Skylar Tibbits is a trained architect, designer, computer scientist, and artist whose research focuses on developing self-assembly technologies for large-scale applications in our physical environment. Skylar is currently a faculty member in MIT’s Department of Architecture, teaching graduate and undergraduate design studios and co-teaching How to Make (Almost) Anything, a seminar at MIT’s Media Lab. He was awarded a TED2012 Senior Fellowship and a TED2011 Fellowship and was named a Revolutionary Mind in Seed magazine’s 2008 Design Issue. Previously, he has worked at a number of renowned design offices, including Zaha Hadid Architects, Asymptote Architecture, and Point b Design. He has designed and built large-scale installations around the world, in locations including New York, Philadelphia, Paris, Calgary, Berlin, Frankfurt, Long Beach, Edinburgh, and Cambridge. He has also exhibited work at prestigious institutions including the Guggenheim Museum NY, the Beijing Biennale, and the Storefront for Art and Architecture and lectured at MoMA and Seed Media Group’s MIND08 Conference. He has been published extensively online and in print outlets such as the New York Times, Wired, Nature, Fast Company, various peer-reviewed journals, and books including Fabricate: Making Digital Architecture, Digital Architecture, Testing to Failure, Scripting Cultures, and Form + Code. He has also guest-lectured at schools around the world, including the University of Pennsylvania, the Institute for Computational Design, the Architectural Association, Pratt Institute, and Harvard’s Graduate School of Design.
Skylar has a professional bachelor of architecture degree with a minor in experimental computation from Philadelphia University. He received an MS in design and computation and an MS in computer science from MIT under the guidance of advisors Patrick Winston, Neil Gershenfeld, Erik Demaine, and Terry Knight.
Skylar is also the founder and principal of a multidisciplinary architecture, art, and design practice, SJET. Started in 2007 as platform for experimental computation and design, SJET has grown into a research-based practice crossing disciplines such as architecture, design, sculpture, fabrication, computer science, and robotics.