MIT Technology Review includes Romanian on 2019 list of innovators

Romanian-born Mariana Popescu has been included on the MIT Technology Review’s 2019 list of 35 Innovators Under 35 in the category of Pioneers.

Popescu, who has Bachelors and Masters degrees in architecture from Delft University of Technology, developed “a process and accompanying computational tools capable of turning knitted textiles into complex molds for concrete buildings.” This makes it possible to build complex custom-made designs faster, saving money and time, and with reduced carbon emissions. The solution she created also has the potential to “speed up construction of low-cost, sturdy, lightweight structures in settings like refugee camps, war zones, and sites of natural disasters,” MIT Technology Review notes.

Congrats to Mariana Popescu of ETH’s Block Research Group named a “Pioneer” in MIT @techreview's 35 Innovators under 35! She developed a construction process that turns knitted textiles into concrete buildings - saving money, carbon & time. #KnitCandela. https://t.co/Vmc9v2yDYW pic.twitter.com/ZsfCfjEf0N — ETH Zurich (@ETH_en) June 25, 2019

After graduating, Popescu was part of the start-up Hive Systems, where she worked on developing a platform “enabling designers and architects to quickly conceptualize, visualize and build complex interactive environments using distributed algorithms,” according to a description on the website of the Block Research Group.

From 2008 to 2010 she was part of the Nuon Solar Team, a multidisciplinary team that designed and built a solar car across the Australian Outback and part of the ReVolt House team, which built a fully self-sustaining house during 2011 and 2012.

Since June 2015, she has been a PhD researcher at the Block Research Group, part of the NCCR Digital Fabrication, at the Institute of Technology in Architecture at ETH Zürich. She successfully defended her PhD dissertation on "KnitCrete: Stay-in-place knitted fabric formwork for complex concrete structures" in June of this year.