ARCHITECTURE in ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN (SEP 2015 - SEP 2016)
Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL, London, UK
BPro Architectural Design, Discrete Design Lab
//BACHELOR OF ARCHITECTURE in ARCHITECTURAL ENGINEERING (SEP 2010 - JULY 2015)
School of Architecture, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran
Center of Excellence in Architectural Technology
//HIGH SCHOOL DIPLOMA in MATHEMATICS (SEP 2006 - JULY 2010)
Kherad Educational Complex, Tehran, Iran
+ ACADEMIA
//Lecturer in Design for Performance and Interaction (Jan 2022 - Present)
Design for Performance and Interaction, MArch
Interactive Architecture Lab, Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL, London, UK
//Lecturer in Contextual Theory (Jan 2022 - Present)
Design for Performance and Interaction, MArch
Interactive Architecture Lab, Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL, London, UK
//MArch Theory Supervisor (Apr 2018 - Sep 2021)
Design for Performance and Interaction, MArch
Interactive Architecture Lab, Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL, London, UK
//Assosiate Lecturer (Sep 2018 - May 2021)
Architecture and Interior Architecture and Design, BA(Hons)
School of Architecture, UCA, Canterbury, UK
//Postgraduate Teaching Assistant (Jan 2022-Sep 2022)
Design for Performance and Interaction, MArch
Interactive Architecture Lab, Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL, London, UK
+ Residencies
//Creative Technologist (Oct 2019 - Present)
Quest Lab Network, Studio Wayne McGregor, London, UK
Funded by Art’s Council England’s Ambition for Excellence
+ Workshops
//Co-Organizer and Haptics Expert; “Audio.visuo.haptic Screendance” (Oct, Nov 2021)
Studio Wayne McGregor. London, UK
//Organizer and Lead Instructor; “Resensing the Constant” (Sep 2019)
Platform 28, Ab-Anbar Gallery. Tehran, Iran
//Lead Instructor; “Heterotopian Bodies” (May 2018)
Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL. London, UK
//Teaching Assistant; “Press Play; VI Arduino Workshop” (Sep 2017)
Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL. London, UK
//Teaching Assistant; “Press Play; V Arduino Workshop” (Sep 2016)
Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL. London, UK
//Assistant; PROTO ECOLOGIAS, MULTI-DISCIPLINARY WORKSHOP (APR 2016)
Museu Do Amanha, Rio De Janeiro, Brazil
//Teaching Assistant; INTERACTIVIDADE1 ARDUINO WORKSHOP (APR 2016)
FABLABLIVRE SP, Sao Paulo, Brazil
+ Talks
//Invited Speaker [Panel Discussion]: Digital Futures; New Hybridities - Middle Eastern Minds. 2021.
//Invited Speaker [Panel Discussion]: Conscious Cities Festival. Conscious Barcelona; The Person-space Continuum. 2021.
//Guest Lecturer: Arts-informed Research Methods. University of Greenwich. 2021.
//Invited Speaker [Panel Discussion]: Digital Futures; Inclusive Futures - Conversations on Inclusivity, Disability and Human Body. 2021.
//Invited Speaker: Possible Futures Lecture Series. Design for Performance and Interaction. 2020.
//Invited Speaker: Lesser Senses. Walmer Yard. 2019.
//Participant: PhD Research Conference 2019. Bartlet School of Architecture. 2019.
//Guest Lecturer: (Neuro)Science of Architecture. Contemporary Architects Association of Iran. 2018.
//Invited Speaker: Sarotis [and Making of]. Resonate Media Arts Festival. 2017.
//Invited Speaker: Sentimental Soft Robotics. Royal College of Arts. 2016.
+ Crits
//MArch, Architectural Design. Bartlett School of Architecture.
//MArch, Design for Performance and Interaction. Bartlett School of Architecture.
//BArch, Architectural Design. Westminster University.
+ Sovar Project and Short Film
//Ars Electronica. Postcity Linz, Austria. 2019.
//Dutch Design Week. Manifestations, Eindhoven, Netherlands. 2019.
//Doclisboa International Film Festival. Lisbon, Portugal. 2019.
//Proyector Video Art Festival. Madrid, Spain. 2020.
//Wolf Kino Cinema. Berlin, Gemrany. 2019.
//Research Projects Exhibition. Bartlett School of Architecture, London. 2019.
+ Sarotis Project and Short Film
//Athens Digital Arts Festival. Athens, Greece. 2021.
//Harper’s Bazaar 150th Anniversary Exhibition. Museum of Contemporary Arts, Shanghai, China. 2017.
//Proyector Video Art Festival. Madrid, Spain. 2020.
//The Impakt Festival. Utrecht, Netherlands. 2019.
//Doclisboa International Film Festival. Lisbon, Portugal. 2019.
//Wolf Kino Cinema. Berlin, Gemrany. 2019.
//Resonate Media Arts Festival. Belgrade, Serbia. 2017.
//Tomorrows. Onassis Cultural Centre, Athens, Greece. 2017.
//Innovation in Haptics. Royal Academy of Engineering, London, UK. 2017.
//BodyHack Con. Austin TX, USA. 2017.
//Memememe Exhibition. Crypt Gallery (St Pancras), London, UK. 2017.
+ Lubion Short Film
//REDCAT, CalArt’s Downtown Center for Contemporary Arts, Los Angeles, USA. 2020.
//Casablanca Video Art Festival. Online. 2020.
//Mr Majidi and the Electricity Box Exhibition. VO Curations, London, UK. 2019.
Press
Digital (selected)
//Le Monde
//Design Milk
//Tracks-ARTE.TV
//Adafruit
//El Futuro Es Apasionante
//Discover Haptics
Printed
//Tomorrows; Urban Fictions for Possible Futures.
//Pasajes Arquitectura.
Contact
Address; Bartlett School of Architecture,
22 Gordon Street,
Bloomsbury, London.
WC1H 0QB.
Email; ava.aghakouchak.15@ucl.ac.uk
Tel; +44 7492 70 2320