Tonight Mette Ramsgard Thomsen gave us a lecture questioning the role of digital in architecture: How can new ways of understanding the digital lead to new ways of understanding the material? Often digital and material are seen as different domains in architectural thinking.
By questioning the role of the digital, her talk pointed to new ways in which we can think material practice in architecture. The talk presented work from CITA’s research portfolio and showed case its practice based research method.

Mette Ramsgard Thomsen is an architect working with digital technologies. Her research centres on the relationship between crafts and technology framed through “Digital Crafting” as way of questioning how computation, code, material and fabrication challenge architectural thinking and material practices. Her work is practice lead and through projects such as Thicket, Slow Furl, Listener and Vivisection she investigates the design and realisation of a behavioural space. Mette is a Professor at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts, School of Architecture, where she heads the Centre for Information Technology and Architecture [CITA], that is a research centre at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, Schools of Architecture, Design and Conservation. CITA examines how new informationand communication technologies have consequence for architectural practice. Focusing on IT as a tool for design, production and communication, CITAs research centres on 3 key research areas: Digital Formations, investigating complex modelling as a new design tool for architecture and digital fabrication. Behaving Architectures, investigating new programmable materials and smart textiles and Interface Ecologies investigating real-time modelling, interface design and intelligent programming.