José Pedro Sousa (Porto, 1976) is an Assistant Professor at FAUP (University of Porto), where he founded and directs the DFL, Digital Fabrication Lab, the first robotic center for architecture in Portugal. Besides FAUP he taught in the past at ESARQ-UIC, IAAC (Es), U. Coimbra (Pt), and oriented workshops in places like SCI-Arc (USA) or Newcastle U. (UK).He holds a PhD degree in Architecture from IST-UTL (Technical University of Lisbon), a Master in Genetic Architecture from ESARQ- UIC (International University of Catalonia) and a Licenciatura in Architecture from FAUP. He was also a Special student on Design and Computation at MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA) and a Visiting Scholar in Architecture at the UPenn (University of Pennsylvania, USA). Merging the realms of teaching, research and design practice, his activity has explored the new conceptual and material opportunities emerging from the use of computational design and digital fabrication technologies. His area of expertise is related with computational geometry, robotic technologies, material innovation, design customization and cork design, and have motivated various industrial collaborations with companies like Amorim Isolamentos, Mota Engil (Pt) or Imar (Es).His work has been published and presented in lectures around the world, and was awarded with the 2005 FEIDAD Award (1st) and the 2009 Young Research Award of the UTL, among other distinctions. For any inquiry or challenge regarding design, research, publications, lectures or workshops, please contact: jsousa@arq.up.pt
