Ben van Berkel launched UNStudio – United Net in 1998 with Caroline Bos as a network of specialists in architecture, urban development and infrastructure. Current projects are the restructuring of the station area of Arnhem, the mixed-use Raffles City in Hangzhou, a masterplan for Basauri, a dance theatre for St Petersburg and the design and restructuring of the Harbor Ponte Parodi in Genoa. Van Berkel is currently professor, conceptual design, at the Staedelschule in Frankfurt am Main and earlier this year was awarded the Kenzo Tange Visiting Professor’s Chair at Harvard University Graduate School of Design.

Paul Davis has led his own independent practice for 30 years. Prior to full membership of the Royal Institute of British Architects, his training with other practices included projects like the first Heathrow 747 hanger, Civic Trust Award winning housing and Tehran town centre. From 1977 to 1994, he established the Davis and Bayne Partnership, known for high quality residential and mixed use projects. In 1994, he formed Paul Davis + Partners to concentrate on long term central London projects for key clients. Davis has been involved in over 400 building projects of different types, scales and uses. PD+P have won numerous national and international awards.

Elora Hardy is creative director of the Ibuku bamboo company and was honoured as a finalist of the 2010 Aga Khan Award for Architecture. Raised in Bali and educated in the US, Hardy honed her design skills as sole print designer for Donna Karan in New York City before moving back home in 2010. She is the founder of Bali’s Green Village, a planned community based on design concepts and sustainable principles established by the artisans and craftsmen that built Green School, founded by her father John Hardy.

Thomas Heatherwick established Heatherwick Studio in 1994. Today, a team of more than 40 architects work from a combined studio and workshop in King’s Cross, London, UK. Heatherwick Studio has a wide breadth of expertise with a focus on building projects. Heatherwick himself has won the Prince Philip Designers Prize and was the youngest practitioner to be appointed a Royal Designer for Industry in 2004. Last year, Heatherwick was awarded the London Design Medal at the London Design Festival. He has served on numerous judging and advisory panels and has given lectures, tutorials and talks worldwide.

With more than three decades of design and management experience, Jill Lerner has led the design of numerous award-winning academic and institutional research facilities projects for public and private clients throughout the US. As a principal at Kohn Pedersen Fox, she is responsible for all aspects of project management and design, and is the primary client contact during all phases. A registered architect in several states, she is a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects (AIA), and has served on the boards of the AIA New York City Chapter and the Center for Architecture Foundation.

Founder and principal of Tsao & McKown Architects, Calvin Tsao is president emeritus of the Architectural League of New York, has served as the vice-president for Design Excellence at the AIA NY Chapter, and is a member of the visiting committee to Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design. In 2001, Tsao was inducted into the Interior Design Hall of Fame, and in 2009 received the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Award for Interior Design, along with partner Zack McKown. A Fellow of the American Institute of Architects, he has taught at the Harvard Graduate School of Design and at the Parsons School of Design.

For over four decades, Weymouth has practiced as a licensed architect with some of the world’s top firms, including Arup, Skidmore Owings and Merrill, and Arquitectonica.. He is well known for his work for IM Pei and Partners, as chief of design for Pei’s East Wing, National Gallery of Art (Washington DC) and for Pei’s Grand Louvre (Paris, France). In the 1970s, Weymouth founded his own architectural firm, Redroof Design, in New York City, a pioneer of high- tech lofts. He is now design director at HOK and counts the new Salvador Dali Museum in Florida among his achievements.

Founder of Carlos Zapata Studio in New York City, Carlos Zapata has designed projects such as the Cooper Square Hotel in New York City and the Bitexco Financial Tower in Ho Chi Minh City. During his eight-year partnership with Benjamin Wood at Wood + Zapata, he also designed projects like Xintiandi, the award-winning restoration of two historic city blocks in the French Concession of Shanghai. Carlos Zapata Studio has won numerous design awards and been featured in publications worldwide. Zapata himself was named one of Time magazine’s ‘Someone to Watch’, as well as Interior Design magazine’s ‘30 Under 30’ and ‘40 Under 40’.