The A+Awards Jury

The A+Awards are bigger than just the architectural community. Our 250+ member jury academy is comprised of leaders who are actively shaping the world we live in, representing a sought-after segment of design-savvy professionals including distinguished luminaries from fields as diverse as fashion, publishing, product design, real estate development and tech. Finalists and winners get their work in front of the people who matter and gain recognition as the year’s most influential visionaries.

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Featured Jury

Hans Ulrich Obrist

Artistic Director, Serpentine

Hans Ulrich Obrist (b. 1968, Zurich, Switzerland) is Artistic Director of Serpentine in London, and Senior Advisor at LUMA Arles. Prior to this, he was the Curator of the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris. Since his first show ‘World Soup (The Kitchen Show)’ in 1991, he has curated more than 350 exhibitions, including recent exhibitions Enzo Mari at Triennale Milano (2020) and WORLDBUILDING at Centre Pompidou Metz (2023) and Julia Stoschek Collection Dusseldorf (2022).
In 2011 Obrist received the CCS Bard Award for Curatorial Excellence, and in 2015 he was awarded the International Folkwang Prize, and most recently he was honoured by the Appraisers Association of America with the 2018 Award for Excellence in the Arts
Obrist’s recent publications include Ways of Curating (2015), The Age of Earthquakes (2015), Lives of the Artists, Lives of Architects (2015), The Extreme Self: Age of You (2021), and 140 Ideas for Planet Earth (2021), Edouard Glissant: Archipelago (2021), James Lovelock: Ever Gaia (2023) Remember to Dream (2023), Une vie in Progress (2023). Read less

Jha D Amazi

Principal, MASS Design Group

Jha D Amazi believes that the narratives upheld in our public realm should be expanded to represent, honor, and celebrate the experiences, histories, and cultures of people who have been historically denied representation in our memorial landscape.
As a Principal at MASS Design Group, Jha D leads the Public Memory and Memorials Lab, engaging communities to design projects such as the Franklin Park Action Plan (Boston, MA), the Emmett Till & Mamie Till-Mobley National Monument Project (Tallahatchie County, MS and Chicago, IL), the Gun Violence Memorial Project (Chicago, IL, and Washington D.C.), and the Sugar Land 95 Cemetery Revitalization Project (Sugar Land, TX).
Beyond her contributions at MASS, Jha D is a spoken word artist, event producer, and self-proclaimed SpaceMaker for the LGBTQ+ communities of color. In 2023, she was appointed to the Governor’s Advisory Council on Black Empowerment by Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey.
Jha D graduated with honors from Northeastern University (B.S. Arch) and the University of Pennsylvania (M. Arch I). Prior to joining MASS, she worked as a Designer at Sasaki and taught studio at the Boston Architectural College. Read less

Kongjian Yu

Founder & Principal Designer, Turenscape

Kongjian Yu received his Doctor of Design Degree at Harvard Graduate School of Design in 1995 with a dissertation titled ‘Security Patterns in Landscape Planning.’ He then practiced as a landscape planner and designer for two years with the SWA Group in the US before he returned to China in 1997. Since then, he has been a professor of landscape architecture, and urban and regional planning. He founded and has been leading the Graduate School of Landscape Architecture, and the College of Architecture and Landscape Architecture at Peking University.
Yu defines landscape architecture as the art of survival. His guiding design principles are the appreciation of the ordinary and a deep embrace of nature, even in its potentially destructive aspects such as urban flooding.
In 1998, he founded Turenscape, one of the first private practices in urbanism and landscape architecture in China, which has grown to become one of the largest practices in the world in these fields, with over 500 professionals. He and his team have designed and built over 500 projects in over 250 cities in China and abroad. He has won over 40 prestigious international awards for his ecologically sound and culturally sensitive projects, including 16 ASLA Excellence and Honor Awards (American Society of Landscape Architects), a ULI Global Award of Excellence (Urban Land Institute), and 8 World Best Landscape Awards at the World Architecture Festival, and 5 AZ Awards of Best Landscape. Read less

Jen Wood

Founding Principal, AD—WO

Jen Wood (Naarm/Melbourne, Australia) is a founding principal of AD—WO, with Emanuel Admassu. She has extensive experience working for leading architecture practices in Melbourne and New York. Wood received her Bachelor and Master of Architecture at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, and a Master of Advanced Architectural Design at Columbia University. Wood is a licensed Architect in the state of New York. Read less

Nguyen Ha

Principal Designer, ARB Architects

Nguyen Ha is the co - founder of arb architects Vietnam, based in Hanoi. She set up a practice office in Vietnam with two Swiss architects Kurt Aellen and Laurent Cantalou right after she returned from Switzerland, where she completed the MAS programme at the Department of Architecture at the Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (ETHZ). Creating the sense of serenity that architecture can provide to everyday life in every setting is the focus of architect Nguyen Ha's work. At the same time, she always wants to search and experiment with new materials in architecture, which is why she also works as an artisan to find new forms of expression in materials. Ha collaborates with craftsmen and multi-disciplinary artists to develop projects that explore traditional materials and produces a number of contemporary installations of ceramics, lighting, and traditional toys.
Ha won the 2024 Moira Gemmill Award. Read less

Sameep Padora

Founding Principal, sP+a; Dean, CEPT University

Sameep Padora is an architect and author. Born in Chamba, Northern India, Sameep Padora established his Mumbai based practice in 2007 after graduating from the GSD, Harvard University.
The studio’s work has been widely published and has in the past received the Wallpaper Design Award for Best Public Building, Beazley Architecture Prize, Wienerberger Brick Award, Archdaily Building of The Year, Wallpaper Design Award for House of the Year, as well as the Architectural Review’s Emerging Architecture and the AR Library Commendation Awards.
Besides the architectural practice, Sameep also runs a not-for-profit sPare that researches issues of urbanization in India with a focus on housing. sPare’s research publications; In the Name of Housing, How to build an Indian House and(de)Coding Mumbai are projects attempting to unravel the production of affordable housing in Indian cities.
Sameep has presented the studio’s projects and built work at numerous forums including te Seoul Biennale and at various universities including the GSD, Cooper Union, Cornell and TU Delft amongst others.
Sameep serves on the academic boards of a number of educational institutes and is currently the Dean of the Faculty of Architecture at CEPT University. Read less

Mindy Seu

Designer and Technologist, UCLA Department of Design Media Arts

Mindy Seu is a designer and technologist based in New York City and Los Angeles. Her expanded practice involves archival projects, techno-critical writing, performative lectures, and design commissions. Her latest writing surveys feminist economies, historical precursors of the metaverse, and the materiality of the internet. Mindy’s ongoing Cyberfeminism Index, which gathers three decades of online activism and net art, was commissioned by Rhizome, presented at the New Museum, and awarded the Graham Foundation Grant. She has lectured internationally at cultural institutions (Barbican Centre, New Museum), academic institutions (Columbia University, Central Saint Martins), and mainstream platforms (Pornhub, SSENSE, Google), and been a resident at MacDowell, Sitterwerk Foundation, Pioneer Works, and Internet Archive. Her design commissions and consultation include projects for the Serpentine Gallery, Canadian Centre for Architecture, and MIT Media Lab. Her work has been featured in Vanity Fair, Frieze, Dazed, Brooklyn Rail, i-D, and more. Mindy holds an M.Des. from Harvard’s Graduate School of Design and a B.A. in Design Media Arts from the University of California, Los Angeles. As an educator, Mindy was formerly an Assistant Professor at Rutgers Mason Gross School of the Arts and Critic at Yale School of Art. She is currently an Associate Professor at University of California, Los Angeles in the Department of Design Media Arts. Read less

James Corner

Founding Partner, Field Operations

James Corner is Founding Partner of Field Operations, based in New York City, with offices in San Francisco, Philadelphia, London, and Shenzhen. His work focuses upon the design of important urban public realm projects, which include New York’s highly acclaimed High Line, San Francisco’s Presidio Tunnel Tops, Chicago’s Navy Pier, Cleveland’s Public Square, Santa Monica’s Tongva Park, London’s South Park at Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, Hong Kong’s Victoria Dockside, and Shenzhen’s new city of Qianhai.
James’s work has been recognized with numerous awards, most notably the ASLA Design Medal, the Richard Neutra Award for Professional Excellence, the American Academy of Arts and Letters Award in Architecture, and the Cooper Hewitt National Design Award. He holds Honorary Doctorates in Design from the Technical University of Munich and Manchester Metropolitan University. His work has been exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Cooper Hewitt Design Museum, the National Building Museum, the Royal Academy of Art in London, and the Venice Biennale. His books include The High Line: Foreseen/Unforeseen (Phaidon, 2015); The Landscape Imagination (Princeton, 2014), and Taking Measures Across the American Landscape (Yale, 1996).
James is Emeritus Professor of Landscape Architecture and Urbanism at the University of Pennsylvania Weitzman School of Design, where he served on the faculty since 1990 and as Professor and Chairman from 2000-2013. He sits on the Board of the Urban Design Forum and the Government Advisory Board of Shenzhen and is an Elected Member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Read less

Suning Zhou, Tao Tang, Ziye Wu

Principals, MIX Architecture

MIX Architecture was established in 2016 and was recognized as Design Vangard by Architectural Record in 2023. We are committed to exploring the possibilities of architecture in various contexts to respond to the most primitive emotional and spiritual needs of human beings. Mix Architecture connects imagination and reality, and through the exploration of the spirit of the site and the sensitivity to material construction, which creates a spatial situation that enters the deep consciousness, creating an inner integration of people, architecture and nature. Read less

Julia Watson

Author and Researcher, Julia Watson LLC and Lo—TEK Institute

Julia Watson is an Australian born, award-winning author, educator, and landscape designer based in Brooklyn, New York. Watson is an expert on traditional and indigenous technologies and focuses her work at the intersection of anthropology, ecology and innovation. Her eponymously named studio foregrounds traditional knowledge, sustainability and nature-based innovation, while the Lo—TEK Institute launched in 2024, to foster climate and environmental literacy for scholars worldwide. Watson was named by Wallpaper* in 2023 and 2024, as one of the 300 people defining creative America, and is the 2024 recipient of the Institute of Classical Architecture and Art’s Arthur Ross Award for lifetime achievement in Education. Read less

Saul Kim

Director, Saul Kim Studio; Adjunct Professor, Hongik University

Architectural designer based in Seoul, South Korea. Author of ‘Architecture Anomaly’ series. Read less

Elizabeth Graziolo

Founding Principal, Yellow House Architects

Elizabeth Graziolo is the award-winning founder and principal of Yellow House Architects, a collaborative-minded practice based in New York City specializing in residential and commercial work. She has directed projects ranging from private homes to developments in the United States and abroad. Elizabeth is a trustee of The Institute of Classical Architecture & Art, The Museum of the City of New York, and The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science & Art and serves on the Delano & Aldrich/Emerson Fellowship Committee of the American Institute of Architects. Elizabeth is an ADPro and a 2022–24 Architectural Digest AD100 honoree. In 2021, AD profiled her as “One to Watch.” She has recently contributed to articles for The Institute of Classical Architecture & Art, Traditional Building, and Veranda. Elizabeth has been honored with The Museum of the City of New York “City of Design Award” and the prestigious Cooper Union President’s Citation in Architecture. Read less

Meisa Batayneh

Founder Principal Architect, maisam architects and engineers

Meisa Batayneh is the founder and principal architect of maisam architects & engineers, established in 1987 with offices in Amman and Abu Dhabi. Over her long and distinguished career, she has led multi-disciplinary teams on large-scale international and regional projects.
In 2015, she was recognized as the Leading Arab Woman Architect by the Arab syndicate for Architects and Engineers. In addition she is actively involved in social initiatives through numerous national and international commissions and boards.
Maisam’s work has won numerous global awards, including the Architizer A+Award in 2015, LEAF Award in 2014 and multiple Arabian Property Awards. Maisam won the World Architecture Festival’s Future Projects for “School in a Park” in 2019. Ms. Batayneh joined the Board of the LafargeHolcim Foundation for Sustainable Construction in January 2020. Ms. Batayneh has served on the Master Jury of the Aga Khan Awards for Architecture and was appointed member of its steering committee for the fifteenth cycle 2022 and sixteenth cycle 2025. Read less

Germane Barnes

Founder, Studio Barnes and B-arn-S

Germane Barnes is the Principal of Studio Barnes, and Associate Professor and Director of the Master of Architecture Graduate Program at the University of Miami School of Architecture. Barnes’ practice investigates the connection between architecture and identity, examining architecture’s social and political agency through historical research and design speculation.
His work has recently been exhibited in the Museum of Modern Art’s groundbreaking 2021 exhibition, Reconstructions: Architecture and Blackness in America, and the 2021 Chicago Architecture Biennial. He is a winner of the Architectural League Prize and is a Rome Prize Fellow at the American Academy in Rome. He was selected in the inaugural cohort of The Dorchester Industries Experimental Design Lab created by Theaster Gates and sponsored by Prada. His work has also been featured and acquired to the permanent collections of international institutions most notably San Francisco MoMA, LACMA, The Art Institute of Chicago, The New York Times, and The National Museum of African American History and Culture. His project, Griot was widely published, as a participant in Biennale Architettura 2023, Laboratory of the Future. Read less

Philippe Block

Professor and Co-director Block Research Group, Institute of Technology in Architecture, ETH Zurich

Philippe Block is Full Professor of Architecture and Structures and head of the Institute of Technology in Architecture (ITA) at ETH Zurich, where he co-leads the Block Research Group (BRG) with Dr. Tom Van Mele, and director of the Swiss National Centre of Competence in Research (NCCR) on Digital Fabrication. He studied architecture and structural engineering at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel in Belgium and at MIT in the US, where he earned his PhD in 2009. The BRG develops sustainable and circular construction solutions through the advancement of computational structural design and innovation in digital fabrication and construction. Philippe and Tom translate their research into practice, with the consultancy Foreign Engineering and the ETH spin-off VAULTED. Most significant is the development of the Rippmann Floor System (RFS), a low-carbon-footprint, fully circular prefabricated concrete floor solution. Read less

Evelyn Lee

Founder and CEO, Practice of Architecture

Evelyn M. Lee, FAIA, is an architect turned tech entrepreneur who blends her design background with a passion for innovation. As an angel investor, startup advisor, and fractional COO, she helps drive growth for architecture firms, embracing new ways of practicing. Lee is the founder of Practice of Architecture and hosts the Practice Disrupted podcast with over 50,000 listeners globally. A sought-after speaker and Architizer columnist, she provides insights on integrating technology, leadership development, and better business operations within the architecture practice. Lee also champions inclusivity as an advisor for Women Defining AI, inspiring women to close the gender gap within the tech industry. Read less

Andrew Maynard

Director, Austin Maynard Architects

Andrew Maynard began Austin Maynard Architects in 2002, a purpose over profit business focused on innovative housing models. In recent years Andrew and Austin Maynard Architects have created highly sustainable, cost-effective and community focused housing as both developer and architect, resulting in TERRACE HOUSE, a sustainable community that won ArchDaily’s Building of the Year award and Gold at the Australian Good Design Awards; PARKLIFE, named Australia’s most sustainable Apartment Building; and Slate House, an innovative approach to densification in a sensitive context. Andrew was a founding director of Nightingale Housing and is a Fellow of the Australian Institute of Architects. Most recently, Austin Maynard Architects won Dezeen’s prestigious Architecture Studio of the Year award. Read less

Heather Dubbeldam

Principal, Dubbeldam Architecture + Design

Heather Dubbeldam is a fourth-generation architect and the principal of Dubbeldam Architecture + Design, a Toronto-based studio recognized for its innovative and sustainable projects. Her forward-thinking design approach, commitment to environmental and social sustainability, and belief in architecture and advocacy as a catalyst for change have established her as a leading Canadian architect of her generation.
Dubbeldam has received over 100 awards for design, practice and advocacy, including the Professional Prix de Rome from the Canada Council for the Arts and, most recently, the 2024 Architectural Practice Award from the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada, two of the highest honors for architectural practices in Canada. Her studio's work has been widely featured in national and international publications and was showcased at the Venice Architecture Biennale in 2023, where she represented one of nine internationally recognized women-led firms. Read less

Jakub Figel

Founding Partner, ELEMENT

Jakub Figel is a powerhouse connecting the worlds of art and architecture. His entrepreneurial drive leads him down unconventional paths, co-founding the World Visualization Festival (WVF) and spearheading ELEMENT Visualization Studio to become a recognizable figure in Archviz for over a decade. Jakub’s achievements include prestigious titles like Architectural Visualization Studio and Visualization of the Year 2023 and a Special Mention at the Architizer A+ Awards. Read less

Filip Kurasz

Founding Partner, ELEMENT

Filip Kurasz is a dynamic creative, juggling roles as an artist, art director, and architect. Inspired by childhood passions and fueled by an entrepreneurial spirit, has co-guided ELEMENT Studio to the forefront of Archviz over the past decade and now became a proud co-founder of the World Visualization Festival - WVF. His knack for pushing boundaries earned him titles like Architectural Visualizer of the Year 2023 and nods from the Architizer A+ Awards. When he's not crafting masterpieces, Filip enjoys tackling obstacle races and finding joy in family adventures. Always striving for the next creative challenge, he brings a touch of lightheartedness to everything he does. Read less

Georgina Wilson

Principal, Georgina Wilson Associates

Georgina Wilson is the founder and principal of Georgina Wilson Associates, bringing with her over 20 years’ experience designing award-winning homes and commercial spaces.
As the creative director and principal architect Georgina’s designs offer both beauty and practicality, with each project facilitated by her talented team, under her expert instruction.
Georgina takes great pride in translating the all-important client/designer conversation into spaces and structures that are illustrative of the way each of her clients want to uniquely live, work and play.
In 2023, Georgina launched ‘Ask an Architect’, a digital platform of resources and practical tools for people undertaking home renovations anywhere in the world! The platform offers recommended room layouts, budgeting and project management templates. Read less

Kevin Hui

Director, Archimarathon

One half of the Archimarathon duo, Kevin Hui is an architecture educator for over two decades at various universities. Kevin is an architecture tour curator and leader who has been on many incredible architecture tours around the world. Archimarathon’s video content creation on YouTube, Instagram and TikTok focuses on communicating and educating the public about the importance of good design in architecture. Read less

Leah Wulfman

Mixed Reality Architect; Game Designer; Educator, University of Utah, College of Architecture & Planning, Multi-Disciplinary Design (MDD)

Leah Wulfman is a Carrier Bag architect, educator, game designer, digital puppeteer, and occasional writer. Trained as an architect, Wulfman has been assembling hybrid virtual and physical spaces to prototype new relationships to technology and nature and challenge normative ideologies so often reinforced by technology and architecture. In addition to mixed reality installations that play with and emphasize the physical, material basis of everything digital, they are presently working on a research series focusing on gamified environments, interactions, and materials. Such mixed reality ecologies and interactions find their foundations in disability, trans, and queer embodied practice and politics, and operate as lenses to reconfigure and recontextualize space and time orientations in architectural discourse beyond the normative.
Wulfman holds a Bachelors of Architecture degree from Carnegie Mellon University, as well as a Masters of Arts in Fiction and Entertainment at SCI-Arc. They have taught at numerous institutions in the United States, including ArtCenter’s Media Design Practices Graduate Program, IDEAS Program at UCLA Architecture and Urban Design, SCI-Arc, The School of Architecture at Taliesin, and most recently University of Michigan’s Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning, where they have developed youth programming and mixed reality coursework. Leah is now at the University of Utah’s College of Architecture and Planning, where they are currently Visiting Assistant Professor in the Division of Multi-Disciplinary Design (MDD). Read less

Hubert Klumpner

Architect and Principal-Partner, Urbanthinktank_next; Professor of Architecture and Urban Design, ETHZurich

Hubert Klumpner is an Austrian architect and the design principal of Urbanthinktank_next. He currently holds the position of Professor of Architecture and Urban Design at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, ETHZ. He is internationally renowned for his architecture, urban, and research projects, which focus on the interface of informality and the design of architecture prototypes, innovative building typologies, and civic spaces for culture, education, and shelter in pursuit of an alternative architecture practice. Through his architecture practice Urbanthinktank, Klumpner has been influential as one of the originators of the “social turn,” a movement that gained recognition at the MoMA exhibition “Small Scale Big Change / New Architectures of Social Engagement” in 2010. Urbanthinktank’s work aims to transform everyday neighborhoods into critical areas for imagining public space and social practices, emphasizing the role of architecture as critical infrastructure for art and culture in addressing inclusion in post-crisis cities. As a founding partner of Urbanthinktank, he has received numerous awards and prizes, including the Golden Lion at the International Architecture Biennale Venice, the Chicago Award of the Museum of Architecture and Design, the Curry Stone Foundation Design Prize, and the Gold Holcim Award Latin America. Current projects include Fabrica de Cultura in Barranquilla, Colombia, and the General Urban Plan for Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina. His contributions are widely published in architecture books and journal articles. Read less

Caitlin Brady

Host, Architectette Podcast; Project Architect, Ayers Saint Gross

Caitlin is an architect, creative problem solver, and community builder. She is a Project Architect and Associate at Ayers Saint Gross. Professionally and personally, she is dedicated to the advancement of emerging professionals, focusing volunteer efforts largely with organizations such as her bi-weekly podcast for women+ in architecture, Architectette; ACE Mentors; and AIA/ Emerging Architect Committees that empower students, upcoming professionals, and less represented populations in architecture. \n She has been recognized for her dedication to the profession with the Alpha Chi Rho Medal for Leadership and Service, 2023 AIA|DC Emerging Architect Award, and 2021 Beverly Willis Architecture Foundation Emerging Leader Award. Read less

Ismail Seleit

AI Influencer, Foster + Partners

Ismail Seleit is a design architect at the industry-leading Foster and Partners, specialising in design technology. With extensive experience in architecture and computational design, Ismail has contributed to diverse projects, ranging from design competitions to the realisation of buildings on various scales.
Actively supporting design teams, Ismail leverages his expertise in BIM and Computational Design to navigate complex challenges. His primary focus is on enabling project teams to achieve efficient, informed, and collaborative design outcomes. Collaborating across departments, Ismail works to implement innovative methodologies to manage the design process from urban planning to product scale.
Simultaneously, Ismail engages in applied research, exploring new opportunities for implementing cutting-edge design workflows. His research specifically focuses into the integration of generative AI image-generating tools, with a keen interest in the combination of Stable Diffusion and ControlNet. This unique approach offers various techniques for generating controlled image compositions based on diverse user-defined inputs.
Beyond his architectural pursuits, Ismail is an ambient-electronic music producer, with a focus on film scores. He has composed and produced soundtracks for architectural short films and contributed to the music and sound design of various independent films. Ismail's passion for creative thinking, coupled with his dedication to design problem-solving, continues to drive his multifaceted and innovative endeavours. Read less

David Drazil

Architect turned Content Creator; Founder, Sketch Like an Architect; Published Author; Teacher

David Drazil is an architect who loves to sketch. He's the founder of the SketchLikeAnArchitect.com and a teacher with more than 15,000 online students in his courses.
David is also an author of 3 books on architectural sketching. He is focused on helping architects & designers to improve their clarity of visual communication through his educational resources on both analog & digital sketching and drawing. Read less

Troy Donovan

Principal - Facade Designer, Prism Facades

Troy is a principal at Prism Façades, a design and engineering consultancy in Sydney, Australia. As a façade designer, he has developed specialist skills in the design of components and custom fabrication, which he applies to the development of new facades. He has a broad range of industry experience, and has worked in Australia, New Zealand, New York.
Troy is also an accomplished illustrator and is active in the architectural community as a mentor, blogger and speaker. His enthusiasm and willingness to share has encouraged a sketching and model making culture amongst the architect’s and students he works with. Read less

Julie Payette

Founding Partner, v2com newswire

With 25 years of leadership in international media relations, Julie Payette is a Founding Partner of v2com newswire, the first and preeminent international architecture and design newswire service for promoting projects to the world’s largest specialized media network. Julie remains focused on the highest standards of design and leads v2com’s relentless pursuit of quality projects and the most promising young talent from around the world. In recognition of her extensive industry experience and expertise, Julie has been selected as a jury member for prestigious international competitions including the Frame Awards, Architizer A+ Awards, Architecture MasterPrize, LOOP Design Awards, and Rethinking The Future. In 2021, Julie received the prestigious Ambassador of Quality in Architecture award, a distinction of the Order of Architects of Quebec (OAQ). Read less

Avinash Rajagopal

Editor in Chief, Metropolis

Avinash Rajagopal is the editor-in-chief of Metropolis magazine. He is an advocate for sustainable architecture and design, leading Metropolis's initiatives and programs for decarbonization and equity in architecture and interior design, including the Climate Toolkit for Interior Design, the Interior Design Pledge for Positive Impact, and the Planet Positive Awards. Rajagopal is the author of Hacking Design (Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, 2013), has contributed to numerous volumes on architecture and design, and has lectured at the National Institute of Design in India; the University of Texas at Austin; the School of Visual Arts in New York; the New York School of Interior Design; and Parsons School of Design. He was one of the jurors for the AIA COTE Top Ten Awards 2023. Read less

Bartosz Haduch

PhD Arch and Founder, NArchitekTURA

Bartosz Haduch is an architect, academic teacher, publicist, winner of numerous architecture competitions, awards, and scholarships. Following his studies and internships in Holland, Spain and Austria, he launched his own studio in Krakow, Poland. Since 2009, he has run the interdisciplinary collective NArchitekTURA, which combines urban planning with architecture, landscaping and design. In 2010, the Wallpaper magazine named NArchitekTURA one of the world’s thirty most intriguing young studios. In 2022 The Great Synagogue Memorial Park in Oswiecim, designed by the practice, was shortlisted for the EU Mies van der Rohe Award. Read less

Omar Degan

Principal and Founder, DO Architecture Group

Omar Degan is the principal of DO Architecture Group, an international architecture and research practice founded in Mogadishu, Somalia, with offices in Italy and the USA. Specializing in fragile and emergency contexts—including post-conflict reconstruction, natural disasters, and climate adaptation—his work focuses on developing culturally and environmentally sensitive solutions to global social challenges. Degan has collaborated with international organizations such as UN-Habitat and IOM, providing expertise in shelter upgrades and community development across the Horn of Africa, South America, and South Asia. Recognized as an Obama Foundation African Leader in 2022 for his impactful work in the Horn of Africa and beyond, he established FragilityLab in 2023 to governments and communities in addressing the complexities of fragile environments, from conflict zones to climate resilience. Degan's projects have received international attention, with features in major publications worldwide. His commitment to advocating for cultural diversity in architecture and addressing the needs of vulnerable communities has positioned him as one of East Africa's most influential architects, shaping the future of global architecture. Read less

Rachael Bernstone

Business Development and Marketing Adviser to Architects, Sounds Like Design

Rachael Bernstone is a journalist-turned-business advisor to architects, and an advocate for good design more broadly.
She strongly believes that access to good design is an equity issue, and that only architects have the requisite skills to respond to some of the great challenges of our time, such as climate emergency and affordable housing shortages.
Straddling the intersection of architecture and communications, Rachael holds a Bachelor of Arts (in Journalism, from RMIT) and a Masters in Architecture (History and Theory, from UNSW). In 2003, she was awarded a prestigious Churchill Fellowship to study sustainable and affordable housing, in the UK, Sweden, Finland and five cities across the United States.
After interviewing more than 2000 practitioners globally as a journalist and researcher, Rachael observed a gap in their formal education around business development and marketing. To plug that gap, she founded a specialist communications consultancy – Sounds Like Design – in 2016.
Today, her consulting services and online course simplify modern business development and marketing for architects, and she works with practice owners, directors and principals to create a reliable pipeline of new work and clients, leading to enhanced creativity, better wellbeing, more money, and a bigger impact.
In addition, Rachael continues to work as a journalist – contributing to international publications such as Architectural Review and Design Anthology, and HOUSES, Habitus and Sanctuary magazines in Australia– to communicate the value of good design to a wider audience. Read less

Belinda Carr

ConTech Communicator and CEO, Carr Builds

With a background in architecture, interior design, BIM management, building science and construction, Belinda Carr has a unique take on construction technology and innovation. Identifying a gap in the dissemination unbiased educational info in the construction tech landscape, Belinda channeled her knowledge and passion into launching a YouTube channel, social media outlets and Podcast. This platform serves as a source of truth for industry professionals and enthusiasts alike, providing the critical insights and information that were previously lacking. Belinda's commitment to advancing the industry's knowledge base is paralleled by her role at DPR Construction's prefabrication team. With a vision that aligns with the innovative ethos of DPR, Belinda is helping to steer the construction industry towards a more efficient and sustainable future. Read less

Keir Regan-Alexander

Principal, Arka Works

Keir is an AEC Domain Expert operating with one foot in practice and one in live software development. He founded Arka Works with a mission to prepare the profession for AI-driven change. He does this by helping Architects, Clients and Startups to effectively apply the latest Generative Design and AI tools to the work they already do, so that they can adapt to a rapidly shifting professional landscape. Read less

Jean Francois Goyette

Founder, Future Future

Jean-Francois Goyette, founder and CEO of Future-Future, is a consultant and communications strategist specializing in architecture and design. He has extensive international experience working across various disciplines, including architecture, urban planning, communications, branding, and cultural strategy.
He previously held positions as Public Relations Manager at OMA and Communications Director at Bruce Mau Design. At Phaidon, he was editor of the Phaidon Atlas of Architecture Online, the publisher’s largest editorial endeavor and first-ever digital project. Jean-Francois has also held posts within the digital departments of the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London and the Barbican Centre. He is trained as an architect and holds an M.Sc. from The Bartlett, University College London. Read less

Stjepan Mikulic

Founder, AI in AEC j.d.o.o

Stjepan is the founder of AI in AEC, a company which educates architects, engineers, and construction professionals in the practical use of AI. Altough young, this company has clients in 54 countries across the entire globe!
Before embarking on his solopreneur journey, Stjepan has worked as a Constructing Architect at Europe’s largest engineering practice Sweco, and as a BIM Lead in the world renowned architectural studio BIG (Bjarke Ingels Group). Stjepan’s main piece of work is the world’s largest database of AI tools for the AEC industry called the AEC AI Hub, accessible to everyone for free and recognized by more than 18k LinkedIn professionals. Read less

Index of Jury