Will Patera is an architectural researcher, currently studying at Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Design and Computation Group. After receiving his Bachelor of Architecture degree from Cornell University, he moved to Bangkok and began work at Duangrit Bunnag Architects and currently serves as an adjunct professor of architecture Chulalongkorn University, International Program in Design and Architecture (INDA).

Central to his research at MIT, is the acknowledgement that space is becoming increasingly mediated by tightly intertwined social and technical agencies. These complex spatial relationships are ill understood by architects and social scientists. He seeks to develop new representational methods to reveal and potentially unravel socio-technical spaces. In order to achieve this goal, we need to develop new techniques to study the role of the human actor within this mediated space. This has led Will to research eye movements, the history of scientific instruments used to “measure” vision, develop tools to measure physiological vision, and conduct experiments. He is working in collaboration with Moritz Kassner on a joint thesis which extends their previous research on eye movements and subjective perception of space.

In the summer of 2010 he founded “INDA Berlin” in collaboration with Yarinda Bunnag and Carson Chan, that brought twenty-four architecture students from Bangkok to Berlin for six weeks of study. The project culminated in a temporary “restaurant” in Berlin Mitte, designed, constructed, and operated by students. In the summer of 2011, Patera, Bunnag, and Chan continued their collaboration and brought another 24 architecture students to Berlin for five weeks to research the concept of “Conflict Zones”.

Contact
~ hello [at] willpatera [dot] com ~