Ozel at “The World Needs More Bennington” campaign.

Güvenç Özel is an award-winning cyberphysical architect, critical technologist and design researcher. Through his buildings, installations and writings he investigates how contemporary technology and media shapes the sociopolitical and aesthetic landscape of digital culture and the built environment. As an interdisciplinary innovator, Özel is an internationally recognized pioneer of Extended Reality (XR), interactive robotics and machine learning in architecture. His contributions to design research include the first architectural application of augmented reality, the first robotic architecture controlled by a brain computer interface, the first interactive sculpture that combines machine learning with VR and the first XR research lab in architectural academia.

A native of Turkey, Özel received his Masters of Architecture from Yale University and his Bachelor of Arts in architecture, sculpture, and philosophy from Bennington College. Before founding Ozel Office, he worked in the architecture offices of Frank Gehry, Rafael Vinoly, Jürgen Mayer and others. During his time at Gehry, he worked on the designs of notable cultural projects, such as the Louis Vuitton Foundation in Paris. His recent award-winning projects, ranging from technology focused buildings to interactive installations, received mainstream media attention and were featured by CNN, BBC, Euronews, Los Angeles Times, Boston Globe, Huffington Post and Wired. His works were exhibited at the Venice Architecture Biennale, Istanbul Modern, Saatchi Gallery London, Istanbul Design Biennial, MassMOCA, Sundance Film Festival and South by Southwest. His most recent Mixed Reality installation “Persuasion Machines” was listed by Hillary Clinton as “amazing and not to be missed.” Özel’s recent design and research on building scale 3D printing was awarded one of the top prizes at NASA’s 3D Printed Habitats Competition for the first mission to Mars. He is a regular speaker in architecture, tech industry and design events, including a talk on the future of mobility at Los Angeles Auto Show and a keynote on robotic architecture and interactive environments at Google’s annual design conference Span. Özel was recently listed as one of the most influential Turkish people in the USA.

Özel speaking at Digi.logue Conference

Özel is one of the founding faculty members of IDEAS, the postgraduate degree program and industry collaboration incubator of UCLA Department of Architecture and Urban Design. He leads the Technology Studio where he teaches masters level design courses and conducts design research. He formerly taught at Yale University and University of Applied Arts in Vienna. His previous and ongoing research engagements include collaborations with Google, Microsoft, Autodesk, Tesla, Kuka Robotics, Unity, NASA, The Salk Institute, Oculus, HTC, Herman Miller and the City of Los Angeles. His current research focuses on XR, artificial intelligence, interactive sensor systems and robotics to create dynamic experiences and environments that are synchronized with and responsive to human presence and senses.

 

SELECTED TALKS

 
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