Digital Craft Futures will feature talks by CCA Digital Craft Lab (DCL) Co-Directors Professor Jason Kelly Johnson and Professor Negar Kalantar, who will reflect on the lab’s history, showcase its research (including work by students and alumni), and discuss its future as it transitions into a dedicated new lab on CCA’s expanded campus. The DCL is renowned for its advanced research and teaching in the areas of computational design, digital fabrication and material innovation.

Professor Johnson’s talk will explore the “New Constructivist Agenda” - how explorations at the intersection of computation and craft, explored at CCA over the last decade, have set the stage for a potent new way of approaching architecture, art and design education. Professor Kalantar will discuss how robotics and AI bring new opportunities to education and design while tackling sustainability challenges like carbon emissions and material waste. She will highlight the role of computational tools, material innovation and industry-academia collaboration in advancing smarter, sustainable practices.

The Digital Craft Lab supports and promotes advanced research in architectural design, digital fabrication, material science, data visualization and robotics. The work of the lab sits at the intersection of the arts and sciences and is committed to engaging the pressing issues of our time through experimentation, pedagogy and outreach. The lab routinely collaborates with engineers, scientists, artists, architects and designers to develop innovative frameworks and prototypes for engaging important issues related to sustainable building practices, ecology, material innovation, and entrepreneurship. The DCL works with industry partners, sponsors and collaborators to support the activities of the lab. Associated design studios, seminars and the post-professional MAAD Digital Craft degree focus on contemporary digital design technologies.

Dr. Negar Kalantar is an associate professor and Co-Director of the Digital Craft Lab. Her research and practice blend architecture, science, and engineering, focusing on transformable design principles to create adaptive building components and spaces that respond to users and environments in real-time. Her current work explores additive manufacturing (3D printing) and robotics as catalysts for innovation in interactive and responsive environments. By bridging advancements in additive manufacturing with large-scale structures, her research aims to revolutionize not only how infrastructures are constructed today but also how they are designed and built in the future, from concept to completion.

Jason Kelly Johnson is a Full Professor at CCA, Co-Director of the Digital Craft Lab, and a founding design partner of FUTUREFORMS, a San Francisco-based experimental design and research office. His award-winning work explores the intersections of art, design, public space, and advanced technologies like robotics and responsive systems. Recent projects range from fine art objects and sculptural pavilions to large-scale urban installations, including "Lightweave" in Washington, DC, which received the Architect's Newspaper "Best Of Design" Award and the "Architecture Masterprize" in 2019.