About Us
Architecture Et cetera Lab (AEcL) is a practice-based research initiative established in 2020 by Cecilia Bischeri (head), Zuzana Kovar and Jessica Blair. The AEcL provides a productive forum for the overlap of academia and architectural practice via the production of practice-based research and ensures that the lab’s research and skills become widely accessible and practically usable.
Their research and projects take many forms including exhibitions, publications, consulting services, workshops and the designing of architectural artefacts in collaboration with local architects. The AEcL serves and collaborates with the local architectural community, primarily of the Gold Coast and Northern NSW to aid in the advancement of new ideas and innovation in local architecture. The collaboration with external industry and community partners bridges the gap between the definition of new architectural knowledge and the broader practises of architecture and its impact on the end users. The outcomes of collaborative practice-based research have the ability to directly influence architectural practices; communities in their appreciation of the worth and impact that architectural artefacts have in their everyday life; and the future generation of built environment practitioners.
Collaborators
Our role is enriched by collaboration with industry partners. We are grateful to work alongside the following associations, groups and businesses.
Who we are
Three emerging designers and academics from
the Discipline of Architecture & Design at Griffith University form the Architecture Et cetera Lab.
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CECILIA BISCHERI
Cecilia investigates the pressing issue of community resilience against natural disasters and social stressors.
Her research work has been published nationally and internationally and she exhibited her creative work on several occasions in Italy and China.
Cecilia is the Head at Architecture Et cetera Lab and Program Director for the Bachelor of Architectural Design Griffith University
Research interests: architecture of the city; community resilience; adaptation and architectural practice
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Zuzana Kovar
Zuzana's research focuses on the relations within and between bodies and spaces drawing on the philosophy of Julia Kristeva and process philosophers such as Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari.
She is interested in the notion of bodily boundaries and more broadly the conversations around bodies and spaces within the fields of architecture, philosophy, art and film. She teaches design and contemporary theory and is co-director of the architectural practice Zuzana & Nicholas
Research interests: processual frameworks and new materialism; architectural theory and philosophy; the body/ bodies
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JESSICA BLAIR
As well as teaching design and architectural history Jessica’s other areas of interest include: temporary architectural installation, material practices and making, and progressive pedagogical and practice methods.
As well as lecturing at Griffith University, Jessica also works for Seven Mile Architects based in the Northern Rivers.
Research interests: architecture and radicality; temporary architecture; material practices and making
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JOANNE CHOUEIRI
Joanne Choueiri is an architect, artist, and researcher from Beirut, Lebanon currently based in Brisbane, Australia. Her interest in memory, space, politics, and the archive has motivated her various works. Influenced by her own context and particularly the civil war, she recognised the importance of uncovering different facets of the past in an undocumented setting. Based on deeply rooted archival research, Choueiri proceeds to mix the architectural language of drawings, and models, with photography, and media installation producing stories of spaces. By exploring different scales of the city - the house, the building, the square- and their memory, she continuously seeks to create and recreate the archive, exposing aural and visual narratives from different contexts. As part of her PhD, she created a living archive commemorating demolished buildings in Beirut and Brisbane and the holes – physical and psychological traces- they leave behind.