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Dr Izabela Wieczorek

staff profile pic
  • Master of Architecture (MArch) Programme Director
  • Interim Research Group Lead - The Urban Living group
  • Academic Lead Design Research Unit DRU#2 Regenerative Design
  • Module convenor of MArch Year 1 Architectural Design 1 & 2 modules
  • Module convenor of BScArch Year 3 Industry and Practice module
  • Dissertation supervisor
  • PhD supervisor
  • End of Year Show organisation
  • Member of the Public Art Steering Committee UoR
  • Member of the Urban Living Research Group (SBE).

Areas of interest

  • Transdisciplinary research and research by design
  • Design methodologies and representation
  • Spatial atmospheres and urban ambiances
  • Climate change and environmental imagination

Research centres and groups

The Urban Living Group

Academic qualifications

  • MSc Arch (with honours) Wydział Architektury Politechniki Krakowskiej, Poland
  • PhD (Cum Laude) Escuela Técnica Superior de Arquitectura Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (ETSAM UPM), Spain
  • Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.

Professional bodies/affiliations

  • Founder of Atmospheric Architecture Agency (AAA)
  • Founding partner and lead designer of G+W Gálvez & Wieczorek arquitectura (2003-2017)
  • EU-registered-architect in Spain Nº 16.452, Member of the Architects Association Madrid (Colegio de Arquitectos de Madrid, COAM) / Professional Council of Architects Associations in Spain (Consejo Superior de Colegios de Arquitectos de España, CSCAE), Architects Register (Registro de Arquitectos) Nº R. 50095.1.
  • External examiner for the higher artistic educational programmes uner the Danish Ministry of Higher Education and Science
  • Associate member of the international research platform Atmospheric Spaces: Aura, Stimmung, Ambiance
  • Associate member of the International Ambiances Network
  • Associate member of the International Associate for Aesthetics
  • Member of the reviewing committee of Ambiances. International Journal of Sensory Environment, Architecture and Urban Space

Selected publications

  • Wieczorek, Izabela. 'Materialized Immaterialization.' In A+T 47, Interior Matters, Series SOLID Harvard GSD, edited by Aurora Fernández Per and Javier Mozas. A+t Architecture Publishers, 2017, pp. 60–65. ISBN 978-84-608-9261-8.
  • Wieczorek, Izabela; Carbone, Claudia (eds.) Constructing an Archive. Yearbook 2015/2016. Aarhus: Aarhus School of Architecture, 2016, 190 pages. ISBN: 978-87-90979-57-7. Also available at: https://issuu.com/arkitektskolenaarhus/docs/yearbook-2015_16
  • Wieczorek, Izabela. 'Constructing Situations or Phenomeno-praxis.' In Ambiances, demain | Ambiances, tomorrow | Ατμόσφαιρες, Αύριο; Proceedings of the 3rd International Congress on Ambiances, edited by Nicolas Rémy and Nicolas Tixier. International Ambiances Network & University of Thessaly, 2016, pp. 719–724. ISBN: 978-2-9520948-6-3.
  • Wieczorek, Izabela. 'Atmospheric Materiality. Towards an Aesthetic Engagement and a Phenomenological Manifestation.' In Passpartout 37, Materialitet, 2016, pp.147–163, ISSN: 0908-5351.
  • Wieczorek, Izabela. 'From Atmospheric Awareness to Active Materiality.' In Practising Aesthetics, edited by Lilianna Bieszczad. Kraków: Wydawnictwo LIBRON-Filip Lohner, 2015, pp. 255–264. ISBN 978-83-65148-42-1.
  • Wieczorek, Izabela. 'From Perceptual Apparatus to Immersive Field of Experience. Notes on Atmospheric Perception.' In PERCEPTION in Architecture. HERE and NOW, edited by Claudia Perren, and Miriam Mlecek. Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2015, pp. 152–162. ISBN: 1-4438-7256-3.
  • Wieczorek, Izabela; Gálvez Peréz, Mª Auxiliadora, G+W Excepto 21. Cartografías activas/Active cartographies, Madrid: FUCOAM, ea! Ediciones de arquitectura, 2008, 80 pages. ISBN: 978-84-96656-52-9.

Career path

After studying architecture in Poland and Spain, Izabela worked for a few years for several renown architecture firms in Spain. In 2003 she co-founded an architecture practice, called G+W Galvez & Wieczorek arquitectura, which operated in Madrid until 2017. Their projects ranged from interior design and building design, to landscape and urban planning, exploring tools and methodologies of sensory design and experiences in urban living. G+W's works have been awarded prizes as well as published and exhibited widely, including a monographic exhibition Excepto 21, Active Cartographies, at the Fundación Cultural COAM (2008).

 

Situated at the nexus of academia and practice, Izabela's research focuses on the reception and production of spatial atmospheres and urban ambiances, exploring the inextricable relation between atmosphere and place-making and its affective, environmental, societal and political significance.

 

Over the last 20 years, Izabela's scholarly work and teaching – developed both individually and collectively – has covered fields and topics such as questions of perception and representation, somatic practices, technical mediation and the process of reflecting on and developing architecture by means of experimentation in the intersection of diverse disciplines and art forms.

 

Izabela's work has been presented, published and exhibited internationally, including, among others, the recent exhibition and forum ‘Cartographies of Imagination’ at OmVed Gardens, London (2021),  'Works+Words Biennale of Artistic Research in Architecture' at the The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, Schools of Architecture, Design and Conservation in Copenhagen (2019), the Spanish Pavilion Exhibition '#Becoming' at the XVI Venice Architecture Biennale (2018).

 

She has taught undergraduate, graduate as well as postgraduate courses in Architecture and Interior Design, and has been invited as a guest critic, lecturer and examiner to a number of institutions.

 

Her teaching has primarily focused on design methodologies, representation, critical writing and professional practice. Prior to joining the University of Reading, she taught at Arkitektskolen Aarhus (AAA), Departamento de Arquitectura Universidad de Alcalá de Henares (UAH), Escuela de Arquitectura Universidad Francisco de Vitoria (UFV), Universidad Pontificia de Salamanca Campus de Madrid (UPSAM), and Instituto Europeo di Design Madrid (IEDM). She has also been a visiting lecturer in Energy and Sustainability at a postgraduate professional programme of Advanced Studies in Collective Housing run by ETSAM UPM and ETH Zürich.

 

Since 2017, building on the previous research and following G+W's ethos, Izabela has been developing a project of 'Atmospheric Architecture Agency' (AAA). Conceived as a research-based design practice, with a particular interest in trans-disciplinary correspondences and experimental design methodologies, the AAA focuses on both historiography and applied aspects of spatial atmospheres and urban ambiances, exploring their implications for architectural practice and pedagogy.

Publications

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