Zenovia Toloudi: metamaquette

The department of Studio Art welcomes Zenovia Toloudi to the faculty. She is currently teaching architecture here at the Black Visual Arts Center. She has a show opening up at the Strauss Gallery Jan. 13-Mar. 10.

Zenovia Toloudi is an architect, artist, and critic. Before coming to Dartmouth, she was a Visiting Fellow at Harvard Graduate School of Design (GSD), and has been a Research Affiliate at MIT Art, Culture, and Technology (ACT). Her research builds on a cultural approach of technology, craftsmanship, and activism in architecture with installations that interplay with the physical qualities of space (air, light, sound) and their sensual perception (smell, vision, hearing) to enhance awareness and participation. Zenovia has received her doctorate from Harvard GSD, and architectural degrees from IIT Architecture and Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. Her doctoral dissertation, entitled On Architectural Taste and Identity: Experimenting with PICANICO Game, explores the creation of a new classification of architectural typologies that emerge from user preferences and how this compares to academic ones. She is recipient of a Fulbright Fellowship, and has received several other grants, awards, and prizes.

In 2000, Zenovia founded Studio Z, a research and art-design practice that centers on architecture, ephemeral and adaptive structures, and experiential installations. Her work has been exhibited internationally, including Venice Biennale, The Lab at Harvard, Athens Byzantine Museum, MIT, and Aristotle University's permanent Sculpture Collection; and has been presented in conferences such as the ACSA 101, the Atmosphere Symposium 5, Connections (MIT Media Lab) SiGraDi, Design Computing and Cognition, and the MIT Energy Night (MIT Museum). Zenovia has co-curated the exhibition Made in Greece Plus at the Boston Museum of Science, and organized many academic events including Brain.Storms, Inspire Japan; Critical Digital conferences. She has been the author and editor at various media websites, like SHIFTboston and Bee-Zee. Zenovia has taught at Harvard, MIT, and currently teaches at Wentworth Institute of Technology, and Boston Architectural College. She has developed graduate and undergraduate courses in topics such as interventions in public space, history/ theory of installations, models/ model thinking, material/ immaterial, and temporary structures.