Marcelo Spina

Marcelo Spina is Coordinator of the Architectural Technologies postgraduate program. Along with Georgina Huljich, Spina is a principal of PATTERNS, a design research architectural practice based in Los Angeles that has gained worldwide recognition for its inventive approach to design and architecture fusing advanced computation with an extended understanding of form, tectonics and materials. Part of a so-called digital avant-garde, what sets PATTERNS apart is not only its overt ambition to materialization but the quality and extent of realized work. With a decidedly global reach and working across multiple scales, programs, cultures and economies, PATTERNS has completed projects in the US, South America and Asia. The work of the office has been exhibited and published worldwide in the most relevant venues, and is part of the permanent collections of Museums such as the SFMOMA, Chicago Art Institute and MAK Museum in Vienna. The firm's first comprehensive book-monograph entitled "Embedded" is forthcoming by AADCU Beijing. PATTERNS has received numerous prizes and awards including first prizes in the competitions for the Vertical Garden at the Schindler House in West Hollywood and the new SCI-Arc Cafe, the third prize in the prestigious Young Architect of the Year Award in 2003 and most recently were finalists for the Ordos Prize and the Iakov Chernikov Prize. In 2011, the firm integrated the prestigious Emerging Voices Series of the Architectural League of New York, and was the recipient of the Arch Is__ Award by the AIA Los Angeles Chapter.