Daniel Tish is a designer and researcher whose work lies at the intersection of digital fabrication, material science, sustainability, and computation, investigating new design opportunities through the lens of bespoke materiality. Daniel’s research develops a new generation of carbon-negative biocomposites derived from microorganisms and methods for their robotic fabrication. He configures circular economies and technological solutions to address the high carbon footprint of architecture and the built environment. The research establishes multi-disciplinary collaborations with domain experts in material science and biology and operates between design and science to deliver this critical new material technology. Meanwhile, the work also challenges the ubiquity of industrialized materials in digital fabrication spaces. It creates fabrication methods to cater to the unpredictable nature of many biomaterials, dovetailing with the current research focus on cyber-physical systems in the computational design and fabrication community.

Daniel is a Doctor of Design candidate and member of the MaP+S group at the GSD, and his research has been generously supported by the Center for Green Buildings and Cities and the Joint Center for Housing Studies. His work can be found in the publications of recent ACADIA, Fabricate, Rob|Arch, and IASS conferences, as well as in the book Towards a Robotic Architecture and the journals Construction Robotics and TAD. Daniel was a 2021 Fellow at the Design Akademie Saaleck (dieDAS), and his work has been exhibited at Design Miami/ Basel and other international venues.

Daniel was previously a Lecturer at the University of Michigan Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning, where he taught digital fabrication. Additionally, he led an intensive summer masterclass at the University of Technology Sydney. Daniel was recently a Research Associate at Autodesk, where he developed computer-vision technologies for construction robotics. Daniel has worked in the research offices of RVTR in Ann Arbor and murmur in Los Angeles, as well as in commercial firms in Chicago and St. Louis. Daniel received his Master of Architecture with Distinction from the University of Michigan and his Bachelor of Science in Architecture from Washington University in St. Louis with a self-guided special major in Sustainable Design.