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Ms Enriqueta Llabres-Valls
Lecturer in Architecture
The Bartlett School of Architecture
Faculty of the Built Environment
- Joined UCL
- 1st Sep 2017
Teaching summary
In 2009 and 2011 Enriqueta Llabres lead and taught the program about digital urbanism in Berlage Institute in The Netherlands, working on how the understanding of socio-environmental dynamics and ecologies could influence the way we think and design urban form. At that time she started using generative design programs her our own simulation scripts. In 2010 she was appointed Design Critic in Landscape Architecture at the Graduate School of Design in Harvard where she contributed until 2015 to the introduction of the digital culture in the program.
In 2012 she was appointed visiting lecturer in design at The Bartlett School of Architecture, since then she has been teaching in the MArch Urban Design Program. The cluster BPro-RC18 “Bridging Across Mass Customization” focuses on the possibilities that digital fabrication technologies for mass customization offer to engage user groups in strategies that could benefit the city. The cluster focuses on the study of the relationship between mass customization and social media trying to draw on new forms of communities and new economic models into urban design. The program looks closely to digital fabrication technologies, material composites, computation, as well as social media, man machine interface, technologies for human interaction, sociology and environmental policy. Enriqueta Llabres has developed an international reputation, lecturing and teaching at Harvard, Veritas, RMIT, NTUT, Shenzhen University, MIT, IAAC or ESA Paris.
Biography
Enriqueta Llabres is a TEDx fellow, graduated in Architecture and Urban Design from the UPC in Barcelona (Excellence) and with an MSc in Local Economic Development from the London School of Economics (Merit). In early years she worked as an architect for the Professor in Architecture and Design at the ETH in Zurich Dr. Josep Lluis Mateo. She was involved in all aspects and scales that implies the development of architectural projects; having an important role in awarded design projects such as The Catalonian Film Theater in Spain, PGGM Headquarters in The Netherlands or The New Entrance for the National Gallery in Prague. After two years she was promoted Project Leader and was in charge of the development of PGGM Headquarters in The Netherlands; having the opportunity to work from concept to build across different scales; from 1:1 to 1:500. After 4 years she was awarded with her first design competition: INVENTARTE, a wind resilient canopy proposal in Spain.
Between 2010 to 2012 she enrolled in the Master Local Economic Development from the London School of Economics; studying the relationship between technology, culture and innovation. She had an interest in processes of knowledge creation, tacit vs explicit knowledge, which later she applied to some of the interactive models for public engagement and design consultation. She also studied implications of globalization in the economic geography, regional and urban economics, spatial economic analysis, concepts of environmental regulation and policy. All these knowledge would come across later on in the design approach and methodologies developed in her practice Relational Urbanism.
In 2009 she co-founded Relational Urbanism with Eduardo Rico focusing on how technologies influence the way the built environment is designed, crossing the boundaries between Landscape Architecture, Architecture and Engineering. Since then, Relational Urbanism has become an awarded winning practice with an international presence and reputation. Among the numerous awards are: Arup Global Challenge with the development of Relational Urban Models. These are digital simulation platforms for urban master-planning. Le Fanu Skate and Play Park, a two stage international competition organized by the Irish Architectural Foundation, here Relational Urbanism used an interactive playful model as a form of public engagement and consultation. In 2017 Relational Urbanism and Tabony Architects won Tiberia International Design Competition, in Nazareth, Middle East which lead her to co-found RU.TA with Aiman Tabony. They have recently awarded Singapore Urban Bridge, a competition organized by Innovate UK.