Design of Structures: Research into configurational logics

Open lecture by Toni Kotnik,  Professor of Design of Structures and director of the Master of Architecture at Aalto University. 

In architecture as well as in engineering, structural design is often viewed as mere problem of stability and efficiency. But structures, understood as relationship between elements, are articulations of order,are patterns of organization with architecture arguably the most prominent manifestation of the basic human activity of structuring the environment we are living in. Structures in architecture, thus, are not only physical but also conceptual. Structures are a medium of expression of design ideas that travers all scales of architecture. 

Based on such an understanding, the lecture tries to sketch a research into the configurational logic of structures as an interdisciplinary research project with architecture at its core.

About Professor Toni Kotnik

T​oni Kotnik is Professor of Design of Structures at Aalto University in Helsinki, Finland. He studied architecture and mathematics at Germany, Switzerland and the US and received his PhD in mathematics from the University of Zurich as well as a Master in Computational Design and Digital Fabrication from the ETH. 

Before joining Aalto he taught among others at the ETH in Zurich, the Architectural Association (AA) in London, the Institute for Experimental Architecture at the University of Innsbruck and the Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD). He has been lecturing at leading universities worldwide like Harvard, MIT or Bartlett but also at important museums like the Guggenheim in Bilbao or the MOMA in New York. His practice and research work has been published and exhibited internationally, including the Venice Biennale, and is centered on the integration of knowledge from science and engineering into architectural design thinking and the exploration of organizational principles.