Lennaart Sirag was educated at the Technical University Delft. He gathered professional experience over 20 years in the  Netherlands and Germany. Throughout his career, he contributed to a variety of large scale, mixed-use projects from the first concept to the final realization. He gained profound skills in architectural design, general planning and technical due diligence.

He previously worked on large scale turnkey projects in urban environments. This resulted in a deep understanding of processes, regulations and stakeholders within the field of planning and project realization in Germany.

In his position as Director for the Berlin office, Lennaart oversees the projects in German-speaking countries in the realization phase.

‘’Build environments in Germany reach highest standards of technological quality. At the same time, they tend to be more monotonous than abroad. It is a great pleasure to mix things up with the spectacular, vivid, sustainable and colourful approach of MVRDV archtitecture and urbanism.’’

Werner Frosch is a partner at Henning Larsen Architects and managing director of the Munich branch. He is an experienced project manager and project director, and has managed various large-scale projects in Scandinavia and Germany, which are characterized by sustainability above average.
In addition to his daily tasks, Werner Frosch gives numerous lectures, and acts as member of architectural juries. He is committed to convey architecture and the quality in the physical environment. Werner Frosch is chairman of the Deutscher Werkbund Bayern.

Frants Nielsen has a Master of Laws degree and a Graduate Diploma in Organization and Management. With more than 15 years of experience in managing architectural and creative practices – including major building projects worldwide – he knows firsthand what it takes to run an architecture practice, strengthen its position and spot new opportunities. Frants Nielsen has an unmistakable flair for strategic development and a distinct organizational insight. Joining Dorte Mandrup in 2015, he has played an essential role in enhancing the company’s strategy, building and driving a strong organization and with the team pushing the studio to international recognition. Through his work and collaborative character, he exemplifies how to balance the extraordinary and artistic ambitions of Dorte Mandrup and the studios profitable viability.

Eskild Andersen is the CEO of Nordic – Office of Architecture and he is on the board of directors of Nordic’s Denmark office. Andersen is also a part of the management group of Norway’s largest engineering consultancy firm, Norconsult. As an architect, Andersen specialises in large scale, high complexity infrastructure and urbanisation projects, with experience spanning residential, transport, commercial mixed use, as well as military projects. He was responsible for the architectural team designing the new 3,6 bn NOK passenger terminal at Bergen Airport Flesland in Norway, several building contracts for the expansion of Oslo International Airport, as well as several complex master plan projects. He is a part of Nordic’s internal professional advisory group, a much sought after speaker and regularly lectures at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology.

Thomas Willemeit studied architecture at the Technical University
Braunschweig, where he graduated as Dipl.-Ing. Arch. in 1997, and
partook the masterclass for architecture and urban planning at the
Bauhaus Dessau. Besides his successful career in the architectural
field, he won numerous national prizes as a violin player and a
chorister. He was a visiting professor for architecture at the RWTH Aachen and at Peter Behrens School of Art in Düsseldorf and has been a visiting professor at the TU Delft in 2017/18
In 1998 Thomas Willemeit established GRAFT in Los Angeles together with Lars Krückeberg and Wolfram Putz. With further offices in Berlin and Shanghai, GRAFT has been commissioned to
design and manage a wide range of projects. GRAFT has won numerous national and international awards and earned international reputation throughout its existence. In 2009 the GRAFT founding partners co-founded Solarkiosk AG together with Andreas Spiess, which affiliate companies are
incorporated in ten countries worldwide today. With GRAFT Brandlab Thomas Willemeit, Wolfram Putz, and
Lars Krückeberg established a branding agency together with Linda Stannieder in 2014. The agency operates at the interface of architecture, design, and branding. Since 2015 GRAFT offers sustainable housing systems in modular design in order to quickly construct accommodations for
refugees. The company called Heimat2 was founded together with three other companies working in project development and communication. Thomas Willemeit, Lars Krückeberg and Wolfram Putz together
with Marianne Birthler curated the German Pavilion in Venice at the Architecture Biennale 2018.

Christopher Hammerschmidt studied architecture at Bauhaus University and Oxford Brookes University. In the year 2000 he joined Foster + Partners and was involved in various prestigious office developments in the City of London and in Paris. As an associate partner at Foster + Partners he was responsible for the design and building process of the Zenith concert hall in Saint Etienne, France.
He joined KSP Jürgen Engel Architekten in 2010 where he was responsible for the design and competition team, before he became managing director and partner. He was responsible for the design and realization of many prestigious projects as the high-rise tower for SAP in Eschborn, the PWC headquarters in Berlin and the headquarters building Jean Monnet 2 of the European Commission in Luxemburg. After 2 years as a director for Sweco, Europe’s leading expert for sustainable cities, he has joined ATP as managing director in 2020. His belief is: Intelligent multi-disciplinary design solutions are essential to create design responses for sustainable communities in the futur

Kirsten is the London studio’s Managing Partner; overseeing the development of the studio as it continues to grow. Kirsten is a highly experienced architect with over 25 years’ experience in architecture, strategic planning, urban design and regeneration in sensitive environments within the arts, sports and master planning sectors. She brings insight and creativity to the development of strategic projects, and she demonstrates strong conceptual judgment when integrating buildings into sensitive settings, both urban and rural.

Genuine innovation and architectural distinction distinguish Kirsten’s projects, which are founded on the insightful translation of client and stakeholder objectives. Her work has been acknowledged for its subtle response to place, the pre-eminence of the cultural agenda and its unique expressive and material qualities. She was shortlisted for the AJ Woman Architect of the Year award in 2014.

She is currently developing the Koç Contemporary Art Museum → in Istanbul, and a new grandstand for Curragh Racecourse →.

Kirsten is a creative and collaborative design leader who is capable of inspiring her teams and collaborating with engineering, construction and client teams to achieve optimum solutions. She has significant experience in managing complex stakeholder environments, and she is skilled at thoroughly understanding the impact of strategic, regional and political drivers.

Her work demonstrates a clear understanding that commercial viability must be balanced with the demands of local plans and the requirements of the local community to deliver tangible legacy benefits. Project examples include the Mönchengladbach urban regeneration strategy, the Wimbledon Master Plan →, the Gilston Park Estate Master Plan, Didcot Garden Town and the regeneration programme for Hammersmith Town Centre.

Natasha Bonugli has experience of workplace design that crosses continents. Trained as an architect in the US and RIBA Part 3 qualified in the UK, she has spent the majority of her 17 year career focusing on the design and delivery of interior projects of all scales. Based in London the past 15 years, she had managed and developed a number of high-performance design teams to deliver award winning schemes across the globe. In 2015 Natasha joined Unispace to help grow the design team and elevate the brand across Europe and her remit has recently expanded into a global role. As Unispace’s Global Principal Design, Natasha provides creative design direction to all studios across the northern hemisphere, driving design excellence and thought leadership across the business.

With extensive cross-sector industry experience, Natasha is driven by a passion to craft progressive and innovative design solutions that focus on generating design solutions which react and place evidence behind intuition – science and storytelling.

She is widely known as a key influencer and an inspiration within the London workplace design industry. Together with the Unispace team she is challenging established conventions and bringing its singular methodology to bear on leading projects around the world

Born in 1968, Elisabetta Trezzani studied architecture at the Politecnico di Milan and graduated in 1994. She joined RPBW in Genoa in 1998 working initially on the design of the Aurora Place office and residential buildings in Sydney. She was subsequently involved in the design and construction of the addition to the High Museum in Atlanta, where she ran the site office until the project completion in 2005.

Together with Mark Carroll, she led the teams working on the new Whitney Museum of American Art in New York and the Harvard Art Museums in Cambridge. She was the Partner in charge of the SoHo residential tower project in New York, completed in March 2019. She also worked on the RPBW exhibitions in Rome, Atlanta, Milan and New York.

She is currently leading the 555 Howard Street hotel project in San Francisco, the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures in Los Angeles and the 540 West 21st Street residential project in New York including David Zwirner Gallery .

Elisabetta became a Partner in 2011 and was appointed member of the board in 2014.

• Since 2010 Chief Executive Officer of the German Sustainable Building Council
• Winner of the W.I.R.E. Award 2019 (Women In Real Estate) of the Heuer Dialog GmbH
• Winner of the Eco Innovator Award 2019 of the Global Green Economic Forum

Architect Patrick Lüth has been managing the Snøhetta Studio in Innsbruck since 2011. In 2005, after studying architecture in Innsbruck, he started as an intern in the Oslo office. There he participated in numerous international architectural competitions and some of Snøhetta’s most popular design submissions. He expanded the Innsbruck studio into an office with around 25 employees. He is responsible, among other things, for the Swarovski projects “Crystal Worlds Evolution” and Manufaktur, an innovative building for production and creative collaboration, for the design study for a new museum quarter in Bolzano, the master plan for a new city quarter in Budapest, the conversion of the site of an old tobacco factory in Verona, and for hotel and tourism projects.

Prof. Michael Schumacher, born 1957, founded together with Till Schneider their architecture practice schneider+schumacher in Frankfurt, Germany in1988. The office first gained an international reputation with the notably red Info-Box in Berlin, which marked the German reunification. The Städel Museum extension of 2012, this time in Frankfurt, gained worldwide critical acclaim.

Having completed his architectural studies at the University of Kaiserslautern followed by a postgraduate program at the Städel Academy in Frankfurt under Peter Cook, Michael Schumacher worked at Foster Associates in London. From 1999-2000 he taught at the Städel Academy as a guest professor. Since 2007 he has been appointed professor at the Faculty of Architecture in Hannover and between 2004 -2009 Prof. Schumacher was chairman of the BDA Hessen (Bund Deutscher Architekten). He is a member of the AIV.

Ever since 2008, schneider+schumacher have successfully merged several companies and services under one roof: Architecture, Urban Design, Building and Project Management, Design and Parametrics. They now have further offices in Vienna, Austria and Shenzhen and Tianjin, China.

Alexandra Hagen is an architect with long experience within the practice; since joining in 2001 she has held several roles, including director of White International. For the past seven years she has been managing director of White’s 90-person Malmö office.

“It’s an exciting challenge to step into my new role. Along with my knowledgeable colleagues, my aim is to continue pushing forward the company’s international and digital development. As always, architecture and sustainable development of society will lead the way”, says Alexandra.

Adds Monica von Schmalensee: “It is reassuring to hand over the relay baton to Alexandra after a journey in which we have succeeded in elevating the architect’s role in the creation of a sustainable society. After seven years as CEO, I’m returning to the hands-on work of creating people-centric architecture.”

Chairman of the Board Liselotte Hjorth has been responsible for the recruitment process.

“Monica von Schmalensee has, as CEO, led the company to international recognition. Now we are entering a new phase with Alexandra who is a good leader with solid experience and who has a great interest in solving future issues. There is extensive and broad competence within White and we are pleased to be able to recruit the new CEO internally,” says Liselotte.

Jamie’s diverse experience spans 20 years in the UK, Asia and Middle East. As a designer, he believes successful placemaking is about seamlessly integrating mixed-use facilities into communities where people can come together and connect.

Previously Jamie worked at Squire and Partners, 10 Design and Glenn Howells Architects, where he delivered the 2007 Stirling Prize nominated Savill Garden building.

His portfolio includes the masterplanning and regeneration of the Brains Brewery site at Central Quay Cardiff where residential, workspace, education and leisure were woven around a central square and transport node. His other notable projects include a leisure-led new mixed use development in West London, the design of the new town centre retail experience in Oxfordshire and two innovative new retail led mixed use projects in central London. At city level, Jamie is leading a number of large scale urban regeneration and City Districts in the UK and beyond, commercializing and animating public and private space.

As Co-Regional Managing Principal for Gensler Europe, Julia has more than 30 years of experience in the industry. She is recognised as an expert in workplace design strategies and is a trusted advisor to many of the most respected developers and occupiers in the financial, legal, and corporate sectors.
Julia has been awarded by industry-leading design publication Interior Design and the corporate real estate association CoreNet. In addition, she has been published in Interior Design, Bloomberg BusinessWeek, and Architectural Record.
Julia is currently a member of Gensler’s Management Committee and Board of Directors, for which she is focused on her efforts on client relationships and leadership development.
Julia lives by the notion that as a designer, you are compelled to support growth and change, and has spent her career inspiring, mentoring, and coaching those around her. In 2011, Julia was honored by Girls Inc., for her work in empowering and inspiring girls and young women. She was also honored in 2015 by Right to Dream, where she currently sits on the board

An architect born into the profession, Monica Armani continuously experienced the synthesis between planning, observation, and research from a very young age.

Born in one of the key locations of Italian Rationalism, she was trained in the family firm on the principle that the equation of detail is the primary point of reference: form, function, and technologies are refined to achieve the best possible balance.

Industrial design became a natural continuation of this experience. In 1998, Monica Armani brought a brilliant self-production experience to life with “progetto1”, a cross-cutting system/concept encompassing the home and workspaces and anticipating the times. In 2005, “progetto1” became part of the B&B Italia collection.

Heritage, vision, precision, and technological research have produced a unique style. The Monica Armani studio is engaged in architecture and interior design, industrial design, and Timely Architecture. Its design process generates concentric circles, which intersect and merge together in continuous cross-fertilization. This produces a signature style that is always recognizable.

Monica Armani designs collections of objects and accessories for Italian, European, and American companies.

In the field of architecture, she designed the Excelsior in Milan and exclusive residences. Observing the huge change underway, she has created a movement for a new design approach: Timely Architecture — building lightly for a scheduled timeframe; the “emblem” of this approach was the Corriere della Sera pavilion at Expo 2015 in Milan.

She has won several awards and has been published in the international press

Dieter Brell is a founding member of the interdisciplinary design office 3deluxe, which is among the most cutting-edge representatives of the German design avantgarde. For more than 15 years the Wiesbaden agency, which has offshoots in Miami, Dubai and Bangkok, has been breaking new ground in architecture, interior design and corporate design. Its seemingly organic design language, complex multimedia installations, and iconic buildings have proven to be stylistically very influential even at the international level. As creative director, Dieter Brell is responsible for numerous renowned projects worldwide such as the D’fly store in New York, the architecture of the Leonardo Glass Cube, the Cocoon Club for techno icon Sven Väth, the Butterfly Pavilion in Dubai, award-winning restaurant designs for Michelin-starred chef Mario Lohninger, the V-Plaza urban development project in Lithuania, to name but a few. “My team and I work to make the world more beautiful. We aim to inspire and heighten people’s awareness,and we believe in the positive impact of modern design.” (Dieter Brell)

Johannes studied architecture at the Technical University of Aachen graduating 1998. During his career as an architect, he specialized in the construction of buildings primarily within the health care sector. With HDR, Johannes serves as the Managing Director for Germany, leading business operations, corporate development, and sitting on the global HDR management team.

Company Profile:

For us, architecture is – besides the language – one of the greatest cultural achievements of mankind. It goes beyond meeting the basic needs of the individual, such as shelter, safety, and security, to reflect the relationship of human beings to their environment. It embodies human conceptions of space, structure and connectivity.

HDR was founded in 1917 and flourished under the leadership of engineers Henningson, Durham and Richardson, who created civil engineering structures that reorganised and improved the built environment. This idea continues to drive our global HDR network.

Worldwide, HDR‘s designers, architects and engineers work alongside clients to develop integrated strategies and sustainable solutions for complex problems in the fields of health, civil engineering, science and technology. This is reflected throughout our 100 year history and in who we are today with more than 10,000 employees worldwide and more than 1,000 completed projects in Germany alone.

Ian was elected Managing Director of Broadway Malyan Holdings Ltd in 2019. He joined the practice in 1999 and has been a Director of Broadway Malyan Holdings Ltd since 2007. In 2016, he was invited to join the Executive Committee and appointed Chair of the UK region after spending six years running the practice’s Middle East operation.

During his time in the Middle East, Ian led the design and delivery of a range of complex, mixed-use projects such as the high-profile Hazza Bin Zayed Stadium project, a 26,000 seat showpiece stadium in Abu Dhabi with connected retail, hotel and residential. He also led Broadway Malyan’s work on the Abu Dhabi Education Council (ADEC) Future Schools Programme as well as the Prototype Schools Programme for the Qatari government. Together these have led to the rollout of state of the art schools across the Middle East.

With a passionate interest in the challenges facing a fast-developing world, Ian focuses on the social and cultural, as well as the technological aspects of design and within the practice he was the driving force in transferring Broadway Malyan to an Employee Owned Trust in 2016.

Graduated from the Vatel Hospitality School, Damien Perrot joined Accor group in 1998, as an IT-project manager for the Wagon-Lits Company. He was then appointed assignment manager for the Procurement Department.

From 2000 to 2012, he successfully occupied various positions within the Hotels Equipment Services: from IT project leader to eventually Department Director and Design & Technical Services Communication Director in 2009.

In 2013, he joined the ibis brands teams, as the Technical Vice-President for all Europe.

Since January 2014, Damien is leading the Group Global Design department. His major challenge today is to define the Design strategy for each Brand and ensure to reinforce the brand equity and brand identity.

Fond of cuisine since its childhood and later on of board sports, Damien Perrot’s main objective is to bring his team and the group strategy beyond hospitality traditional boarders in terms of design. Always respecting operational obligations, the Global Design department is increasingly looking for creativity to build experiences and arouse emotions while also increasing the performance for our investors.

Patrik Schumacher is principal of Zaha Hadid Architects and is leading the firm since Zaha Hadid’s passing in March 2016. He joined Zaha Hadid in 1988 and was seminal in developing Zaha Hadid Architects to become a 400 strong global architecture and design brand.

Patrik Schumacher is a winner of the Royal Institute of British Architects’ Stirling Prize for excellence in architecture and an academician of the Berlin Academy of Arts.

In 1996 he founded the Design Research Laboratory at the Architectural Association in London where he continues to teach. Patrik Schumacher holds a PhD in Cultural Science and has published over 100 articles to architectural journals and anthologies, as well as a two-volume treatise on architecture.

Daniel Hajjar is the Managing Principal of the HOK London studio. In addition to managing

the studio, Daniel remains actively involved in project work in order to bring a wide range of

experience to our clients. A large portion of his experience has been in developer led mixed-use

developments with a particular focus on the public realm and residential component.

Daniel constantly searches for new and innovative ways to design, manage and deliver

projects for clients regardless of locale is an important goal on every project in the studio.

Daniel’s international experience has been an important asset in the growth for HOK the

various geographic regions, however, the primary focus of his recent efforts has been the

regional UK market.

Steven’s natural flair for business was apparent early on in his career. While studying interior design in Edinburgh, he was chosen by the Department of Trade and Industry to enrol on a course for future business leaders. This unique experience put Steven on a path to leadership, and within a few years of graduating, he was at the helm of a Dubai-based design firm, which later became part of Perkins and Will. Making a place for himself in an emerging market, set him up with a strong entrepreneurial spirit and a determination to succeed.

 Upon returning to the UK to lead our London studio, Steven has steadily transformed the team, and outlook, to that of a globally-minded business, with a passion for establishing deep and meaningful roots in the UK. With London being a global powerhouse for architecture and design, Steven intends, through design innovation, diversity, and thought leadership to make our London studio a leading voice in the UK built environment industry.

“As we grow our business and networks across the Europe region, taking part in this event is going to be a great opportunity to build connections with the industry. I am looking forward to sharing my thoughts on the business side of architecture, and hearing from architecture and design colleagues from around the globe.”

Arjan Dingste is Director and Senior Architect at UNStudio, responsible for the managerial, technical and aesthetic aspects of projects from concept to construction. He defines design strategies and manages external relations with clients and consultants in conjunction with internal project coordination. Having worked on several key projects of the office, such as the Mercedes-Benz Museum in Stuttgart, the Arnhem Central multimodal station, the Booking.com campus and
several other complex projects, like mixed-use, hotel, commercial, public and large-scale infrastructure projects, Arjan has developed an integrated approach to design management and process management and buildability aspects of complex architectural geometries. Currently,
Arjan is also responsible for the designproces of the Cable Car in Gothenburg. In his experience about corporate workspaces, such as the Booking. com HQ and Rabobank Offices, large mixed-use projects in Turkey and Kuwait, he combines an analytic design and managerial approach with
high ambitions on structural and material performance. Arjan brings the specific knowledge of organisational methods of an optimised public infrastructure, commercial typologies and material / technology driven innovations in the construction field to the Knowledge Platforms of UNStudio and affiliated research projects. Arjan graduated from the Technical University Delft and completed his postgraduate education at the ETH in Zürich in 2000.

“An Architect with 20 years of experience in designing, documenting and managing a wide range of healthcare projects, Burkhard is now playing a vital role in the operations of the Stantec London office as Managing Principal.

 Since joining Stantec in 2003, Burkhard has completed a Master of Science in Construction and Project Management at the Queen’s University Belfast. During his studies he carried out extensive research into the delivery of Public-Private Partnership (PPP) healthcare projects in the United Kingdom.

 Burkhard specialises in the management and execution of large complex healthcare projects and leads multidisciplinary design teams through all stages of the design from inception to completion in the UK and internationally. The wide range of projects in his portfolio includes South West Acute Hospital in Northern Ireland, which won ten design and sustainability awards, and the new Cancer Centre at Guy’s Hospital.”

“I am excited to participate in the upcoming Architecture and Design Network Summit. I am looking forward to join prominent peers in the industry and discuss future opportunities and trends that are shaping the architecture industry in the CEE-CIS region. I am convinced that this event will help to advance our vision of architecture and design in the future.”