Born in Constance (Germany), Jana Revedin is an architect, theorist and writer. The holder of a Ph.D. in architectural and urban sciences and renowned expert in the Bauhaus movement and its transdisciplinary active pedagogy, she studied architecture at Belgrano University Buenos Aires, Princeton School of Architecture and the Polytechnic University of Milan. After receiving her habilitation, she taught at the Università Iuav di Venezia as an assistant to Aldo Rossi.  

In 1996, she founded her architectural practice in Venice, specializing in sustainable architecture and urban rehabilitation. Curator of the first EU Student Competition in Sustainable Architecture gau : di from 2004 to 2012 and Founding President of the Global Award for Sustainable Architecture under the patronage of UNESCO in 2006, today she is a full professor of Architecture and Urban Design at the École Spéciale d’Architecture Paris,  a member of the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) research laboratory “Environment, City and Society” and serves as the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) delegate and advisor to the research and education commission (EDUCOM) of the International Union of Architects (UIA).

Her “Radicant Design” Theory, which calls for situated projects driven by transdisciplinary urban and contextual analysis and the active participation of users and stakeholders in participatory Design and Experimentation processes, is widely recognized. Her latest publications include: Marie-Hélène Contal, Jana Revedin, “Sustainable Design 10: Towards a New Ethics for Architecture and the City”, Gallimard, Paris 2023; Jana Revedin, “L’Architecte et l’existant: Construire avec ce qui est déjà là”, with a foreword by Charles Landry, Gallimard, Paris 2022 ; Jana Revedin, “Radicant Design: How to co-create sustainable living space”, Eliva Press, New York 2021. 

Jana Revedin was appointed a French Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres in 2014 and was honored with the Médaille de la Prospective of the French Académie d’Architecture in 2017. She became a member of the French Académie d’Architecture in 2023.  

Jacopo Galli (born in Crema, Italy) received his Ph.D. in architectural design from Università Iuav di Venezia with a dissertation titled Tropical Toolbox. Fry&Drew and the search for African modernity. He was curator of the architecture section for the “Africa Big Change – Big Chance” exhibition at La Triennale di Milano and CIVA Brussels; the author of the book « Arturo Mezzedimi. Architetto della Superproduzione » (with Benno Albrecht and Filippo De Dominicis) and project manager for the “Makoko Floating School II” project by NLE Studio which was awarded the Silver Lion at the 2016 Venice Biennale.

He was assistant director of the Venice Program at the University of Virginia and visiting professor at Escola da Cidade in Sao Paulo and École Nationale d’Architecture Paris Val de Seine. He is currently an associate researcher at FEEM Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei and project manager for the Venezia Sustainability Foundation-VSF.

Since 2014, he has been dealing with the topic of urbicides and reconstructions, organizing the “Urbicide Syria” conference, promoting the “Sketch for Syria” initiative and coordinating the international workshop WAVE 2017 “Syria the Making of the Future”. He has provided consultancy on reconstruction issues to private companies, international agencies such as UN-ESCWA, UNDP, the World Bank with the “Building for Peace” project and public administrations. These research experiences have been collected in the book « Cities Under Pressure » (with Benno Albrecht).

Deniz Incedayi graduated from the German High School in Istanbul in 1979, and studied architecture at Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University, Department of Architecture, graduating in 1986. She completed her Ph.D. thesis at the same university in 1995, her subject being a model for low-cost housing and the rehabilitation of a squatter area in Istanbul through the user participation method.

Since 1986, she has been teaching at Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University-Faculty of Architecture in undergraduate and post-graduate programs. Her academic work focuses mainly on social and cultural concerns in the architectural design process, the construction projects studio and on taking an interdisciplinary approach in the architectural design process.

She published and edited several books about architectural design issues, architectural education, the housing environment and participatory methods in architectural design; she has many articles and papers in her academic area and joined many national and international work programs, juries, councils and commissions on national and international platforms. Since 2018, she has been a permanent Jury Member of the Global Award for Sustainable Architecture.

She has also held many administrative positions at university such as; Vice Rector, Head of the Department of Architecture, Senate Member, Vice Director of the Institute of Sciences and International Relations Coordinator etc. She has worked at the International Union of Architects (UIA) since 2009 and taken responsibilities in many UIA world congresses around the globe. She was elected as the UIA-Vice President-Region II (2011-2017), as a Council Member-Region II (2009-2011) and as a member of the UNESCO-UIA Education Commission and Validation Council (2009-2023) and performed in several validation visiting panels. Recently she was appointed Co-Director of the Validation Commission for the triennial 2023-26.

She has also undertaken several responsibilities at the Chamber of Architects of Turkey and Istanbul, and was elected as President of the Chamber of Architects of Turkey between 2020-2022; and as the President of the Chamber of Architects of Istanbul Metropolitan Branch between 2010-2014. Since 2006, she has worked as the editor of the architectural journal (mimar.ist), published by the Chamber of Architects of Istanbul.

Salma Samar Damluji is a British-Iraqi architect, a graduate of the AA School of Architecture, London 1977 and the Royal College of Art, London, where she obtained her Ph.D. in 1987.

Damluji worked with the Egyptian architect Hassan Fathy in Cairo during 1975-6 and 1984-5.

She was appointed Professor of the Binladin Chair for Architecture in the Islamic World at the American University of Beirut (2013-2024) and works on post-conflict reconstruction projects in Yemen.

Between 2001 and 2004, she served as Advisor to the Chair of the Public Works Department in Abu Dhabi and Head of the Technical Office of the Chairman. In 2007, she co-founded Daw‘an Architecture Foundation for earth construction with colleagues in Hadramut, Yemen. The Foundation was actively involved in reconstruction efforts in Hadramut, Yemen, in partnership with the Cultural Emergency Response (CER) and The Prince Claus Fund, the Netherlands, from 2008 to the present. Since 2019, the collaboration extended to the Cultural Protection Fund of The British Council, UK, and more recently, to the International Alliance for the Protection of Heritage in Conflict Areas (ALIPH), Switzerland.

In 2022, she established Dawan Eco Arch Collaborative with colleagues in London to expand her work outside Yemen and the region.

Damluji was awarded the Global Award for Sustainable Architecture in 2012, received the Académie d’Architecture Silver Restoration Award in 2015 and became a member of the French Académie d’Architecture in 2017. In November 2022, she received the 2020-2021 Silver Middle East Africa Regional Holcim Award for projects completed over 2019- 2021 in Yemen.

She is a prolific author with publications that include: The Architecture of Yemen and its Reconstruction (2007 & 2021), Hassan Fathy: Earth & Utopia (2018), The Architecture of the UAE (2006), The Architecture of Oman (1998), and Zillij, The Art of Moroccan Ceramics, with John Hedgecoe (1993).

Her projects can be reviewed at www.dawanarchitecturefoundation.org.

James Steele is an architect who received his Bachelor’s and Master’s Degrees in Architecture at the University of Pennsylvania and his PhD in Urban Planning from the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. After receiving his Master’s degree, Steele worked for Louis Kahn, and several other offices in Philadelphia, before opening his own office there.

In 1980, he joined King Faisal University Saudi Arabia, and taught there until 1988. During that time, he published his first book Hassan Fathy, with Academy Editions, London and then became an Editor at Academy and a Lecturer at the Prince of Wales’s School of Architecture, at Magdalen College Oxford. While there, he published The Hassan Fathy Collection: a Catalogue of Visual Documents at the Aga Khan Award for Architecture and was the Editor of two Aga Khan Award books, Architecture for a Changing world, and Architecture for Islamic Societies Today as well as The Architecture of the Contemporary Mosque, with Ismail Serageldin.

He joined the University of Southern California, in Los Angeles in 1991, eventually teaching all levels of Design Studio as well as the History and Theory sequence and introduced Electives on Islamic and Asian architecture. He also organized the first semester abroad program in Asia in 1998 and administered it until 2014, before founding and directing a Full Semester Program in South America, from 2015 to 2017.

He has been a guest critic and speaker at universities in the United States and internationally, and was named Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture Distinguished Professor in 2014. He also received a Fulbright Scholar’s Grant in 2016 to study Minangkabau architecture in Sumatra. He left USC in 2020 as Professor Emeritus with Tenure, to teach at Prince Sultan University in Riyadh.

He is the author of more than 50 books, including:  An Architecture for People: The Complete Works of Hassan Fathy; Sustainable Architecture:Principles, Paradigms, and Case Studies; Ecological Architecture: Critical History;The Architecture of Rasem Badran and The Encyclopedia of Homes through World History. His latest book is Contemporary Japanese Architecture: Tracing the Next Generation, by Routledge & Kegan Paul.

Boonserm Premthada began his career as an educator in 1996 at Chulalongkorn University where he remained until 2022. In 2023 he was Dean’s Visiting Assistant Professor at Columbia university, GSAPP and Visiting Assistant Professor at The University of Hong Kong.  

In 2003, Boonserm founded the BANGKOK PROJECT STUDIO. Premthada’s works focus on nature and humanity and convey this message through materials, structures, and construction processes. 

The social intenset of his architecture is equally significant. Premthada’s interest in supporting local communities is also evident in his community – focused “‘Artisans Ayutthaya: the Womanen’s Restaurant”’. To complete this restaurant, the architect employed overlooked and repurposed materials. This restaurant promotes sustainable architecture, community values, and local traditions; it is proof of the women’s determination to preserve the cuisine and craft of Ayutthaya.  

“Elephant World’” is a government project that seeks to provide a source of stable income for the Kui people, an ethnic group in Surin, north – eastern Thailand, and their elephants.  

Boonserm Premthada was born and raised in a slum in the heart of Bangkok, and is 70 percent deaf. His having never studied abroad keeps his ideas free of outside influence like “a wild orchid” that grows without the shade or domination of theories. He uses the fundamental asset of humans, and non- human intuition, in his design. With a keen perspective as a carpenter’s son, he was taught to be realistic, which helped him accurately estimate the scale and proportion of a work. This influenced his design approach differently from the methods that are generally taught in architecture schools.