Meet the jury
Meet The Jury
The
Villa Magazine
Architecture
Award
Meet The Jury
The
Villa Magazine
Architecture
Award
ESA LAAKSONEN
Architect SAFA, Art critic SARV, Professor GDUT, Helsinki, FINLAND
Esa LAAKSONEN is an architect who was the first director of the Alvar Aalto Academy since its beginning in 1999 until 2020. His main responsibilities at the Academy were organizing the yearly Alvar Aalto Architecture Symposiums, Seminars, Design Seminars and Meetings. He has acted as well as the editor of the Aalto Architecture Monograph series and as the editor-in-chief of ptah, English language journal on Architecture, design and Art.
Laaksonen was previously the Editor-in-chief of the Finnish Architectural Review, Arkkitehti in 1996-1999, the Head of the Exhibition office at the Museum of Finnish Architecture in 1998-1999 and the Regional artist of the southern Finland during 1994-98.
Laaksonen has received 29 prizes in national and international competitions (eight first prizes) for architecture. During 2016…18 he was on a three year state artist grant and wrote the large architecture monograph, Alvar Aalto – arkkitehdin vuosikymmenet (Alvar Aalto – the decades of an Architect), for the publisher Tammi (in Finnish) published in June 2018. He has been teaching Architecture and design and giving lectures in numerous occasions. Since 2015 he has acted two months a year as an Invited foreign expert professor at GDUT, Guangdong University of Technology, in Guangzhou, China. Laaksonen is also a member of the The Association of Finnish Non-fiction Writers, and writing at the moment (2021) a book on Finnish Architecture in Helsinki.
He has a professional practice in Helsinki together with the architect Kimmo Friman; Friman Laaksonen Architects (www.fl-a.fi). The main clients have been Siilinjärvi commune, Helsinki University, the cities of Salo and Helsinki.
SIAMAK G. SHAHNESHIN
Siamak G. Shahneshin is a future-oriented architect, forward-thinker city-planer, an expert in sustainable development. Media call him a «Jules Verne unserer Zeit», «Die Querdenker», und «ökologischen Visionär». Shahneshin is the vital-catalyst for driving positive cultural change. His path began in arts and design fields. Catalyst for sustainable change — Shahneshin distills the fourfold streams of green-sustainability— environment, people, economy, and culture—into a roadmap that is understandable, transdisciplinary-integrated, participative, and most importantly, actionable. So, “l live, think, imagine, communicate, dialogue, sketch, design, work, build, produce, based on this fourfold stream guide in every decision, every-day with clients”. Shahneshin’s interest into both Michelangelo and DaVinci led him to Italy, and later to the Avant-garde School of Architecture AA in London, and Accademia di Belle Arti Firenze, ETH Zurich, GSD Harvard, KIT, and Politecnico di Torino. Experience on four continents — His approach calls the experiences that are gained during the time-of studying, living, and practising design in four different continents. “This experience deepened my understanding of culture, climate, and people and world wide issues greatly, which comes to life in my teaching and the practice of design.” Shahneshin, worked with renowned architects such as Daniel BH Liebermann, Frei Otto, Paolo Soleri, and SOM. Parallel to his practice, Shahneshin has been teaching and researching in universities in various countries since 1993; in Switzerland, for example, at EPFL Lausanne and at the ETH Zurich. His experimental teaching is characterised by a transdisciplinary approach and the pursuit of future-oriented innovative architecture and the development of revolutionary unortodoxial spatial-planning models. He has won several prestigious architectural and design awards, including the American Academy of Arts and Sciences Award, the Best Architects Awards, Gilberto Guidi Fellowship, the Iona Foundation Award, the RIAS Architecture Award, the Solar Building Design Award, etc. Shahneshin is the author of several scientific publications in the fields of cultural, environmental and social sciences, alternative development, architecture, landscape architecture and sustainable urban planning. His latest book, "Landscape Modeling: Geographical Space, Transformation and Future Scenarios", has been published by Springer Publishers. Shahneshin regularly teaching and lecturing widely and has served as a jury member at schools of architecture in America, Asia and Europe.
ELISABETTA TERRAGNI
Co-founder and Principal of D.R.A.W (Design, Research, Architecture, Writing, Brooklyn, NY-USA) since 2011 and Co-founder and Principal of Studio Terragni Architetti since 1993 is a European licensed architect practicing between Italy, Switzerland, Albania and the United States. Her work extends from the analysis of hand-motion to the transformation of abandoned industrial and military infrastructures.
Terragni’s work raises issues of spatial and temporal discontinuities in the design of exhibitions, the conversion of abandoned sites and disused infrastructures for new public purposes.
In a number of places, such as abandoned highway tunnels and demilitarized zones, Terragni has installed museum venues and rededicated remaining buildings by treading lightly on the ground.
She has frequent consultation with private individuals and institutions regarding projects of renovation and re-adaptation like the consultancy for Trento Province in view of the development in the area around the tunnels project, 2010 to present, and for the Albanian Government on abandoned Cold War military sites.
In 2017 she just completed the National Museum.of Secret Surveillance and in the 2019 the Ismail Kadare House Studio in Tirana.
She just completed the rehabilitation and archive display of the CSAC Museum in Parma Italy.
Since the extensive renovation project of Giuseppe Terragni’s 1937 Asilo Sant’Elia, Como, entailing an integral structural renovation and overhaul of mechanical equipment, she is frequently invited to analyze economical and technical problems of landmark buildings from the 1920s to the 1950s.
The
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Architecture
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