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Andrew Vrana

January 01, 2001 by Metalab Admin

Andrew Vrana is an Architect who has structured his practice around design informed by advanced computation and digital fabrication as well as a working knowledge of materials and building culture. This expertise was cultivated locally and internationally while at Texas A&M, Columbia University and though employment at the Renzo Piano Building Workshop in Genova, Italy.

A Houston native, he returned to Texas in 2002 to pursue practice in a city dealing with the challenges and opportunities of expansive growth and cultural change.  Since 2007 he has worked with Joe Meppelink and a capable staff at Metalab, a practice that endeavors to integrate the delivery of good design and unique building components with architecture, public art project management, and product design projects.  This is enabled by connecting with a network of fabricators in Houston who are able to build anything.  He maintains a connection to academia as a Visiting Assistant Professor at the College of Architecture at the University of Houston, where he has taught digital fabrication seminars and studios since 2005. Andrew seeks to merge the formal and material possibilities of contemporary design with a localized sensibility toward craft and quality of execution.

In 2009 he co-founded the non-profit organization TEX-FAB *Digital Fabrication Alliance to expand his interests in pursuing design research through the application of digital technology within the Texas region and beyond by organizing workshops, lectures and design competitions.