Tzu-Chieh Kurt Hong, PhD

Assistant Professor of Architecture
School of Architecture and Design
University of Kansas, Lawrence KS

kurt.hong@ku.edu
k9krnd.net

About

Dr. Tzu-Chieh Kurt Hong is an assistant professor of the School of Architecture and Design at the University of Kansas. His current research is in both computation and design, including digital fabrication, algorithmic design, generative modeling, computer-aided design, visual computing, shape programming language and computational geometries.

In general, his research is aiming to bridging computing and desing driven by his dual professional backgrounds, that is, electrical enginnering and architecture design. Not only applying computing technologies to designs, such as generative modeling, algorithmic design and digital fabrication, but also contributing to computing with the notions of architecture design, for example, visual computing and shape programming language.

Dr. Tzu-Chieh Kurt Hong earned his PhD degree from the Georgia Institute of Technology in 2021; his MS-Arch degree from the University of Michigan; and his MArch degree from the National Chiao Tung University in Taiwan. Before he shifted to architecture, he had been working as a professional digital circuit engineer for four years. He earned his MS-EE degree and BS-EE degree from the National Chiao Tung University in Taiwan.

His PhD dissertation, Shape Machine: shape embedding and rewriting in visual design, is a research work on the implementation of a visual computing system, Shape Machine, which allows designers to visually process shape embedding and shape replacement in computer-aided design system. This dissertation received ARCC (Architectural Research Centers Consotium) Dissertation Award 2022, because of the contributions of shape recognition to CAD systems. Also, due to his outstanding research in architecture, he received ARCC King Medal in 2022.

Shape Machine has been used in digital fabrication studio in the School of Architecture and Design at the University of Kansas since 2022. And, it has been adopted in three design studios and two elective courses in the School of Architecture and the School of Interactive Computing at the Georgia Institute of Technology since 2019.

Appointments

Assistant Professor (2022-Now)
School of Architecture and Design
University of Kansas

PhD Instructotr (2019-2021)
School of Architecture
Georgia Institute of Technology

Lecturer (2014-2015)
Transdisciplinary Design Innovation Shop (TDIS)
National Chiao Tung University

Digital Circuit Designer (2009-2011), Agilogic Co., Taiwan
Digital Circuit Designer (2008-2009), Synerchip Co., Taiwan

Education

PhD, Georgia Institute of Technology

Dissertation:
SHAPE MACHINE: Shape Embedding and Rewriting in Visual Design. PhD Dissertation, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA USA.

MS-Arch, University of Michigan
MArch, National Chiao Tung University (Taiwan)
MSEE, National Chiao Tung University (Taiwan)
BSEE, National Chiao Tung University (Taiwan)