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Shape Computation Lab

Athanassios Economou, PhD

Athanassios Economou--PhD

Director
Professor of Architecture, College of Design, Georgia Tech
Adjunct Professor of Interactive Computing, Georgia Tech

thanos@gatech.edu

Athanassios (Thanos) Economou is Professor at the School of Architecture in the College of Design, and Adjunct Professor at the School of Interactive Computing at Georgia Institute of Technology. Dr. Economou’s teaching and research are in the areas of shape grammars, computational design, computer-aided design, and design theory, with over sixty published papers in these areas. He is the Director of the Shape Computation Lab, a research group that explores how the visual nature of shape can be formally implemented with new technologies to enable new paradigms in CAD, design automation, visual scripting, and creative design. Recent projects include the Shape Machine, a new computational technology that allows shape embedding in CAD systems, funded by Georgia Research Alliance and NSF-iCorps Sites, and the Courtsweb, the most significant visual database on Federal Courthouses, funded by GSA and US.Courts. Design projects from his studios at Georgia Tech have received prestigious awards in international and national architectural competitions. He has been invited to give talks, seminars, and workshops at several universities including MIT, Harvard, TU Vienna, U. Michigan, KAIST, Chiao Tung U Taiwan, Emory, Seoul National U, Cambridge U, Tsinghua U, UCLA, NTUA, U.Thessaly, U.Aegean, among others. Dr. Economou holds a Diploma in Architecture from NTUA, Athens, Greece, an M.Arch from USC, and a PhD in Architecture from UCLA.

Yichao Shi, BE, M.Arch

Yichao Shi--BE--MArch

Research Assistant
PhD Architecture Program
School of Architecture
College of Design
Georgia Institute of Technology

2023 – Current

yichao.shi@gatech.edu

Yichao Shi is a doctorate student at the School of Architecture, College of Design, at the Georgia Institute of Technology. He received an M. Arch from the Bartlett School of Architecture at the University College London with distinction and a Bachelor in Engineering from Tongji University. His research in design computation focuses on the development of cyber-physical systems for autonomous architectural structures. His coding skills include Python, C#, and Java and his software skills include Rhino, Grasshopper, Blender, Unreal Engine, Unity, MAYA, Adobe Premiere, Adobe After Effects, REVIT, Adobe Illustrator, Sketch Up, AutoCAD.

Yuzhe (Zac) Guo, B.Arch, M.Arch

Yuzhe Zac Guo--BArch--MArch

Research Assistant
PhD Architecture Program
School of Architecture
College of Design
Georgia Institute of Technology

2025 – Current

yguo615@gatech.edu

Zac is a PhD Student in Design Computation at the School of Architecture at the Georgia Institute of Technology. From 2021 to 2024, he studied for an M.Arch degree at UCLA AUD, during which he came into contact with Shape Grammar, which he is currently very interested in. His current work focuses on the implementation and resolution of parallel grammars with compound shapes in Shape Machine.