Canopy House

Interior design

Yfalos-Artificial Reef Design

Generative Design of Artificial Reef structures

ENΛITE Sunglasses

Design Consultancy & Product Develepment

Bennet Linkage

Interactive Installation

Zero Gravity

Retail Store Design

FAB LAB Ioannina

Digital Fabrication Laboratory

Cosmic Configurator

Design Tool Development for Cosmic Buildings

Generative Massing and Optimization Tool

Generative Massing with View & Environmental Analysis

Min-a-ttic

interior design

101 Taipei Lobby

Wein Chuan Pop up Store

Digital Cost Challenger

Real Estate Product Configurator

Tzoumerka Dome

Design/Build Workshop

One Warrior Canopy for DoLab

Engineering Consulting for a lightweight shell structure

K-House

Single family house in Ioannina

Parex Hanger

Product engineering

Confessional Wall

Modular screen wall

LUSK Massing Analysis Tool

Multi-Objective Massing Optimization

Texas A&U Reciprocal Structure

Form Finding workshop

Tesseract Lamp Shade

IOT Pendant Lamp Shade

Tetra-Forming

Design by playing

“Cité de Refuge”

Venice Biennale 2016

The Amplified Kite

Digital Design and Fabrication Workshop

Digital Futures 2020

Generative Design & Fabrication Workshop

Flying Devices for Sensing Air Quality

Digital Fabrication & Microelectronics workshop

Atelier Arizona-Vanishing Point

Furniture Design Collection

Greedy Grid

Furniture design & fabrication

New View Canopy

Research Pavilion

Ripple bench

urban furniture

© 2016

Design Research Studio

News:

ASICS Personalization Studio at Paris

ASICS Personalization Studio at Paris

Our design team has recently collaborated with #Asics and #DassaultSystemes to develop an innovative generative design solution for the ASICS Personalization Studio which was inaugurated in Paris in July 2024.

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During the project we worked closely with the Research team of ASICS to set the specific requirements of a new production facility paradigm and thus provide a flexible architectural design solution that can adapt to different sites and spatial programmes. The first iteration of the project focused on providing a suitable architectural layout for accommodating all the production equipment, testing the product fabrication workflow, optimizing the workspace efficiency and creating the digital twin of the space. Our team developed an algorithm that allows the configuration of  multiple floorplan layouts and the generation of  alternative facade skins. We strongly believe that the computational design method we developed can become the archetype for a new type of prefab production facility across the world! A big congrats to everyone involved in this project!
Without the hard work and open-minded approach of a truly interdisciplinary team -which included architects, engineers, construction managers, software developers and sports experts from California, France, Greece, Switzerland and Japan- this innovative project would not be possible.

For the official press release: click here

For a video tour of the project: click here

Project Yfaloid at the Tallinn Architecture Bienalle 2022

Project Yfaloid at the Tallinn Architecture Bienalle 2022

Topotheque Design Research had the honor to participate in the Tallinn Architecture Biennale 2022: Edible. Or, the Architecture of Metabolism curated by Areti Markopoulou and Lydia Kallipoliti ,
in collaboration with Chief Local Advisor Ivan SergejevThe exhibition was conceived as a "Metabolic Home" with multiple section and Topotheque's installation "Yfaloid" was located in the “From Brick to Soil” section which showcases a collection of edible, upcycled, productive and compostable building prototypes and parts, magnifying the importance of awareness of the origin, process, use and final destination of our built matter.

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“Yfaloid” addresses the question of how can architecture redefine resources, produce food and be eaten away by developing and realizing a prototypical artificial reef structure from design to production. Artificial reefs are man made structures that are placed in featureless seabeds as a way to increase the biodiversity of marine species in degraded underwater ecosystems. Simply said artificial reefs are the substrate where algae “the food of fish” grows and thus it can serve as a structure that can increase the population of fish which then becomes the “food of humans”. The installation includes a 3d printed artificial reef module in 1:1 scale as well as a scaled prototype which is placed in an aquarium in an attempt to simulate a living underwater ecosystem.
The project was realized with the help Hyperion Robotics and Roman Tsernokozov
Photo credits Tonnu Tonel and  Jaan Sokk .

The exhibition will last until the end of November and we welcome everyone to visit it! More info on the exhibition: https://2022.tab.ee/

Yfaloid: Talliinn Architecture Biennalle 2022 / Tallinn, EST
 
Architecture Engineering Fabrication
About:

Topotheque works with creative people and companies to make inspiring places and objects

ASICS Personalization Studio at Paris
Computational Design
Research

Swarm robots

Architecture traditionally relies on careful preplanning of construction processes with strictly defined outcomes, yet in nature, millions of relatively simple social insects collectively build large-scale functional nests without any global coordination or final blueprint. In this work we investigate dynamic construction processes through the interaction of 200 hundred low tech bots, leading to novel structures with user-defined qualities. The aim is to construct a robot swarm, using a version of the toy “bristlebots” as a hardware platform.The active robots operate in a large two-dimensional arena (2x4m) filled with differently shaped passive building material, which they can manipulate. The project took part within a 4 day workshop, entitled "Swarmbot Assemblage" hosted from Smart Geometry conference at Chalmers University in Gothenburg, Sweden. It explores how different structures emerge when the swarmbot population is altered using “embodied encoding”, a way to affect the behavior of the robots through mechanical features. This work is enabled by close collaboration of architects, roboticists, and entomologists; with it we seek to explore structures which are emergent outcomes of local interactions.

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Research question

Swarms of robots have previously been shown to be capable of self-organizing into complex predetermined patterns, however, in natural systems nests are built according to functionality rather than shape. Likewise, in this workshop we will generate emergent structures that exhibit certain predictable and potentially useful features or functions instead of specific shapes and geometries given in a top-down manner. We will explore how such a construction process can be directed through embodied coding of parts and robots rather than software control. 

Project goals

This work seeks to explore the relationship between a swarm of simple robots, how they manipulate their environment and self-organise through stigmergy1. We will explore the specific features that can be achieved reliably by the system, and how the parameters of embodied coding affect them. We will use both a physical swarm platform and a custom digital simulation to explore the design space and tune the assembly process. 

Investigations

The work investigates the outcomes of the experiments either from the perspective of structures.​ Our interest lies in the qualities and properties of the structures and spaces that emerge. The ambition is to understand how these properties can be controlled by altering either the shape of robots themselves, the building blocks, or the environment.

Below are examples of such properties :

STRUCTURES:Structures are evaluated through the aggregation of clusters, formed by either blocks or robots. Their morphology in terms of linearity (continuity) is also investigated.

CLUSTERING: How can we control the sizes of structures/clusters that emerge? Can we form clusters of certain qualities, like elongated, round, etc? DURABILITY: Are the spaces temporary or permanent in nature?

DURABILITY: Are the structures temporary or permanent in nature?

SPACES: Spaces are defined as voids, in-between blocks and clusters of blocks, that are travelled by the robots.

CLUSTERING: Are separated spaces formed, or is it an integrated network? To what degree are the spaces one or two dimensional? And if they are two dimensional are they large or small?

DURABILITY: Are the spaces temporary or permanent in nature?

The investigations are done to build understanding of how to alter the set-up in order to control the behaviour in any one of the above areas. For each investigation  we have attempted to come up with a clear and consistent way of measuring the performance. We did that by adjusting the simulation based on our design goal and measuring how close to this goal we could arrive when running the physical experiment. We did this by developing a simulation tool in Processing and Analysing the video captures we collected through a blob detection algorithm within Python. The variables we focused are the following: a) Shape of robots b) Number of robots (% of arena size) c) Shape of blocks  d) Type of blocks e) Number of blocks (% of arena size) Friction of blocks f) Environment, (Static elements )

Supervision:

Kirstin Petersen, Petra Jenning, Nills Napp

Team:

Evangelos Pantazis, Manos Vermisso, Jasmin Sadegh

MetaPredictiveMatter

MetaPredictiveMatter

Unprecedented connectivity and social phenomena like crowdsourcing have a great impact on how we communicate experience and envision space. In addition to this, information technologies and the continuously expanding access to data, lead us to a paradoxical relation between the potential of dealing with more complex problems, but also, the necessity to develop new modes of design-thinking that can handle this massive amount of data and complexity.

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Abstract

As we stand on the threshold of a world defined in terms of digitally generated realities we need to consider more carefully than ever before the question of space and the nature of its reality (Woods,2002). We are observing a rapid change in the way space is being perceived and mediated, which is a direct consequence of advances in information and computational technologies. The data handling capacities of computers, the cutting edge analysis techniques and the custom developed software allow designers to address much more complex problems than ever before. As a result, a broader solution space can be explored, the designers gain access to massive data libraries and direct collaboration among different disciplines is facilitated. This requires a whole new set of design techniques, but, most importantly, new mind sets which enable algorithmic thinking and even a new level of cognition and understanding of space. Apart from mere geometrical representations, computational models become the new interfaces between different domains, where information science and mathematics respectively, play a crucial role. Models slowly become a new medium of experience, exploration and learning at the same time,revealing different levels of complexities.

In order to formulate a new design approach, in this context, there is a need for a paradigm shift towards a more participatory and open design system, where the designer’s intentions are informed by easily accessible data, relating to user behaviour and where design intuition is combined with analytical tools. Nowadays, architects can handle apart from non-Euclidean geometries, multi-dimensional data-sets and they can develop custom design systems.

Thus, this study suggests reconsidering the notion of design-thinking and speculates on novel ways of synthesising and producing architectural textures. It regards space as a scalar field of activities performed within it and uses as its reference system an abstraction of space, as it is experienced by its users. In this way, it promotes a methodology of generative texture formation by combining existing texture maps by means of computation. It particularly focuses on: a) gaining insight in the intractable design relationships that cannot be modeled using conventional associative methods and b) addressing both the possibilities in concept generation and the challenges in the translation from design to production.  

Design intentions and objectives

The project is built upon the idea that the activities performed in a specific space are mainly based on the user’s intuition within the available environmental context (light, sound etc). This intuitive human choice is suggesting a topological relationship of spaces and materials, making activities an abstraction of architectural space or indexes of any existing spatial setup.We suggest a method for texture synthesis, which can be informed by pre-srelected  or user defined texture maps. The research draws upon work done on the field of analysis of multi-dimensional datasets, like Principal Component Analysis (PCA)  and attempts to couple them with material research on functionally graded materials. The algorithmic definitions of the design tool were developed in Java programming language, while the experiments for the realization of the design outcomes were conducted using different additive and subtractive manufacturing technologies as well as a variety of materials (wood, resin, gypsum, ABS plastic) to test the performativity aspect of the generated textures.

The project was conducted from September 2012 till March 2013 at the Chair for Computer Aided Architectural Design at ITA of ETH Zurich, under the supervision of Professor Ludger Hovestadt, Manuel Kretzer and Hua Hao, by the students Styliani Azariadi, Evangelos Pantazis and Daniel Rohlek. The project is still under development and partially funded by the Ikea Foundation of Switzerland and by the LG Hausys/ Hi-MACS company.

etric configurations.

Meta Predictive Matter
MetaPredictiveMatter
 
Services:
Spatial Design
Spatial Design
Computational Design
Computational Desi...
Design Consulting
Design Consulting
Product Design
Product Design
Prototyping
Prototyping
Education&Workshops
Education&Wor...
 
Digital Fabrication
People:
Team
Evangelos Pantazis

Founder | Principal Architect

Evangelos holds a Ph.D. in Civil and Environmental Engineering from Viterbi School of Engineering at the University of Southern California where he has also worked as a teaching and research assistant. He has earned his Master of Advanced Studies in the field of Computer Aided Architectural Design from the ETH in Zurich and got his Diploma in Architecture from the Aristotle’s University of Thessaloniki, Greece. Professionally, Evangelos worked in several international offices, including Graft Architects in Berlin, Studio Pei Zhu in Beijing, Buro Happold Engineering and IBI Group in Los Angeles. His research has been presented in multiple Design-Computing Conferences and his professional work has been exhibited at venues such as the Venice Biennale of Architecture, the Modern Art Museum of Lausanne (ELAC) and the Benaki Museum in Athens.

Iason Pantazis

Founder | Principal Architect

Iason holds a Master of Science in Advanced Architectural Design from Columbia University in New York as a Fulbright Scholar and prior to this he obtained his Diploma in Architecture from Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece and attended Master Classes at the Technical University in Delft, Holland.
He is a registered architect in Greece and has taught Architectural Technology at the Department of Architecture of the University of Ioannina and the Department of Architecture of the University of Patras as adjunct lecturer over the course of seven years.
His personal and collaborative work has been exhibited at the Venice Biennale, the AIA New York Center for Architecture, the Benaki Museum, the State Museum of Modern Art and the Byzantine Museum in Athens. He is the founder and Director of Fab Lab Ioannina.



Alexandros Christodoulou
Alexandros Christodoulou

Computational Design Specialist

Alex Christodoulou is a Computational Design Specialist with over a decade of experience in developing advanced digital design tools and methodologies for the architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) industry. Currently, Alex works as computational designer and in parallel is a PhD Candidate at the University of Thessaly. During the first eight years of his career, he worked at ARUP in Amsterdam, where he played a key role in creating and leading a parametric building design automation and optimization framework, which was applied to significant projects across the firm. His portfolio includes contributions to major projects such as the Valley, Smakkelaarspark, and Elements tower developments in the Netherlands, as well as the renovation of the Bernabéu Stadium and several parametric master planning and building stock analysis projects. Alex has also shared his expertise through teaching courses at IaaC, KU Leuven, Shenzhen University, TU Delft, and the University of Thessaly. Additionally, he has presented his research at prominent conferences like IASS, SimAUD, and the Design Modelling Symposium.

Anastasios Dedes

Art Director | Graphic Designer

Anastasios experiments with lines, letters, colours, values, forms , intensities, deconstruction in both 2d and 3d environments. As 'Unidead', 'Matao Oka', 'Littll' and 'Aaiikkoo' works across various fields such as visual communication, typography, branding, identity, advertising, illustration, concept design and photography. Anastasios Dedes has taken part in numerous exhibitions and festival both in Greece and Europe, offering powerful visuals and innovative street graphics.

Fab Lab Ioannina

Digital Innovation Hub

FAB LAB IOANNINA is an active node of the Digital Fabrication Laboratories network Fab Labs and acts as a interdisciplinary platform for the development of Digital Fabrication Technologies.
Main focus of the lab is the application of Digital Fabrication, Information and Communication Technologies in order to foster Education, Collaboration and Innovation in the local context of Greece and in the global concept of the Network Society.


Lasercutter.gr

Fabrication Services

Founded in 2011, Lasercutter.gr is a fabrication start-up offering laser cutting & engraving services to creative companies and individuals. Lasercutter.gr is not your average manufacturer, but was founded by a team of talented designers to serve professionals and individuals in Greece and abroad.

Past Team Members
Past Team Members

Architects + Designers

Constantinos Schinas - CAM Specialist
Aristotelis Sdralis - Project Manager
Nikolaos Raptis - Fabrication Specialist
Vassilios Alexis - Project Architect
Yorgos Alexis - Project Architect
Eftychia Zapheiri - Project Architect
Sotiris Gonis - Design Intern
Alex Chelidonopoulos - Architect
Eleftheria Labropoulou - Architecture Intern

Join the team!
Join the team!

Internship Program

The goal of the Topotheque Studio Internship Program is to provide experience and exposure to the many facets of architectural practice. Interns assist project teams and may gain experience with schematic design, Cad Software, digital fabrication and model making as well as construction documents and presentation projects.
All Resumes, Inquiries, or Portfolios should be sent to iason@topotheque.com not exceeding 8MB.

People we work with
Cosmic Buildings
Hyperion Robotics
Findable AG
Atkins Realis
Halter AG
Biennale of Western Balkans
Onassis Foundation
Romantso Cultural Centre
Giorgos Sfakianakis
Small studio
Kkervvit
ΕΝΛΙΤΕ
IKEA-foundation
Greek State Museum of Contemporary Art
Interdisciplinary Design office
Media:
“EDIBLE; OR, THE ARCHITECTURE OF METABOLISM” Catalogue
“EDIBLE; OR, THE ARCHITECTURE OF METABOLISM” Catalogue
Yfalos @ Designboom.com
Yfalos @ Designboom.com
Putting computation and robotics into practice – Archisearch.gr Interview
Putting computation and robotics into practice – Archisearch.gr Interview
Tzoumakers Dome @ Archetype.gr
Tzoumakers Dome @ Archetype.gr
Biennale of Western Balkans Catalogue
Biennale of Western Balkans Catalogue
AFETIRIES by DOMES
AFETIRIES by DOMES
Venice Biennale 2016 Catalogue
Venice Biennale 2016 Catalogue
Mildframe Magazine
Mildframe Magazine
8th Biennale
8th Biennale
 
Computation
Contact:
Ioannina
Ioannina

Arch. Makariou 11, 45221, GR
t: 30 6974999242
m: iason@topotheque.com

Zurich
Zurich

Zeughaus Strasse 31, Suite 311. 8004, Zurich, Switzerland
t: +41 767494406
m: vague@topotheque.com

Design at the intersection of architecture, engineering and fabrication