R+D for the Built Environment is the ideas workshop for design, construction, and real estate industries.

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Led by Michelle Kaufmann, the R+D for the Built Environment group is an amalgamation of makers, designers, architects, and engineers working on innovative solutions for commercial and residential buildings in the Bay Area. From the scale of the desk to the scale of the region, we generate ideas and prototypes that bring value to the end user and large tech clients. We aggregate the best thinking around today’s biggest design challenges and develop solutions that can be brought to life in our buildings and neighborhoods. With humans at the center of our work, we’re creating an optimistic, resilient, resource-efficient, technologically-enriched and beautiful future.

SUNG formed a start-up company with Karen Sabath and Scott Horwitz called TBM Designs LLC to commercialize her patented auto-shading system. The innovative product, called InVert™, won both the Jury and Popular Choice Awards in the Architizer A+ Facades: Glass+Glazing category.

SUNG joins the USC Chapter of the Phi Kappa Phi Honor Society as one of three inductees for 2019.

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From USC Chapter website: Founded in 1897 at the University of Maine, The Honor Society of Phi Kappa Phi (PKP) is one of the nation's oldest and largest honor societies and is a charter member of the Association of College Honor Societies. PKP's membership currently numbers more than 900,000 scholars from across the globe. Drawing membership from all divisions within the academic institution, PKP is the largest interdisciplinary honor society. It is in a unique position to cultivate consciousness of relationships by bringing together individuals from a variety of disciplines.

See her article titled "Thermobimetal Shutters by Doris Sung Self-Regulate the Temperature of Buildings" online here.

Check out the article  "USC Prof Devises 'Smart' Building Materials that Moves by Themselves (That's Right, No Motor, to Save Energy" which appeared in several Southern California newspapers here.

Sung is photographed with Rakesh V. Pandit and Sue Kim from the USC Stevens Center for Innovation.

USC Stevens Center for Innovation recognized several faculty members who's patented inventions were licensed. Sung's self-shading windows were recognized among many.

Click here to read article in Landscape News, Global Landscape Forum.

Check out the article here for details.

Photo of Sung with Karen Sabath at the Women4Climate Conference in Paris, France.

-The Women4Climate Tech Challenge is an international contest open to women  carrying out an innovative tech solution for climate action in cities. Complementary to the mentorship  programme, the Challenge is opened to all  C40 Cities and promotes concrete solutions  with a measurable impact.

-Technology and data are key agents to create and accelerate sustainable change in cities and meet the goals of the Paris Agreement. These inequalities need to be addressed with tailored actions and tools to support female entrepreneurship and address the barriers women meet in venture capital and start-ups.

-In the framework of the Women4Climate initiative, the Tech Challenge is a key action for C40 to support and promote diversity and inclusion in technology and innovation, where women are largely underrepresented and provide to mayors the best women-led climate-focused tech solutions.

The Artist in Residence (AIR) program awards fully sponsored residencies to approximately 50 local, national, and international artists each year. Residencies of four to ten weeks include studio space, chef-prepared meals, comfortable housing, and travel and living expense reimbursements. AIRs become part of a dynamic community of artists participating in Headlands’ other programs, allowing for exchange and collaborative relationships to develop within the artist community on campus. Artists selected for this program are at all stages in their careers and work in all media, including drawing, painting, sculpture, photography, film, video, new media, installation, fiction and nonfiction writing, poetry, dance, music, interdisciplinary, social practice, and architecture.

See it here in Metropolis Magazine.

The first volume of the Adaptive Environments series focuses on Robotic Building, which refers to both physically built robotic environments and robotically supported building processes. Physically built robotic environments consist of reconfigurable, adaptive systems incorporating sensor-actuator mechanisms that enable buildings to interact with their users and surroundings in real-time. These require Design-to-Production and Operation chains that are numerically controlled and (partially or completely) robotically driven. From architectured materials, on- and off-site robotic production to robotic building operation augmenting everyday life, the volume examines achievements of the last decades and outlines potential future developments in Robotic Building.

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Sung's chapter, "A New Look at Robotics in Architecture: Embedded Behavior with Smart Materials", discusses the value of co-bots in the construction of architecture.

Photo of SUNG with Marilyn Long of the Long Family Foundation at the dedication of Fuller at the South Coast Botanical Garden.

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The Long Family Foundation (LFF) is a private foundation, which was established in 1992 by John and Marilyn Long to further their desire and commitment to share their hearts and resources to support projects, programs, and endeavors in the United States as well as China.

Laka Perspectives is a pocket-sized source of inspiration presents interviews and essays of renowned experts in disciplines such as architecture, urban planning, computational design, digital fabrication, smart materials, mobility, fashion, art and biomimicry. The book is about the people who have decided to take action for the future through architecture, technology, and innovation. 

The COLA Individual Artist Fellowship allows accomplished artists to create new work with increased freedom to innovate and experiment.

The Fellowship Program grant category honors a spectrum of the City’s most creative artists who:

• Are dedicated to an ongoing body of excellent work.

• Represent a relevant progression through their pieces or series.

• Exemplify a generation of core ideas in their field.

• Are respected by their peers and are role models for other artists because of their distinguished record.

Twelve to fifteen COLA Fellowships will be offered in the disciplines of design/visual arts (including architecture, graphic design and product design such as fashion design), literary arts (poetry or fiction) and performing arts (including choreography-dance, music, and multi-disciplinary/theater).

Compiled by a not for profit cultural collective of 17 creative women, all driven by passion for a more inclusive vision in architecture. The biographies of these female architects, complete with images of their projects and links to sources, have been published each day over the course of one year on Architette Facebook platform. The emphasis is on designers with a substantial CVs, demonstrating the commitment and experience indispensable to reach a high quality and innovative level of design as well as social engagement.

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The project started in May 2017 by a collective of 17 creatives in Italy, between 25 and 45 years of age, producing a publication to coincide with the opening of the Biennale Architecture 2018 in Venice. The full book represents 12 months and 365 bios. Click here for the online book.

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It is truly an honor for DOSU to be included in this special publication.

"Transforming the DNA of the Built Environment" is a two-part meeting held in the Spring and Fall of 2018 to kick off a collaboration between The Center for Ecosystems in Architecture at Yale (CEA--pronounced 'see') and New Lab at the Brooklyn Navy Yard. In Spring 2018, new strategies for inking systems for energy, water, air, food and material life cycle throuh the mission of emergency housing was discussed. The fall 2018 meeting will consider innovative ways in which new DNA for materials, devices and integrated systems could lead to fundamentally different infrastructural models for distributing resources at the urban and district scales. Kip Bradford, Demetrios Comodromos and Aletheia Ida presented their work and ideas on the Water Panel.

Photographed with Dean Milton Curry, Doris Sung received the prestigious USC Associates Award for Artistic Expression at the USC Academic Convocation on April 24, 2018. Only two were awarded this year. See list here.

The text on the award reads as follows:

Doris Sung is a visionary experimental architect whose work marries the highest levels of art and technology. Her projects combine cutting-edge science with great artistry, using thermo-bimetals and taking inspiration from mathematics and biology. These intricate geometric assemblies open and close like a field of flowers, and demonstrate how solar heat energy dynamically transforms the shape and geometry of thin metal sheets to perform a range of transformations—including ventilation, light, shading, and structure—on the facades and in the structure of her architecture. As beautiful as they are functional, these innovations are geared toward a wide spectrum of potential applications, and promise efficient and elegant solutions to pressing environmental problems. Indeed, she has received funding to develop her research practice with a range of industry leaders.

Among five invited lecturers at the Adaptive Facades Symposium in Iowa State University on April 19th, Doris Sung presented the environmentally responsive work of DOSU Studio Architecture. Ranging from academic research to client-based work, the various projects and work presented throughout the day challenged various aspect of adaptation on building facades. Click here to read more about the symposium.

The Symposium engaged participants in an exploration of “living at the intersection” of engineering and the arts with thought leaders, researchers, artists, faculty, students, and professionals who create at or near this intersection.

CST is launching the biennial Living at the Intersection Symposium series in service to its mission to broaden and deepen participation in STEM. The Symposium series facilitates engagement that is unconstrained by disciplinary labels by cultivating opportunities for new and meaningful study, exploration, and collaboration, at intersections of the sciences, engineering, humanities, arts, and social sciences. Click here to read more about the symposium.

The first-ever Princeton Environmental Ideathon (PEID) is a two-day competition at Princeton University for bringing together academics and leaders of industry from the East Coast to address challenges and propose solutions to developing a greener and more sustainable modern city. Keynote speakers included Doris Sung, Pablo Lorenzo-Eiroa and Ashley Dawson. Read more here.

Bloom and other projects are feature in this article by Ben Schulman. Click here to see article online.

Guest Curator: Mariah Nielson

This exhibition presents digital and handmade architectural pavilions by Bay Area, national and international architects. The work included in Architectural Pavilions: Experiments and Artifacts will transform the galleries of the Museum of Craft and Design into an immersive architectural environment, demonstrating a range of projects from small-scale models to full-scale installations.

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The content included in the exhibition is diverse – material samples, drawings, films, models, mock-ups, and full-scale installations reflect the broad range of techniques that architects employ to build pavilions at variant scales. This exhibition addresses architecture’s physical and collaborative processes through the presentation of digital and handmade pavilions by eight architectural studios: Carmody Groarke (London); DOSU Studio Architecture (Los Angeles); Future Cities Lab (San Francisco); Jay Nelson (San Francisco); Materials & Applications (Los Angeles); SITU Studio (New York); UC Berkeley Architecture students, Prof. Lisa Iwamoto (Bay Area) and Warren Techentin Architecture (Los Angeles).

This year’s theme celebrates the museum’s recent return to our DTLA roots and will highlight each of the distinct neighborhoods that make up the cultural mecca of Downtown Los Angeles. Through a world-class silent auction featuring inspired DTLA designs, CELEBRATE: DTLA will explore the past, present, and future of Downtown Los Angeles as a source of inspiration for artists, designers, and design enthusiasts alike.

Each year our Celebrate Gala grows in audience, designer participation, and wow factor! We are looking forward to welcoming even more members, friends of A+D, and DTLA neighbors as we raise crucial funds for the year ahead and celebrate the vibrant and creative community that is Downtown Los Angeles.

Photographed with Dean Milton Curry, Doris Sung received the prestigious USC Associates Award for Artistic Expression at the USC Academic Convocation on April 24, 2018. Only two were awarded this year. See list here.

The text on the award reads as follows:

Doris Sung is a visionary experimental architect whose work marries the highest levels of art and technology. Her projects combine cutting-edge science with great artistry, using thermo-bimetals and taking inspiration from mathematics and biology. These

“Future Forward is part of an ongoing expansion of The Creators Project’s mission to support the creation of meaningful original works,” says Gerhard Stochl, The Creators Project publisher. “In Toyota and the all-new 2016 Prius, we have a one-of-a-kind partner that continues to inspire and enable us to help make great art that’s accessible to everyone.”

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Doris Sung’s technology-focused piece is a “kinetic chandelier” built around material responsiveness. “The piece will be made of thermal-bimetal, a material that expands and contracts with temperature swings independent of any driving electronic mechanism,” Sung says. “So the sculpture’s behavior–that of perpetual motion–is essentially programmed through the use of this material technology.”