Thomas Heatherwick
Founder / Design Director, Ηeatherwick Studio

Thomas Heatherwick is a British designer whose prolific and varied work over two decades is characterised by its ingenuity, inventiveness and originality. Defying the conventional classification of design disciplines, Thomas founded Heatherwick studio in 1994 to bring the practices of design, architecture and urban planning together in a single workspace. Thomas leads the design of all Heatherwick Studio projects, working in collaboration with a team of 200 highly-skilled architects, designers, and makers. Thomas’ unusual approach applies artistic thinking to the needs of each project, resulting in some of the most acclaimed designs of our time. Based in London, Heatherwick studio is currently working in four continents on projects valued at over £2 billion. Following the success of the UK Pavilion for the Shanghai World Expo in 2010, Heatherwick studio has gone on to win exciting design briefs including the Learning Hub at Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University, and the new Google campus in Silicon Valley. Thomas has been appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire, a Royal Academician and in 2004 became the youngest Royal Designer for Industry.

Lisa Iwamoto & Craig Scott
Founders, IWAMOTTOSCOTT ARCHITECTURE

IwamotoScott Architecture is a San Francisco based architecture and design practice led by Lisa Iwamoto and Craig Scott. Since founding the partnership in 2002, they have maintained an experimental and design intensive office, evolving the conceptual nature of the practice together. The firm is committed to pursuing architecture as a form of applied design research, and engages in projects at multiple scales and in a variety of contexts consisting of full-scale fabrications, museum installations and exhibitions, theoretical proposals, competitions and commissioned design projects. IwamotoScott has received numerous awards including the Architectural League’s Emerging Voices and Young Architects, Architectural Record’s Design Vanguard, over twenty AIA Design Awards, a P/A Award and numerous other architecture and interior awards. Their work has been published in hundreds of journals and exhibited in over fifty museums and galleries.

Bob Martens
Associate Professor, TU Wien

Bob Martens holds an M.Sc. in Building Science from Eindhoven University of Technology (The Netherlands) and Dr.Sc.Tech. from Vienna University of Technology. He is appointed as an associate professor at Vienna University of Technology and teaches spatial simulation and (computer-aided) architectural design. Professor Martens has been involved in review activities for all world-wide CAAD-associations and has published over 140 conference and journal papers. His research interests are not limited to architectural design but encompass knowledge management and electronic publishing. In the past years a special focus has been developed towards virtual reconstruction. In the framework of the SciX-project (EU-IST-programme, www.scix.net) he is responsible for content acquisition. Further development of CUMINCAD (Cumulative Index on CAD - cumincad.scix.net) belongs to the major achievements of this project. His presidency of eCAADe / education in CAAD in Europe (1997-2001, after this member of the executive committee) lead to well-established contacts with CAAD-associations and individual researchers.

Wesley McGee
Assistant Professor of Architecture, University of Michigan Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning / Co-founder, Matter Design

Wes McGee is an Assistant Professor and the Director of the FABLab at the University of Michigan Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning. His work revolves around the interrogation of the means and methods of material production in the digital era, through research focused on developing new connections between design, engineering, materials, and manufacturing processes as they relate to the built environment. With the goal of seamlessly integrating critical feedback between fabrication constraints and design intent, the work spans multiple realms, including algorithmic design, computational modeling of material behaviors, industrial control technologies, and the development of novel production processes which utilize industrial robots as bespoken machines of architectural production. As a founding partner and senior designer in the studio Matter Design, his work spans a broad range of scales and materials, always dedicated to re-imagining the role of the designer in the digital era. In 2013 Matter Design was awarded the Architectural League Prize for Young Architects & Designers. Wes has presented work at multiple national and international conferences on design and fabrication. In 2014 he was the co-chair of the Robots in Architecture Conference, and most recently a co-chair of the 2016 ACADIA conference.

Heather Roberge
Chair, UCLA School of Architecture and Urban Design / Founder, Murmur design

Heather Roberge is a designer and educator based in Los Angeles. She is the founder and principal of design practice Murmur and an associate professor in the Department of Architecture and Urban Design at UCLA where she currently serves as Vice Chair. She will begin an appointment as Chair beginning in July 2017. Ms. Roberge’s research and professional work investigate the spatial, structural and atmospheric potential that digital technologies have on the theory and practice of building. Her teaching emphasizes innovative approaches to material, computation, and manufacturing to expand the formal vocabulary and spatial implications of building envelopes and assemblies. She has received numerous accolades in recognition of her distinctive work including the prestigious 2016 Emerging Voices Award from the Architectural League of New York, a 2015 AIA LA Merit award for En Pointe, an installation for the SCI-Arc Gallery, a 2011 AIA Next LA design merit award for the Succulent House, and was selected as a Finalist in the 2006 PS1/MoMA Young Architects Program.

Bartlett School of Architecture, B-Pro Program

B-Pro – or Bartlett Prospective – is a family of three advanced postgraduate courses at the world-leading Bartlett School of Architecture, which share a unique approach to the future of design, architecture and the urban environment: MArch Architectural Design, MArch Urban Design and MSc/MRes Architectural Computation. B-Pro was founded by Professor Frédéric Migayrou, Chair of the Bartlett School of Architecture, who heads the programme together with deputy director Andrew Porter. Whilst Architectural Design students undertake advanced experimental research in computational design and fabrication, Urban Design students explore critical approaches towards creative urban design, defining creative strategies for global cities and communities. Students on the unique MSc/MRes Architectural Computation develop the skills to create generative and responsive forms, through exposure to real programming environments. All three B-Pro programmes are taught over a 12-month period and welcome a diverse international student cohort, with highly structured access to the realisation and application of research, and to the production of new schemes of conception and construction in architecture and urbanism. Throughout the year, B-Pro tutors and students develop numerous seminars, workshops, lectures and public events to encourage collaboration and the discussion of ideas which further our understanding of the future of design, the urban environment and architecture. The Academic Program of Excellence Award will be accepted by Gilles Retsin and Manuel Jimenez Garcia of the Bartlett.