Dana Cupkova
Professor Carnegie Mellon University
- Pittsburgh PA
Dana Cupkova's work advances regenerative material systems and the spatial dynamics of ecological resilience.
Biography
Dana’s design work is driven by a holistic vision of the built environment, centered on the relationship between ecology and technology, and the capacity of architecture to become ecologically vibrant. Her work seeks attunement with natural processes in pursuit of the aesthetics of ecological intimacy. By folding evidence-based methods into creative design solutions, Dana’s research emphasizes the interconnectedness of architecture and landscape through the study of circularity, thermodynamics, embodied energy, bio-based processes, and advanced manufacturing. She investigates strategies for remediation and decarbonization through the use of construction waste streams.
Areas of Expertise
Media Appearances
Epiphyte Lab creates architecture "with empathy to all species"
Dezeen online
2020-07-06
Dana Cupkova, an associate professor at the Carnegie Mellon School of Architecture, founded the firm in 2009 alongside her late collaborator Kevin Pratt, with the aim of creating architecture that "acts like an epiphyte".
Panel, Material Responsibility: Mollie Claypool, Dana Cupkova, and Achim Menges
ArchDaily online
2021-09-17
Presentations from Mollie Claypool (The Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL), Dana Cupkova (Carnegie Mellon School of Architecture), and Achim Menges (University of Stuttgart Institute for Computational Design and Construction), will be followed by a panel discussion with Taubman College faculty.
Cardoso Llach Curates Computational Design Exhibition
Carnegie Mellon University News online
2021-11-03
Specifically, the show illuminates the 20th Century emergence of new methods for design representation, simulation and manufacturing linked to digital computers' capacities for information processing and display, and reflects on their contemporary repercussions across architecture, art and design. Along with a selection of historical materials, works by 30 contemporary creators are displayed including Philip Beesley, Felicia Davis and Delia Dumitrescu, and Rafael Lozano Hemmer, as well as by CMU faculty including Dana Cupkova, Ramesh Krishnamurti, and Golan Levin. A team of the School of Architecture's Computational Design students, including Jinmo Rhee, Emek Erdolu, Erik Ulberg, Maria Vlachostergiou and Mali Tribune, contributed to the show's curation and design, and to the preparation of several interactive pieces on display in Montréal.
Media
Social
Industry Expertise
Accomplishments
Kate Neal Kinley Memorial Fellowship
School of the Arts and Architecture at UCLA
Mimi Perloff Award
School of the Arts and Architecture at UCLA
Unrestricted University Fellowship
School of the Arts and Architecture at UCLA
Education
Slovak University of Technology
Professional degree of Engineer Architect
Architecture and Urban Design
School of the Arts and Architecture at UCLA
M.Arch.
Architecture and Urban Design
Links
Event Appearances
Greening the Urban Environment
CMUThink Pittsburgh, PA
Articles
Rebalance & reciprocity: Emergent topics in architectural computing
International Journal of Architectural Computing2026
At a moment marked by a deep perception of overlapping social, environmental, and political crises, we hope to look ahead while also looking inward. In the face of rapid technological change and deep ecological and social instability, this special issue turns to architectural computing as a field in need not only of innovation, but of critical self-reflection. Framed through the theme “Rebalance and Reciprocity,” it asks how computation might help reconfigure relationships between designers, tools, materials, environments, and publics in ways that are more reciprocal, inclusive, and responsive to context.
Robotic concrete surface finishing: a moldless approach to creating thermally tuned surface geometry for architectural building components using Profile-3D-Printing
Construction Robotics2018
This paper focuses on describing a novel hybrid concrete printing/casting process we term Profile-3D-Printing. Profile-3D-Printing is an additive/subtractive manufacturing process that combines deposition of concrete for rough layup with precision tooling for surface finishing of architectural building components commonly found in the architectural precast industry. Our research team from Architecture, the Robotics Institute, and Material Science invented this novel hybrid manufacturing process for robotically printing architectural facade panels with complex surface geometries.
Mass Regimes: Geometric Actuation of Thermal Behavior
International Journal of Architectural Computing2015
The Mass Regimes is a research project that investigates the effect of complex geometry on processes of passive heat distribution in thermal mass systems. In the context of systems thinking, this research intends to instrumentalize design principles that engage a wider range of design tactics for choreographing thermal gradients between buildings and their environment. Research for this project has brought about a deeper understanding of how specific geometric manipulations of surface area over the same mass (Figure 1) affect the rate of thermal transfer.
Cradling Bodies: Trajectories of Minds, Objects and Enclosures
Digital Fabrication in Interior Design2021
The trajectory of Digital Fabrication in Interior Design: Body, Object, Enclosure engages the effects of technology's poetics and pragmatics on style, materiality, formal language and spatial concepts. Embedded electromechanical systems within the body of a panel enable directed communication based on relationship of material mass, biofeedback and sensed human brainwave. In the century-long process of humankind humanizing nature, the power of our technology has asserted control over natural systems, and is finally reaching a breaking point.
Impact and collective empathy
International Journal of Architectural Computing2020
The prevalence of ubiquitous computing offers new territories for engagement within design and technology. As the world’s resources decline and conditions of scarcity and inequality define many communities, the role of architectural design must shift towards amplifying impact. Investments in technological innovation have historically been used to augment or restore dwindling resources via efficient material productions and assemblies.
AI, architecture, accessibility, and data justice—ACADIA special issue
International Journal of Architectural Computing2023
In recent years, the field of architectural research has trended towards rapid evolution as new digital technologies that integrate artificial intelligence (AI) into design, representation, and production have become more prominent. As with any paradigm shift and rapid emergence of transformative technology, new tensions and fears of human distancing away from acts of design and making arise. Outside of architecture, AI already plays a significant role in fields such as engineering, IT, and the social/political sciences, with a deepening discourse on its effect on humanity, and the ethics of its labor.
