Viola Ago

Viola Ago (b. Lushnjë, Albania) is a research-based designer and educator. She is the director of MIRACLES Architecture and an Assistant Professor at the Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU, formerly Ryerson) and the Associate Director at the Design + Technology Lab at TMU. Prior, Viola was awarded the Wortham Fellowship at Rice University, the Yessios Visiting Professorship at the Ohio State University and the Muschenheim Fellowship at the University of Michigan. In addition, Viola was also awarded a MacDowell Artist Residency, a University Design Research Fellowship from Exhibit Columbus, and a research residency at the Autodesk Technology Center in Boston.

Prior to TMU, Viola held teaching positions at the University of Pennsylvania, Rice University, Ohio State university and the University of Michigan, as well as visiting positions at Harvard University, Rhode Island School of Design, and Pratt Institute. She earned her M.Arch degree from the Southern California Institute of Architecture in Los Angeles, and a B.ArchSc from TMU. Prior to teaching, Viola was a lead designer in the Advanced Technology and Computation Team at Morphosis Architects working on international built and competition projects. 

Viola’s written work has been published by Anyone Corp (Log), Wiley (Architectural Design Magazine), Routledge, AR+D, and Actar. Her work has also been published in journals such as Sci-Arc’s Offramp, Acadia Conference Proceedings, TxA Emerging Design and Technology Journal, JAE Journal, Architect’s Newspaper, Archinect, among others. She has multiple forthcoming publications. Her work has been exhibited in Los Angeles, Boston, Houston, Ghent NY, San Francisco, Miami, Columbus, Philadelphia, Ann Arbor, and Cincinnati. 

Viola’s design research practice, MIRACLES Architecture, focuses on the role of design in a world inhabited with forms of duress. Her interests in the affective conditions of war and conflict ridden territories has fueled her investigations towards a design research project that looks at the aesthetic and formal agency of destruction and disorder through methods of perceptual mechanisms and technological tools. Her design research project broadly speaking looks to political theory and the method of phenomenology of empathy, and digital technological advancements such as real-time physics engines and production methodologies.