About

Lisa Iwamoto is a Chair and Professor of Architecture at UC Berkeley College of Environmental Design, where she also holds the David K. Woo Chair in Environmental Design. Her research focuses on new materials and fabrication techniques for architectural design, emphasizing design synthesis and the innovative coherence of material, technological, spatial, geometric, and contextual constraints of building. Her creative work is centered in her design practice, IwamotoScott Architecture, which she co-founded in 2002. Her work includes innovative design at multiple scales, such as installations, buildings, interiors, and urban proposals. Iwamoto has received numerous awards, including the Cooper Hewitt/Smithsonian National Design Award, induction into Interior Design Magazine’s Hall of Fame, the Architectural League’s Emerging Voices and Young Architects, Architectural Record’s Design Vanguard, ACADIA’s Digital Practice Award of Excellence, and more than 20 AIA Design Awards, including a National Award and P/A Award. She was recognized as a Next Generation Leader by Architectural Record’s Women in Design. Her firm's work has been widely published and exhibited. She holds a Master of Architecture with distinction from Harvard University and a Bachelor of Science in Structural Engineering from the University of Colorado. She is also the author of 'Digital Fabrications: Architectural and Material Techniques,' published in 2009 by Princeton Architectural Press.

Research topics

• Computer science
• Architectural engineering
• Engineering
• Engineering drawing
• Sociology

Selected publications

• Roundtable: San Francisco’s Speculative Future

  Dialnet (Universidad de la Rioja) · 2018-01-01

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• Material Computation: Voussoir cloud

  ACADIA quarterly · 2011-01-01 · 2 citations

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  In contrast to such structurally pure models, the power of computation has opened possibilities for at once muddying and synthesizing geometry, structure and material performance. Where the earlier twentieth century experiments employed a more or less uniform tectonic based on symmetrical structural diagrams, contemporary analysis and design techniques can efficiently adapt a material system to address variable, localized, and non-symmetrical loading conditions. This has resulted in projects characterized by non-optimized structural forms that register the impacts of geometry on material behavior with a deviated tectonic system.

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• Shared Transformation

  Oz · 2011-01-01

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• A conversation with: Lisa Iwamoto and Craig Scott of Iwamotoscott

  Journal of Landscape Architecture · 2011-01-01

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  Beyond form and aesthetics, what do advancing technologies such as scripting and digital fabrication really offer architecture?

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• Shared Transformation

  Oz · 2011-01-01

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• Digital Fabrications: Architectural and Material Techniques

  2009-06-03 · 159 citations

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  Architectural pioneers such as Frank Gehry and Greg Lynn introduced the world to the extreme forms made possible by digital fabrication. It is now possible to transfer designs made on a computer to computer-controlled machinery that creates actual building components. This 'file to factory' process not only enables architects to realize projects featuring complex or double-curved geometries, but also liberates architects from a dependence on off-the-shelf building components, enabling projects of previously unimaginable complexity. Digital Fabrications, the second volume in our new Architecture Briefs series, celebrates the design ingenuity made possible by digital fabrication techniques. Author Lisa Iwamoto explores the methods architects use to calibrate digital designs with physical forms. The book is organized according to five types of digital fabrication techniques: tessellating, sectioning, folding, contouring, and forming. Projects are shown both in their finished forms and in working drawings, templates, and prototypes, allowing the reader to watch the process of each fantastic construction unfold. Digital Fabrications presents projects designed and built by emerging practices that pioneer techniques and experiment with fabrication processes on a small scale with a do-it-yourself attitude. Featured architects include Ammar Eloueini/DIGIT-AL Studio, Elena Manferdini, Brennan Buck, Michael Meredith/MOS, Office dA, Mafoomby, URBAN A+O, SYSTEM Architects, Andrew Kudless, IwamotoScott, Howeler Yoon, Hitoshi Abe, Chris Bosse, Tom Wiscombe/Emergent, Jeremy Ficca, SPAN, Urban A&O, Gnuform, Heather Roberge, Patterns, and Servo.

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• Jellyfish House

  The Sydney eScholarship Repository (The University of Sydney) · 2007-01-01

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  This paper intoduces Jellyfish House, designed for the exhibition OPEN HOUSE: Architecture and Technology for Intelligent Living curated by the Vitra Design Museum and Art Center College of Design. Conceptually, the house draws from ‘calm technology,’ a branch of research associated with ubiquitous computing. Calm technology suggests that the digital realm will recede to the background of our spaces and lived experience.

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• Subtractive networks studio

  The Sydney eScholarship Repository (The University of Sydney) · 2006-01-01

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  Papers from the inaugural Urban Islands studio, review and symposium organised by Olivia Hyde, Thomas Rivard, Joanne Jakovich and Ingo Kumic, August 2006.

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• Translations: Fabricating Space

  Journal of Architectural Education · 2004-08-05 · 7 citations

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  Abstract The projects shown here—Spiral Surface, Ceiling Aura, and Lofted Mesh—are products from a graduate seminar taught last fall at the University of California–Berkeley. The course, Fabricating Space: CAD/CAM Translations, explores the gaps between digital design and making and between scales and modes of production. This includes translations between rapid prototyping and full-scale mock-up, between seamless form and standard sheet material, and between computer model and spatial or phenomenological effect.

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• Embodied Fabrication: Computer Aided Spacemaking

  ACADIA quarterly · 2004-01-01 · 5 citations

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  This paper discusses work from two digital fabrication seminars taught at the University of California Berkeley: Fabricating Space and Thick Skinned. The full-scale installations explore relationships among the body, digital design, and making. They combine investigations of perceptual and spatial effects with digital modeling processes and full-scale CNC fabrication, focusing in particular on how new media practices forge alternative methods of representing and constructing corporeal and sensorial experience.

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Frequent coauthors

• Craig R. Scott

  6 shared

• Paul Saffo

  1 shared

• Caitrin Daly

  1 shared

• Craig Hartman

  1 shared

• Sarah Hicks

  1 shared

• Kim Mai Cutler

  1 shared

• Allison Arieff

  1 shared

Awards & honors

• Cooper Hewitt/Smithsonian National Design Award
• Interior Design Magazine’s Hall of Fame
• Architectural League’s Emerging Voices
• Architectural Record’s Design Vanguard
• ACADIA’s Digital Practice Award of Excellence