core.form-ula

Ajmal Ismail Aqtash (Director) | linkedin
Ajmal Aqtash has worked on several superstructures for Skidmore, Ownings & Merrill LLP (SOM) since 06/2003-12/2009, specializing foremost on the generation of geometrical forms and shapes that engage performance driven design.  During his years at SOM, he worked within the Design Group, Technical Group, Digital Design Group and the Performative Design Group, pushing advanced design methods and sustainable design.  In October of 2009 Ajmal co-founded form-ula, a multidisciplinary design practice that seeks to understand the intersection of design and engineering and its collaborative possibilities to produce high performance architecture for large and small scale projects.  Ajmal also co-founded core.form-ula in July of 2007, which is the academic wing of form-ula, its goal is to expose innovation in design, architecture, engineering and art.  Ajmal has an extensive background in morphology and was a research assistant at the Center for Experimental Structures (CES).  He is currently working and teaching with Dr. Haresh Lalvani exploring folded structures, particularly on the “AlgoRythms” technology and X-Surf (expanded metal) with Milgo-Bufkin.  Ajmal is currently teaching at Pratt Institute School of Architecture, and has taught at Stevens Institute School of Mechanical Engineering and has been an invited juror at Columbia, UPenn, Pratt, SCI-Ar and Stevens.  Ajmal holds a Master of Science in Advanced Architectural Design Degree from Columbia University Graduate School of Planning and Preservation and a Bachelor of Architecture Degree from Pratt Institute School of Architecture.  Ajmal lives and works out of the New York.

Richard A. Sarrach (Director) | linkedin
Richard Sarrach  co-founded core.form-ula in 2007 which serves as the nonprofit academic wing of form-ula. He specializes in the research and application of computer aided digital design in conjunction with advanced fabrication technology that covers a multitude of scales.  Prior to that he has worked in the office of Evan Douglis as the Project Director for E// Tower, FloraFlex and Helioscope. He has served as the Assistant Director of Exhibitions @ Columbia University and has overseen digital production for The Center for Experimental Structures (CES) under Dr. Haresh Lalvani and Professor Bill Katavlos.  He is currently a Visiting Professor of Architecture in the Pratt Institute Undergraduate School of Architecture where he has taught design studios in China, Rome and The United States that have been published and exhibited internationally. Richard Sarrach studied architecture at the Pratt Institute School of Architecture in the United States, where he received his first professional degree in architecture in 2001. He later received a post-professional degree at Columbia University in New York City, in 2003, where he was the recipient of Columbia’s Honor Award for Excellence in Design.

Pete Van Hage (Digital Expert) arcnarc| linkedin
Peter Van Hage attended the Pratt Institute School of Architecture, where he graduated with honors in 2008.  He currently teaches in the Undergraduate School of Architecture at Pratt as a member of the Digital Futures group, specializing in providing software, representation, and parametric modeling expertise to design students throughout the curriculum.  In the past he has worked at firms including Evan Douglis Studio, Easton+Combs, and Formula.  He currently works at Lalvani Studio where, under the guidance of the renowned architect/morphologist Dr. Haresh Lalvani, he uses his design and computation skills to assist in advanced morphological research.  Through Lalvani Studio’s rare partnership with the architectural metal fabricator, Milgo-Bufkin, he has learned to incorporate material constraints and fabrication concerns into flexible parametric modeling solutions for realizing advanced geometries.  Peter enjoys developing new ways of using parametric modeling, advanced computation, and analysis in design and enjoys sharing his knowledge and cultivating the same interests in other aspiring designers.

David Mans (Digital Expert) neoarchaic | linkedin
David Mans is the founder of NeoArchaic Design, a  collaborative design entity specializing in computational solutions based upon analytical simulation and parametric principles of geometry to help designers develop architecture which can anticipate its own future in the built world.  Through NeoArchaic he has collaborated on digital design and fabrication with several contemporary and international firms and artists, developing and realizing a diverse scale of award winning designs as both a collaborator and co designer.  Currently a Digital Modeling/ Parametrics Consultant for the City College of New York, Graduate Architecture Program, and has taught Digital Modeling and Representation at Pratt Institute Undergraduate School of Architecture as a Visiting Instructor and served as the Digital Consultant for the Degree Project Program.  He has been a consultant in Pratt’s international China program and his academic, collaborative and professional works have been published internationally in venues including, Domus and A+U.  Most recently he was a designer at Evan Douglis Studio and project coordinator for the Choice project, a 2010 James Beard Award Finalist.  As a Designer, Developer and Educator he continues to interrogate the relationship between a digital practice and material application across a diverse scale of design typologies and architectural concerns with a focus on synthesizing mathematics, poetics, and environments into articulate entities of design.

Sebastian Misiurek (Digital Expert) digital futures | linkedin
Sebastian Misiurek holds a Bachelor of Architecture degree from Pratt Institute School of Architecture, where he graduated with an outstanding merit award in 2009. He currently teaches at Pratt Institute, in the undergraduate department as a fabrication/digital consultant for comprehensive design and degree project studios and at City College of New York, in the graduate architecture school, teaching introductory digital media and representation, he has previously assisted with various design studios in the US and Asia. Sebastian has worked for Rockwell Group, Evan Douglis Studio, and is currently a project architect/designer at EASTON+COMBS where he managed their 2010 MoMA YAP entry which won an AIA merit award and the Figment: City of Dreams Pavilion competition. His work at these award-winning firms has ranged from digital/computational production and consulting to rapid prototyping and physical fabrication/casting, and has been published and exhibited internationally.