Karl Pops
SMArchS BT Student
Karl Pops is an architect and SMArchS candidate in the Building Technology program at MIT, where he is a member of the Sustainable Design Lab. His research explores spatial quality metrics in housing design by integrating empirical survey data with floor plan analysis. Prior to MIT, he served as a senior project manager at the Boston Housing Authority, leading major retrofit initiatives for public housing communities. He previously worked on a range of institutional projects at Ennead Architects in New York. Karl has also taught at the Boston Architectural College and curated the Baltic Pavilion at the 2023 UIA World Congress of Architects in Copenhagen.
Projects
"In the Baltic states, like anywhere with a large stock of deteriorating housing from the modernist period, we have to choose how to address it going forward. The bones are good, the rest are not. There is a world in which the status quo continues, where piecemeal renovation of Soviet-era apartment buildings falls largely on individual owner cooperatives while the neighbourhoods stay isolated. But there can also be a world in which housing is recognised as critical infrastructure that needs a holistic vision and investment to ensure its sustainability. Which world do we want to live in?" addresses the main question of the pavilion it’s author Karl Pops.
