Abode

Born in Mexico City in 1970. In 1991, he graduates from Monterrey Tec with a Bachelors's in Architecture. In 1993, he completes his first residential project, a 5,000SF villa in the north east of Mexico. From 1993-1997 he continued to design and develop high-end residential and corporate projects such as a technical training center for General Motors in Mexico City and the headquarters for PriceWaterhouse in Mexico. In 1998, he is accepted to the Harvard Graduate School of Design for a Masters Degree. In 2000, he joins JAHN. 8 years later, he becomes Helmut Jahn’s first partner and in 2012, President of the Company. In the last 10 years of his time at JAHN, he designs a wide range of buildings from pavilions and boutique spaces to stadiums and airports, from speculative spaces and explorations to science buildings and skyscrapers across five continents. In 2017, he founded FGP Atelier. He has been awarded the Green Building Award for the Americas for his Orchid Educational Pavilion in Oaxaca by Architects Newspaper. He recently completed the 20,000-seat Diabos Rojos baseball stadium in Mexico, City and broke ground on a 320M tall tower in Guangzhou, PRC in the summer of 2019. He currently is working on the Felipe Angeles International Airport at Santa Lucia that will handle 20M passengers in the first phase and serve the Mexico City metropolitan region. FGP developed the master plan for the whole airport complex that will handle 84M passengers per year.

Benjamin G. Saxe set up his own practice in San Jose, Costa Rica in 2004, with the aim of exploring our relationship with the natural environment through architecture. Since then, Studio Saxe has grown into an award-winning international practice made up of a multidisciplinary team, creating buildings and spaces by blending technological innovation with handcrafted techniques to form truly sustainable designs. Founded on the belief that buildings must connect to their landscape – whether a tropical paradise or a concrete jungle – Studio Saxe brings a global attitude to solve local problems. Ideas and techniques from around the world can be harnessed to benefit communities, both at home and abroad. Local traditions and identities are explored and developed, ensuring a process whereby we learn from the past and build for the future. The dedicated architects and designers at Studio Saxe uncover new design solutions for every project, treating each building as an opportunity to improve methods and approaches, responding to specific places. Working alongside clients and collaborators, the studio continually seeks new forms and functions that blur the boundaries between natural habitats and inhabited space.

Matteo Inches dipl. fas usi sia otia reg a from 2019 . BSA / FAS board member, Ticino section from 2018 . BSA / FAS member, Federation of Swiss Architects from 2017 . Partner at Inches Geleta Architetti Sagl, Locarno 2013/19 . Scientific collaborator at Dipartimento del Territorio, Cantone Ticino 2011/13 . Project Assistant at USI, Accademia di Mendrisio from 2010 . Opening of studio inches architettura in 2009 . Master of Science in Architecture 10/10, Accademia Architettura Mendrisio

After studying in France and Spain, Michel da Costa Gonçalves graduated in architecture with honors from ENSAPL in France. He later completed a Master’s degree in Emergent Technologies & Design at the Architectural Association School of Architecture in London before co-founding RARE architecture and then DROO. Michel previously worked with Shigeru Ban in Paris, as project manager for the new Pompidou Centre. He was also project manager for Architecture Studio on projects in China, Greece, and Saudi Arabia (Rotterdam Architecture Biennale 2004 selection). He is Co-director and author of the urban living book series “Villes” (Edition Autrement). Publications include articles in AA Files, Tank, and a contribution to evolutionary computing as part of Springer Verlage, Natural Series. In addition to practice, he teaches a studio at the Architectural Association. Over the last few years, Michel has developed a number of projects with high profile engineering constraints. His interests in the integration of digital modeling and production tools in both the design and construction phases have contributed to the practice’s innovative approach and cost-effective bespoke solutions.

Rodrigo Carazo, born in Costa Rica in 1978, founded Carazo Arquitectura in 2005 where he is the principal of design. He has lived in a very direct connection to natural environments; this has molded his perception of space, guiding him as an architect with a practice evolving from single-family residences to medium and large scale residential, commercial and mixed-use biophilic projects. Since his beginnings in the profession, his work has been closely related to sustainable design as well as the exploration and reinterpretation of spatial programmatic relationships; in a natural process his work has focused towards Biophilic Design which is the main driving force in his studio today, where projects are developed through a personal design methodology focusing on-site responsiveness as well as the integration of Layered Biophilic Design which focuses on having a positive effect on perception and wellbeing by integrating layers of natural elements in different situations of proximity; immediate/interior, secondary/façade and roof, tertiary/site, and so on. He is currently president of the Sustainable Construction Committee of the Costarican Construction Chamber as well as a local board member of the Costarican Chapter of the Council for Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat, where he has also become a Global Leader actively participating in the promotion of innovative building and urban design topics focused on biophilia, vertical urbanism and symbiotic relationships between nature and cities.