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 595 - ADV. ARCHITECTURE STUDIO II

ARCH 361 - ADAPTIVE PARADIGMS IN ARCH.

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.

Vera Parlac. 2022. “Material Dynamics in Architecture.” The Plan Journal/Centauro Srl., vol. 6, no. The Good Material Issue 2, pp. 501-520.

Vera Parlac. 2021. “Architecture and Soft Kinetics: Scale and Performance.” The Plan Journal/Centauro Srl., vol. Volume 6, no. Open Issue 1, pp. 69-86.

Vera Parlac. 2021. “Performative Material Morphologies.” In Mitra Kanaani (Eds.), The Routledge Companion to Paradigms of Performativity in Design and Architecture: Using Time to Craft an Enduring, Resilient and Relevant Architecture pp. 301-316. New York, NY, United Kingdom: Routledge, 2021.

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