Archives: Speakers

Joining Zaha Hadid Architects in 2004, Michele specialises in mixed-use and high-rise development, whilst also working on a variety of exhibition schemes as well as selected furniture and interiors products. Michele recently served as project director for the Morpheus in Macau, China and is currently directing several largescale projects across Australia and eastern Asia, including residential towers in Melbourne, a memorial institute in Phnom Penh, a private penthouse apartment in Beijing, the Singapore New Science Centre, the Unicorn Island in Chengdu and the Shanghai campus of the China Energy Conservation and Environmental Protection Group (CECEP). Michele previously led the team on the d’Leedon Apartments, a masterplanned residential development in Singapore and his experience includes the CMA CGM Headquarters in Marseille and the Glasgow Riverside Museum. He has also collaborated with Zaha Hadid Design (ZHD) on products including the Flow vase, the Dune Formation furniture system and the Zaha Hadid exhibition in Padua, Italy. He also worked on ALIS, part of the ‘High-performing Urban Ecologies’ installation by Zaha Hadid Architects for the Italian Pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale 2021.

Mathew Vola is a structural engineer and project director with over 20 years of experience in delivering iconic projects on time and to budget in Europe, Australia and East Asia. Since joining Arup in 2007, Mathew has lead multi-disciplinary engineering teams in the design and delivery of lighthouse projects predominantly in the Property and Social Infrastructure markets. In addition to his role as Design Lead for Sustainable Property, Mathew also leads the Climate and Sustainability Services portfolio for the Netherlands Group and the Computational Design Skills Network for the Europe Region. Keen to harness digital innovation, Mathew is currently working to develop the next-generation buildings that meet the requirement of our times. Mathew has been responsible for the engineering of one the tallest residential timber developments in the world, HAUT. Other recent project work includes the advanced parametric design modelling for Elements. Mathew is fluent in Dutch and English and proficient in German.

Maria is an established thought-leader within the hospitality design world, admired for her roll call of exceptional and award-winning projects, sought out by discerning property owners and respected for the value she brings to all her work. She is as confident in imagining large, imposing spaces as she is in creating cosy niches; whether designing the boldly contemporary or within the classical genre, she draws on location and cultural heritage to create something unique. An architect by training and an interior designer by choice, she combines visionary use of space with design that reaches out beyond trend, that is commercially astute, innovative and delightfully surprising. Maria established MKV Design in London in 2000 after an early career which had taken her from Athens to Milan and onto the UK. Since then, she has cultivated a business which has worked across Europe, in the Middle East and in Africa. Current/recent projects include: Bürgenstock Resort in Switzerland; Costa Navarino, Greece; Matild Palace, a Luxury Collection Hotel, Budapest; the Sheraton Grand London Park Lane; Grand Hyatt Athens; Mykonos Grand Hotel & Resort; Athens Capital Centre Hotel – MGallery Collection; Grand Hyatt Hotel & Residences, Abu Dhabi; and Hôtel Royal Savoy in Lausanne.

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.

Oliver joined Make in 2017 to deliver 80 Charlotte Street, a major mixed-use scheme in Fitzrovia, comprising commercial, residential, and retail accommodation and a small public park.  Designed as Net Zero Carbon it is the first All-Electric building for developer Derwent London. Oliver established and leads Make’s internal sustainability working group, Make Neutral aiming to equip every Maker with the information and skills they need to enact change both on projects and in the practice itself. The group oversees internal sustainability education, materials research, conducting project sustainability reviews and progressing the practices approach such as sustainability inductions for new starters; and setting out a framework for reducing our design impact through a Sustainable Design Toolkit. Oliver represents Make on built environment industry-wide sustainability groups, including UKGBC, and has been a panel member for Built Environment Networking and the CTA. He led the team creating the competition-winning animated 3D centrepiece for UKGBC’s virtual pavilion at COP26, which tells the story of the built environment’s resource-hungry supply chain and construction process, demonstrating how we may transition to a circular economy to enable the restoration of our natural world. He is now designing Salford Rise, a green bridge within Salford Crescent Masterplan, of which he is also the masterplanning architect and design guardian. Oliver is a member of the RIBA Schools Visiting Board, which validates schools of architecture across the UK, and is a USGBC LEED-accredited professional (building design and construction). He leads the BCO Next Gen Carbon action area, and is frequently a guest on podcasts investigating sustainability in the built environment. 

Olaf Gipser (Prof. M.Arch. Dipl.Ing. Architect SBA) is an architect based in Amsterdam. His office is concerned with architecture as agent in the social production of space, in the intervention in ecological milieus, and as the production of physical and cultural artefacts. Their work has been recognized in the Netherlands with the ‘Zuiderkerk Award 2021’ of the City of Amsterdam (best housing project) and with nominations for the ‘BNA Best Building of the Year 2022’ (national award), ‘Amsterdam Architecture Award 2022’, ‘Zuiderkerk Award 2022’, and ‘National Timber Construction Award 2021’. Olaf is currently a professor at the Faculty of Architecture at Innsbruck University and has been teaching at the TU Delft, The Berlage Institute in Rotterdam, the Royal Academy in London, the Academy of Architecture in Amsterdam and the Bergen Architecture School. Olaf holds degrees from the Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (ETHZ), from the University of Stuttgart, and as Fulbright student from the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA).

Astrid Piber, Partner and Senior Architect at UNStudio, graduated from the Technical University Vienna in 1997 and received her MS in AAD from Columbia University, New York, in 1999. Since joining UNStudio in 1998, Astrid has worked closely with Ben van Berkel on a wide range of projects globally. Her first was the now completed Arnhem Central Station masterplan. In the intervening years, she has worked on numerous projects in Asia and Europe, from the initial urban study and competition phase, through to realization. She is currently in charge of several large-scale design projects globally. In transport and mixed-use projects, such as the Raffles City development in Hangzhou, China, the interdependency of functional, economic, and future-proofing criteria led to organisations that go beyond segregated typologies. In such projects, Astrid has worked with a trans-scalar approach—from infrastructure and urban design to custom-crafted interiors—where user experience adds value to design and becomes distinct to its location. Such sophisticated place making strategies form part of the design approach for numerous integrated transport and mixed use projects.

Enno Zuidema (Kampen, 1968) studied at the Delft University of Technology where he graduated in 1992 with an honorable mention. In 1993 he founded his firm, Enno Zuidema Stedebouw. His strengths are in social and spatial strategies, he focuses on finding sustainable and suitable solutions by social participation and stakeholder cooperation. The emphasis of his work lies on regional and municipal visions, structural plans, landscape assignments, re-structuring of urban areas in need and infrastructure. Enno is an active urban planner and leader for the developments and challenges in the northern areas of the Netherlands. He is also often invited as a guest lecturer at the Academy of Architecture in Rotterdam, Amsterdam, and Tilburg, and at the University of Delft. He was also the Chief of Urbanism at the Academy of Architecture in Rotterdam. Since the 1st of September of 2018, Enno is the head of urban development studio at MVRDV.

Hélène Chartier is the Director of Urban Planning and Design at C40, the network of global mega-cities committed to the fight against climate change.   The team she leads develops various programs to support cities across the world to accelerate sustainable and resilient urban planning policies and design practices, and to bring together cities and progressive players in the built environment industry in order to accelerate the decarbonization of buildings and urban development. Hélène’s team especially leads the C40 Land Use Planning network which supports cities to institutionalize climate action through urban planning regulations; the Reinventing Cities competition that delivers decarbonized and resilient urban regeneration projects across the world; as well as the Green and Thriving Neighbourhoods program and C40’s workstream on 15-minute City. In the past, Hélène was advisor to the Mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, she also worked for the Paris urbanism agency and the global consulting firm, Arup. Helene has a Master’s degree of Science and Engineering from the renowned French College, Ecole Centrale, with a specialization in building and civil engineering. In the past 15 years, Helene has lived and worked in Paris, London and New York.