Dr. Tom Van Mele is Senior Scientist and co-director at the Block Research Group (BRG) of the Institute of Technology in Architecture at ETH Zurich. Tom is an expert in graphic statics, graphical design and analysis techniques, computational form finding and optimisation, data structures, scientific programming and web technologies. From the start, his technical and computational developments have formed the backbone of the day-to-day research in the BRG and of multiple of its flagship projects, including the Droneport and the Armadillo Vault, both presented at the 2016 Architecture Biennale in Venice. Tom is lead developer of COMPAS, the open-source computational framework for collaboration and research in architecture, structures and digital fabrication, and project lead of the HiLo unit developed by the BRG for NEST, the modular research and innovation building of Empa.