Dimitrie is now a Research Assistant at ABK Stuttgart. He has graduated from the TU Delft Faculty of Architecture (2010-2012, MSc) following his initial 4 years of study at IAIM, Bucharest (2006-2010, BSc eq). He has tutored workshops and lectured throughout architectural schools in Europe (TU Delft, BUT Brno, TU Berlin, HTWK Leipzig, CET Cluj, IAIM Bucharest) on topics such as computational design and digital fabrication, tackling both practice (GH, C#, Processing) as well as theory. He has also published several articles in magazines around the world (PLAT, Horizonte, Arhitectura).
Is an small sliver of the internet serving a duplicitary role of both personal identity as well as a placeholder for an embryonic practice. It has seen the light of day sometime in 2006, and it has previously been home to flash experiments and an ezine. It is now stabilized in its current architecture-oriented domain. It is hosted by Ecobytes, an NGO concerned with "environmentally sound and socially just computing".
Recently we’re having quite some fun* in the seminar with DYI 3d printing. The machine is hectic, unpredictable at times and has a number of quirks that need to be worked around. Other than that, hey – it’s cheap and it’s great.
Below are more images of (test) prints. (more…)
Since October 2012 I am working at the Staatliche Akademie der Bildenden Künste Stuttgart, affectionately known as the AKA. I am a Research Assistant under prof. Tobias Walliser (LAVA), pushing up digital magic over at the Digital Design Group. Currently I am in charge of teaching the DE2 seminar.
Looking forward to see what we can cook up. Collaborations, events, exchanges, etc. are more than welcome!
The logo is actually a very simple processing sketch (processing.js, to be more exact). The shape is based on a icosahedron whose vertexes constantly move around trying to find themselves in euclidean space. Colors are chosen randomly from three hard-coded palettes (grabbed from adobe kuler). Events are generated randomly every few milliseconds, and they can be either extra deformations, a palette change, or a reset. If you click it you get some extra magic, namely a little bit of scaling (which is a bit against usability standards since it should take you to the home page). Here’s more variations:
This projects tries to meaningfully explore the nature of optimization taking cues from the concept of growth. The assignment was calling for the development of the Almere Pampus, an area north-east of Amsterdam, an completely blank plot of land which would serve in reaching the goals of doubling up the population of Almere. The relatively abstract nature of the site allowed for a speculative research in growth models, merging theoretical concepts (laid down by DeLanda and Bruno Latour) with practical applications stemming from physics (formulated in Constructal Theory). (more…)
Published in Horizonte no. 5.
Architecture has made an irreversible jump into the computational world. We can now justly affirm that the digital medium has gained a considerable foothold in this otherwise traditional and highly suspicious domain. The role of the computer has expanded beyond that of a simple drafting tool and now actively shapes and informs both the design as well as the designer and his way of thinking, leading the discipline towards a paradigm shift in which computational tools are central.
There are many manifestations of “digital” architecture which have yet to be filtered and to coagulate into a coherent and articulate movement. For example, Patrik Schumacher’s proposal of “parametricism” as a global style (Schumacher 2011), while provoking a much needed debate and dialogue, has been met with skepticism by the practitioners and thinkers of the trade. ”Blob architecture” is now already classed as being dated, mainly due to its highly vulnerable aesthetics; “non-standard architecture”, with its fascination for digitally exuberant ornamentation, has stopped innovating and relishes in its geometrical experimentation (Kwinter 2008). Digital architecture is still, from this point of view, mutating and its offspring are highly volatile. It is because of its transient nature that, instead of interpreting the exact architectural results of contemporary digital architecture, this essay will take a different route towards enlarging the understanding of the current computational paradigm and its effects on the discipline. Thus, we propose to analyze the new tools that are employed by computational architecture and their bi-directional relationship with the designer. Whereas the designer’s needs informs the tools, the tools also inform the designer and facilitate a certain type of expression. This auto-catalytic (DeLanda 2000) loop of creativity is not fully understood yet in the case of digital design tools, and in what position it will settle or not is yet to be determined. Furthermore, shifting our discourse from a relatively risky projection of values on the different digital aesthetics and form towards one based on the more determinate technical aspects of the computational utensils allows for the exploration of a more overlooked aspect of architecture: the tools and the subsequent creative power they allow for and their projective meaning and power in the psyche of the designer. (more…)
The blog section is where unfiltered, unorganized, raw geometries, images and text (will) flow. It's important to maintain a pretentionless area of your mind, where anything goes.
Bogdan: Hi Dimitrie,
Excellent job. I[...] on Constructal Theory and Infrastructure.
Dimitrie Andrei Stefanescu: Hey Arthur! To get processing [...] on Mass Customized Branding.
Arthur Mamou-Mani: Very nice! You should start a [...] on Mass Customized Branding.
Dimitrie Andrei Stefanescu: Well, check if you have the [...] on Swarm Behaviours Workshop Material.
Chao Wei: HI,
Thanks for sharing!
I [...] on Swarm Behaviours Workshop Material.
architecture arhitectura computational computational architecture dimitrie dimitrie stefanescu geometry grasshopper parametric parametric architecture portfolio processing rhino stefanescu voronoi
