For Anna Heringer architecture is a tool to improve lives. As an architect and honorary professor of the UNESCO Chair of Earthen Architecture, Building Cultures, and Sustainable Development she is focusing on the use of natural building materials. She has been actively involved in development cooperation in Bangladesh since 1997. Her diploma work, the METI School in Rudrapur got realized in 2005 in collaboration with Eike Roswag and won the Aga Khan Award for Architecture in 2007. Over the years, Anna has realized further projects in Asia, Africa, and Europe. Together with Martin Rauch she has developed the method of Clay Storming that she teaches at various universities, including ETH Zurich, UP Madrid, TU Munich and GSD/Harvard.

The Piano is a 1993 New Zealand period drama film about a narcissistic, psychologically mute young woman and her pre-adolescent daughter, set during the mid-19th century in a rainy, muddy frontier backwater town on the west coast of New Zealand. It also involves the woman’s failing new, arranged marriage to a frontiersman due to obsession with playing her piano. The Piano was written and directed by Jane Campion and stars Holly Hunter, Harvey Keitel, Sam Neill, and Anna Paquin in her first acting role. The film’s score by Michael Nyman became a best-selling soundtrack album, and Hunter played her own piano pieces for the film. She also served as sign language teacher for Paquin, earning three screen credits. The film is an international co-production by Australian producer Jan Chapman with the French company Ciby 2000.

Valerio Barberis studied at the Faculty of Architecture in Florence. In the late 1990s he founded the MDU architects studio in Prato with other three parners. The work of the study emerges for the originality of the research, it is stated in numerous design competitions and is published in the most important international magazines and webzines.In 2014, the mayor of Prato, Matteo Biffoni, called him to take on the role of Councilor for Urban Planning and Public Works. He decides to dedicate himself entirely to the public office. In his role as Councilor he promotes an overall vision of the future of the city of Prato, which takes shape in the formation of an Urban Agenda that is emerging in the national and European panorama, in the debate on sustainable local development. From 2016 he is the coordinator for Italy in the Partnership on Circular Economy within the Urban Agenda for the EU program, undertaken by the European Commission.

Javier Corvalán Espínola, (1962), graduated in architecture in the Faculty of Sciences and Technologies of The Catholic University Nuestra Señora de la Asunción UCA. He has done postgraduate studies in Rome at the University of La Sapienza and is PHD candidate at Istitutto Universitario di Architettura di Venezia IUAV. He teaches at the Faculty of Architecture Design and Arts of the National University of Asuncion FADA UNA and is Research Professor at the Faculty of Science and Technology of the UCA. He also teaches in several Latin American universities and holds the position of Visiting Professor at the Institutto Universitario di Achitettura di Venezia IUAV, where he’s a PHD candidate. Amongst his recent realizations are the Capilla del Cerrito and Casa Amaca, both in Asunción (2010).

Junya Ishigami (1974) worked as an architect at SANAA before founding the prize-winning Junya Ishigami + Associates in 2004. Winner of the Golden Lion award at the Venice Biennale of Architecture in 2010, he was the subject of a major and critically acclaimed solo exhibition at the Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain in 2018 that is traveling to the Power Station of art in Shanghai later this year. He is known for designs with dream-like qualities that incorporate the natural world, such as landscapes, forests and clouds, in an architectural practice that places humankind as part of nature.

Vincent Parreira is a Portuguese-French architect, born in Paris in 1969. Graduated from the Architecture School of Paris La Villette, he founded the studio AAVP Architecture which ambition is to offer projects full of feelings. The studio gathers today 20 architects working on a great range of subjects like housing, services or public facilities. Vincent Parreira received the Mention d’Honneur at the Equerre d’Argent Price in 2011.

Dong Gong founded Vector Architects in 2008. He and Vector Architects have been invited to various exhibitions including 2018 Free Space Venice Biennale, and won awards internationally including “100+ Best Architecture Firms” selected by Domus (2019); being nominated by Swiss Architectural Award (2018); the Overall Winner of Italian Archmarathon Awards (2016); “Design Vanguard” selected by Architectural Record (2014).