Oliver Kupfner studied architecture at the Graz University of Technology, where he graduated with a Master of Science in Architecture. From 1995 to 1998, he worked at various architecture firms in Graz until he landed at architect Heinz Wondra’s office. He stayed there for ten years and gained important experience until joining the INNOCAD team in 2008. In 2014, he became a partner at INNOCAD.
Kupfner’s role with the firm is one of international significance, managing projects in the Middle East and all over Europe. He was the project leader on TWA The World Academy – King Abdullah Economic City in Saudi Arabia and Volksbank’s South Tyrol Headquarters in Bolzano. He delivered three different office headquarters in Vienna with Microsoft, ÖBB, and SAP. Additionally, Oliver was in charge of the conversion and redevelopment of the Graz Armoury museum, and the extension of a neurological clinic at LKH Feldbach. The ROCK, the first Radisson Red in a German-speaking region, as well as the new competence Center for MAM Health & Innovation was completed also under his direction.
He is a key communicator within the studio, acting as a connecting link between the client, design team, and execution team. In addition to networking, traveling, and lecturing, Oliver is an expert manager of project organization, timelines, and budgets. He is driven by bringing ideas into reality, as well as the various challenges and architectural innovation required during that process.
Marco is a passionate engineer with a strong focus on sustainability and innovation.
Having started work with Drees & Sommer in Stuttgart, Germany, Marco relocated to Asia to set up the engineering department in Shanghai where he stayed over 4 years working on landmark projects such as the Peoples’ Bank of China and the Pudong Art Museum.
Marco moved to London at the start of 2019 and has helped the UK team to drive future topics such as Circular Economy, Cradle to Cradle© and Customised Smart Buildings, which form part of ‘the blue way’, a core principle at Drees & Sommer which combines economy, ecology and functionality in design, construction and consultancy.
Francesca is an architect and urban designer with a focus on sustainable design for places and cities. Trained between Italy and the UK, she has been working in London since 2011. Francesca has been exposed to working on local and international projects at different scales, feeding her interest into different cultures, needs and objectives. She has been compelled to provide successful interpretations to the most diverse clients and end-users, whether the latter were children with special-needs, or high-end developers. On a technical level, this translated into an established track record of involvement in each stage of the design and development cycle, from master planning to detailed and construction design. Francesca is a qualified LEED AP, with a speciality in Neighbourhood Development (ND), and a BREEAM Communities Assessor.
John Downes is the Head of Facades for Lend Lease in Europe. He has 30 years’ experience in the construction industry with 25 years being directly in the façade industry.
John holds an MSc Façade Engineering from the University of Bath and is a board director of the CWCT (Centre for Window and Cladding Technology). He also sits on the CWCT technical standards committee.
John leads the Lend Lease Europe Façade Specialism Unit that support all façade related aspects of the Lend Lease business. The façade unit strives to provide fully coordinated building envelope design and delivery input to enable Lend Lease to ‘Create Better Places’.
John has recently been involved in the Lend Lease bid successes on St John’s Wood and Google.
Dr. Christian Bergmann studied architecture at the University of Stuttgart and the ETH Zurich and graduated in 2006 with a diploma. He then worked as design and project manager at UNStudio, Ben van Berkel and Caroline Bos in Amsterdam. Between 2009 and 2012 he researched and taught at the Institute for Lightweight Designing and Engineering at the University of Stuttgart. With his doctorate completed in 2013, there is a strategy that enables the development of innovation-promoting and sustainable design and construction processes in a holistic way. As a project manager at Werner Sobek Design, he was responsible, among other things, for the “Aktivhaus B10” – a Zukunftshaus in the Weissenhofsiedlung in Stuttgart. He has been Senior Architect at Hadi Teherani Architects in Hamburg since 2015, where he leads several major projects. An atmospheric aura, the emotional urgency and an ecologically sound sustainability, which is already created in the design, characterize the work of the office. The Dr. Christian Bergmann’s projects have been awarded prestigious architectural and design awards.
