Vera Parlac

Vera Parlac is an architect and educator focusing on integrative approach to design and practice. She is a registered architect in Pennsylvania, and an associate professor of architecture at the Hillier Collage of Architecture and Design, New Jersey Institute of Technology. She received a diploma engineer in architecture degree from University of Belgrade and master’s degree in architecture from University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). Vera Parlac is a founder of the Building Dynamics Laboratory, a design research laboratory where design is engaged as a broadly integrative endeavor by fluidly navigating across different disciplinary territories.

Prior to her appointment at NJIT, she taught design and other subjects at several universities in Canada, Asia and North America, most recently at University of Calgary. Vera has worked in architectural firms in Philadelphia, Toronto, Boston, Miami, and Los Angeles, including Carlos Zapata Design Studio and Kieran Timberlake Associates.

M.Arch.; University of California-Los Angeles; Architectural Design; 1993

B.Arch.; University of Belgrade; Faculty of Architecture; 1988

2022 Runner Up for the TPJ Best Paper Award for 2021 , The Plan Journal (TPJ)

ARCH 495 - ADV. ARCHITECTURE STUDIO I

I see teaching as a highly integrative activity, a site for crossing boundaries between practice, scholarship, and pedagogy. Teaching for me is not only a way of transmitting knowledge but also a way of developing abilities to apply what is learned. Critical in this process is skill to link elements, perceptions, and facts of different nature. In my teaching I focus on helping students to recognize and reveal these links. I strive to integrate course material I teach with other subjects and find connection across curriculum to enable student to recognize the links between the elements, perceptions and facts of different nature.

I teach design studio courses across the curriculum, construction courses and seminars in my area of research

Vera’s current design and research is focused on responsive materials (such as shape memory alloy) and inflatable pneumatic muscles, and their integration into architectural assemblies. This research is informed by contemporary models in biology, material science research, soft robotics and mechatronic systems and centers on experiments with composite materials and assemblies that embody behavior and have capacity to adapt under external and internal influences.

Soft Kinetics: Façade Shading System
I have built several prototypes of a kinetic façade system that uses inflatable muscles (pneu) to provide adaptive shading.

Interactive Skins for Architectural Adaptation: Design and fabrication of a dynamic electro-mechanical unit
The Ibero-American Society of Digital Graphics (SIGraDi), June 2024

Adapting at the Water Edge
Springer, January (1st Quarter/Winter) 2024

Tessellated Origami Surface and Soft Robotics
International Association for Shell and Spatial Structures (IASS), June 2023

Soft Robotic Tessellated Origami Surface
Architectural Research Centers Consortium, June 2023

Resilience at the Water’s Edge
Architectural Research Centers Consortium, Inc. , August 2022

Integrating Soft Robotics into Architectural Assemblies
Tectonics Press, March 2020

Distributed Pneu Elements for Surface Kinetics
International Association for Shell and Spatial Structures (IASS), October (4th Quarter/Autumn) 2019

Parlac, Vera (2022). Material Dynamics in Architecture. The Plan Journal/Centauro Srl., 6(The Good Material Issue 2), 501-520.

Parlac, Vera (2021). Architecture and Soft Kinetics: Scale and Performance. The Plan Journal/Centauro Srl., Volume 6(Open Issue 1), 69-86.

Parlac, Vera (2021). Performative Material Morphologies, Mitra Kanaani (Ed.), Routledge. (pp. 301-316). New York, NY: Routledge

International Journal of Architectural Computing (IJAC) editorial board (ACADIA representative)
Editorial Review Board Member, 2018