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A Purple Architecture
James F. Kerestes is an Associate Professor of Architecture at Ball State University and a registered architect in Pennsylvania. He holds a Bachelor of Architecture degree from Syracuse University and a Post-Professional Master of Architecture degree from Pratt Institute. Prior to his current position at Ball State, he taught digital media and emergent technologies at Pratt Institute, Princeton University and the University of Pennsylvania. His current research focuses on identifying and exploring the latent potential within tools and building typologies to instigate novel architectural design inquiries. This emphasis explores methods for engaging tools as mediums where authorial exchanges lead to new opportunities in design communication, architectural storytelling, user interaction, digital fabrication and construction.
Ebrahim Poustinchi, an award-winning designer, artist, curator, and inventor, is a tenured Associate Professor of Architecture and founder/director of the Robotically Augmented Design (RAD) Lab at Kent State University and the founding principal of the STUDIO EP L.L.C. Poustinchi’s research is focused on the intersection of design, worldbuilding, space, media, and robotics, with an emphasis on an alternative reading of human/non-human relationships through AI, UI/UX, Human-Machine Interaction (HMI), and physical computation and tangible interfaces.
Ebrahim has widely lectured, taught workshops, and exhibited his work nationally and internationally. His research and creative work have been disseminated worldwide in various Journals, conferences, galleries, and museums, including the International Journal of Architectural Computing (IJAC), Journal of Engineering Technology (JET), ACADIA, CAADRIA, eCAADe, SIGraDi, ASCAAD, ASCA, the Museum of Moscow and the Meyerhold Theatre Center in Russia, the Arab American National Museum in Michigan, Jan Koniarek Gallery in Slovakia, Fully Booked Art Fair in Dubai, and Levantine Cultural Center, Perloff Gallery, Architecture and Design (A+D) Museum in Los Angles, and over ten different galleries, and museums in Iran. In 2021, he served as the guest curator and designer at the Architecture and Design (A+D) Museum in Los Angeles.
Ebrahim is the inventor of two international patents in the field of creative robotics. His creative/scholarly work has been funded by grants from the Knight Foundation, Alpha Micron Inc., UCI’s Jordan Center for Persian Studies, ESDRI, Tehran MOCA, Kent State University, and Architecture and Design (A+D) Museum in Los Angles, among others.
Ebrahim Poustinchi has completed his post-professional degree in architecture and robotics under Greg Lynn at UCLA and holds a bachelor's degree in architecture from the University of Tehran, Iran.
Vahid Vahdat is an assistant professor of architecture and interior design at Washington State University’s School of Design and Construction. His primary field of research is spatial mediation, with an emphasis on virtual reality and film. He is author of the book Occidentalist Perceptions of European Architecture in Nineteenth-Century Persian Travel Diaries. His co-edited book, Virtual Interiorities addresses how virtual media frame, filter, and manipulate our perception of the built environment. He is also co-editor of the books Architecture, Film, and the In-Between and Animate(d) Architecture.