Google's Architect-In-Residence and Head of R+D for the Built Environment, Michelle Kaufmann, will help lead the first ever 2019 fellowship cohort. After releasing an open call for fellowship applications earlier this year, four fellows have been chosen to help spearhead Google's newest branch of research, design, and development. 

During the fellowship, participants will focus on discovering new ways to accelerate design ideas for the built environment. The paid, six-month design fellowship will enable candidates to test ideas in areas like building material science, affordable housing, and AI/machine learning to name a few.

Each candidate was chosen for their expertise and diverse backgrounds. Read more about Google's pioneering fellows below. *Note: Descriptions are provided by Google R+D for the Built Environment

Marta Nowak - Founding Principle of AN.ONYMOUS
As a faculty member at UCLA Architecture and Urban Design Department she focuses on the relationship between human body and machine in the context of architecture and urban design, looking specifically at mobility, robotics and micro-environments. Through the use of intelligent furniture the project seeks to optimize the workspace in order to create productive and healthy work environments.

Kostas Grigoriadis - Fellow at the Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL and a Diploma Unit Master at the Architectural Association in London
His work focuses on multi-material design methodologies and draws from cognitive and materialist theory. He is the winner of the 2018 Royal Institute of British Architects President’s Award for Design and Technical Research and is currently building a tourist centre and masterplan in Anhui, China with his practice Continuum. His research aims to rethink the component based make up of a curtain wall panel that is typically composed of a multitude of parts and instead to provide an alternative in the form of a continuous multi-material. 

Doris Sung - Head of DOSU Studio Architecture and Co-founder of TBM Designs
Sung designs kinetic installations and dynamic building components using smart materials that actively respond to changes in the environment. A professor at the University of Southern California (USC), she heads a research practice called DOSU Studio Architecture and is co-founder of TBM Designs, a start-up company for smart building products. Her performative prototypes ambitiously blend digital computation, complex geometries, innovative structures, material technology and simple beauty to straddle the fields of art, engineering, architecture and public health/policy.

Elizabeth Gilligan - PhD Candidate at Queen's University Belfast
For her doctorate she is focusing on the architect's role in material development, focused on the development of bio-receptive concrete facades. During the fellowship she will extend her research to create a bio-receptive concrete façade adapted to the climate of San Francisco: adding another climatic scenario to the body of work that up until now has only been tested in UK conditions. The material she has developed uses 90% recycled materials and is purposefully designed to sustain plant growth on its surface.