Project (Vic)Toria
-
2024 Team
The AA Visiting School will return from the
1st of July until the 12th July 2024!
This year the studio will explore:
> Urban Rhythms
> The Laboratory Garden
> Future Fashion Systems
> Forest Signals
> Gastro-Sectarianism
︎︎︎Units ︎︎︎Team ︎︎︎ Application Details
-
2024 Team
The AA Visiting School will return from the
1st of July until the 12th July 2024!
This year the studio will explore:
> Urban Rhythms
> The Laboratory Garden
> Future Fashion Systems
> Forest Signals
> Gastro-Sectarianism
︎︎︎Units ︎︎︎Team ︎︎︎ Application Details
Team 2024
(Alphabetical Order)
Miriam Borcherdt (Kin Studio)
Allison Crank (Crank)
Lucinda Dryden (Studio Lulu)
Brian Duong (MSD)
Bethany Edgoose (Inferstudio)
Arnaud Grignard (MIT Media Lab)
David SC Mah (MSD)
Sacha McMonagle-Ihasz (Hazeltree)
Lucy Moroney (Studio Lulu)
Mond Qu (UnitedMake)
Robert Smith (Bompas & Parr)
Nicoletta Stecca (rén collective)
Nathan Su (Inferstudio)
Samuel Wines (CoLabs Australia)
Leire Asensio Villoria (MSD)
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Miriam Borcherdt (kin studio)
Unit 3
Miriam Borcherdt has extensive design experience working for leading European design houses as well as running her own company (www.kin-studio.com). She founded the interdisciplinary design studio Central Office of Design and Architecture (CODA) and the women’s wear label munk which opened its flagship store The Signet Bureau in Fitzroy (until 2011). She has developed a range of homeware objects in industrial felt working with the Asylum Resource Centre. Previously she worked for Romeo Gigli in Milan and John Galliano in Paris. She has also worked with Monash University and MPavilion to deliver the Wearing The City exhibitions in 2016 and 2017. She completed her undergraduate studies at Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), Providence, USA and is currently enrolled in a PhD at RMIT that explores scalable circular design through remanufacture. She has been teaching at RMIT since 2011 with a focus on sustainable design practices from design development to ethical manufacturing.
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Allison Crank (Tyger Tyger)
Unit 1
Allison Crank is a UX designer & researcher exploring the intersection of art, technology, and architecture. As a designer specializing in interactive storytelling with new media such as immersive games and experiences. In addition to designing and building digital experiences, she researches and creates pipeline tools for interactive narrative storytelling and user centered experiences. Currently working as the UX lead on a mixed reality experience on neurodiversity with Anagram, the follow-up episode for Goliath VR as well as the UX lead for an LBE project together with Albyon and Dreamscape.
Other recent projects include leading the UX for the Gilcrease Museum together with Gallagher & Associates, and the curator and lead designer for the 2022 Raumwelten Festival for architecture, scenography, and media. She is also the design lead for Polaris, a community-driven social media news application, Pix.T, a block-chain backed photojournalism platform, and the UX Designer and Production Project Manager for the GLIMPSE, starring Taron Egerton & Lucy Boynton, directed by Academy Award-winning writer/director Benjamin Cleary and Michael O’Conner. Glimpse has been in featured in 20+ festivals including the Venice Filme Festical, Tribeca, Annecy (award the Cristlal) and Cannes (award the best interactive experience of 2022).
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Lucinda Dryden (Studio Lulu)
Unit 2
No matter the medium—from branding to websites; photography to set design; ceramics to flowers—Lucinda is a visual storyteller. Throughout her 10 years of practice as a designer, Lucinda has helped clients to find their voice, whether it be by packaging an artisanal Kombucha brand, designing sets for the ABC or improving the user experience and branding of an award-winning app.
These days she draws on this commercial experience for Studio Lu/Lu, a spatial, branding and experiential design studio she co-founded last year with Lucy Moroney. Together they combine the skills gained from their respective industries, and expand the design process beyond bricks and mortar into a living architecture. Their latest project is a multi-sensory installation and artist residency in collaboration with Sydney’s Inner West Council.
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Brian Duong (MSD)
Senior Tutor
Brian is an architectural graduate, completing his Master of Architecture at the University of Melbourne. He has an interest in optimisation and automation in computational architecture. In 2022, he undertook a number of teaching and research positions in the Melbourne School of Design, including teaching Digital Design at the University of Melbourne as a Design Tutor and Technical Tutor, and working together with the Built Environments Learning + Teaching (BEL+T) Team to research into effective processes for dual delivery on campus.
Since 2022, he has been the Senior Tutor for the AAVS Melbourne.
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Bethany Edgoose (Inferstudio)
Unit 4
Bethany is an editor, writer, and researcher. With a background in anthropology, her work investigates the impact of digital technologies on new forms of personhood and identity. She has directed and edited short documentaries for Google R+D, the US handball team, and artist studios including Superflux and Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg Studios. Before Inferstudio, she worked as a cyber-security analyst and a nuclear security researcher. She graduated with distinction from the M.Sc in Anthropology and Development at the London School of Economics.
Inferstudio is a digital design studio offering services in worldbuilding, editing, videography, VFX, data visualization. We work with artists, architects, researchers, NGOs, film-makers, musicians and technologists to design visual worlds that tell their stories. We also produce independent projects - artworks, films and essays that focus on extended reality, personhood and identity, and Earth’s fragile landscapes.
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Arnaud Grignard (MIT Media Lab)
Unit 1
Arnaud Grignard is a computer scientist specializing in complex systems modeling and information visualization. He received his PhD in Computer Science from l'université Pierre et Marie Curie-UPMC in 2015 where he co-developed a novel approach to agent-based simulation that handles real-time visualization tasks applied both to data and simulation outputs. Since 2016, Grignard has been a research scientist in the City Science group at the MIT Media Lab working on multiple applications of agent-based modeling theory using evidence-based or data-driven simulations. He is involved with several collaboration within the CityScience Network that include urban land-use modeling, and mobility and hydraulic simulations. In addition, he is one of the main developers of the open source community surrounding the CityScience group. In 2021, he received a Marie Curie Fellowship and joined the Université de Lyon in the LIRIS laboratory to apply his research on Reactive Agent-based Tangible simulation for decision making in urban studies (ReAgent).
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David SC Mah (University of Melbourne)
Visiting School Coordinator (MSD)
David Mah is a senior lecturer in urban design and architecture at the University of Melbourne’s school of design.
Previous to the MSD, David was a lecturer at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design (2010-2017). While at the GSD, David was also design research lead for the Health and Places Initiative, a research collaboration between the Harvard Graduate School of Design and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health focused on studying the links between the built environment and health outcomes.
Previous to Harvard, he also taught design and theory at Cornell University’s department of architecture (2007-2010) and Landscape Urbanism at the graduate design school of the Architectural Association in London (2004-2007).
Together with Leire Asensio Villoria, David is author of the books: Systems Upgarde. (Re)fabricating Tectonic Prototypes (2022, Actar) and Lifestyled: Health and Places (2016, Jovis).His writings have been published in a number of academic as well as professional books and journals, including The Eixample Example. Urban Landscape Critical Concepts in Built Environment : Typology, Space, Representation. Routledge 2015, Over-Research. in The Generic Sublime Actar 2016, Sense and Sensibilities. Kerb. 23. Actar 2015, Digital Design as a Material Practice. Paradigms in Computing Making, Machines, and Models for Design Agency in Architecture. Evolo 2015 and Digital Media and Material Practice. Representing Landscapes: Digital. Routledge. 2015 amongst others.
Professionally, David has worked within a number of international design practices including FOA and Zaha Hadid Architects where he was engaged in the design and delivery of a number of urban design as well as architectural projects in the United Kingdom (The 2012 London Olympics and Legacy masterplans), Singapore (one north science park masterplan) and Spain. David has been collaborating with Leire Asensio Villoria as asensio_mah since 2002.
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Sasha McMonagle-Ihasz (Hazeltree)
Unit 6
Sacha McMonagle-Ihasz is an experienced innovation and design leader who understands how culture, brand, and innovation can merge to enhance quality at scale. With a passion for building sustainable frameworks that facilitate positive cultural shifts and enable teams to work collaboratively and efficiently, Sacha prioritizes measurable impact and action. Sacha's approach is holistic, taking into account the needs of individuals, communities, and larger systems they operate within, while also assembling and leading interdisciplinary teams to solve complex problems. As the co-founder and Head of Innovation & Design at Eratos, Sacha is committed to crafting innovative solutions that cater to the needs of all stakeholders and have a positive impact on the world.
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Lucy Moroney (Studio Lulu)
Unit 2
The foundation of Lucy’s practice explores the limits of sensory experience with the highest technical precision. After training at the Architectural Association (AA), Lucy practiced as an Architect for 15 years in London. During this time, she delivered an award-winning Oast house, served as Project Architect for Manchester City, urban planning 4,400 homes and was commissioned by the British Council to deliver a sensory pavilion for Saudi Design Week.
In 2022 Lucy co-founded Studio Lu/Lu with Lucinda Dryden. Most recently, they have been commissioned by Sydney’s Inner West Council to deliver an immersive outdoor room—exploring the spectrum of sound that exists outside the range of human hearing.
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Mond Qu (UnitedMake)
Program Director
Designer, narrative animator, and digital craftsman.
Mond Qu is the founder of United Make, an experimental think-tank and multi-disciplinary studio based in Melbourne (www.unitedmake.com).
Mond pushes the frontiers of design through the act of making; from deep materials research, visceral immersive experiences, interactive artworks or modular furniture, to large-scale speculations.
Working in research, practice and teaching internationally, Mond challenges designers to innovate and embrace the challenges of the 21st century and is the Director of the AAVS Melbourne from 2018 to present.
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Robert Smith (Bompas & Parr)
Unit 5
Rob has worked with Bompas & Parr to create exceptional experiences in every major market globally. Delivering events and activations for a vast array of clients, ranging from NPD development for Diageo to Full scale multi-sensory experiential for Disney. His passion lies in creating meaningful activations in the luxury spirit market for HNW and UHNWI.
Rob was architecturally trained in Melbourne, before heading to London four years ago, after a period as Art Director at Time Out London he returned to experiential design with Bompas & Parr. His work spans the fields of architecture, interior design, set design, projection design, graphic design for digital and print media, and more. Robs practice focuses on the design of spacial experiences, focusing on the total work of art, and designs that elicit an emotional response.
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Nicoletta Stecca (rén collective)
Unit 3
Nicky is a fashion designer and digital manufacturer with over ten years of experience in the fashion industry.
She advocates for a system change in the fashion industry through her two non-profit organisations, rén collective in Italy and Circular Economy Victoria in Australia, and through her work at the UN Fashion Charter for Climate Action.
In her most recent role as an Innovation Officer at City of Casey, she is supporting the establishment of one of the first government-led Circular Economy Living Lab in Australia, exploring collaborative opportunities for local impact through co-design of scalable circular solutions.
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Nathan Su (Inferstudio)
Unit 4
Nathan is an architectural designer, technologist, and researcher. With a background in architecture, he works through virtual worlds to both speculate on possible futures and reveal contemporary realities. He has worked extensively with Forensic Architecture on developing digital tools for image analysis and data visualization. He has taught in architecture schools internationally, including at UCLA, the Architectural Association (AA), and Strelka Institute. He studied architecture at the University of Melbourne and at the AA, where he received Diploma Honours.
Inferstudio is a digital design studio offering services in worldbuilding, editing, videography, VFX, data visualization. We work with artists, architects, researchers, NGOs, film-makers, musicians and technologists to design visual worlds that tell their stories. We also produce independent projects - artworks, films and essays that focus on extended reality, personhood and identity, and Earth’s fragile landscapes.
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Samuel Wines (CoLabs Australia)
Unit 6
Samuel is a Melbourne-based biologist and social entrepreneur exploring the intersection of biology, society and technology through a complexity-informed, ecological design thinking lens. Informed by Nature's principles, he works to weave biological, psychological, social, ecological and systemic insights together to support regenerative design, development and innovation. He is the co-founder of CoLabs Australia and The Phoenix School Program.
Sam is an avid adventurer, naturalist and self-proclaimed bibliophile. When he’s not roaming around outdoors, you’ll catch him sitting on the couch reading, tending to his medicinal herb garden, or playing piano and experimenting with his synthesiser. In another life, Sam was managing director of a digital marketing agency, Cognito Social and premium men’s fashion, travel and lifestyle website, Man of Style.
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Leire Asensio Villoria (University of Melbourne)
Visiting School Coordinator
Leire Asensio is a senior lecturer in urban design and architecture and Co-Director of the Advance Digital Design + Frabrication (ADD+F) at the University of Melbourne’s school of design.
Previous to the MSD, Leire was a lecturer at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design (2010-2017). While at the GSD, Leire was also design research lead for the Health and Places Initiative, a research collaboration between the Harvard Graduate School of Design and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health focused on studying the links between the built environment and health outcomes.
Previous to Harvard, she also taught design and theory at Cornell University’s department of architecture (2006-2010) and Landscape Urbanism at the graduate design school of the Architectural Association in London (2004-2007).
Together with David Mah, Leire is also active in the production of architectural and creative works. Her works has been exhibited internationally including at the Royal Academy of Art in London and The Storefront for Art and Architecture in New York and has been featured in professional books and journals published by Birkhauser, Evolo, Lars Muller, Actar and Routledge amongst others. Professionally, Leire has worked within a number of international design practices including Zaha Hadid Architects and Arup. Leire has been collaborating with David Mah as asensio_mah since 2002.
Leire is a registered architect in Spain and received her Diploma in Architecture awarded with honours from the Architectural Association in 2001.
(Alphabetical Order)
Miriam Borcherdt (Kin Studio)
Allison Crank (Crank)
Lucinda Dryden (Studio Lulu)
Brian Duong (MSD)
Bethany Edgoose (Inferstudio)
Arnaud Grignard (MIT Media Lab)
David SC Mah (MSD)
Sacha McMonagle-Ihasz (Hazeltree)
Lucy Moroney (Studio Lulu)
Mond Qu (UnitedMake)
Robert Smith (Bompas & Parr)
Nicoletta Stecca (rén collective)
Nathan Su (Inferstudio)
Samuel Wines (CoLabs Australia)
Leire Asensio Villoria (MSD)
Miriam Borcherdt (kin studio)
Unit 3
Miriam Borcherdt has extensive design experience working for leading European design houses as well as running her own company (www.kin-studio.com). She founded the interdisciplinary design studio Central Office of Design and Architecture (CODA) and the women’s wear label munk which opened its flagship store The Signet Bureau in Fitzroy (until 2011). She has developed a range of homeware objects in industrial felt working with the Asylum Resource Centre. Previously she worked for Romeo Gigli in Milan and John Galliano in Paris. She has also worked with Monash University and MPavilion to deliver the Wearing The City exhibitions in 2016 and 2017. She completed her undergraduate studies at Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), Providence, USA and is currently enrolled in a PhD at RMIT that explores scalable circular design through remanufacture. She has been teaching at RMIT since 2011 with a focus on sustainable design practices from design development to ethical manufacturing.
Allison Crank (Tyger Tyger)
Unit 1
Allison Crank is a UX designer & researcher exploring the intersection of art, technology, and architecture. As a designer specializing in interactive storytelling with new media such as immersive games and experiences. In addition to designing and building digital experiences, she researches and creates pipeline tools for interactive narrative storytelling and user centered experiences. Currently working as the UX lead on a mixed reality experience on neurodiversity with Anagram, the follow-up episode for Goliath VR as well as the UX lead for an LBE project together with Albyon and Dreamscape.
Other recent projects include leading the UX for the Gilcrease Museum together with Gallagher & Associates, and the curator and lead designer for the 2022 Raumwelten Festival for architecture, scenography, and media. She is also the design lead for Polaris, a community-driven social media news application, Pix.T, a block-chain backed photojournalism platform, and the UX Designer and Production Project Manager for the GLIMPSE, starring Taron Egerton & Lucy Boynton, directed by Academy Award-winning writer/director Benjamin Cleary and Michael O’Conner. Glimpse has been in featured in 20+ festivals including the Venice Filme Festical, Tribeca, Annecy (award the Cristlal) and Cannes (award the best interactive experience of 2022).
Lucinda Dryden (Studio Lulu)
Unit 2
No matter the medium—from branding to websites; photography to set design; ceramics to flowers—Lucinda is a visual storyteller. Throughout her 10 years of practice as a designer, Lucinda has helped clients to find their voice, whether it be by packaging an artisanal Kombucha brand, designing sets for the ABC or improving the user experience and branding of an award-winning app.
These days she draws on this commercial experience for Studio Lu/Lu, a spatial, branding and experiential design studio she co-founded last year with Lucy Moroney. Together they combine the skills gained from their respective industries, and expand the design process beyond bricks and mortar into a living architecture. Their latest project is a multi-sensory installation and artist residency in collaboration with Sydney’s Inner West Council.
Brian Duong (MSD)
Senior Tutor
Brian is an architectural graduate, completing his Master of Architecture at the University of Melbourne. He has an interest in optimisation and automation in computational architecture. In 2022, he undertook a number of teaching and research positions in the Melbourne School of Design, including teaching Digital Design at the University of Melbourne as a Design Tutor and Technical Tutor, and working together with the Built Environments Learning + Teaching (BEL+T) Team to research into effective processes for dual delivery on campus.
Since 2022, he has been the Senior Tutor for the AAVS Melbourne.
Bethany Edgoose (Inferstudio)
Unit 4
Bethany is an editor, writer, and researcher. With a background in anthropology, her work investigates the impact of digital technologies on new forms of personhood and identity. She has directed and edited short documentaries for Google R+D, the US handball team, and artist studios including Superflux and Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg Studios. Before Inferstudio, she worked as a cyber-security analyst and a nuclear security researcher. She graduated with distinction from the M.Sc in Anthropology and Development at the London School of Economics.
Inferstudio is a digital design studio offering services in worldbuilding, editing, videography, VFX, data visualization. We work with artists, architects, researchers, NGOs, film-makers, musicians and technologists to design visual worlds that tell their stories. We also produce independent projects - artworks, films and essays that focus on extended reality, personhood and identity, and Earth’s fragile landscapes.
Arnaud Grignard (MIT Media Lab)
Unit 1
Arnaud Grignard is a computer scientist specializing in complex systems modeling and information visualization. He received his PhD in Computer Science from l'université Pierre et Marie Curie-UPMC in 2015 where he co-developed a novel approach to agent-based simulation that handles real-time visualization tasks applied both to data and simulation outputs. Since 2016, Grignard has been a research scientist in the City Science group at the MIT Media Lab working on multiple applications of agent-based modeling theory using evidence-based or data-driven simulations. He is involved with several collaboration within the CityScience Network that include urban land-use modeling, and mobility and hydraulic simulations. In addition, he is one of the main developers of the open source community surrounding the CityScience group. In 2021, he received a Marie Curie Fellowship and joined the Université de Lyon in the LIRIS laboratory to apply his research on Reactive Agent-based Tangible simulation for decision making in urban studies (ReAgent).
David SC Mah (University of Melbourne)
Visiting School Coordinator (MSD)
David Mah is a senior lecturer in urban design and architecture at the University of Melbourne’s school of design.
Previous to the MSD, David was a lecturer at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design (2010-2017). While at the GSD, David was also design research lead for the Health and Places Initiative, a research collaboration between the Harvard Graduate School of Design and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health focused on studying the links between the built environment and health outcomes.
Previous to Harvard, he also taught design and theory at Cornell University’s department of architecture (2007-2010) and Landscape Urbanism at the graduate design school of the Architectural Association in London (2004-2007).
Together with Leire Asensio Villoria, David is author of the books: Systems Upgarde. (Re)fabricating Tectonic Prototypes (2022, Actar) and Lifestyled: Health and Places (2016, Jovis).His writings have been published in a number of academic as well as professional books and journals, including The Eixample Example. Urban Landscape Critical Concepts in Built Environment : Typology, Space, Representation. Routledge 2015, Over-Research. in The Generic Sublime Actar 2016, Sense and Sensibilities. Kerb. 23. Actar 2015, Digital Design as a Material Practice. Paradigms in Computing Making, Machines, and Models for Design Agency in Architecture. Evolo 2015 and Digital Media and Material Practice. Representing Landscapes: Digital. Routledge. 2015 amongst others.
Professionally, David has worked within a number of international design practices including FOA and Zaha Hadid Architects where he was engaged in the design and delivery of a number of urban design as well as architectural projects in the United Kingdom (The 2012 London Olympics and Legacy masterplans), Singapore (one north science park masterplan) and Spain. David has been collaborating with Leire Asensio Villoria as asensio_mah since 2002.
Sasha McMonagle-Ihasz (Hazeltree)
Unit 6
Sacha McMonagle-Ihasz is an experienced innovation and design leader who understands how culture, brand, and innovation can merge to enhance quality at scale. With a passion for building sustainable frameworks that facilitate positive cultural shifts and enable teams to work collaboratively and efficiently, Sacha prioritizes measurable impact and action. Sacha's approach is holistic, taking into account the needs of individuals, communities, and larger systems they operate within, while also assembling and leading interdisciplinary teams to solve complex problems. As the co-founder and Head of Innovation & Design at Eratos, Sacha is committed to crafting innovative solutions that cater to the needs of all stakeholders and have a positive impact on the world.
Lucy Moroney (Studio Lulu)
Unit 2
The foundation of Lucy’s practice explores the limits of sensory experience with the highest technical precision. After training at the Architectural Association (AA), Lucy practiced as an Architect for 15 years in London. During this time, she delivered an award-winning Oast house, served as Project Architect for Manchester City, urban planning 4,400 homes and was commissioned by the British Council to deliver a sensory pavilion for Saudi Design Week.
In 2022 Lucy co-founded Studio Lu/Lu with Lucinda Dryden. Most recently, they have been commissioned by Sydney’s Inner West Council to deliver an immersive outdoor room—exploring the spectrum of sound that exists outside the range of human hearing.
Mond Qu (UnitedMake)
Program Director
Designer, narrative animator, and digital craftsman.
Mond Qu is the founder of United Make, an experimental think-tank and multi-disciplinary studio based in Melbourne (www.unitedmake.com).
Mond pushes the frontiers of design through the act of making; from deep materials research, visceral immersive experiences, interactive artworks or modular furniture, to large-scale speculations.
Working in research, practice and teaching internationally, Mond challenges designers to innovate and embrace the challenges of the 21st century and is the Director of the AAVS Melbourne from 2018 to present.
Robert Smith (Bompas & Parr)
Unit 5
Rob has worked with Bompas & Parr to create exceptional experiences in every major market globally. Delivering events and activations for a vast array of clients, ranging from NPD development for Diageo to Full scale multi-sensory experiential for Disney. His passion lies in creating meaningful activations in the luxury spirit market for HNW and UHNWI.
Rob was architecturally trained in Melbourne, before heading to London four years ago, after a period as Art Director at Time Out London he returned to experiential design with Bompas & Parr. His work spans the fields of architecture, interior design, set design, projection design, graphic design for digital and print media, and more. Robs practice focuses on the design of spacial experiences, focusing on the total work of art, and designs that elicit an emotional response.
Nicoletta Stecca (rén collective)
Unit 3
Nicky is a fashion designer and digital manufacturer with over ten years of experience in the fashion industry.
She advocates for a system change in the fashion industry through her two non-profit organisations, rén collective in Italy and Circular Economy Victoria in Australia, and through her work at the UN Fashion Charter for Climate Action.
In her most recent role as an Innovation Officer at City of Casey, she is supporting the establishment of one of the first government-led Circular Economy Living Lab in Australia, exploring collaborative opportunities for local impact through co-design of scalable circular solutions.
Nathan Su (Inferstudio)
Unit 4
Nathan is an architectural designer, technologist, and researcher. With a background in architecture, he works through virtual worlds to both speculate on possible futures and reveal contemporary realities. He has worked extensively with Forensic Architecture on developing digital tools for image analysis and data visualization. He has taught in architecture schools internationally, including at UCLA, the Architectural Association (AA), and Strelka Institute. He studied architecture at the University of Melbourne and at the AA, where he received Diploma Honours.
Inferstudio is a digital design studio offering services in worldbuilding, editing, videography, VFX, data visualization. We work with artists, architects, researchers, NGOs, film-makers, musicians and technologists to design visual worlds that tell their stories. We also produce independent projects - artworks, films and essays that focus on extended reality, personhood and identity, and Earth’s fragile landscapes.
Samuel Wines (CoLabs Australia)
Unit 6
Samuel is a Melbourne-based biologist and social entrepreneur exploring the intersection of biology, society and technology through a complexity-informed, ecological design thinking lens. Informed by Nature's principles, he works to weave biological, psychological, social, ecological and systemic insights together to support regenerative design, development and innovation. He is the co-founder of CoLabs Australia and The Phoenix School Program.
Sam is an avid adventurer, naturalist and self-proclaimed bibliophile. When he’s not roaming around outdoors, you’ll catch him sitting on the couch reading, tending to his medicinal herb garden, or playing piano and experimenting with his synthesiser. In another life, Sam was managing director of a digital marketing agency, Cognito Social and premium men’s fashion, travel and lifestyle website, Man of Style.
Leire Asensio Villoria (University of Melbourne)
Visiting School Coordinator
Leire Asensio is a senior lecturer in urban design and architecture and Co-Director of the Advance Digital Design + Frabrication (ADD+F) at the University of Melbourne’s school of design.
Previous to the MSD, Leire was a lecturer at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design (2010-2017). While at the GSD, Leire was also design research lead for the Health and Places Initiative, a research collaboration between the Harvard Graduate School of Design and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health focused on studying the links between the built environment and health outcomes.
Previous to Harvard, she also taught design and theory at Cornell University’s department of architecture (2006-2010) and Landscape Urbanism at the graduate design school of the Architectural Association in London (2004-2007).
Together with David Mah, Leire is also active in the production of architectural and creative works. Her works has been exhibited internationally including at the Royal Academy of Art in London and The Storefront for Art and Architecture in New York and has been featured in professional books and journals published by Birkhauser, Evolo, Lars Muller, Actar and Routledge amongst others. Professionally, Leire has worked within a number of international design practices including Zaha Hadid Architects and Arup. Leire has been collaborating with David Mah as asensio_mah since 2002.
Leire is a registered architect in Spain and received her Diploma in Architecture awarded with honours from the Architectural Association in 2001.
Architectural Association School of Architecture
36 Bedford Square, London WC1B 3ES
36 Bedford Square, London WC1B 3ES