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GRANULAR TOPOLOGIES
www.ilmarhurkxkens.com

The work of Ilmar Hurkxkens focuses on the form and processes of natural granular materials using advanced landscape surveying, modelling, and fabrication techniques. After graduating in architecture with an honourable mention from Delft University of Technology, he worked at the Chair of Landscape Architecture of Professor Christophe Girot, ETH Zurich, where he was DesignLab coordinator and member of the Landscape Visualization and Modeling Lab. He received the Young Researcher Award from the Volkswagen Foundation in 2013, the Digital Culture Work Grant from the Migros Culture Percentage with Ungenau Robotics in 2018 and in 2020 he was nominated for the ETH Medal for his dissertation “Robotic Landscapes” at the NCCR Digital Fabrication. He is co-founder of LANDSKIP, a laboratory centred on the production and deployment of new technologies for landscape transformation. His own firm Studio Ilmar Hurkxkens works on landscape architectural projects in Switzerland, Netherlands and Greece. As co-editor of Pamphlet 19, he assessed the importance of field instruments for landscape design. Currently, he holds a postdoc position at Gramazio Kohler Research, is lecturer in the Master of Science in Landscape Architecture ETH Zurich and co-editor of the upcoming publication “Robotic Landscapes: Designing the Unfinished” by Park Books in Zurich.

DESIGN RESEARCH
PUBLICATIONS
LECTURES
EXHIBITIONS
AWARDS
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ROBOTIC LANDSCAPES—Examples from the Design Research Studios
November 2021 LECTURE
With Jésus Medina from Gramazio Kohler Research, given at Architecture and Urban Design, UCLA
Dynamic Landscape Topologies
September 2021 LECTURE
Seminar Course Landscape Architecture at the Graduate School of Design, Harvard University
Robotic embankment: Free-form autonomous formation in terrain with HEAP
June 2021 JOURNAL ARTICLE
Dominic Jud, Ilmar Hurkxkens, Christophe Girot, Marco Hutter
In: Construction Robotics
https://doi.org/10.1007/s41693-021-00061-0
Scientific Excellence Award
May 2021 
Ilmar Hurkxkens, Dave Pigram, and James Melsom
By the Journal of Digital Landscape Architecture for the article
“Shifting Sands: Experimental Robotic Earth-Moving Strategies in Dynamic Coastal Environments”
Shifting Sands: Experimental Robotic Earth-Moving Strategies in Dynamic Coastal Environments
May 2021 PEER REVIEWED JOURNAL ARTICLE
Ilmar Hurkxkens, Dave Pigram, and James Melsom
In: JoDLA. Journal of Digital Landscape Architecture
doi:10.14627/537705003
© 2021
Studio Ilmar Hurkxkens
Kanzleistrasse 95
8004 Zurich, Switzerland
mail@ilmarhurkxkens.com

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