【Tech Sunday】Techformance–2025 UABB Hong Kong: Craft, Algorithm, and Robotic Fabrication: Revitalizing Material PracticeThe Hong Kong Institute of Architects Biennale Foundation Company Limited

Tech Sunday is a series of small forums organised by the UABB curatorial team 2025 on weekends. Each forum presents curated topics by the participating exhibitors, and we invite the public to take part in the intellectual exchange. Participants will understand the speaker's background, the body of work and the design intention behind the exhibit through each talk.

This session discusses how tech-assisted crafts and fabrication integrate with algorithmic and robotic systems.

Topics:

1. The Recursive Craft: Rethinking Making in Technological Innovation ( Speaker: Garvin Goepel )
2. Augmented Reality and Generative AI integration in architectural design and construction processes
3. Future Craft: Building Simplexity in Post-digital Architecture Practice ( Speaker: Kristof Crolla )
4. Discussion + Q&A ( Speaker: Lincoln Chan )
5. ( Speaker: Su Chang )

Language:
English


Speakers:
Garvin Goepel
Dr Garvin Goepel specializes in the fields of Augmented Reality (AR) and Artificial Intelligence (AI), focusing on the investigation of collaborative interactions between humans and machines. He combines his practice “Augmented Architecture Ltd.” with his position as Lecturer at the University of Hong Kong (HKU), and co-investigator in the Building Simplexity Lab (BSL). His research advances studies in collaborative holographic-driven construction, expands opportunities for technology-infused craftsmanship, and reflects on workflows that replace conventional drawing-based communication with holographic instruction. His work is published widely and has contributed to award-winning mixed-reality art and architectural projects, such as for the World Architecture Festival Award 2024.

Kristof Crolla
Dr Kristof Crolla is a Belgian architect and founder of Laboratory for Explorative Architecture & Design Ltd. (LEAD). He is a tenured Associate Professor and Associate Head (Technology Transfer) at the University of Hong Kong's Department of Architecture, where he directs the Bachelor of Arts & Science Design+ programme and founded the Building Simplexity Laboratory (BSL). His design research, most notably the ZCB Bamboo Pavilion, integrates advanced computation in architecture and has won numerous awards including the World Architecture Festival Award in 2016 and 2024. He holds a PhD from RMIT University and is a recognised expert in bamboo construction with INBAR.

Lincoln Chan
Lincoln Chan is a Master of Architecture I student at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. He earned his BSSc in Architectural Studies from CUHK in 2022, graduating on the Dean's List and receiving the Scholastic Award from the AIA Hong Kong Chapter. A founding member of the Craft Design Research Lab, his work explores computationally assisted craft architecture and techno-cultural synthesis, with features in exhibitions and publications including the HKIA Journal: Technology in Architecture (2025).

Su Chang
Su Chang is an assistant professor in architectural design at the University of Hong Kong and principal of Su Chang Design Research Office. His current research explores a water-centric perspective for understanding architecture, development, and conservation in Hong Kong, the Greater Bay Area, and Asia context. Navigating the shifting dynamics between inland and coastal areas, he has developed design experiments with a material-based approach to rejuvenate spaces and regenerate social fabrics for communities undergoing transformation.

Chang’s writing and translation work similarly connect architecture’s physical presence to its participation in a more extensive geography of ideas, most recently in the Chinese edition of Iñaki Ábalos’s The Good Life: A Guided Visit to the Houses of Modernity (Tongji University Press, 2019) and Valerio Olgiati’s Non-Referential Architecture (forthcoming). Additional publications include peer-reviewed writings for Landscape Architecture Frontier, Built Heritage, and academic contributions to Urban Environment Design, Taiwan Architecture, and HKIA Journal. Public-facing writings include essays, interviews, commentaries, and projects for Ocula, Wallpaper, and the Harvard GSD Platform. Chang has served as a founding member of Tangent Essays, an online and paper-based publishing platform that periodically features writings about architecture.

Chang is a licensed architect (US), a member of the Architecural Society of China, the American Institute of Architects, and an associate member of the Hong Kong Institute of Architects. Chang received his Master in Architecture with commendation and Dean’s Merit Scholarship from Harvard University Graduate School of Design. Previously, Chang was educated at Peking University, ETH Zürich, and received a Bachelor of Arts in Architectural Studies with First Class Honour and a full scholarship from the University of Hong Kong.