Felecia Davis

• B.S. from Tufts University in 1982
• M.Arch. from Princeton University in 1993
• Ph.D. from Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2017

• Architectural Design I Graduate
• Architectural Design I Undergraduate
• Architectural Design II Undergraduate
• Directed Research Studio with Farzaneh Oghazian – “Lightweight Tension Structures: Understanding Material Behavior Using Physical, Digital, and Machine Learning Models”
• Directed Research Studio with Benay Gürsoy, Ali Ghazvinian, and Farzaneh Oghazian – “MycoKnit”
• Special Topics: Inquiry into Design and Computation
• Special Topics: Space/Body/Machine
• Special Topics: Responsive Architectural Fiber Composites
• Special Topics: Crafting Technology with Textiles
• Design Computing Guided Research
• Thesis [M.S./PhD]

2023

• Bogliascano Foundation Architecture Fellow, 2023, Liguria, Italy
• WOJR/Civitella Ranieri Foundation/WOJR Architecture Fellow
• Foundation for Contemporary Arts Fund Grant for Textural Threshold: Dreadlock
• Graham Foundation for the Advancement of the Arts, Project Grant for Textural Threshold: Dreadlock

2022

• Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum Award for Digital Design
• Association for Computer Aided Design in Architecture [ACADIA] Innovative Research Award of Excellence
• Architectural League of New York, Emerging Voices, Portfolio Competition Awardee

2018–21

• Agnes Scollins Carey Memorial Early Career Professorship in the Arts 2018-2021 for “Knitted Light: Construction of a 1:1Demonstration Prototype for a Solar Fiber Tension Shade Structure Using Fiber Optic Strands and Potentials for Fiber Optic Strands in Knitted Textiles,” College of Arts and Architecture, The Pennsylvania State University.

2019

• Stuckeman Family Faculty Career Advancement Incentive Award for Softbuilt: Computational Textile Architectures, book forthcoming from Actar-Press.

2018

• Stuckeman Faculty Career Incentive Grant 2018 for the book Softbuilt: Computational Textile Architectures.
• Best Paper Award for “Touch:Communication of Emotion Through Computational Textile Expression”. 6th International Conference on Distributed, Ambient, and Pervasive Interactions. Human and Computing Interactions International Conference, July.

2017–18

• H. Campbell and Eleanor Stuckeman Fund for Collaborative Research for “Woven Light: Manufacture of a Solar Fiber Tension Structure Shade Prototype Using Fiber Optic Strands”. Interdisciplinary Research with Department of Architecture, Department of Landscape Architecture, the Department of Architectural Engineering, the Department of Energy and Mineral Engineering and the Department of Materials Science and Engineering. The Pennsylvania State University, Stuckeman School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture.
• The Raymond A. Bowers Program for Excellence in Design and Construction in the Built Environment, for “Woven Light: Design of a Solar Fiber Tension Structure Shade Prototype using Fiber Optic Strands”. Interdisciplinary Research with Department of Architecture, Department of Landscape Architecture, and Department of Architectural Engineering. The Pennsylvania State University College of Engineering.

2016

• Innovation Grant 2016, College of Arts and Architecture for “Couture Computing: Wearable Computing” to develop a new Stuckeman Center for Design Computing course for graduate students offered spring 2018.

2015–16

• College of Arts and Architecture Individual Faculty Grant for “Wearable Water Filters”. The Pennsylvania State University College of Arts and Architecture.

2013

• Schlossman Research Award and Fellow, M.I.T. School of Architecture Planning [2013] For FELT: The Textility of Communicating Emotion.

2012

• Harold Horowitz Research Award, M.I.T. School of Architecture and Planning and the Media Lab [2012] For Patterning with Heat: Responsive Tension Structures.

2011

• Rosalia Ennis Research Award for African American Women, M.I.T. School of Architecture and Planning [2011] For Patterning with Heat: Responsive Tension Structures.
• Best Paper of Conference, for “Sensing Touch Curtain: Soft Architecture,” Iberoamerican Society of Digital Graphics (Sigradi) 2011, Augmented Culture, Santa Fe Argentina, November.
• M.I.T. Graduate Student Council Travel Award, University-Wide Award.

2009

• M.I.T. Presidential Fellow, University-Wide Award.

2023

• Textural Threshold: Dreadlock, exhibition in the Central Pavilion at the 18th Venice Architectural Biennale, The Laboratory of the Future, curated by Lesley Lokko. With Ian Danner, Daniel Escobar, Aysan Jafarzadeh, Hiranshi Patel, Lee Washesky, Huijuan Xu, Shu Zhao, and Matthew Dembiczak at Penn State. May 17 – Nov. 26.
• We are in the Wake: Visible/Invisible, exhibition at Civitella Ranieri Castle, Umbria, Italy. July, 2023.
• Dreadlock Series, Part of the Hair Salon: Black Hair as Architecture, curated by Sheryl Tucker de Vazquez, Group Exhibition with Marcella De Signore and William D. Williams, University of Houston Mashburn Gallery, Houston, February.
• Patterning by Heat: Responsive Textile Tension Structures, exhibit with D. Dumitrescu, Dhaka Art Summit 2023, curated by Sean Anderson, Into the Sky, Dhaka, February.

2021

• Patterning by Heat: Responsive Textile Tension Structures, Vers un imaginaire numérique exhibition. Group show curated by Daniel Cardoso Llash and Theodora Vardouli, Center de Design L’UQAM. Montreal, with Delia Dumitrescu, September.
• SEAM: Unstable Ground, Video at the Summer Exhibition, Royal Academy of Art, Part of the Architecture Exhibition Climate and Geography. Group show curated by David Adjaye and Yinka Shonibare, London, UK, September – December 2021.
• Fabricating Networks & Black Flower Antenna, part of the Reconstructions: Architecture and Blackness in America exhibition. A commission for designs and drawings to a group exhibition. Curated by Sean Anderson and Mabel O. Wilson. Museum of Modern Art, Department of Architecture and Design, and the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, New York, New York.

2019

• Made Sense: Matters of Art and Design Education: TOUCH panel presenter, Chaired by Yasmine Abbas and Aaron Knochel.
• Wearing the Future: Imagining the Possibilities, Workshop on sensors and wearables for health and wellness at the Penn State Hershey College of Medicine Co_chair with Dr. Rebecca Bascom M.D., March.

2018

• “Softbuilt: Networked Architectural Textiles,” Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation, Sept. 2018. Podcast GSAPP Conversations #52 with Alexander Odom.
• “Touch: Communication of Emotion through Computational Textile Expression,” Presentation at the Human Computer Interaction International 2018, Distributed, Ambient and Pervasive Interactions, Emotion and Ambient Computing, Las Vegas,” https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-91131-1_23.
• “Positioning Materials: Leggings for Physical Activity Classification”, Presentation at the WEAR NYC 2018 conference The Thread that Ties Us Together. Innovation Track, Material and Design Innovations. June.

2017

• “Softbuilt: Networked Architectural Textiles,” Presentation at the ArcInTex Body and Space: Cross Disciplinary Dialogues at the Swedish School of Textiles, April.
• “Quantified Walk: Knitted Prototype for Gait Monitoring,” Presentation for the Center for Research on Advance Fiber Technologies at the Programmable and Wearable Molecular Composites Symposium, The Pennsylvania State University, March.
• “FELT: Emotion, Space and Communication”, Presentation at the Between Data and Senses: Architecture, Neuroscience and the Digital Worlds, University of East London and Arup Global Research, London, March.
• “Quantified Walk: Knitted Prototype for Gait Monitoring”, Presentation at the Material Research Institute Millenium Cafe, February.

2016

• “FELT: Emotion, Space and Communication,” Exhibition in the Faculty Arts Research Space, Pennsylvania State University, College of Arts and Architecture December.
• “Quantified Walk: Knitted Prototype for Gait Monitoring,” Center for Health Organization Transformation Symposium, at The Pennsylvania State University, September.
• “Responsive Textile Panels,” Exhibition in the first Stuckeman Center for Design Computing Open House and Symposium Design + Computing, The Pennsylvania State University, School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture, April.

2015

• “Please Touch Gently,” Exhibition in the first Stuckeman Center for Design Computing Open House and Symposium, The Pennsylvania State University, Stuckeman School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture, April.

2012

• “Patterning by Heat: Responsive Textile Tension Structures,” November Keller Gallery, M.I.T. School of Architecture and Planning.
• “The Textile Mirror: The Geometry of Emotion,” video shown by the Design and Computation Group at the Advances in Architectural Geometry, Centre Pompidou, Paris, September.

2008

• “Liquid Wall,” Installation at Haefele Showroom for the International Furniture Fair New York, sponsored by The Architect’s Newspaper, Haefele and Raydoor, Spring.

2007

• “Urban Feedback Loop, the Rectangle, Urban Plan,” Curated Installations for the North-side of Pittsburgh, Exhibited at the Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Spring.
• “shotguns,” video drawing exhibited in the Drawn In Exhibition, at August Wilson Center for African American Culture, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Spring.

2004

• “Walking Tours: Urban Riffs” Exhibition in the harlemworld: Metropolis as Metaphor show at the Studio Museum in Harlem, January–April.

2001–02

• Installation at Project Rowhouses Shotguns Exhibition, Curated by David Brown and William D. Williams, Houston, Texas.

SELECTED WORKSHOPS AND LECTURES

2013

• “Soft Architectures: Computational Textiles and Augmented Space,” Invited to present to Gediminas Urbonas’ course in M.I.T. Art Culture and Technology Program, April.

2012

• “3D printed Textiles” Workshop for Leah Buechley’s New Textiles Course, MIT Media Lab, April, Workshop Lead, Felecia Davis.
• “Form Active Structures and Digital Translations” Workshop at the Swedish School of Textiles March, Workshop Lead, Felecia Davis.
• “Soft Architectures,” Lecture at the Swedish School of Textiles in Boras Designer Seminar Series March.

BOOKS/BOOK CHAPTERS

Forthcoming 2024

• Softbuilt: Computational Textile Architectures, Actar-D Press.
• Chapter,”Textural Thresholds: Dreadlock,” with Dr. Xu. Huijuan and Zhao, Shu, in Artificial Intelligence and Materials, Edited by M. Kretzer, Published by AADR – Art Architecture Design Research.

2022

• Chapter, “ Fabricating Networks Quilt: Designing an Architecture of Social and Physical Spaces” in Architectures of Weaving:From Fibers and Yarns to Scaffolds and Skins, Eds. Christiane Sauer, Ebba Fransén Waldhör, Maxie Schneider, and Mareike Stoll, Jovis Books, Berlin, 2022.

2019

• Chapter, “FELT: Emotion, Space and Communication,” in Data, Architecture and the Experience of Place, Ed. Anastasia Karandinou, Routledge-Taylor Press.

2017

• Chapter, “FELT: Communicating Emotion Through a Shape Changing Textile Wall Panel” in Textiles for Advanced Applications ed. Bipin Kumar, Intech Publishers, Croatia, fall.
• Chapter, “Knitted Heat-Active Textiles: Pixelated Reveal and the Radiant Daisy” in Acive Matter, ed. Skylar Tibbits, M.I.T. Press, Cambridge, MA, fall.
• Book Editor with José Duarte, Design + Computing, Stuckeman Center for Design Computing, School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture, Penn State, fall.
• Dissertation, Softbuilt: Computational Textiles and Augmenting Space Through Emotion, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

2014

• Chapter co-Author with Mabel Wilson and Yolande Daniels, “Inside and Out: Three Black Women’s Perspectives on Architectural Education in the Ivory Tower” in Space Unveiled: Invisible Cultures in the Design Studio ed. Carla Bell, Routledge Press.

2013

• Patterning by Heat: Responsive Textile Structures, Catalogue SA+P Press, Cambridge, Mass.

2007

• “One Week, Eight Hours” in The Green Tripod: Ecology, Economy and Social Equity in Service of Sustainable Design ed. Kim Tanzer and Rafael Longoria, Routledge Press Spring.

2004

• Chapter “One Week, Eight Hours” in Row: Trajectories Through The Shotgun Rowhouse ed. David P. Brown and William D. Williams by Rice University School of Architecture Press, Houston Texas.
• “Walking Tours: Urban Riff” in harlemworld: Metropolis as Metaphor The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York.

2001

• Chapter “Places of Memory: Walking Tours of Manhattan” in Sites of Memory: Perspectives on Architecture and Race ed. Craig E. Barton by Princeton Architectural Press.

2000

• Chapter “(un)Covering/ (re)Covering” in White Papers, Black Marks ed. Lesley Naa Norel Lokko by Athlone Press, London.

KEY PUBLICATIONS

2023

• “Notes from a Design Research Studio: MycoKnit Thin Shell Structures,” by Davis, Felecia; Gursoy, Benay; Ghazvinian, Ali; and Oghazian, Farzaneh. Biohybrid Materials and Technologies for Today and Tomorrow: A Workshop, National Academies, Sciences, Engineering and Medicine,  January  12-13, Washington DC.

2022

• “Form-finding of Architectural Knitted Tensioned Structures” by Oghazian, Farzaneh; Moradzadeh, Sam; and Davis, Felecia, in Hybrids and Haecceities, ACADIA 2022, Oct. 27-29 Philadelphia.
• “Tuning in: Reflecting in the Wake of Blackness through a Knitted Flower Antenna”, by Davis, Felecia; Lewis, Erin; Oghazian, Farzaneh; and Evrim, Berfin. Possibilities, 27th International Symposium on Electronic Art (ISEA), Barcelona, June 10-16.
• Demonstration: “Petal Antenna: A Knitted Textile EMF Sensor” by Davis, Felecia; Lewis, Erin; Oghazian, Farzaneh; and Evrim, Berfin. Possibilities, 27th International Symposium on Electronic Art (ISEA), Barcelona, June 10-16.
• “Calibrating a Formfinding Algorithm for Simulation of Tensioned Knitted Textile Architectural Models.” by Oghazian, Farzaneh; Brown, Nathan; and Davis, Felecia. Post Carbon, The Association for Computer-Aided Architectural Design Research in Asia, Sydney, Australia (CAADRIA), April 9-15.

2021

• “Game-Based Responsive Architecture: A Computational Methodology for Designing Game-Based Responsive Architectures” by Oghazian, Farzaneh and Davis, Felecia. Proceedings for the Design Communication Association, Vision and Perception Conference, October.
• “A simulation process for implementation of knitted textiles in developing architectural tension structures” by Oghazian, Farzaneh and Davis, Felecia. Inspiring the Next Generation, International Annual Symposium and Spatial Structures Conference [IASS] 23-27 August, p. 117.

2020

• “Circuit Game: A Craft Based Electronic Building Practice”. By Oghazian, Farzaneh and Davis, Felecia. Proceedings HCII 2020, Distributed, Ambient and Pervasive Interactions, Copenhagen, July.
• “The Phototropic Fiber Composite Structure,” by Davis, Felecia, Demi Ajayi, Jimi, Huang, Julian, Kuo, Karen, Pun, in Open, Proceedings from the Annual Meeting, ACSA, San Diego, CA, June.

2017

• “What If? Spaces: Practices for Diversity, Equity, Place, Identity and Change”, In PLATFORM, Convergent Voices, Eds. Nichole Wiedemann and Charlton N. Lewis. https://soa.utexas.edu/publications/platform
• “SciTech Now, Women in Science Profile, Episode 318” Broadcast March 20, WPSU/PBS/NPR Podcast, Produced by Cheraine Stanford. http://wpsu.psu.edu/tv/programs/scitechnow/episode-318/
• “Women in Science Profiles” WPSU http://wpsu.psu.edu/digital/women-in-science-profiles/felecia-davis/ January.
• “Women in Science Profiles Live Chats with Local Schools” WPSU https://wpsu.psu.edu/digital/women-in-science-profiles/felecia-davis/chat-with-felecia-davis/ February.

2013

• “Actuating Mood: Design of the Textile Mirror,” Seventh International Conference on Tangible, Embedded and Embodied Interaction February 10–13. Barcelona, Spain. First Author, with Asta Roseway, Erin Carroll, and Mary Czerwinski. Demonstration of the Textile Mirror and Paper Presentation.

2012

• “3D Printed Textiles from Textile Code: Structural Form and Material Operations” in Iberoamerican Society of Digital Graphics (Sigradi) 2012, In (Formation), Fortaleza, Brazil, and November, 327–331.
• “Form Active Translations: Knitted Textiles to 3D Printed Textiles” in Iberoamerican Society of Digital Graphics (Sigradi) 2012, In (Formation), Fortaleza, Brazil, November, 392-396.
• “Sensing Touch Curtain: Soft Architecture and Augmented Communication,” in International Journal of Architecture and Computation, Vol. 10 (2), 219–236.

2011

• “Sensing Touch Curtain: Soft Architecture,” in Iberoamerican Society of Digital Graphics (Sigradi) 2011, Augmented Culture, Santa Fe Argentina, November.
• “Telephoning Textiles: Networked Soft Architectures Iberoamerican Society of Digital Graphics (Sigradi) 2011, Augmented Culture, Santa Fe Argentina, November.