Director of D.DLab
Shany Barath is an architect and the founder of Disrupt.Design Lab (D.DLab) at the Faculty of Architecture and Town Planning, Technion. Her research focuses on architecture at the intersection of material systems, manufacturing technologies, and computational methods to enable sustainable design processes that are responsive to environmental and cultural localities. Her work emphasizes the importance of addressing new and critical issues in contemporary practice, which increasingly demand interdisciplinary approaches, and highlights the evolving role of architectural design in effectively navigating these complex intersections.
Transitioning from practice to academia, her background is distinct from the typical academic. She earned her M.Sc. in Architecture from TU Delft and joined the landscape-architecture office West8, addressing the impact of urbanization on biodiversity and climate change. Seeking comprehensive approaches, she pursued an M.Arch at the Architectural Association Design Research Lab, focusing on a research-through-design (RTD) approach for computational design and ecosystem-specific materials. While completing her thesis, she began teaching at the AA and spent nearly a decade developing RTD in her roles as Studio Master (Senior Lecturer) and Program Head. Concurrently, she practiced computational design at UNStudio, contributing to the initiation of interdisciplinary, planet-centered research initiatives. These experiences led her to co-found ShaGa Architects, applying experimental computational and manufacturing methods in architectural and urban design practice.
Upon joining the Technion, and once immersed in the Technion campus, she was captivated by the significant potential for impactful scientific contributions and collaborations through design-led interdisciplinary research, and founded D.DLab as a community to pursue higher-ordered goals, enabling designers to actively participate in formulating new directions for the built environment.
Under her direction, Shany and the lab have won significant international and national awards, including the Goldberg Research Fund for an outstanding research contributing to Israel’s industry, the Climate Solution Prize for Breakthrough Research on the CyanoCementation project, the International Design Educates Award Gold Prize and Emerging Designer Award on the WoodenWood research. In Milan Design Week 2023, the robotic non-planar wooden printed stools were among the 12 projects annualy selected in the Fuorisalone Award Sustainability category out of over a thousand entries. Additional selections in influential design platforms include the Dezeen Award selection of 15 projects in the Sustainability Material Innovation category, and Frame magazine selection of 8 exemplery designs of sustainable materials that are transforming seating production. Her work has been widly published as visionary and forward thinking singling her out as “paving the way to the future we want”.
