IAAC Lecture Series 2019/20
5th of November 2019
Daria Bychkova
Bureau Chekharda / IAAC Faculty
Playful Architecture
@ 19.30, IAAC Auditorium
Free and Open to the Public
Daria Bychkova is a founder of Bureau Chekharda, one of the word-wide leading companies designing and building playspaces for kids and their parents. Daria got a BArch from the Moscow Architectural Institute (State Academy) in and and a MArch from the Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia (IAAC). She got awarded with Ford Foundation scholarship for her Master program and Aström Sverker scholarship to undertake a research on child-friendly environment in Scandinavian cities in 2013.
In 2015 Daria with a partner established Bureau Chekharda to create a transition point between urban environment and a wild nature in sake of urban children’ needs to protect their right to rise up in a healthy urban environment. Bureau Chekharda’s design became a reflection of a complex approach to sustainable usage of natural resources and brought a strong claim to bring more public attention to the question of nature in the city and a more humane urbanism.
To meet a need of a skillfull work with basic materials like wood, stones, ropes and yet have tools to create a sophisticated playful and leisure environment for urban citizens Daria developed a unique way to apply advanced digital technologies and parametric design to raw materials harvested directly from nature like trees with unaltered geometry. Active application of this approach let Chekharda eliminate the stereotypes of limited capabilities of natural materials in the modern non-linear architectural design.
Daria has an active social position defending the rights of children to nature in the city. She participates in conferences all around Russia as well as worldwide. Daria has also an educational practice running up series of summer construction workshops in Russia where Chekharda designs and builds not only for but also with kids.
Daria is also part of the IAAC Master in Advanced Ecological Buildings (MAEB) Faculty.