Teaching Carrier

In 2003, Mansour Maboudian received an invitation from Seoul National University to teach design at the Department of Industrial Design. He was appointed to teach undergraduate, graduate, and post-graduate studies and conduct design studios from 2002-05. During this time, Mansour was also a design consultant to the housing and construction department of Samsung Raemian and joined local architects on several Korean projects.

Teaching Emphases

Emerging Identities | Cultures | In this era of globalization, the term ‘Cultural Identity’ has assumed various meanings. Learning from the past has become a thing of the past and 'identities' have fallen in the ocean of undifferentiation". | Emerging Patterns in Eco-System | Extreme droughts, flooding, earthquakes, tornadoes, land shifts, reactor melt-downs, and temperature shifts often result in wars, the devastation of infrastructure and irrigation systems, hunger, poverty, and the mass migration of millions for economic and ecological reasons. | Emerging Technologies | Techniques | Media | Materials | New technologies, new fabrication techniques, new media, and new materials have profoundly influenced the field of design and its effects on the environment.            

Teaching Experience

Doctoral Program |Developed and taught a new course, Virtualism and Architecture, for the Space Design Doctoral Program. This course investigated the notion of space according to Gilles Deleuze. Lectures and our group discussions centered on the concepts of ‘fold’, ‘multiplicity’, ‘rhizome’, and ‘nomad’ which form the core of Deleuze’s notion of space in cinema and architecture.

Senior Year Undergraduate Design Studio | This senior undergraduate space design studio is comprised of two parts: lectures and a studio. For the lecture portion of this studio, a series of lectures were developed based on the theme of ‘Skin’ and explored the contemporary architectural concepts of ‘Skin’, ‘Garment’, ‘Cut’, and ‘Parasite’.  In the studio portion of this course, students were required to conduct a series of experiments based on these concepts and architecturally interpret them into habitable environments. This studio stressed that every meaningful design project is a result of a vigorous set of investigations into existing and foreseeable issues and it concerns itself with given political, cultural, social, economic, historical, and vernacular contexts.

Graduate Design Studio | This graduate space design studio is comprised of two parts: lectures and a studio. For the lecture portion of this studio, a series of lectures were developed based on the theme of ‘Parasitic Occupation of Space’ and explored the site-specific installation designs of Cornford and Cross.  The studio discussions primarily concentrated on the concepts of ‘parasite’ and ‘boundary’ as described by the French philosopher Michel Serres, how social and urban boundaries are determined, and the forces that determine these boundaries. The case study of this studio was the historic Nam Daemoon Market in Seoul. In the studio portion of this course, students were required to design site-specific installations in the city of Seoul based on the notions of ‘parasite’ and ‘boundary’.  

Junior Year Undergraduate Design Studios | Designed junior undergraduate space design studio to introduce students to the notion of ‘architectonics'. The objective of this studio was to investigate the rational and empirical development of a cohesive system of design.

Sophomore Year Design Studios | Designed sophomore year space design studio to introduce students to the fundamental skills of analog architectural communication such as drawing, writing, and physical modeling

Academic Advisory Activities

Academic Adviser to the Post Graduate Program | Seoul National University Department of Industrial Design |Space Design Program

Member of Thesis Review Board | Seoul National University Department of Industrial Design | Space Design Program

_ Academic Symposiums Invited Speaker | 2003-06

Kunkuk University Graduate School of Architecture | Seoul | Korea

Korean Design Research Institute, Seoul | Korea

‘Identity: International Design Culture Conference’

Korean Design Research Institute | Seoul | Korea

‘CO+ZONE: International Design Culture Conference’ | Panelist

Hangyang University |Seoul | Korea

‘Hangyang International Design Conference’

Dongseo University | Pusan | Korea

‘New Value of Design Symposium 

Academic Design Competitions Invited Member of Jury

Graduate Thesis | The Catholic University of America, Washington | D.C. | School of Architecture and Planning 

ACAU- Asian Coalition of Architecture and Urbanism

Joong Ang Design Annual Student Design  | The Joong Ang Design Group, Seoul, Korea

Education

Master of Architecture | The Catholic University of America | School of Architecture and Planning | Washington | D.C.

Bachelor of Science in Architecture | The Catholic University of America | School of Architecture and Planning, Washington | D.C.

Recipient of the Patrick Cardinal O’Boyle Scholarship | Study of Architecture in Italy and Spain

Recipient of Honor Award | The Presidential Inaugural Stand Regional Student Design Competition

Critical Writing

Contributor with Critical Writing to Asian Design Journal: ‘Matter-of-Assembly: (Design) Identity as an Autopoisis Process’, Asian Design Journal, Vol. 2, No. 2, 2oo5 | Contributor with Critical Video Installation to Seoul National University: ‘Body: An Ideological Landscape’

The original definition of Autopoiesis can be found in Autopoiesis and Cognition: the Realization of the Living (1st edition 1973, 2nd 198o):[1]

Page 16: It was in these circumstances ... in which he analyzed Don Quixote's dilemma of whether to follow the path of arms (praxis, action) or the path of letters (poiesis, creation, production), I understood for the first time the power of the word "poiesis" and invented the word that we needed: autopoiesis. This was a word without a history, a word that could directly mean what takes place in the dynamics of the autonomy proper to living systems.

Page 78: An autopoietic machine is a machine organized (defined as a unity) as a network of processes of production (transformation and destruction) of components which: (i) through their interactions and transformations continuously regenerate and realize the network of processes (relations) that produced them, and (ii) constitute it (the machine) as a concrete unity in space in which they (the components) exist by specifying the topological domain of its realization as such a network.[2]

Page 89: ... the space defined by an autopoietic system is self-contained and cannot be described by using dimensions that define another space. When we refer to our interactions with a concrete autopoietic system, however, we project this system on the space of our manipulations and make a description of this projection.