TERRITORIES OF CO-COGNITION Symposium

Roberto Bottazzi

Dr Roberto Bottazzi is an architect, researcher and educator. He studied in Florence and Vancouver, before moving to London. His research analyses the impact of digital technologies on architecture and urbanism. Roberto has lectured and exhibited internationally and is the author of Digital Architecture Beyond Computers (Bloomsbury Visual, 2018, 2021). Roberto is Associate Professor and Programme Director of MArch Urban Design at The Bartlett, he previously lectured at the Politecnico of Milan and the Royal College of Art.

Ilaria Di Carlo

Dr Ilaria Di Carlo is Lecturer at the Bartlett (UCL) and the Co-Director of the AAVisiting School Milan. Previously she was lecturer at the UIBK and Visiting Professor at the UTDT.  She is the author of The Aesthetic of Sustainability (Listlab, 2016), her upcoming book Sympoietic Living will be published in 2025 by Lars Müller Ed. Her research interest focuses on the importance of aesthetics, revisited through the lenses of systemic thinking and transdisciplinarity, in the sustainable design of city and territory.  

Annarita Papeschi

A practising architect, a researcher, and an educator, Annarita Papeschi is a Lecturer, and a PhD candidate at The Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL. Her research explores notions of post-digital participatory design, drawing on post-humanist theories of the self to explore immersive geographical and spatial analysis as the basis for human-machinic creative protocols of collaboration. She is the principal and co-founder of FLOW Architecture (flowarchitecture.co.uk), a research and design practice working at the intersection of architecture, urbanism and media art.

Patricia Reed

Patricia Reed is a theorist, artist and designer based in Berlin. She is Co-Head of the Critical Inquiry Lab at the Design Academy Eindhoven (NL) and a lecturer at Folkwang University (DE). Her work addresses the relationships between models and practices of inhabitation within planetary frameworks of thought. Reed co-wrote the Xenofeminist Manifesto as Laboria Cuboniks, republished by Verso Books, and an anthology of her essays entitled Cosmovisiones de otro mundo has been released in Spanish by Holobionte Ediciones. 

Will Cavedish 

Dr Will Cavendish is Arup’s Global Digital Services Leader, supporting clients to harness digital and AI to drive transformation and address critical sustainability challenges. He was previously Applied Strategy Lead at DeepMind, working with key partners to apply cutting-edge AI for public good in sectors such as health and energy. A former senior civil servant, he held Director General roles at the Department of Health and DECC, and led the Prime Minister’s Implementation Unit under David Cameron. Will holds a PhD in economics, has served as a World Bank economist, lectured at Oxford and Imperial College, and was made a Companion of the Order of the Bath in 2015.

Luciana Parisi

Luciana Parisi is a Professor at the Program in Literature and the Program in Computational Media Art and Culture at Duke University, a member of the CCRU and CCB. She published Abstract Sex: Philosophy, Biotechnology and the Mutations of Desire (2004, Continuum Press), Contagious Architecture. Computation, Aesthetics and Space (2013, MIT Press) and now completing Automation and Philosophy (MIT Press).

Andrew Porter

Andrew Porter was Deputy Director of the B-Pro at The Bartlett School of Architecture between 2012 and 2024. He is a practising architect and teacher at the Bartlett for over 25 years.  He is currently Chair of the B-Pro Exam Board and continues to teach on the Urban Design MArch and Architecture MArch programmes with a particular design research focus on the deployment of machine learning through a multimodal design process.

Fiona Zisch

Dr Fiona Zisch directs The Bartlett School of Architecture’s MArch programme, Design for Performance and Interaction. She is Co-Director of the International Centre for NeuroArchitecture and NeuroDesign (UCL/RISE) and chairs the Academy of Neuroscience for Architecture’s UK chapter. Her research explores cognitive ecologies and 4EA cognition, as well as the role intuition plays in design praxis. 

Julian Besems

Julian Besems is a PhD candidate at ETH Zürich and lecturer at The Bartlett, UCL. He teaches in the Urban Design MArch programme, co-leading RC11 for five years. His research explores how computational literacy can inform the integration of digital methods within architectural design, drawing from abstract algebra in order to express projections across domains of architectural communication. 

14:00 Doors 
14:10 Introduction 
14:30 Position 1: Luciana Parisi, Duke (US) 
15:00 Interlude: Roberto Bottazzi
15:10 Position 2: Julian Besems & Andrew Porter, The Bartlett, UCL (UK)
15:40 Interlude: Annarita Papeschi 
15:50 Position 3: Patricia Reed, DAE (NL)/Folkwang (DE)
16:20 Break
16:50 Position 4: Fiona Zisch, The Bartlett, UCL (UK) 
17:20 Interlude: Ilaria Ilaria Di Carlo
17:30 Position 5: Will Cavendish, Arup
18:10 Roundtable
19:00 End