Speakers by order of appearance

Wednesday 7 JUNE

The UTC was introduced by

Professor Peter Russell, Dean of the Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment

 

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Professor Vincent Nadin, head of the Department of Urbanism

 

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Chair for the day: Sukanya Krishnamurthy (India)

Eindhoven University of Technology

Sukanya is currently assistant professor at the Chair of Urbanism and Urban Architecture (Faculty of the Built Environment) at TU Eindhoven (Netherlands).

Trained as an architect and urbanist in India and Germany, I received my Ph.D. in Urban Studies and Architecture from Bauhaus University (Germany) in 2012. Prior to joining the Chair of Urbanism and Urban Architecture at the Technical University of Eindhoven in October 2014 as an assistant professor in Urbanism and Urban Architecture, I spent the course of my graduate studies and professional life, working as an architect, designer, and lecturer, researcher in Bangalore (India, 2006-07), Aachen, Dessau, Weimar (Germany, 2007-12) and Toronto (Canada, 2012-14).

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Host person: Supriya Krishnan (India)

Master student TU Delft, POLIS president 2016

M.Sc. Urbanism-Honours (Risk Resilience and Critical Infrastructure) | TU Delft. Developing resilient urban growth strategies for the next century with a focus on risk management, critical infrastructure and systems thinking. Supriya is orienting her studies towards urban resilience planning, cascading failures, critical infrastructure networks, contingency planning, flow risk, water sensitive cities. She is also interested in homegrown technologies, content development (visual and audio) for websites and radio, research centric event planning (symposiums+conferences), short films and documentaries, pro bono volunteering in the domains of sustainable habitats/education.

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Jacobo Herdoiza (Ecuador)

Secretary of Housing, territory and Planning of the Municipality of Quito, Ecuador

Jacobo Herdoíza, is an architect and planner graduated at the Universidad Central del Ecuador. He is the current secretray for Territory, Habitat and Housing for the city of Quito, where Habitat III took place in October 2016. He is managing a radical change in the urban landscape of Quito, a rapidly growing city.

Jacobo will speak about his experience as secretary, about Habitat III and the New Urban Agenda and how he thinks the NUA should be implemented in higher education.

Jacobo’s contribution is sponsored by the Delft Global Initiative.

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Thomas Lindsay (UK)

Strategy Delivery Manager at 100 Resilient Cities

Thomas Lindsay advises, researches and writes on the subject of risk and resilience within our cities. He works as Strategy Delivery Manager at 100 Resilient Cities – Pioneered by the Rockefeller Foundation, and is co-founder of Urban Emergencies: Emergent Urbanism (UE:EU), an independent research and consulting group exploring international and interdisciplinary perspectives on the implications of emergent risks on cities and their inhabitants. Thomas has a background in Architecture and obtained his Master of Philosophy in Architecture and Urban Design from the University of Cambridge. He has also held a position as an academic proof reader and supervisor at the University of Cambridge.

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Mehrnaz Ghojeh (Iran/UK)

Consultant in Urban Development at BuroHappold Engineering

Mehrnaz Ghojeh is Senior Consultant in Urban Development at BuroHappold Engineering. Above all, she is co-founder of Urban Emergencies:Emergent Urbanism (UE:EU), an independent research and consulting group exploring international and interdisciplinary perspectives on the implications of emergent risks on cities and their inhabitants. Mehrnaz’s expertise within the realm of cities’ resilience to risk stems from her involvement in a range of both governmental and non-governmental organisations across the UK, Middle East and China. She has worked closely with Tehran Municipality and the International Institute of Earthquake Engineering and Seismology (IIEES), advising on earthquake preparedness strategies, and reconstruction planning, emergency response measures, and risk assessment.

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Suchith Anand (India/UK)

Co-founder GeoForAll

Suchith Anand co-founded GeoForAll with a vision to make geospatial education and opportunities accessible to all. He promotes open geospatial science through the establishment of Open Source Geospatial Labs/Research Centres in key universities worldwide as part of GeoForAll. GeoForAll aims to increase openness in Geo Education, helping students to become more creative and open minded,  and contributing to building open innovation and increasing open knowledge for the benefit of society and for future generations.

In his lecture at the Urban Thinkers Campus “OpenCitySmart and NASA-GODAN Urban Farming Challenge”, Suchith will present geodata initiatives related to food security and agriculture, and to sustainable urban infrastructure management.

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Veldacademie, City of Rotterdam

Otto Trienekens (the Netherlands)

Veldacademie, City of Rotterdam www.veldacademie.nl

 Otto Trienekens is co-founder and manager of Veldacademie, a knowledge centre for neighbourhood renewal. In the Rotterdam-based office, students from different backgrounds work on actual socio-spatial challenges. Students are actively brought in contact with realistic cases, while practise is fed with the ideas and insights of students. After ten years of experience in Rotterdam, the concept of Veldacademie is now being adapted in other cities like Almere. At the conference, Otto will lead a discussion about the innovation of education in relation to practise.  

Dr. Wolfgang Stempfer (Austria) 

GB*: Gebietsbetreuung Stadterneuerung, City of Vienna http://www.gbstern.at

 Dr. Wolfgang Stempfer is coordinator of GB-stern (Gebietsbetreuung Stadterneuerung), a decentral organisation for urban renewal, run by the City of Vienna. Spread around the city, private coalitions of designers, social workers and legal services work on an inclusive and embedded way on small projects. Making the difference for a liveable city.

Emerging from this experiences, dr. Stempfer did a research on the role of urban context in Architecture and Urban Planning studies. He made an extensive analyse, also based on a qualitative survey of existing educational systems at the Hafen University Hamburg and the Technical University of Vienna. In his lecture, Wolfgang Stempfer will speak about the outcomes of this dissertation.  

Pieter Graaff (the Netherlands)

Veldacademie, City of Rotterdam www.veldacademie.nl

Pieter Graaff is researcher and teacher at Veldacademie, a knowledge centre for neighbourhood renewal. In the Rotterdam-based office, students from different backgrounds work on actual socio-spatial challenges.

In his presentation, Pieter will share the experience of Veldacademie as an example of a practical approach with regards to integrating the present urban context into design education. The opportunities and experience with linking other kind of studies will be highlighted as well.

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Thursday 8 JUNE

Chair for the day: Roberto Rocco (Brazil)

Assistant Professor, Spatial Planning and Strategy, TU Delft

Roberto is a senior Assistant Professor at the Section of Spatial Planning and Strategy of the Faculty of Architecture of the Delft University of Technology, TU Delft (The Netherlands). His main efforts of research are into GOVERNANCE, SOCIAL SUSTAINABILITY and SPATIAL JUSTICE as frameworks that enable the understanding of urbanisation processes and as tools that enable planners and designers to elaborate strategies to achieve sustainable and fair urban development. Roberto graduated in Architecture and Urban Planning at the University of São Paulo, where he also obtained a Masters in Spatial Planning with a thesis on urban management tools  in São Paulo (Cum Laude). He followed a post-Masters course  in Urban Management at the former Institut Français d’Urbanisme (Marne-la-Valée, near Paris), but did not complete the course. He later obtained a doctoral degree at the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands, where he has been an assistant professor at the Chair of Spatial Planning and Strategy since 2007.  He was president of the Netherlands Association of Latin American and Caribbean Studies (NALACS) between 2014-2016 and is currently secretary to the board. He is currently president of the Salzburg Congress on Urban Planning and Development (SCUPAD), one of the oldest planning associations in Europe, based in at the Salzburg Global Seminar in Austria.

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Rachel Keeton (USA)

Chair for the Urban Lab Adaptive Planning for African New Towns

PhD Candidate at TU Delft, Global Initiative Fellow.

Rachel is Founder of Urban Anecdote,  an office for contemporary urban research. They conduct independent research, publish articles, organize workshops and give lectures on urban issues around the world.  Rachel was also researcher and project managers at International New Town Institute, Almere. As a researcher and project manager, she was  responsible for different projects related to the development of contemporary New Towns and cities. In this role, she was responsible for leading international exchanges, organising events, preparing and managing budgets, applying for supporting grants and contributing to publications about sustainable urban planning and current planning issues.

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Host person: Kritika Sha (India)

Master student TU Delft

After spending a few years as an architect in India, I am currently a graduate student of Urbanism at TU Delft, working on two parallel projects related to development in the global south, with a particular interest to the socio-economic elements of informal settlements. This interest, newly discovered at TU Delft, ranges from theoretical exploration to the implementation challenges. Along with the regular coursework, I am also the current editor-in-chief of Atlantis (A quarterly publication by the students of the Urbanism and Landscape Architecture) and an active member of the student association – hence, collaborating with the UTC team was the next natural step. In my spare time in “sunny Delft”, I remain a voracious reader with a new found passion for cooking.

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Jennifer Kockx (NL)

Delft Global Initiative

Jennifer is program manager at the Delft Global Initiative of the Delft University of Technology.

Jennifer presented the Delft Global Initiative‘s vision and introduced DK Osseo-Asare, whose contribution Delft Global funded.

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DK Osseo-Asare (US/Ghana)

Low Design Office

Dk Osseo-Asare is a co-founder with Quilian Riano of DSGN AGNC, an activist design think-tank, and is a principal of Low Design Office, an architecture studio that foregrounds low-cost, low-carbon building. His research recouples form-making with the social dimensions of the global environment, siting sustainability between technology and geopolitics. He received a Bachelor’s in Engineering Design and a Master of Architecture, both from Harvard University, where he chaired the student group Social Change and Activism. He previously worked for the architecture office MOS and has presented his work at the Royal Institute of British Architects, Harvard Graduate School of Design, University of Pennsylvania, Cornell and the Kokrobitey Institute.

DK’s participation was made possible by the Delft Global Initiative, through Rachel Keeton, who is heading the URBAN LAB Adaptive Planning for African New Towns. Rachel is a recipient of a DELFT GLOBAL research fellowship.

Theodore Klouvas (NL/Greece)

Project Manager of Orange Corners Africa, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands

Theodore Klouvas is Project Manager of Orange Corners Africa at the Netherlands Enterprise Agency of the Ministry of Economic Affairs. He is a young professional schooled in Architecture, Urbanism & Building sciences, specialised in Urban Area Development with a strong passion for Entrepreneurship. He combines creativity and social empathy with analytical skills and organising capabilities, which he incorporates in innovative strategies and (project) designs.

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Student Pecha Kucha & Debate

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Mediators:

Cristina Wong (Peru)

Peruvian architect interested in research focussed on informal settlements of the global south. Having completed an architecture MsC in Spain, she’s currently enrolled in the EMU postmaster programme. See some of her work here: https://www.instagram.com/titiwwong/

 

Maricruz Gazel (Costa Rica)

Maricruz Gazel is a Costa Rican architect formed in her own country at Universidad Veritas. She has five years of experience working at recognized architecture firms in Costa Rica. Her interest for urbanism began during her architecture studies throughout which she participated in various urban oriented studios and later became part of an association that aims to improve urban mobility I for the greater metropolitan area of her country. Currently Maricruz is a full time student in the EMU-Postmaster program.

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Kritika Sha (India)

Master student Urbanism, TU Delft

After spending a few years as an architect in India, I am currently a graduate student of Urbanism at TU Delft, working on two parallel projects related to development in the global south, with a particular interest to the socio-economic elements of informal settlements. This interest, newly discovered at TU Delft, ranges from theoretical exploration to the implementation challenges. Along with the regular coursework, I am also the current editor-in-chief of Atlantis (A quarterly publication by the students of the Urbanism and Landscape Architecture) and an active member of the student association (POLIS).

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Sugandha Gupta (India)

Master student Urbanism, TU Delft

#WomenSpatialActivism – A gender sensitive urbanism approach of the New Urban Agenda (Case of New Delhi, India)

I am a Masters student of Urbanism studying in the Faculty of Architecture at TU Delft, The Netherlands. Previously, I studied Architecture in AMU, India which brought a sense of built environment in my life. I love being my own motivation which has given me the drive to work towards creating a sustainable and inclusive world. I like working on problems as small as fixing a pin to issues like social inequality and climate change which requires thorough research, empirical knowledge, and a designer’s instinct. I believe in humanitarian architecture and urbanism, where I try making cities for living creatures and not for the non-living machines. In the field of urbanism, I have concentrated on projects in South Asia dealing with a human scale. The recent research is about gender sensitive urban design in India where inequality is surpassed by crime against women. I aim to achieve the “Right to the City” for women who are almost half the population of the country. For me, it is never late to begin with power being in the hands of the people to change their surroundings. I help them reorganize, plan and reinvent their immediate settings and environment so they steer themselves towards a better future.

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Edgard A. Zúñiga León-York (Nicaragua)

MSc Student, TU Delft, Faculty of Civil Engineering and Geosciences

Chairperson – LATITUD (Latin American Student Association of Delft)

Currently pursuing a MSc degree in Transportation, Logistics, and Logistics at TU Delft, Edgard Zuniga is a Guatemalan born, Nicaraguan raised, Taiwan educated Mechanical Engineer with a high interest in merging the disciplines of transport network design and urban planning within the academic environment, and proactively applying the knowledge acquired towards public institutions in developing Latin American cities.

Since arriving at TU Delft, he has been fascinated with the freedom students have to invest their time and effort in different initiatives. Heavily invested in 3 associations, LATITUD (Latin American Student Association of Delft), TU Delft Student Ambassador Program, and Dispuut Verkeer, a link can be made across looking at how students decide to participate in multidisciplinary projects backed by the university, having the opportunity to travel around the globe to tackle real problems and provide innovative and efficient solutions. His interest in this seminar consists of talking about the joint effort that needs to be made between various groups within the university to create an interdisciplinary platform that may give way to focus on the issues that need to be resolved in the global south via the collaboration of academia and public institutions.

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Floortje van Sandick (The Netherlands)

Master Student Architecture at TU Delft. member of the Feminist Group of TU Delft

Floortje van Sandick is a master student Architecture at the TU Delft, graduating next year in Design as Politics. She is one of the core organizers of the TU Delft Feminists. TU Delft Feminists are a grassroots and horizontal organization for intersectional feminism led by students, PhDs and researchers at the TU Delft. It attempts to unite people, male, female and all genders beyond and in between on the topic of intersectional feminism in STEM (Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics) and works towards equity and inclusiveness at the university and beyond.

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Entela Shkreli (Albania)

Master student IHS

Entela is mainly interested in the active modes of transport, walking and cycling. She was graduated in Civil Engineering with a focus on Transport Infrastructure at the Polytechnic University of Tirana. After studies she decided to invest her efforts in Albanian society, by contributing in Civil Society sector. In 2012 she co-founded an NGO called GO2-go to Albania on two feet and two wheels. GO2 aims to improve the quality of life through sustainable development in the city of Shkoder. This city has a modal split of 29 % cyclists and 43 % pedestrians that are a big asset for sustainable mobility and has many natural and cultural resources for the development of tourism, both points of attention for GO2 work. Since 5 years Entela contributes for GO2, mainly as project manager and coordinator.

This year she was winner of NFP scholarship and had the opportunity to be in Netherlands where she is studying Urban Management and Development at IHS, in Erasmus University of Rotterdam. For more info, please find links below:

https://www.facebook.com/GO2-441072575963389/?pnref=lhc

www.go2albania.org

http://velo-city2013.com/?page_id=5264

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ARCADIS

As co-chair general assembly of partners business and industry advising on New Urban Agenda, Arcadis is sponsor of the World Urban Campaign which initiated the Urban Thinkers Campuses all over the world.

Bert Smolders (The Netherlands)

Shelter program manager partnership UN-Habitat Arcadis

Bert Smolders graduated in Delft in urban planning and design, worked for projects all over the world on the relation of urban planning and disaster prevention and response, esp. urban flood prevention. Presently program manager for the partnership of UN-Habitat and Arcadis organising technical support projects for UN-Habitat and supporting the new urban agenda, as co chair business and industry in the General Assembly of Partners in the process preparing for Quito and presently in the advice on implementation.

Charlotte van de Water (The Netherlands)

Environmental policy consultant at Arcadis, www.arcadis.com

Charlotte van de Water is an environmental policy consultant with a background in urban planning and design and human geography and planning. After working for several years in the Environmental Protection Agency of Rotterdam (DCMR), she joined Arcadis she works in Brussels to international and European policy studies on sustainable urban development, urban governance and smart cities.

www.Facebook.com/ArcadisShelterProgram, https://www.arcadis.com/en/global/arcadis-blog/charlotte-van-de-water/look-before-you-leap/

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Anne Loes Nillesen (The Netherlands)

Founding director and Landscape architect, Defacto

Anne Loes Nillesen is specialized in Landscape architecture in the domain of water and flood risk management. At her firm Defacto Anne Loes has worked on large-scale complex projects such as the Dutch Delta Program and the Bangladesh Delta Plan 2100. She also worked on local scale coastal protection and resiliency projects and is now involved in a landscape study for a Galveston land barrier. In 2009 Anne Loes founded the Climate Adaptation Lab and the Delta Interventions integral MSc graduate studios at Delft University of Technology, Faculty of Architecture. She is the author of multiple books and articles. Key books are ‘Amphibious Housing in the Netherlands’ and ‘Delta Interventions, Design and Engineering in Urban Water Landscapes’; the article ‘Improving the Allocation of Flood-Risk Interventions from a Spatial Quality Perspective’ is among the most-read from the Journal of Landscape Architecture (JOLA). 

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Friday 9 JUNE

Chair for the day: Carley Pennink, IHS, Erasmus University Rotterdam

Ms. Pennink (BA, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA; BFA, Parsons School of Design, NYC; MA Urban Management, Urban Management Centre, Rotterdam) is the Head of International Projects and Advisory Services at the Institute for Housing and Urban Development Studies.

She worked for the first ten years of her career as an architect and planner and as a project manager in the field of urban and social housing development. She joined IHS in 1994. At IHS, she leads the acquisition and management of the institute’s project portfolio. Thematically, Ms. Pennink trains and provides advise on the privatization of municipal services and public – public private partnerships in infrastructure provision, as well as quality and performance in local government, institutional development and organizational change. She has managed teams working on city-wide development strategies, and planning processes that incorporated community based and participatory approaches, She has extensive experience working with public private partnerships, from 1982 – 93, in the field, in large, multi-actor urban projects; and through training and advisory work in the developing world, and Central and Eastern Europe. Most recently she led a team working with the city of Tbilisi on the development of a City Development Strategy.

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Host person: Selina Abraham (India)

Master student at TU Delft

Selina used to be junior architect at Studio Motley, and is now working as intern at the Veldacademie. She is originally from Bengaluru, Karnataka, India.

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Alex Schafran (UK)

University of Leeds, UK

Alex spent ten years as an immigrant rights activist, social worker and housing organizer in California and New York before becoming an academic. In addition to teaching at Leeds, he teaches in the Paris School of International Affairs, Sciences Po Paris and at Sciences Po Bordeaux.

In his lecture “The future of the urban academy”, he examines what major social and political roles higher education institutions which teach about urbanism and urbanization could play in the 21st century. It focuses on five points: integrating our classrooms, teaching practice by making practitioners teach, taking over the media, making the academy the center of public participation, and reinvigorating long-range planning.

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Laura Katharina Straehle (Germany)

Architect at Powerhouse Company / MSc Architecture (TU Delft)

I was born into a multi-generation architecture family in the south of Germany. Although I was fascinated by the creative and exciting work of an architect, I decided to study International Management first and work for a year in this profession before studying architecture at TU Munich. My fascination for having an impact on society even as a student, was triggered by my participation in several Design-Build-Studios at TU Munich which led me to Kenya and Zambia.

My keenness to discover built society around the world  made me come to TU Delft where different courses brought me to India, Brasil and once again to Africa. I decided to graduate at Explore Lab, a studio which gives its students the freedom to develop their own fascinations and tasks paving the way for the graduation project I did: Together with a friend, we set up our own Design-Build-Studio and within less than two years, the design and construction phase of a community centre in Kenya was done.

www.laurakatharinastraehle.com / www.pavilions-for-okana.org

Making a difference – Pavilions for a change

The presentation addresses the questions how to teach issues of development at the university, what is missing at TU Delft and what kind of formats we should have with the help of my graduation project. I raise the question ‘what if we stop considering development aid as one-sided and TU Delft starts considering Design & Build – Practice as a unique chance to teach its students towards more responsibility in the whole architectural process. By showing the design process and outcome of the two-year-project Pavilions for Okana I would like to convince the last ones doubting that students are able to do such projects and that TU Delft has more trust in students with a vision and supports them by offering special formats or help with their network.

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Stephan van Berkel (The Netherlands)

Lecturer at the Haagse Hogeschool

Stephan van Berkel has two masters, in architecture and urban planning at TU Delft. He worked at several architectural practices, among which Mecanoo and Waterstudio, contributing tot he city App concept. Currently, he works as lecturer and researcher at the Hague University. During his education and work, he has been studying slums in Mumbai, Dhaka and Kampala. He has done in depth research into Bangladeshi garment factories, which have been object of attention after the collapse of Rana Plaza; a garment factory employing 3000 workers. He developed the concept of a ‘Happy Factory’, exploring the extent to which design can or should be user-sourced in order to increase well-being. Currently, he puts efforts to bring the concept of ‘building happiness’ further, together with his students. He explores both the parameters relevant to measure good Architecture / Urban design and how to enable architects an urban planners to use experience-based knowledge in their design process.

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 Rodrigo Andrés Barrios Salcedo (Colombia)

PhD. candidate, Bauhaus Universität Weimar

Andrés Barrios (1974, Bogotá), B.A. In Architecture, Universidad de América , (Bogota, Colombia) , M.Sc. Urban Studies, Bauhaus-universität Weimar ( Weimar, Germany), M.Eng Urban Design and Planning, Tongji University Shanghai (People’s Republic of China). I have accumulated experience in the fields of architecture and urbanism for more than ten years now. My topics of interest are situated at the junction of the social, economic and technological processes driving urban spatial production.

Habitat III gives specific importance to the acknowledgement of the ecological function of land; taking into account that such a structural quality sets, in turn, the layout of human settlements, generally speaking. Consequently, fundamental rights related to air quality and safe drinking water access are stressed through the mentioned agreement, so that the chances of having safe and accessible livelihood conditions in the human settlements under formation are ensured.

Spatial planners of the future would have not only to equip themselves with cross-disciplinary, ground-breaking theoretical knowledge, but with alternative methodological approaches in order to structure new sets of narratives that would influence and, in turn, strengthen local and regional human settlements’ governance. As it is assumed that the implementation of the agenda attending the goals set by the 2030 agreement on sustainable development should be linked to such narratives, special attention is paid to the acknowledgement of the possible relationships that are still to be set by humans – and human settlements, consequently- considering the natural milieu and the environment in general.