Lara Lesmes and Fredrik Hellberg appointed professors

We are pleased to announce that Rector Petra Schaper Rinkel has appointed Lara Lesmes and Fredrik Hellberg as head of the I oA Architectural Design Studio 2, succeeding Greg Lynn at the University of Applied Arts Vienna as of October 2024.

Lara Lesmes and Fredrik Hellberg founded Space Popular in 2013 in Bangkok; an architecture studio that explores the relationships between media and the built environment through research, design and artworks. The studio has realized buildings, exhibitions, public artworks, furniture collections, and interiors in Asia and Europe, as well as virtual architecture for the immersive web. Lesmes and Hellberg have been Visiting Professors at UCLA AUD in Los Angeles for the past three years, and have previously held academic positions at the Architectural Association in London, the University of Toronto, and INDA Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok. Clients, collaborators and commisioners include national institutions such as MAK—Museum of Applied Arts, Vienna, Austria, MAXXI—National Museum of 21st Century Art, Rome, Italy, the Swedish Centre for Architecture and Design ArkDes, Stockholm, Sweden, the Royal Institute of British Architects, London, UK, the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Seoul, South Korea, as well as independent galleries such as MAGAZIN, Vienna, Austria, and Sto Werkstatt, London, UK.

“Over the past decade, we have focused on the interdependence between the built and virtual environments. Our social lives occur across media—in transmedia spaces, the design and regulation for which nobody takes responsibility—while our community ties online are becoming as valuable and consequential as those offline. In the same way that we fight for the safeguarding of social housing, public space, civic infrastructures, and overall public services, we must take care of the civic dimension of our virtual environments. Schools of architecture can counter the current neoliberal nature of online space, developing tools and theory to ensure fairness, equity, and ethical operability in the intersection of media with the built environment. They can also be the spaces where we imagine alternatives towards responsibility and solidarity in the ways we inhabit our buildings and manage our cities, towns and villages, enabled by media. Building on the legacy of digital exploration over the past 20 years at the I oA die Angewandte, as well as the socially minded architecture and policies of the city of Vienna, the studio will engage with the transmedia reality we inhabit today, not only as architects and urbanists, but also as policymakers, thinkers and activists.” —Lara and Fredrik

The Institute of Architecture (I oA) offers a three-year accredited master’s program featuring three design studios. This English-language program focuses on progressive, experimental design in architecture and urban practices. The Institute is part of the internationally renowned University of Applied Arts Vienna (die Angewandte), which fosters interdisciplinary exchange, provides state-of-the-art education in the fields of arts and research, and promotes global collaboration. Students holding a bachelor’s degree in architecture can apply up to August 16, and again in January 2025.