LabDORA is the architectural design office of Peter Macapia. (cv)
The office focuses on two branches or research: Geometry and Computation and the Geopolitics of Space. Projects are independently developed and involve engineering, algorithmic and dynamical computation, contemporary theory and philosophy, and architectural history.
Since 2003 labDORA has hosted more than 70 international research assistants from graduate, undergraduate, and post-graduate programs.
Research Projects 2015:
Turnstiles: Time and Space in Immigration and Deportation in New York State.
Homeless Families: A study in the duration of travel for New York’s growing population of homeless families.
Structural Simples: developing structural optimization for rapid assembly.
Research team: Pablo Escudero, Niyati Ghandi, Alihan Oney, Wakim Krari, Zakia Echecki, Chaimae Iraqi, Qin Sasha, Eric Maldonado, Michael Chambers.
Past research projects in Geometry and Computation included algorithmic generative systems and tetrahedral structures, dynamical modeling with computational fluid dynamics and structural membranes, structural optimization with swarm algorithms.
Past research projects in Geopolitics of Space include Urban Futures, Living for the City, The Politics of Art, Design, and Architecture.
About Peter Macapia
Macapia studied at the Rhode Island School of Design, Harvard, and Columbia University. He started labDORA in 2003 after receiving his PhD from Columbia where he was the recipient of the Presidential Fellowships. Macapia’s research has received numerous academic grants and distinction in international competitions and collaborated with engineers from Ove Arup and Buro Happold. His work and writings have been published in AD, Log, Monitor, A+U, Architectural Review, Architectural Record, Interior Design, Pin-Up and others. Macapia’s projects Dirty Geometry 1 and Dirty Geometry 2 are part of the permanent collection at the FRAC Centre in Orleans, France. Macapia’s Pavilion Seroussi has been exhibited throughout France as part of the Dentelles d’architectures exhibition, which includes Jean Nouvel, FOA, and Philip Morel. Macapia’s work has been exhibited in Basel, Miami, New York, Chicago, London, Paris, and Los Angeles including his recent solo show Borroworrob: In Search of Symmetry, Swarm, Ship of Theseus, Skullcracker, and The Birth of Physics. His work on Dirty Geometry, including the Dirty Geometry Pavilions, was recently published in Architectures experimentales, 1950-2010. Macapia is currently working on a book on Foucault and force. Macapia began teaching at Columbia’s GSAPP on architecture and ontology in 1999 and has since taught nationally and internationally in both art and architecture at Sci-Arc, Pratt Institute, Parsons School of Design, the Ecole Special d’Architecture, Malaquais, TU Delft , and Parsons/The New School for Social Research.