Neil Spiller is an architect, artist and writer most recently publishing ‘Digital Architecture Now’ and ‘Visionary Architecture: Blueprints of the Modern Imagination’ (Thames & Hudson). He is Professor of Architecture and Digital Theory and Vice Dean of the Bartlett School of Architecture at University College London. He is also Director of the Advanced Virtual and Technological Architecture Research Group (AVATAR). He is author of several books on architecture and digital culture, including Digital Dreams: Architecture and the New Alchemic Technologies and Cyberreader: Critical Writings for the Digital Era.
His current research is centred upon how architecture is invigorated by cyberspace, the blurred boundary between the virtual and the actual, and how the different parameters of these spaces can be used to inform one another. His early experience in practice was that “buildings are limited by the inert materials used to construct them and by the unimaginative ideas of what a building should look like and be”. His research draws upon a variety of different disciplines to inform one – architecture. The areas of research are multidisciplinary and include: the changing status of the architectural drawing, smart materials, computer aided architectural drawing, computer aided manufacture, emergent systems, responsive environments, the architectural design of cyberspace, interactivity, cybernetics and evolving systems and algorithmic design.
