Feminism and digital cultures in architecture

The Focus Group examined the histories of digital practices in architecture through research, teaching, and curating. In collaboration with international scholars, it situated digital precedents within broader social, political, and economic frameworks, revealing how these histories shape contemporary discourse while uncovering overlooked methodologies and events in architectural history and theory

Focus Group:
Feminism and Digital Cultures in Architecture

Prof. Nathalie Bredella (Leibniz University Hannover), Alumna Anna Boyksen Fellow (funded as part of the Excellence Strategy of the federal and state governments)
Host: Prof. Dietrich Erben (TUM)

During the Fellowship, three academic workshops brought together international scholars to explore novel approaches to writing histories of the digital. Fabricating Archaeologies: Feminist Craft, Human Hands, and Intelligent Architectures examined how feminist and material practices inform digital and architectural narratives. Agentive Matter(s) considered how data-driven planning is reshaping architectural and urban practice. The final workshop, Desire and Denial: On Constructing and Contesting Infrastructures, critically engaged with narratives of technological progress and their entanglements with social, political, and material life. In collaboration with the Parity Jour Fixes and the TUMlab at the Deutsches Museum, we also developed formats that engaged a broader public, situating digital practices within a wider theoretical discourse (Fig. 1).

Fabricating archaeologies

The workshop foregrounded the intellectual contributions of its participating scholars, integrating research and pedagogical methodologies informed by feminist theory into both scholarly inquiry and university teaching (Fig. 2). By situating digital practices within feminist histories of labor, technology, and material practice, it established a conceptual framework through which researchers from the Deutsches Museum, KHK Aachen, University College London, Zurich University of the Arts, University of Edinburgh, Johannes Kepler University Linz, and the University of Art & Design Linz critically questioned dominant narratives of computation. Through this collective engagement, participants examined the epistemic and material intersections between craft and digital fabrication and analyzed the shifting forms of agency and entanglement emerging at the interface of human-machine practices. The workshop culminated in the co-authored paper “Field Notes: Histories of Technologies,” which is currently under peer review with Leonardo (MIT Press)

Fig. 1, Images documenting workshops and publications from the Fellowship.

Agentive Matter(s)

The workshop investigated how social discourses and knowledge cultures both inform and are reshaped by emerging technologies. Centering on design processes situated at the intersection of craft traditions, systems thinking, and algorithmic cultures, it probed the conditions under which technological knowledge can become more accessible, critically engaged, and socially responsive. Scholars from Carnegie Mellon University, TU Delft, the University of Manchester, ETH Zürich, the University of Stuttgart, and Leibniz University Hannover, together with researchers from TUM, presented related research and methodological approaches. The workshop further catalyzed a collaboration with Grayson Bailey and e-flux Architecture for the thematic issue “Technoecologies.” Collectively, these essays situate technological systems within broader practices of environmental stewardship, foregrounding the ecological ramifications of contemporary technological infrastructures. (Fig. 1 and Fig. 3).

Desire and Denial

Fig. 2, Poster from the Fabricating Archaeologies workshop, aalong with leaflets from associated events.

The third workshop examined infrastructures not just as technical systems, but as cultural and political orders that shape society and collective visions of the future.

At the same time, they operate through denial, obscuring environmental degradation, social inequality, political exclusion, and colonial legacies – a dynamic Donna Haraway identified in the 1980s in her critique of techno-scientific narratives of objectivity and innocence. Bringing together scholars from the University of Leipzig, ETH Zürich, NTU Athens, EPFL Lausanne, the University of Lisbon, the University of Manchester, the University of London, and the University of Newcastle, together with researchers from TUM, the workshop examined these tensions by interpreting infrastructures as politically contested, culturally appropriated, and symbolically charged sites of social conflict (Fig. 1 and Fig. 3). The workshop culminated in the book publication Desire and Denial (2025).

Parity Jour Fixes and TUMlab at the Deutsches Museum

Fig. 3, Posters produced for the Agentive Matter(s) and Desire and Denial workshops.

Collaborations with students at TUM and Leibniz University Hannover resulted in two events at the Parity Jour Fix: “Projective Walks – On Space, Atmospheres” and “Prepared Instruments and Craft Genealogies.” Both explored mapping technologies, highlighting techniques of mapping and data collection while critically engaging with feminist spatial practices. The project “Link it and Move it,” a collaboration between the TUMlab at the Deutsches Museum and the TUM-IAS brought the history of Laura and Leonardo Mosso’s “programmable architecture” to life through an interactive, robotic re-enactment. A workshop for teenagers and young adults combined storytelling with hands-on experimentation: Participants first explored the Mossos’ life and work via a specially created comic, then translated these concepts into practice using Arduino, robotics, and playful tinkering (Fig. 1).

Future research collaboration

A successful application for a Scoping Workshop grant from the VolkswagenStiftung –submitted in collaboration with PD Dr. Arianna Borrelli (TU Berlin) and Dr. Daniela Zetti (Universität zu Lübeck) – enabled the organization of a Scoping Workshop at Schloss Herrenhausen in August 2025 (Fig. 1). The workshop brought together international scholars to investigate the histories of the digital and to foster cross-disciplinary dialogue. Building on previous workshops, participants explored the digital’s historical dimensions from diverse disciplinary perspectives, each field offering unique methodologies and objectives.

Further exploration into the histories of digital technologies through oral history led to an interview conducted by Grayson Bailey and myself with Carl Steinitz, a founding member of the Laboratory for Computer Graphics and Spatial Analysis (LCGSA) at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. This research was later presented at the DESIGNSHS Workshop: Writing the History of Computer Visualizations in the Sciences: Production, Uses, Circulation (1940-1990), hosted at the École des hautes études en sciences sociales. Ongoing research will contribute to a forthcoming special issue on computer visualizations in the IEEE Annals of the History of Computing (2027), edited by Charlotte Bigg and Edgar Lejeune.

Ultimately, the Focus Group emphasized that understanding the histories of digital practices –considering their political, social, and material contexts and informed by feminist perspectives – allows for more nuanced and critical interpretations of technology. We also underscored the need for future research linking these historical insights to contemporary technological developments, fostering new research initiatives.

In close collaboration with Prof. Thomas Auer (TUM), Prof. Benedikt Boucsein (TUM), Prof. Kathrin Dörfler (TUM), Prof. Andres Lepik (TUM), Prof. Frank Petzold (TUM).

Selected publications

N. Bredella, “Theorie medialer Architekturen.”
In Handbuch Medientheorie im 21. Jahrhundert, edited by Christoph Ernst, Katerina Krtilova, Dominik Maeder, and Jens Schröter, 1–18.
Heidelberg: Springer, 2024.
G. Bailey, N. Bredella, and C. Steinitz. “Is That a Computer Program? Carl Steinitz on the Early Years of Harvard’s Laboratory for Computer Graphics and Spatial Analysis.” Dimensions of Architecture Knowledge 7 (2025): 79–97.
N. Bredella, G. Bailey, and e-flux Architecture, eds. Technoecologies. e-flux Architecture, 2025.
www.e-flux.com/architecture/technoecologies
N. Bredella, D. Erben, and G. Bailey, eds.
Desire and Denial: On Constructing and Contesting Infrastructures. Berlin: Distanz, 2025.
N. Bredella, G. Bailey, S. Prinz, G. Schaad, M. Friedman, M. C. Inglis, D. Pfau, E. Ravilious, and E. Lederman. “Field Notes: Histories on Technologies.” Unpublished manuscript, submitted to Leonardo

Full list of publications