"Between 11/26/2016 and 11/30/2016 I had the privilege to participate at arguably the best and most important computer aided design conference in the world, Acadia 2016, held at the Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning - University of Michigan - Ann Arbor. The conference organized by the Association for Computer Aided Design in Architecture was entitled Posthuman Frontiers: Data, Designers and Cognitive Machines. The various papers and projects presented during the conference explored recent work within computational design that develops and applies the integration of software, information, fabrication, material intelligence and sensing to generate mechanisms for interfacing with the physical realm. 

The paper I presented summarized the results of my one year of research at the University of California Berkeley's College of Environmental Design. The paper entitled 'Ivy: Bringing a Weighted-Mesh Representation to Bear on Generative Architectural Design Applications' was coauthored with assistant professor Kyle Steinfeld from the UC Berkeley CED. It presented the endeavor undertaken to create a tool suited for cheap, fast and reliable fabrication of low polygon custom geometries from flat sheet materials. The research together with the resulting software tool (Ivy for Grasshopper) opens new avenues for generative architectural design allowing for rapid prototyping of custom forms without the need for costly numerically controlled fabrication tools. It also enables further research and full scale production of bespoke architectural geometries with an optimized set of software instruments that link fabrication constrains to early design intent in an iterative way.

I am especially happy for the acceptance of the paper (as the conference has a very strict peer-review process) and for the positive reactions the paper presentation produced among the attendees.   

I feel this is a new confirmation of the added value created during the time spent at UC Berkeley and the positive impact my Fulbright grant had on my career as a researcher.

This is why I am especially grateful to the Romanian-U.S. Fulbright Commission for believing in my potential and helping me step out of my self imposed boundaries and into a new dimension of digital architectural academia that effectively opened the world for me."