Design-Tech Talk 11

Step into the future of design innovation with Design-Tech Talk 11, a two-day online event exploring the evolving relationship between architecture, technology, and digital design.

Through a series of curated sessions, the event will investigate how emerging technologies continue to reshape creative practice and redefine the future of the built environment. The program brings together discussions around computational design, new digital tools, and the ongoing technological shifts influencing architecture and design today.

Whether you are an architect, designer, researcher, or enthusiast, Design-Tech Talk 11 offers a space to engage with forward-looking ideas, explore new perspectives, and connect with the broader design-tech community.

Program

Day 1, July 25th:

• Opening Session: 14:00-14:15 GMT
• 1st Speaker: Franz Forsberg 14:15 – 15:15 GMT
• 2nd Speaker: Ekaterina Lukasheva 15:30 – 16:30 GMT
• 3rd Speaker: Virginia Melnyk 16:45 – 17:45 GMT
• Closing Session: 17:45 – 18:00 GMT

Day 2, July 26th:

• Opening Session: 14:00- 14:15 GMT
• 1st Speaker: Radu Ciurba 14:15 – 15:15 GMT
• 2nd Speaker: Zoltán Neville 15:30 – 16:30 GMT
• 3rd Speaker: Tony Tsui 16:45 – 17:45 GMT
• Closing Session: 17:45 – 18:00 GMT

Guest Speakers:

Franz Forsberg

Franz Forsberg is the co-founder of Spacio, a web-based AI design platform that lets architects sketch, analyze, and validate early-stage building proposals in one place. His background is in architecture (Hosei University, Japan; Architectural Association, London) building performance and parametric design (daylight, sun hours, energy, comfort…). He led work in this field at Link Arkitektur in Scandinavia before co-founding Spacio.

Frustrated by the gap between design tools that look good and analysis tools that give real numbers, Franz set out to build a single platform where geometry and performance data update together from the very first sketch. Today, Spacio helps architects move faster through the phase where decisions matter most, early design, without losing accuracy, buildability, or compliance.

Ekaterina Lukasheva

Ekaterina Lukasheva is a paper artist whose work bridges mathematics and sculpture. Born in Moscow, Russia, she developed an early fascination with architecture, art, and mathematical puzzles. She later earned an MSc in mathematics and computer science and a PhD in mathematics, forming a foundation that allows her to approach origami intuitively through geometry.

In addition to her artistic practice, she is the author of five books on modular origami and origami tessellations. Guided by her motto, “Create new shapes instead of reusing well-known ones,” she continuously explores the topology and limits of paper as a sculptural medium.

Artist statement: My work explores the intersection of mathematics and beauty through folded paper. Using principles of geometry, symmetry, and curved surfaces, I transform flat sheets into complex three-dimensional tessellations.

Each piece is both an artwork and an invisible engineering structure, designed so it can always return to its original flat form. I am driven by a desire to discover new geometries rather than repeat familiar ones, using paper as a medium to investigate what is possible within the constraints of a single sheet.

Tony Tsui

Tony Tsui is a multidisciplinary designer and founder of Noodo Lab, a Hong Kong–based design studio focused on advanced fabrication, digital production, and experimental making.

His work explores the intersection of design, computation, and manufacturing, with a particular focus on large-scale additive manufacturing, custom toolpath generation, digital heritage documentation, and sustainable material innovation. Through Noodo Lab, he develops products, installations, and fabrication systems that challenge conventional approaches to making, often creating bespoke workflows that blur the boundaries between design, craft, and technology.

Virginia Melnyk

Virginia Ellyn Melnyk is a computational architectural designer and researcher specializing in knitting, lightweight structures, and transformable architecture. She is currently an assistant professor at Iowa State University. Her teaching and research explore the interplay between deployable and lightweight structures, utilizing the fabrication methods of CNC knitting to develop structural membranes. Her designs focus on knit pattern arrangements using elastic yarns and connecting them with transformable frameworks to create deployable structures that stretch and interact with both their environment and users.

Virginia has held academic positions at Virginia Tech, the University of Michigan, Clemson University, and the University at Buffalo. She has contributed to teaching and research in undergraduate studio design, computational design, structures, and textile research classes. Her work has been presented at numerous conferences, exhibited nationally and internationally, and published in books and journals.

Focused on design process and human-centered engagement, her research reimagines architecture as dynamic , tactile, integrating closely with the human body to create designs that are sustainable, responsive, and deeply interactive. Through her work, Virginia envisions a future where architecture adapts seamlessly to meet changing needs and conditions.

Zoltán Neville

Zoltán Neville is an Architect and Urban designer, working on innovative cultural, social, and ecological projects around the world.

Zoltán is a registered architect in France, with professional architecture degrees from the USC School of Architecture in Los Angeles and ENSAP Lille, as well as his licensing accreditation from ENSA Paris-Malaquais. As a Partner at Coldefy, he's responsible for the Design and Management of International Projects. Since joining the leadership team in 2016, Zoltan has helped establish the practice's Shanghai studio and international portfolio, initiating and leading some of the firm's most notable and innovative projects.

Outside of professional practice, he participates regularly in Academic and Research activities, and since 2021, holds a position within the Architecture Institute of the Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design in Budapest, Hungary.

Radu Ciurba

Radu Ciurba was born in 1995 and is currently residing and working in Cluj-Napoca, Romania, specializing in the string art technique. A self-taught artist, his works comprise detailed abstract patterns, precisely organized networks of lines that generate emergent patterns, revealing complexity through simple rules.