Thomas FISCHER

Thomas Fischer is a Professor at the School of Design at Southern University of Science and Technology (SUSTech). He is a design educator and researcher with over 25 years of international experience and the leader of the SUSTech School of Design’s Design Cybernetics Group. Before joining SUSTech, he taught Interactive Systems Design as well as Industrial and Product Design at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University and Architecture as well as Industrial Design at Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University. He was a visiting academic at National Cheng Kung University and Humboldt University. He holds a Ph.D. in Education from the University of Kassel and a Ph.D. in Architecture from RMIT University. Professor Fischer has more than 100 peer-reviewed academic publications. He is a Fellow of the Design Research Society, a Fellow of the Cybernetics Society, a Certified Talent of the International Academy for Systems and Cybernetic Sciences, and a recipient of the American Society for Cybernetics’ Warren McCulloch Award. His academic research focuses on design computing, design cybernetics, design geometry, and digital media.

Selected Publications：

Thomas Fischer and Li Hengjie (2025). Design of a contemporary elementary non-trivial machine, Constructivist Foundations, 20(2), 159-167, URL: https://constructivist.info/20/2/159.fischer.pdf [Open Access].

Guillermo Sánchez Sotés, Thomas Fischer and Christiane M. Herr, (2025). Review of an academic research project “as done,” Constructivist Foundations, 20(2), 132-144. URL: https://constructivist.info/20/2/132.sanchez-sotes.

Guillermo Sánchez Sotés, Thomas Fischer and Christiane M. Herr (2025). The appropriation of autopoiesis in architecture, Frontiers of Architectural Research, 14(4), 885-898, DOI: 10.1016/j.foar.2024.12.005. [Open Access].

Thomas Fischer, Chitraj Bissoonauth, Haowen Liang, and Jiaming Bai (2024). Enabling cross-morphological performance comparison: A case study in heat management design, Materials & Design, 239, 112826. DOI: 10.1016/j.matdes.2024.112826 [Open Access].

Thomas Fischer and Andrei Cretu (2023). The Ashby Box: A Contextualization and Speculative Remake, in: Diego Gómez-Venegas, (ed.), Frictions: Inquiries into Cybernetic Thinking and Its Attempts towards Mate[real]ization, Meson Press, Lüneburg, 163-193. ISBN: 978-3-95796-216-4 [Open Access].

Thomas Fischer (2022). A theory for enquiry in design PhD research, Proceedings of  RSD11 Possibilities and Practices of Systemic Design, Brighton, UK. URL: https://rsdsymposium.org/a-theory-for-enquiry-in-design-phd-research.

Guillermo Sánchez Sotés, Christiane M. Herr and Thomas Fischer (2022). What to make of the appropriation of autopoiesis in architecture? Proceedings of  RSD11 Possibilities and Practices of Systemic Design, Brighton, UK. URL: https://rsdsymposium.org/what-to-make-of-the-appropriation-of-autopoiesis-in-architecture.

Chitraj Bissoonauth, Christiane M. Herr, and Thomas Fischer (2022). An empirical study of understanding in order to act and acting in order to understand in digital design practice, Proceedings of  RSD11 Possibilities and Practices of Systemic Design, Brighton, UK. URL: https://rsdsymposium.org/empirical-study-of-understanding-in-digital-design-practice.

Thomas Fischer and Thomas Wortmann (2022). Algebraic analysis and reconstruction of the Philips Pavilion’s hyperbolic paraboloid surfaces, International Journal of Architectural Computing, 20(1), 61–75. DOI: 10.1177/14780771221082253.

Thomas Fischer and Bernd Ulmann (2022). The Analog Thing – First Steps, anabrid, Berlin. URL: https://the-analog-thing.org/THAT_First_Steps.pdf.

Thomas Fischer (2020). Narratives of exploration: From "Failure is not an option" to "Try again. Fail again. Fail better", Kybernetes, 49(8), 2091-2108, DOI: 10.1108/K-07-2019-0502.

Thomas Fischer and Christiane M. Herr (2019). An introduction to design cybernetics, in: Thomas Fischer and Christiane M. Herr (eds.), Design Cybernetics. Navigating the New, Springer, Cham, 1-23. DOI:10.1007/978-3-030-18557-2_1.

Thomas Fischer (2019). Transcomputability, (Glanville's Corollary of) Ashby's Law of Requisite Variety, and epistemic processes, Kybernetes, 48(4), 793-804, DOI: 10.1108/K-11-2017-0457.

Thomas Fischer (2018). Kybernetik für Medienwissenschaftler, in: Stefan Hoeltgen, Thorsten Schoeler, Johannes Maibaum, and Thomas Fischer (eds.), Medientechnisches Wissen Band 2: Informatik, Programmieren, Kybernetik, DeGruyter, Oldenburg, 273-433. ISBN: 978-3-11-049625-3.
 

Christiane M. Herr and Thomas Fischer (2018). Building Information modelling adoption in the context of the Chinese AEC industries: An extended BIM adoption model, Journal of Computational Design and Engineering, 6(2), 173-178, DOI: 10.1016/j.jcde.2018.06.001.

Thomas Fischer (2017). A cybernetic perspective on determinability and design research, Kybernetes, 46(9), 1588-1596, DOI: 10.1108/K-10-2016-0269.

Thomas Fischer and Laurence D. Richards (2017). From goal-oriented to constraint-oriented design: The cybernetic intersection of design theory and systems theory, Leonardo Journal, 50(1), 36-41, DOI: 10.1162/LEON_a_00862.

Thomas Fischer (2015). Wiener's prefiguring of a cybernetic design theory, IEEE Technology and Society Magazine, 34(3), 52-59, DOI: 10.1109/MTS.2015.2461172.

Thomas Fischer (2014). Scientific research into designing, while doing justice to designing, Architectural Science Review, 57(4), 240-248, open access, DOI: 10.1080/00038628.2014.958128.

Thomas Fischer (2014). Circular causality and indeterminism in machines for design, Frontiers of Architectural Research, 3(4), 368-375, open access, DOI: 10.1016/j/foar.2014.06.003.