Areti Markopoulou

Areti Markopoulou is a Greek architect, researcher and urban technologist working at the intersection between architecture and digital technologies. She is the Academic Director at IAAC in Barcelona, where she also leads the Advanced Architecture Group, a multidisciplinary research group exploring how design and science can positively impact and transform the present and future of our built spaces, the way we live and interact. Her research and practice focus on redefining the architecture of cities through an ecological and technological spectrum combining design with biotechnologies, new materials, digital fabrication and big data.

Areti is co-founder of the art/tech gallery StudioP52 and co-editor of Urban Next, a global network focused on rethinking architecture through the contemporary urban milieu. She is the project coordinator of a number of European funded research projects on topics including urban regeneration, circular design and multidisciplinary educational models in the digital age.

Areti is the founder and is currently chairing the Responsive Cities International Symposium in Barcelona while she has served as Head Curator of international exhibitions such as Future Arena and On Site Robotics (Building Barcelona Construmat 2017-19), Print Matter (In3dustry 2016), HyperCity (Shenzhen Bi-city Biennale, 2015) and MyVeryOwnCity (World Bank, BR Barcelona, 2011). She is an author and editor of Learning Cities, Collective Intelligence in Urban Design (Actar, 2022) and co-editor of Black Ecologies (Actar, 2019) and Disrupting through Circular Design (IAAC, 2019).

Areti has been also the initiator and was a Partner in the Fab Lab Athens, a digital fabrication laboratory aiming to empower users and makers through new technological means. She holds a Phd on Responsive Buildings & Materials from the Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya (UPC), a March from IAAC, a Fab Academy Diploma on Digital Fabrication by the Fab Lab Network and a bachelor’s in Architecture & Engineering from Democritus University of Thrace.

Areti has been appointed the Head Co-Curator for the Tallinn Architecture Biennale 2022 under the theme “Edible, Or, The Architecture of Metabolism” which explores the intersections of architecture, food systems, and regenerative design.