Laia Mogas-Soldevila

Ph.D. IDOC, Tufts University, Biomedical Engineering, The Silklab
S.M., Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Media Lab, Mediated Matter Group
S.M., Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Architecture, Design Computation Group
MArch & BArch., Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya, Escola Tecnica Superior d’Arquitectura

Laia Mogas-Soldevila is an Assistant Professor of Graduate Architecture and Director of DumoLab Research at the Stuart Weitzman School of Design, University of Pennsylvania. Laia's research focuses on new sustainable material practices bridging science, engineering and the arts. Her broader pedagogy supports novel theory and applied methods understanding materials and materialization in architecture. She has built scholarship over the past ten years reconsidering matter as a fundamental design driver and partnering with scientists to redesign it towards unprecedented capabilities. Laia holds an interdisciplinary doctorate bridging materials science, biomedical engineering, and design from Tufts University School of Engineering, two master's degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and is a licensed architect with a minor in Fine Arts by the Polytechnic University of Catalonia School of Architecture.

Recent Press

Read about one of DumoLab's latest projects on Weitzman News.

Read a People and Places piece on DumoLab at Penn Today.

Read an interview between Mogas-Soldevila and Design Weekly.

List of relevant publications:

Ho G., Kubusova V., et al., (2023) "Multi-scale Design of Biologically Active Architectural Structures". Edited by Martyn Dade-Robertson, Frontiers in Bioengineering Biotechnology - Biomaterials, Special Issue on Biological Fabrication Beyond Tissue Engineering (in review) (Corresponing author Mogas-Soldevila L.)

Mogas-Soldevila, L. (2023). "Low Energy Adaptive Biological Material Skins from Nature to Buildings". In: Wang, J., Shi, D., Song, Y. (eds) Advanced Materials in Smart Building Skins for Sustainability. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-09695-2_2

Mogas-Soldevila, L. (2022) “Reviving Matter: Modification, Substitution, Augmentation, and Interaction in Exemplar Biomaterial Architectures”. Chapter in Bio/Matter/Techno/Synthetics: Design Futures for the More than Human. Franca Trubiano, Marta Llor and Susan Kolber Ed., ACTAR, ISBN: 9781638409854.

Guidetti G., d'Amone L., Kim T., Matzeu G., Mogas-Soldevila L., Napier B., Ostrovsky-Snider N., Roshko J., Ruggeri E., and Omenetto F.G. (2022). "Silk materials at the convergence of science, Sustainability, Healthcare, and Technology", Applied Physics Reviews 9, 011302. https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0060344

Mogas-Soldevila, L. (2021). "Material speculation: a Science and Craft". In Under Pressure: Essays on Urban Housing. Hina Jamelle Ed., Routledge NY,  ISBN 978-0367481711. https://www.routledge.com/Under-Pressure-Essays-on-Urban-Housing/Jamell…

Mogas-Soldevila L., Matzeu G., Lo Presti M., Omenetto F., (2021). Additively manufactured leather-like silk protein materials, Materials & Design, 203, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.matdes.2021.109631

Mogas-Soldevila L., Matzeu G., Lo Presti M., Omenetto F., (2021). "Additively Manufactured Leather-like Silk Protein Materials", Materials & Design, 203, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.matdes.2021.109631

Matzeu, G., Mogas-Soldevila, L., Li, W., Naidu, A., Turner, T. H., Gu, R., Blumeris, P. R., Song, P., Pascal, D. G., Guidetti, G., Li, M., & Omenetto, F. G. (2020). Large‐Scale Patterning of Reactive Surfaces for Wearable and Environmentally Deployable Sensors. Advanced Materials, 32(28). https://doi.org/10.1002/adma.202001258

Mogas-Soldevila, L. (2018). Formalizing Infinite Properties: Beyond Functionalism in Design. ACTAR UrbanNEXT, Designing Matter. https://urbannext.net/formalizing-infinite-properties/

Mogas-Soldevila, L. (2015). Water-based Digital Design and Fabrication: Material, Product, and Architectural Explorations in Printing Chitosan and its Composites [Thesis | Massachusetts Institute of Technology]. https://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/101828

Mogas-Soldevila, L., & Oxman, N. (2015). Water-based engineering & fabrication: Large-scale additive manufacturing of biomaterials. Materials Research Society MRS Symposium Proceedings, 1800. https://doi.org/10.1557/opl.2015.659

Mogas-Soldevila, L., Duro, J., & Oxman, N. (2015). FORM FOLLOWS FLOW: A Material-driven Computational Workflow For Digital Fabrication of Large-Scale Hierarchically Structured Objects. Computational Ecologies: Design in the Anthropocene Proceedings of the 35th Annual Conference of the Association for Computer Aided Design in Architecture (ACADIA).

Mogas-Soldevila, L., Duro, J., Kayser, M., Lizardo, D., Patrick, W., Sharma, S., Keating, S., Klein, J., Inamura, C., & Oxman, N. (2015). DESIGNING THE OCEAN PAVILION: Biomaterial Templating of Structural, Manufacturing, and Environmental Performance. Proceedings of the International Association for Shell and Spatial Structures (IASS) Symposium.

Mogas-Soldevila, L., Duro, J., & Oxman, N. (2014). Water-based Robotic Fabrication: Large-scale Additive Manufacturing of Functionally-graded Hydrogel Composites via Multichamber Extrusion. 3D Printing and Additive Manufacturing, 1(3). https://doi.org/10.1089/3dp.2014.0014

Duro, J., Zolotovsky, K., Mogas-Soldevila, L., Varshney, S., Oxman, N., Boyce, M. C., & Ortiz, C. (2014). MetaMesh: A hierarchical computational model for design and fabrication of biomimetic armored surfaces. Computer-Aided Design Journal. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cad.2014.05.005

Mogas-Soldevila, L., Duro-Royo, J., & Oxman, N. (2014). Water-Based Robotic Fabrication: Large-Scale Additive Manufacturing of Functionally Graded Hydrogel Composites via Multichamber Extrusion. 3D Printing and Additive Manufacturing, 1(3), 141–151. https://doi.org/10.1089/3dp.2014.0014

Mogas-Soldevila, L. (2013). New design companions: Opening up the Process through Self-made Computation [Thesis | Massachusetts Institute of Technology]. https://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/82271