Dana Cupkova is an assistant professor at the Carnegie Mellon School of Architecture and is a co-founder and principal of EPIPHYTE Lab, an architectural design and research collaborative. She was a founder and design director of DCm-STUDIO, an architectural design practice in New York City, and has extensive international professional experience in Europe, the United States and Southeast Asia. Her design work engages the built environment at the intersection of ecology, computationally driven processes and systems analysis.
Dana Cupkova presents Session 6: Robotic Fabrication 02 | Digital Making | Critical Augmented Building at the 2013 Encoding Architecture Conference at Carnegie Mellon University.
"EPIFLOW: Adaptive Analytical Design Framework for Resilient Urban Water Systems" by Dana Cupkova, Nicolas Azel, Christine Mondor, Pages 419-431.
Motivated by extensive discourse on health and environmental stability surrounding urban hydrologic systems and the implication of uninformed design in the propagation of health and environmental stability, EpiFlow tooling proposes a new way of incorporating consequences of hydrological processes into the early stages of design process. By utilizing computation and visual scripting as a means of embedding information into the modelling environment, EpiFlow integrates storm water runoff and water management models directly into the 3D modelling test-bed. The intention is to assimilate direct visual and quantitative feedback on water flow behavior within a single interface and to provide rapid design feedback that would enable integration of natural systems into holistic design thinking while engaging larger systemic issues of the site.
EPIPHYTE Lab is a design and research practice centered in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Founded in 2009 by Dana Cupkova and Kevin Pratt, professors at Carnegie Mellon and Cornell Universities, respectively, EPIPHYTE Lab produces built work, engages in speculative design projects and serves as a vessel for interdisciplinary design-research that is tightly coupled with academic framework. Always striving for innovation, EPIPHYTE Lab engages the built environment at the intersection of ecology, thermodynamics, computationally driven processes and material logic.
EPIPHYTE Lab is currently featured in the Next Progressives section of Architect magazine.
ACADIA is an international network of digital design researchers and professionals. We facilitate critical investigations into the role of computation in architecture, planning and building science, encouraging innovation in design creativity, sustainability and education.
Mechanical Engineering Associate Research Professor Albert Presto talks about "Air Quality and Atmospheric Chemistry: The atmospheric impacts of the Marcellus Shale boom."
The Center for Air, Climate and Energy Solutions is a new collaborative research center at Carnegie Mellon University created through a partnership with the Environmental Protection Agency. Issues like shale gas development, electric car subsidies and power plants of the future raise air and climate questions that require integrated thinking. The center will bring together experts to arrive at the best decisions.
The Center for Atmospheric Particle Studies (CAPS)
The CAPS strives to be world leaders in science, engineering and policy covering the full role of fine particulate matter in the atmosphere. Their goal in research is to substantially advance the state of knowledge across this spectrum and both to provide policy-relevant research and to participate directly and actively in the evolution of environmental policy related to particulate matter.