Keynote(s)
NIELSEN Kim Herforth 3XN Architects (Denmark) | Principal and Founder
Architect MAA/RIBA, Kim Herforth Nielsen, born 1954, is Founder and Principal of 3XN. Kim Herforth Nielsen graduated from the Aarhus School of Architecture in 1981 and was one of the three Nielsen-founders in 1986. Ever since he has been the driving force behind 3XN, and been involved in all the practice’s major projects, including The Blue Planet, Kubus in Berlin, Museum of Liverpool, Ørestad College, Muziekgebouw Concert Hall in Amsterdam, the Danish Embassy in Berlin and the Architects’ House in Copenhagen. Kim Herforth Nielsen is often called upon as a jury member in international architectural competitions, and as lecturer at art academies and universities around the world. Kim Herforth Nielsen is a Knight of Dannebrog and has received Denmark’s highest architectural honor, the C.F. Hansen Medaille.
About 3XN Architects
3XN was founded 25 years ago and today, Co-founder Kim Nielsen remains the Principal Architect of one of Denmark’s most innovative and international Architecture firms. The Danish architecture studio 3XN is known for its innovative approach to iconic architecture combining science and art while understanding the importance of context. Focusing on cultural buildings, corporate headquarters and educational institutions, the studio proudly celebrated its 25th anniversary in 2011. Today, 3XN is active in 11 different countries and has received numerous honours and distinctions including three RIBA European and International Awards.
Started in 2007, The R&D department, GXN, continues to ensure the studio’s leading position within building sector innovation.
MA Yansong MAD architects (China) | Founding Principal
Beijing-born architect Ma Yansong is recognized as an important voice in a new generation of architects. Since the founding of MAD in 2004, his works have been widely published and exhibited. He studied at Beijing Institute of Civil Engineering and Architecture, holds a masters degree in Architecture from Yale University and has taught Architecture at the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing.
Ma Yansong won the 2006 Architecture League Young Architects Award. In 2008 he was selected as one of the twenty most influential young architects today by ICON magazine while Fast Company named him one of the ten most creative people in architecture in 2009. In 2010 he became the first architect from China to receive a RIBA fellowship.
Ma Yansong works on projects ranging in scale from conceptual artworks to large mixed-use architecture. By the end of 2012, eight of his projects will be built, including the Hutong Bubble 32 in Beijing, the Ordos Museum in Inner Mongolia and the Absolute Towers near Toronto, Canada.
About MAD architects
MAD works in forward-looking environments developing futuristic architecture based on a contemporary interpretation of the eastern spirit of nature. All of MAD's projects - from residential complexes, offices to hotels and cultural centers - desire to protect a sense of community and orientation toward nature, offering people the freedom to develop their own experience. Founded in 2004 by Ma Yansong, the office first earned worldwide attention in 2006 by winning an international competition to design a residential tower near Toronto, to be completed in the summer of 2012.
Previous completed projects include a museum in Ordos, Inner Mongolia, Hutong Bubble 32, a small scale intervention inside the delicate urban tissue of old Beijing, and Hongluo clubhouse.
MAD is led by Ma Yansong, Dang Qun and Yosuke Hayano. They have been awarded the Young Architecture Award from the New York Institute of Architects in 2006 and the 2011 RIBA international fellowship.
NOLTE Tobias Gehry Technologies (France) | Director, Europe
Tobias Nolte joined Gehry Technologies in 2008 as a technical consultant. After leading consulting engagements throughout Europe, he was appointed director in Europe in 2011, where he leads a team of architects, engineers and builders in the implementation of concurrent design systems to improve design, engineering and construction performance. He has worked in a variety of design and condtruction environments, including the New Building of the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Fondation Louis Vuitton pour la Création in Paris, Museum of Contemporary Art and Planning Exhibition Shenzhen, Raffles City Hangzhou, and several other projects. Areas of interest include design computation, integrated product and process design, construction automation, Concurrent design and Cloud technologies. He holds a Engineering Diplom in Architecture from the University of Technologies in Berlin.
About Gehry Technologies:
Gehry Technologies (GT) provides design and project management technology and consulting services to leading owners, developers, architects, engineers, general contractors, fabricators, and other building industry professionals worldwide. GT solutions increase creativity and control; reduce project risks, costs, and completion times; and improve processes and decisions through collaboration, project visibility, and information access. Gehry Technologies is privately held, with offices in Los Angeles, New York, Paris, Doha, Hong Kong, Shanghai, and Beijing. For more information about Gehry Technologies, visit www.gehrytechnologies.com.
WILLEMEIT Thomas GRAFT (Deutschland) | Architect
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.
Thomas Willemeit is Founding Partner of GRAFT together with Wolfram Putz and Lars Krückeberg. GRAFT has won numerous national and international awards and garnered international fame throughout its 10 year existence. GRAFT today employs 100 architects and artists worldwide.
CAREER
since 2000 Graft - Founding Partner
1998 - 2000 Studio Daniel Libeskind Berlin
ACADEMIA
2010 - 2011 PBSA Peter Behrens School of Architecture
International Peter Behrens Guest Professorship
2010 Kunsthochschule Berlin Weissensee
Masterclass
2008 - 2009 RWTH Aachen
Guest Professorship
TITLES
since 2010 AKJAA - Vice Speaker, Council of Young Architects of BDA
since 2007 MIR Foundation, New Orleans - Advisory Board Member
since 2006 BDA, Bund Deutscher Architekten - Member
since 2002 Architektenkammer Berlin, Chamber of Architects Berlin - Member
Technical University of Braunschweig - Diploma in Architecture
EDUCATION
1988 - 1997 Technical University Braunschweig, Diploma in Architecture
Masterclasses
1995 Vienna, Prof. Dagmar Richter
1991 - 1992 Bauhaus Dessau
PERSONAL AWARDS
1998 - 1999 Scholarship of the “Deutscher Musikrat”, German Music Council
1998 Agnes Pockels Medal, Technical University Braunschweig
1988 - 1995 Scholarship of the “Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes”,
About GRAFT
GRAFT was established in 1998 in Los Angeles, CA, USA by Lars Krückeberg, Wolfram Putz Thomas Willemeit and Gregor Hoheisel. Further offices followed in Berlin, Germany
in 2001 and Beijing, China in 2003.
GRAFT was conceived as a ‘Label’ for Architecture, Urban Planning, Design, Music and the “pursuit of happiness”. Since the firm was established, it has been commissioned to design and manage a wide range of projects in multiple disciplines and locations. With the core of the firm’s enterprises gravitating around the field of architecture and the built environment, GRAFT has always maintained an interest in crossing the boundaries between disciplines and “grafting” the creative potentials and methodologies of different realities.
This is reflected in the firm’s expansion into the fields of exhibition design and product design, art installations, academic projects and “events” as well as in the variety of project locations in Germany, China, UAE, Russia, Georgia, in the U.S. and Mexico, to name a few. Our collective professional experience encompasses a wide array of building types including Fine Arts, Educational, Institutional, Commercial and Residential facilities. The firm has won numerous international awards. With a staff of talented architectural professionals and administrators, GRAFT has the resources and technology necessary to execute a project from programming to design and through construction, including construction documents, construction administration, and governmental agency review phases. GRAFT has rigorously undertaken an increasing role in programming, master-planning and
urban design. Additionally, our firm maintains successful relationships, as needed, with associate architectural and engineering firms and specialty consultants.
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