Metalab principal Joe Meppelink previously co-owned and operated Metalab as an architectural metal fabricating shop. This shop fabricated dozens projects in the Houston area, ranging from furniture to multi-story stair structures, and began steadily employing digital fabrication technologies in 1998. After selling the shop, Joe returned to teaching and practice in Houston. He taught design and fabrication courses at Rice University for 2 years, and then began Framework Design Studio – a residential practice still active in Houston – in 2004 with partner Marisa Janusz. Currently, Joe is an Adjunct Assistant Professor at the University of Houston, co-teaching courses in digital fabrication with Metalab partner Andrew Vrana. Joe also serves as Faculty Research Coordinator at the College of Architecture, where professional and academic efforts coincide in the development of Green Building components and products, such as the SPACE. Joe’s dream is to design via constructive interplay between the often disparate camps of “architecture-design-technology” and “construction-fabrication-manufacturing”. Or more simply put, the head and the hands.

Andrew Vrana is an Architect who has structured his practice toward design informed by advanced computation and digital fabrication as well as a knowledge of materials and building culture. A native of Houston, he lived in New York City and Europe before returning to Texas in 2002 with a fresh outlook in a city full of potential. In Italy he worked in the Renzo Piano Building Workshop where he was a project designer on museums and innovative pavilions. As a former carpenter he is happy to work from file to fabrication without the need for an expansive shop and hardware to realize complex projects as a principal partner in Metalab. Through a network of capable fabricators, the outsourcing of tasks toward the integrated delivery of a design and product is achievable. He is now applying his interests and experiences professionally in Metalab and in academia as a Visiting Assistant Professor and Green Building Component Faculty Researcher in the College of Architecture at the University of Houston. Andrew seeks to merge the formal and organizational possibilities of contemporary design with a localized sensibility toward craft and quality in architecture.