Abel Maciel

Abel Pinheiro Cavalcante Maciel Jr. is an architect and researcher based in London, United Kingdom. He has extensive experience on a wide range of design typologies and scales, from product and interaction design, to large-scale urban complexes and masterplans. He also tutors architectural design at the Architectural Association (AA), the Bartlett School of Architecture, the Ecole Spéciale d'Architecture (ESA).

Biography

During his professional career, Abel has worked with some of the world’s leading design and engineering practices such as Foster + Partners, Zaha Hadid Architects, Herzog & de Meuron, Arup and Bureau Happold, preparing competitions, developing proposals and delivering projects in Asia, the Americas, Europe and the Middle East.

On the conclusion of his Master of Architecture with a focus on biomimetics, Abel was invited to ingress on the EngD in Virtual Environments at UCL, being awarded an EPSRC Scholarship. His research focus on the understanding of the social, economic and cognitive aspects of design thinking and how this value creation process informs the multidisciplinary and programmatic design modellingfrom early concept stages.

Using multidisciplinary research overarching Ethnography, Game theory and Human Computer Interaction, Abel has developed radically new models of this complex phenomenon, opening new avenues for further research and being awarded the Bartlett Doctorate Prize in 2014.

Abel is currently consulting for Heatherwick Studio on all projects using design computation and Building Information Modelling.

Research Focus

CSCWD

• Human-Human interaction Ontologies

BIM

• BIM Ontology
• Interoperability, Integration and Linking of BIM
• eeBIM
• BIM Software Information interoperability
• Interface Ontology
• ESIM Ontology

Complex Geometry

• Geometrical translation and distortion in software interoperability processes

Publications

2012 Empirical Observations in co-located collaborative design:Using combined ethographic refinements. Fifth International Conference On Design,Computing and Cognition (DCC'12), Workshop 6,Texa A&M University, USA.[1]

2010 Negotiations of instrumental values in architectural design: seeking for concept formation structures. Digital Relations in Architecture Symposium, CITA ,Royal Danish Academy of Arts, Copenhagen.[2]

2010 Brazilian Architects in London: RIBA. Wallpaper Magazine [link]

2009 DIY Design Process for Interactive Surfaces.HCI 2009 Microsoft Research, Cambridge University.[link]

2008 Space Craft: Developments In Architectural Computing. Edited by David Littlefield. RIBA Press. ISBN: 9781859462928. [link]

2006 Design Research Society: 3D geometry manipulation using compound biomimetic systems.[link]

2006 Building Design: How we did IT: Abel Maciel, artificial intelligence in architecture. December 15, 2006. [link]

Contact

mail@abelmaciel.com