Speakers
Joe Meppelink
METALAB is a design office that integrates expertise in digital media and fabrication with architecture, from concepts through construction. Our work spans a variety of scales from civic art to buildings to product design, concentrating on the innovative use of materials and new ways that construction can be made more efficient and accurate through technology. As researchers and facilitators working in the sprawling landscape of industry, production, and can-do attitude that is uniquely Houston, we are finding new ways to advance, and meet, our client's goals.
Joe Meppelink previously co-owned and operated METALAB as an architectural metal fabricating shop. This shop fabricated dozens projects in the Houston area, ranging from furniture to multi-story stair structures, and began steadily employing digital fabrication technologies in 1998. He is an Adjunct Assistant Professor at the Gerald D. Hines College of Architecture at the University of Houston. Joe also serves as Faculty Research Coordinator at the College of Architecture, where professional and academic efforts coincide in the development of Green Building components and products. Joe's dream is to design via constructive interplay between the often disparate camps of "architecture-design-technology" and "construction-fabrication-manufacturing".