Brodie Neill

Founder & Industrial Designer, Brodie Neill
Australia & UK

Brodie Neill is renowned for creating striking, sinuous and sculptural designs ingrained in material research, technical rigour and digital innovation. A University of Tasmania and Rhode Island School of Design graduate, Brodie gained immediate industry acclaim at the global launch of his debut designs resulting in inclusion in TIME Magazine’s Design 100: the most influential designs.
Neill represented Australia at the inaugural London Design Biennale in 2016 at Somerset House where he presented the now-iconic Gyro table which highlights the issue of ocean plastic waste. Gyro was acquired by National Gallery of Victoria for its permanent collection and exhibited at the recent NGV Triennial. A champion of using design to combat ocean plastic waste, Brodie has spoken at the European Union Parliament and the United Nations.

In 2013, Brodie founded Made in Ratio, an innovative yet enduring contemporary furniture collection which harnesses nature’s perfection of ratio and proportion. The collection is forged from the desire to take exceptional ideas from inception to production by embracing advanced technologies and enhancing traditional techniques.
Critically acclaimed through awards and publications, the collection includes the now-iconic Cowrie chair, recognised for its curvilinear monocoque form, and the critically acclaimed Alpha in 2015, a stacking chair with a sculptural silhouette that embraces natural design and honest craftsmanship. Exuding originality and elegance, both designs are celebrated in Taschen’s 1000 Chairs.
Brodie has worked with an impressive roster of clients, collaborating with international brands including Microsoft, Mercedes-Benz, Alexander McQueen and Swarovski. His limited-edition works are included in museums, galleries and private collections around the globe.

Chan Ee Mun

Architect, WOHA
Singapore

Chan Ee Mun is a Director at WOHA. He obtained his Master of Architecture from the National University of Singapore and has been associated with the architectural practice since its inception. Ee Mun is driven by his intrinsic interest in Tropical Urbanity and its change-making potential in shaping responsive architectural solutions to modern issues of density and climate change. His work is characterised by its people-centric approach which is spatially engaging, programmatically vibrant and environmentally responsive. Acknowledged as a leading young architect in “20 under 45” by Singapore’s Urban Redevelopment Authority, Ee Mun has led and completed award-winning projects in key development sectors including residential, commercial, conservation, institutional and hospitality. He speaks at local and regional forums and has been engaged in academia as a visiting design tutor, lecturer and external examiner at local art and architectural institutions such as the National University of Singapore, Singapore University of Technology and Design and Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts.

Florian Heinzelmann & Daliana Suryawinata

Founders & Directors, SHAU
Indonesia

Daliana Suryawinata and Florian Heinzelmann are founders of SHAU Rotterdam-Bandung (www.shau.nl, instagram:@shauarchitects). SHAU works on multiple scales and typologies with a cultural-environmental agenda. Their work includes public spaces, vertical housing, visionary masterplans and microlibraries.

Among other awards, SHAU has received Architizer A+ Awards 2020 & 2017, INDE.Awards 2018 ‘Influencer’ category, Small Firm of the Year in Sustainable Architecture from the American Architecture Prize 2017, Silver Prize from Lafarge-Holcim Award Asia-Pacific 2017 and was shortlisted for Aga Khan Award for Architecture in 2019. Prior to establishing SHAU, Daliana and Florian studied at the Berlage Institute Rotterdam. Florian was a project architect at UNStudio in Amsterdam. He was a researcher, master course tutor and Solar Decathlon project manager at TU Delft and completed his PhD research on Adaptive Daylight Systems at TU Eindhoven. He is currently a Visiting Senior Fellow at National University of Singapore, Department of Architecture. Daliana worked for OMA, MVRDV and West8 and taught master courses at The Why Factory TU Delft with topics ranging from ‘Superkampung Jakarta’ to ‘World Wonders’.

SHAU won The Influencer for its project Microlibraries at INDE.Awards 2018.

James Calder

Global Director of User Strategy, ERA-co
Australia

James Calder, an early pioneer in activity-based workplace design and a leader in workplace strategy for the digital age, is Global Director of User Strategy at start-up consultancy ERA-co. James works globally and has a deep understanding of workstyles, organizational cultures and extensive experience in project delivery particularly around innovation. His project list includes Macquarie at Shelley Street and 50 Martin Place, NAB at 700 Bourke Street, Atlassian at TechCentral, Brookfield’s HO in New York and Mitsui Fudosan’s new workspace in Tokyo.

James has developed workplace strategies and specialist fitouts and buildings for lawyers, accountants, management consultants, media and technology organizations, investment and retail banks, governments and universities. He also works for real estate owners and developers to design the next generation of buildings for the tenants of the future. James is a practitioner, facilitator, author and educator interested in all facets of strategy, design and workplace optimization.

Jan Utzon

Architect, Utzon Architects
Denmark

Being the son of Opera House designer Jørn Utzon, it’s no surprise that Jan Utzon grew up with architecture as the main theme of influence in his childhood. Having studied architecture in both Sydney and Copenhagen, Jan graduated in 1970 and begun what would come to be a legendary architecture career in Denmark and abroad.

After founding Utzon Architects with his father, Jan and the firm went on to win a competition to design the new National Assembly Complex in Kuwait. Since 1976 Jan and Utzon Architects have been involved in a wide variety of works in Denmark, including the Paustian House in Copenhagen, the Skagen Odde Nature Centre in the north of Jutland, as well as numerous international projects.

Jan’s passion for great design extends to a passion for making design for the better of the world, particularly in developing countries.

Jeff Copolov

Director, Bates Smart
Australia

After graduating from RMIT University with a Fellowship Diploma of Interior Design, Jeff began his career as a set designer in the television industry. He joined Bates Smart in 1983 and in 1995 he became the first director of interior design at Bates Smart.

Jeff has a classically modern, timeless approach to design and a reputation for producing highly refined and carefully targeted design solutions. He is known for his relentless attention to detail. Jeff oversees the entire design process to craft buildings from the inside out. His broad experience covers a wide range of building types, all of which promotes a rich diversity of cross-discipline thoughts.

During his career Jeff has been awarded a number of prestigious accolades including the IDEA Gold Medal for significant contributions to the design industry and the Designer of the Year. He was also inducted into the Design Institute of Australia’s Hall of Fame in 2018, in recognition of outstanding contributions to the Australian design industry.

Judy Cheung

Co-founder, Cheungvogl Architects
Hong Kong

Judy Cheung is the co-founder of the Cheungvogl architecture practice. With offices in Hong Kong, China and Germany, Cheung and her team’s design work explores the connections between art, science and philosophies. Their simultaneous analysis of the sensual and the rational is clear in the impressive and unique large-scale architectural creations the team put their names to.

Cheung’s design thinking is focused on achieving highly rational, productive and efficient results, with her work speaking of a specific kind of subtle sensitivity that touches and connects people emotionally.

Leone Lorrimer

National Practice Leader, GHDWoodhead
Australia

For over 30 years Leone has been a recognisable presence in the architecture and design profession. Her projects have won numerous awards in Australia and internationally. She has been a leading design professional, a mentor and an executive director of two major international practices, as well as working as client to some of the world’s most famous architecture and design practices. Leone has recently been appointed as National Practice Leader for GHDWoodhead.

Liam Timms

Fund Manager, International Towers
Australia

Liam Timms has been an influential player in Australia’s property investment landscape for more than two decades.

He is currently the fund manager of Lendlease International Towers Sydney, a $4.3billion wholesale property fund with a portfolio of award-winning commercial properties. These include the 2019 Australian Development of the Year ‘International House’ and International Towers – Tower Two & Tower Three within Sydney’s most dynamic urban regeneration precinct – Barangaroo.

Liam is the driving force behind a unique curated tenancy model focused on diversity, community and sustainability with the fund recognised by The Australian Financial Review as the 21st Most Innovative Company in Australia and New Zealand in 2018.

Luke Yeung

Principal, Architectkidd
Thailand

Luke Yeung leads Thailand architectural studio Architectkidd along with Udomsak Komonvilas and Jariyawadee Lekawatana. Based in Bangkok, Architectkidd’s designs make use of innovative tools that are sensitively applied to local materials and construction techniques. This combination leads to architectural projects that are bold and inventive but also closely connected with the local conditions of South East Asia.

Working within the context of South East Asia’s growing cities, Architectkidd is known for articulating materiality as a way to bring humanistic and social qualities into the built environment.

Peta Heffernan

Director, LIMINAL Studio
Australia

Peta is co-founding director of LIMINAL Studio, a design and architecture practice known for inventive outcomes fed by creative thinking and embrace of collaboration. Their interdisciplinary approach is captured through the Studio’s Architecture, Spaces, Objects and Ideation identities.

Responsible for quality, inventive and inclusive environments deeply connected to place, Peta has led teams to deliver high profile projects, such as the ‘The Hedberg’ in Hobart, the Coastal Pavilions at Freycinet and community galvanising projects such as the Health Care Centre in Glenorchy.

Her leadership in collaborative practice and advocacy has led to invites on forums and advisory councils.

Praveen Nahar

Director, National Institute of Design
India

Praveen Nahar is the Director of National Institute of Design (NID) Ahmedabad with its extension campuses in Gandhinagar and Bengaluru. He has also been a faculty member in the Product Design discipline at NID since 2002.

He studied Production Engineering and Industrial Design at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Delhi, as well as Sustainable Design as a postgraduate at Delft University of Technology, in the Netherlands. He has over 23 years of experience in design teaching, consultancy and research. His range of academic and professional interests include: Systems Thinking in Design, Design Thinking, Sustainable Design/Green Design, Design in the Public Domain, Social Design, Appropriate Technology, and Strategic Design to name a few.

Raj Nandan

Founder & CEO, Indesign Media Asia Pacific
Singapore/Australia

Rajesh Nandan is the Founder, Publisher and Chief Executive Officer of the design industry’s premier regional media house, Indesign Media Asia Pacific. After acquiring his first magazine at the age of 22 in 1993, Raj continued to launch a suite of magazine titles throughout the 1990s that would become the foundation for his boutique publishing house in 2000 under the flagship title, Indesign.

In 2010, the company moved further throughout Asia with digital and print titles in Indonesia, Singapore, Hong Kong – including welcoming India to the fold in the very near future. The root of his success lies in Raj being a very early proponent of the potential for digital platforms to support our region’s creative talent.

Shashi Caan

Founding Partner, SC COLLECTIVE
United States of America/United Kingdom

Shashi Caan is a distinguished thought leader for architectural design internationally. As a practitioner, design futurist, educator and author, her dedication to furthering human betterment through and by design is reflected in her 25-year design career.

She was formerly Associate Partner and Design Director with Skidmore, Owings and Merrill, in New York. Since 2002, she has led THE COLLECTIVE, the innovatively structured firm which she co-founded. Shashi was US Designer of the Year (2004), granted the Golden Seat Architectural Master Award of China (2012), and appointed JDP Design Ambassador to Japan (2013). Her seminal book, Rethinking Design and Interiors: Human Beings in the Built Environment, has been translated into multiple languages.

Tonya Hinde

Principal | Design Lead, Billard Leece Partnership
Australia

With a personal aim to ‘humanize’ spaces, big or small, and over 26 years of experience, Tonya Hinde stands out as a collaborative leader in the Australian architectural industry. She is renowned for working with multiple stakeholders and high level technical requirements to deliver on creative and vibrant design outcomes. She shares BLP’s deeply held belief that our future is dependent on creating healthy buildings and environments, and that good design is instrumental in making people feel better. Tonya has been a significant contributor to BLP’s ground breaking healthcare design work, from the landmark Royal Children’s Hospital (RCH) in Melbourne, Perth Children’s Hospital to The Orygen Development for Youth Mental Health. The powerful combination of expanded research in universal wellbeing, along with inspired design outcomes, has become Tonya’s signature.

Akshat Bhatt

Principal Architect, Architecture Discipline
India

Akshat Bhatt is the Principal Architect at Architecture Discipline, a New Delhi-based multi-disciplinary design practice he founded in 2007. His work highlights the emergence of an architectural expression that is contemporary, yet rooted in a critical understanding of regionalism. The outcome of every commission at Architecture Discipline is determined by a series of design processes, from full scale mock-ups to long-term material investigations, which strive to develop programmatic and technical flexibility. As a result, all buildings are integrated from conceptual framework to tactile experience.

Bhatt’s work has been published extensively and critically acclaimed: multiple Indian Institute of Interior Designers (IIID) Awards, an NDTV DAA Architect of the Year Award (2013); and citations from the Alliance Francaise (2012), the National Gallery of Modern Art (2015), and the Government of India (2015). More recently, he won the ID Honours Award (2020) and was included on Architectural Digest’s AD100 2020 list of the hundred most influential architects and interior designers in India.

Over the last sixteen years, Bhatt has taught at three architecture schools in New Delhi, actively engaging with the city’s academic community. He is currently engaged in many critical commissions for large scale public spaces, which include JDH, an urban regeneration project that aims to restore the historic Walled City of Jodhpur to its former glory; and new brand developments for The Oberoi Hotels & Resorts (the refurbishment of the 19th-century edifice of The Oberoi Grand, Kolkata, and a series of new modular, urban hotels for the group), The Leela Group, The Postcard Hotels and Resorts, and The Government of Delhi.

Annabel Smart & Marijne Vogel

Directors, Studio 11:11
New Zealand & Australia

Studio 11:11 is a multi-disciplinary practice operating in Australia and New Zealand.

Exploring the boundaries between interior architecture, leather goods and objects, they create a diverse body of work with one collective narrative.

The studio creates purposeful objects and spaces. Their designs are not void of aesthetics, but resist trends in favour of functionality.

They believe simplicity is the result of a highly resolved design. A sense of calm is created with paired back forms and by eliminating the unnecessary.

Working with local artisans and natural materials, craftsmanship is approached with permanence in mind, but always embracing the patina of things over time.

David Flack & Mark Robinson

Directors, Flack Studio
Australia

Melbourne-based multi-disciplinary design studio Flack Studio works across sectors, but residential interior architecture has always been a particular passion and forms the bulk of the studio’s portfolio. Projects are approached with respect for the past, an eye to the future, and above all, a conversation with the community of the project – the clients as well as the builders, joiners, tradespeople and suppliers.

David Flack established the studio with a determination to make design accessible to all. His early conversations with studio Director Mark Robinson (who has a background in film direction) focused on the studio’s point of view and voice, but also the potential for being part of a greater change through the voice of design – which can be political.

The studio seeks out conversations – through the interior as art that converses with its audience, through the home as a vehicle that fosters relationships and values, and through direct engagement with community. David and Mark took a firm step in 2016 to open up the studio and engage with the industry through monthly drinks and discussion sessions, Open House days, international study tours, and more. The studio also supports a play centre for children living in the local Fitzroy housing estate through fundraising and volunteer work.

Goy Zhenru, Dessy Anggadewi & Sam Loetmann

Director, Indonesia lead, Thailand lead, Goy Architects
Singapore, Indonesia & Thailand

The opportunity to design a farm stay in Indonesia was the spark that led Goy Zhenru to establish Goy Architects in Singapore in 2015. She was soon joined by two former colleagues – Bali-based Indonesian architect Dessy Anggadewi and Chiang Mai-based Thai architect Sam Loetman – and the trio now work together remotely with a deep dedication to vernacular architecture and craftsmanship in Southeast Asia.

The regional approach allows for the cross-pollination of ideas influenced by the team’s respective social contexts and built environments. The studio experiments with local artisanal building products and explores ways to adapt them to modern use. A pop-up material research office in Chiang Mai was established recently to support close collaboration with local artisans and to experiment with the vernacular. The hope is that the studio will grow in each of the three countries, with each office focusing on its respective regional crafts and materials while tapping project opportunities.

The regional approach has fostered a nimble approach to operations. The team operates on cloud-based BIM software (ArchiCAD) to allow for syncing of design models from any location. The use of mobile apps such as BIMX allows design collaboration as well as access to design models by clients and builders. The team finds that this not only allows for more holistic design discussions on site, but also for language barriers to be overcome.

Jason Sim & Hao Wang

Founders & Architects, S/Lab10
Malaysia & Australia

Professionally trained in Australia, Singapore and Milan, Jason Sim’s career trajectory spans nearly two decades with works ranging across several countries. He co-leads the award-winning architectural firm, S/LAB10, with partner Hao Wang. Together, they lead a practice that focuses on realising evocative design schemes that are research-driven and detail-oriented.

Hao Wang is a co-founder of S/LAB10, an architecture and interior design firm based in Malaysia. Prior to establishing the practice, he was previously based in Australia and Taiwan – the former being home to his architectural alma mater. Hao spent his formative years as a graduate practising in Sydney where he put both his architectural and prior interior design training to good use. It was at this time that he accumulated a broad range of skills and industry experience. Through working on several iconic high-rise projects, he was involved in key architectural developments that now sit within the city’s ever-rising metropolitan skyline.

Space and detail are dexterously intertwined in S/LAB10’S award-winning designs. Their visually prominent designs are a direct outcome of S/LAB10’s methodical approach to design, as it conducts rigorous design explorations based on project needs and user requirements, that are then combined with an adept handling of refined detailing.

Maria Warner Wong

Founder & Design Director, WARNER WONG DESIGN | WOW ARCHITECTS
Singapore

As Design Director and co-founder of Warner Wong Design and WOW Architects in Singapore, Maria sets strategic objectives and oversees the development of the WOW team. Under Maria’s direction, WOW’s extensive portfolio of work has been governed by a commitment to creating spaces of extraordinary sensory experience rooted in culture, memory and place.

Committed to promoting sustainable design and education, Maria has taught sustainable architectural design at the National University of Singapore and the Singapore University of Technology & Design.

Mark Healey

Studio Director, Bates Smart
Australia

Mark Healey is a Studio Director of Bates Smart Architects based in Melbourne, Australia. During Mark’s 20 year career he has led a number of high quality healthcare, hospitality, multi residential, civic and commercial developments, namely Bates Smart’s winning submission for the Australian Embassy in Washington D.C., the award winning Royal Children’s Hospital, Bendigo Hospital and the recently completed Gandel Wing for Cabrini Health.

Otto Ng & Chun Hang Yip

Founders & Directors, LAAB Architects
Hong Kong

LAAB is a collective of 35 architects, artists, designers, engineers, makers, and sociologists specializing in spatial innovations. The studio was co-founded by Otto Ng and Chun Hang Yip in 2013 in Hong Kong, with the vision of incubating a laboratory that bridges the separate fields of art and architecture, hence the two “A”s in the studio’s name.

Rather than adhering to a specific design paradigm, LAAB’s approach to architecture is driven by the process of making, guided by narratives of a place, and born out of deep respect for the natural environment and cultural contexts. Digital craftsmanship – a unique blend of digital technology and traditional craftsmanship – is vital to the studio culture and innovation process.

From everyday objects to art installations, from architecture and interior to public space and community engagement, LAAB believes that spatial innovations occur at the intersections of disciplines – when architects think sociologically, when sociologists question urban design, and when engineers challenge designers. Because of this team diversity, LAAB was able to design a food kiosk that moves (Harbour Kiosk), a café that preserves collective memory (T · CAFÉ), and a shopping space built with digital craftsmanship (K11 MUSEA).
LAAB was awarded The Design Studio by the INDE Awards in 2020.