ARB/RIBA DiplArch Svetla Popova is a Germany-based freelance experimental and innovation design researcher at the initiative Urban Virtuality, as well as a RIBA Professional Diploma in Architecture ca... Read more

ARB/RIBA DiplArch Svetla Popova is a Germany-based freelance experimental and innovation design researcher at the initiative Urban Virtuality, as well as a RIBA Professional Diploma in Architecture candidate at the Architectural Association School of Architecture in London. She is an architect, art and architectural historian, artist and designer, and a contemporary design scholar with published work at the Glasgow School of Art and Researchgate.net. She has contributed in scientifically-centered experimental, robotics and ecological design in architecture firms in London and Sofia, Bulgaria, amongst which Iain Duncan's FabLab in Essex, Ordinary London, Imperial College London's Material Lab and 10AM Sofia. Other contributions include Vassar College's Art History Department's Image Library, Frances Lehman Loeb Arts Center and the Russian Studies Department Image Database. Her architecture and design work looks at urban developments, innovative technologies, science fiction, virtual reality and artificial intelligence as ways to inform user-centered design such as a floating colony on Venus, published in Cloud Ten by Springer, a nano-engineered bagasse ash facade, a running water facade, sound as a design tool. Svetla received a BA in liberal arts at Vassar College, followed by RIBA Parts 1 and 2 qualifications from the Mackintosh School of Architecture. She is currently wokring on an independent publication on Balkan Modernism design and doing research in virtual reality and bionic design in preparation of a PhD degree at the University of Tokyo.