Hubert Klumpner is the co-founder of the architecture studio Urbanthinktank_next in Zurich, and co-curator of the 15th Days of Architecture Sarajevo and the main exhibition “100 Ideas for the Western Balkan: Designing Urban Imaginaries“. He is considered one of the originators of the “social turn,” a movement that had its breakthrough in 2010 with the MoMA, New York exhibition "Small Scale, Big Change: New Architectures of Social Engagement". He is the Architecture and Urban Design Professor at the Swiss Institute of Technology / ETH Zurich. Urbanthinktank received numerous awards and prizes such as the Golden Lion of the Venice Architecture Biennale, the Gold Holcim Award Latin America, and the Award for the Best Educational Building from the Chicago Museum of Architecture and Design. Recent built projects include "Fabrica de Cultura", and the ONDA Green Corridor Project in Medellin, Colombia.
Michael Walczak is an architect, co-founder of Urbanthinktank_next in Sarajevo, and co-curator of the 15th Days of Architecture Sarajevo and the main exhibition “100 Ideas for the Western Balkan: Designing Urban Imaginaries“. He holds a doctoral degree, "Digital Urban Imaginaries", from the University of Applied Arts Vienna, receiving the state prize from the Austrian Federal Minister of Science and Education. His work is bridging research and practice in the field of architecture and Urban-Design, co-developing „EnerPol“ software for large-scale urban simulations. Currently, he is leading the Urban Transformation Project Sarajevo / Digital Twin, and teaching at ETH Zurich and the University of Sarajevo Faculty of Architecture. During the opening of the 2023 Venice Architecture Biennale, he presented "Studio Mobil” as a dialogue platform for architecture, and human and environmental rights at the Global Campus of Human Rights in Venice.
Lucy Bullivant PhD Hon FRIBA (UK)
A place strategist, curator and award-winning author dedicated to just transitions enabled through bespoke, engaged adaptive planning. “Retrofit 23: Towards Deep Retrofit of Homes at Scale”, the exhibition she curated for the Building Centre, London, is now on show. As founding director of Lucy Bullivant & Associates, she has delivered place strategies for local authorities in the UK and Norway, and is currently creating a Cultural Strategy for Central District Alliance, London. She has been Chair, Lambeth Design Review Panel, since 2019. In 2010 Lucy was elected an Honorary Fellow by RIBA for her contribution to sustainable architectural culture globally. Her published books include Masterplanning Futures. She has a PhD in adaptive planning and an MA in Cultural History.
Johannes Tovatt – Architect, urban planner and head of creative at Tovatt Architects & Planners (SE)
Based in Stockholm, Johannes Tovatt is an architect and urban planner who has participated in many projects spanning from urban space to the rural landscape, policies to design tools, and academia to experience-based.
Tovatt has led many award-winning projects in Sweden and abroad. With extensive experience of successful competitions over three decades, Johannes has participated in many cross-border projects.
In 2005 he co-founded Tovatt Architects & Planners and runs a recognized office with international assignments. Tovatt Architects & Planners sees the user in the foreground and their need for beauty, sustainability and function is at the heart of the task.
Albert Achammer MSc ETH Arch | MBA
Managing Director of ATP architects engineers, Hamburg
Photocredits: © ATP
After spending several years traveling and working in architecture, project development and construction, Albert Achammer founded the Hamburg office of ATP architects engineers, Europe’s leading integrated design company. Three years later, ATP Hamburg now has a team of over 50 architects and engineers and has established itself as a successful integrated design office. Albert holds a Master of Science in architecture from ETH Zürich and an MBA degree from IESE Business School. ATP architects engineers is one of Europe’s leading providers of integrated design with building information modeling (BIM). Interdisciplinary teams work across a dynamic network of over thirteen offices in the DACH+CEE Regions.
Sarah Williams
Associate Professor of Technology and Urban Planning at MIT
Director of the Civic Data Design Lab and Leventhal Center for Advanced Urbanism
(USA)
Sarah Williams is an Associate Professor of Technology and Urban Planning at MIT where she is also Director of the Civic Data Design Lab and the Leventhal Center for Advanced Urbanism. Williams’ combines her training in computation and design to create communication strategies that expose urban policy issues to broad audiences and create civic change. Williams is co-founder and developer of Envelope.city, a web-based software product that visualizes and allows users to modify zoning in New York City. Her design work has been widely exhibited, including work in the Guggenheim, the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), Venice Biennale, and the Cooper Hewitt Museum.
Scott Bruce Doig – Architect & Design Director, Haptic Architects (UK/NO)
Scott is design director at Haptic’s Oslo studio, where he leads the architectural design of the office, specializing in the conceptual design of new commissions, and leading competition design entries. These have led to several of the practice’s ongoing public projects, which include a new school, library, theatre and culture centre on the site of Oslo’s former airport – Tårnkvartalet. The “wharf” building, a new waterside development in Oslo’s Fornebu district, a large centre for marine research and arts spaces, while Norway’s new embassy to China is set to be the first all timber construction for a contemporary diplomatic building. Though these buildings vary greatly in type, context and scale, they share a common design ethos – a belief in qualitative shared public spaces that create new centers of civic life for the communities they sit in.
Ruedi Baur – designer, teacher, researcher (FR)
Ruedi Baur, designer, teacher, researcher, citizen of a ‘World to Change’. Since the 1980s, Ruedi Baur has thought of his activity as a designer in the context of a civic space to be transformed. Claiming an interdisciplinary design very early on, he created the Integral network in 1989 and ran the workshops until 2023: Integral Ruedi Baur, Paris, Zurich and Berlin, then Integral designers. In 2004 he created and directed with the sociologist Vera Baur at the ZHdK in Zurich the Design2context institute, then in 2011 the Institute for critical research in design Civic-City; in 2018, the 10-billion-human university start-up.
The bibliography makes it possible to follow the course, in particular with books such as “Architecture-graphics”, “Des-Orientation 1 and 2”, “Signs for Peace, an impossible visual Encyclopedia”, “Facing the territorial brand”, “A World to change” and “And suddenly the world was immobilized”.
Studio Grad (MNE)
Studio GRAD was established as an outcome of several years of successful cooperation among the architects Radulović and Gregović. Their inspiration, cooperation and initiative have been the driving force behind the studio which is committed to careful treatment of spatial and programme specific circumstances. Their design approach, is always original, analytical and integrated, relying on generally accepted values of modern architecture and contemporary interpretation of regional context. The design process is fully focused on searching for the best spatial (and functional) answers for our clients. Participation in many international design competitions and awards gained help us reaffirm our design principles. At the same time it is an opportunity to promote architecture in Montenegro, where the company wants to give its contribution.
Joaquín Millán Villamuelas- OOIIO Architecture (ES)
We define ourselves as a creative company, focused on innovation within architecture through achievable solutions. It is our responsibility to know how to use the right resources to design a project in the most effective way. We believe that simplicity and the re-interpretation of tradition are the key to find the most intelligent solution to a design problem. We dedicate a large part of our resources and time to the research of innovative solutions based on what we already have; on the starting point conditions. We use different design techniques in our projects; not only technological tools. OOIIO projects have been awarded, appreciated, published and displayed in multiple publications, conferences and specialized awards. More than ten years of upward work path prove the technical solvency of a professional team committed to its passion: architecture.
Meriem Chabani - New South (DZ/FR)
Meriem Chabani is an architect and urban planner, principal of New South.
Her international practice prioritizes spaces for vulnerable bodies and territories in tension. She applies the words of bell hooks, putting the margin at the center. By questioning power dynamics and stakeholder relations, her projects include in-depth work on human practices to inform spatial resolution. She currently teaches at the Ecole Nationale Supérieure d’Architecture Paris Malaquais, Royal College of Arts and HEAD Geneva. Her work has been showcased at a number of international architecture Biennials, including Venice, Istanbul, Tirana, Oslo and Lagos. In 2020 Meriem won the Europe 40 under 40 award from The European Centre for Architecture and The Chicago Athenaeum. In 2023, she was selected as one of the best Women led practices in France by AMC.
Siniša Zdjelar & Antonija Plavotić - Partners at ZDL (HR)
ZDL is a Rijeka-based studio that based on the synergy of the various university backgrounds of its team members and on the eternal questioning of the context in which we live and work in order to constantly approach contemporary architectural excellence through change and adaptation. The positive duality of ZDL, which is manifested in two offices in two locations in two countries with two partners at the head who together guide and inspire the team of architects towards excellence, is visible in the projects. With the founder and partner Siniša Zdjelar and younger partner Antonija Plavotić at the helm, ZDL grew into a general practice architectural office that managed to specialize in hotel, sports and healthcare projects. Since 2018, ZDL is also present in Serbia with an office in Belgrade, and authorizations to work on architectural projects cover the territory of Croatia, Italy, Serbia and Montenegro.
Josip Ledić – Architect & Director, Ledić Arhitektura (B&H)
With a residential address in Travnik and fifteen years of experience, he creates recognizable patterns in his architectural vision. A student of the Faculty of Architecture in Sarajevo, with a vision and dreams, returns to his regions and refines them with different typologies of buildings, initially through five years of work in execution, and then within the framework of his independent office - Ledić architecture. What makes his trace particularly recognizable is sacred architecture, which is a special benchmark and a special relationship with man, both in reality and in sketches. His contemporary vision of living, working and any other space is recognized beyond the borders of our regions, where he moves the previous design and brings it to a completely new level. What continues to follow his name is simplicity yet effectiveness, clean yet spiritually filled strokes, sketches and achievements.
Gepek Studio (BA)
Gepek Studio is an architectural studio founded in 2017 in Sarajevo by three partners: Damir Dautbegović, Belma Hodžić and Igor Tomić. Our architectural engagement encompasses a wide range of projects, including urban planning, new construction, additions, contemporary restorations, commercial and residential spaces to interior design and redesign. We believe in individuality as well as teamwork, and what makes us a good team is a shared vision and shared values, love for architecture, life as well as creation. We love challenges, creativity, good cooperation and satisfied clients. Every project we approach deserves an individual approach and full creative engagement.
André Moraes de Almeida (Brazil)
Architect and urban planner (UFPE, 2008), Master in Urban Development (UFPE, 2016), Permaculturist graduated from the Permacultural Design Course (EsCaPe, 2019). Co-founder of Azulpitanga - Atelier Criativo de Arquiteturas e Afetos (2018 - current). He currently teaches Architecture and Urbanism at the Paraíso University Center (UNIFAP) in Juazeiro do Norte (CE), in the Cariri region. He is a member of Lîla Coletiva, whose work focuses on Early Childhood. He worked as a researcher at INCITI / UFPE - Research and Innovation for Cities (2014-2016) on the following projects: Capibaribe Park (UFPE / Recife City Hall), Labceus - Laboratory of Sensitive Cities (UFPE / Ministry of Culture) and Urban Thinkers Campus (World Urban Campaign). He was a member of the Praias do Capibaribe collective. Lecturer in the specialization in Design and Architecture of Ephemeral Spaces at IESP (2014-2016).
AΔA [ada: art design architecture]
AΔA [ada: art design architecture] kolektiv is a transdisciplinary collective formed by architects Stefan Radošević and Luka Višnjić. The activity of the collective is based on professional and research work and production of projects and artifacts in the field of architectural, urban, interior, landscape and furniture design and art, as well as engagement in architectural activism and education. The team developed from the original group of AΔA, by unification of three segments: O:TVORENO, STUDIO & WORKSHOP
Transdisciplinary architectural studio which activity is based on rethinking and production of architectural and urban projects, interior and furniture design according to the needs, desires and capabilities of space users / clients. The range of studio's engagement is reflected in the work from professional to research projects, i.e. through the work in commissioned, competition, experimental and study projects or workshops.
Pippo Ciorra (IT)
Pippo Ciorra architect, critic and professor. He is adviser for the MVDR prize, contributor to reviews and national press and member of the editorial board of Casabella. Author of a number of books and publications, he curated and designed exhibitions in Italy and abroad. After curating the opening exhibition Spazio in May 2009 he is Senior Curator for MAXXI Architettura in Rome. Among his main shows, Re-cycle. Strategies for Architecture City and Planet,Energy. Oil and Post-oil Architecture, Erasmus Effect. Italian architects abroad and YAP MAXXI, an international program for young architects. Ciorra is currently working on a book collecting 15 years of research and design experimentations on the Italian coastal city.
