RAPHAEL HEFTI is an artist born in Biel, Switzerland, in 1978. He lives and works in both Zürich and London. He started an apprenticeship in Electronics and Mechanics and then moved to École Cantonale d’Art de Lausanne before studying at Slade School of Fine Art. Raphael Hefti is dedicated to the practice of creating artifacts of unexpected beauty by applying innovative, industrial processes to ordinary materials.
BIJOY JAIN was born in Mumbai, India, in 1965. He received his M. Arch from Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, in 1990. Between 1989 and 1995, he worked in Los Angeles and London, returning to India in 1995 to found his practice, Studio Mumbai. Mr. Jain currently teaches at the Accademia di Architettura di Mendrisio in Mendrosio, Switzerland. In an interview, Mr. Jain emphasized the making and its relation to the maker and the environment: “My interest lies primarily in doing what I do, with care. As an architect, the way you imagine opening a door, developing a chair, designing the texture of a wall or a floor, is very important. It’s about quality, about the consideration you apply to the making of something. And it’s about being attentive to the environment, the materials, and the inhabitants. It has to be inclusive.”
JONI KAÇANI is an Austrian architect born in 1990. He currently works and lives in Zurich. After finishing his studies in architecture at ETH Zürich, he worked at Christian Kerez’ office, where he was project leader for the Swiss Contribution to the Venice Biennale of Architecture 2016. At present, he holds a teaching position at ETH Zürich dedicated to the depiction of contemporality in today’s architectural production. In ‘Parenthesis,’ a zine he co-published with Christian Portmann, he argues for the creative potential of specific circumstances surrounding architectural projects, a notion he also pursues in his own independent work, which currently includes the realization of smaller buildings in Austria, Albania and Switzerland through different collaborations.
RAINER KÜNDIG is a geologist and graduated from ETH Zürich with a degree in fieldwork in the Upper Engadine followed by a doctoral thesis on ‘Crystallisation and Deformation in the Higher Himalaya’ with a multi-year research project in the Himalayas. Today he is Managing Director of NEROS, the Swiss Mineral Resources Network in Bern. Prior to that, he headed the Swiss Geotechnical Commission at ETH Zürich for 28 years, where he is still a lecturer in the fields of Applied Mineralogy and Earth Resources.
MARIO MONOTTI was born in 1975 in Locarno, Switzerland. He graduated from Zurich Polytechnic with a degree in Civil Engineering and subsequently, earned a PhD in Technical Sciences where he focused his research on the plastic analysis of reinforced concrete slabs. Since 2009, he has held the position of Professor of Structural Design at the Accademia di architettura in Mendrisio, Switzerland. He is also the founder and owner of the Monotti Ingegneri Consulenti SA in Locarno. His company specializes in structural design in architectural contests in the public and private sectors on national and international levels. Mario Monotti works collaboratively with young architects. His name is associated with the school of Leutschenbach of C. Kerez (European steel design award 2011), the House on Two Pillars of C. Scheidegger and J. Keller (Betonpreis 2017), the National Pavilion of the Kingdom of Bahrain for Expo Milano 2015 of Anne Holtrop and many other project and exhibition pavilions.
CECILIA PUGA was born in Chile in 1961. In 1990, she received her degree in architecture from the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile after studying history and the restoration of architectural monuments at the Universitá della Sapienza in Rome from 1987 to 1989. From 1990 to 1993, Ms. Puga served as the Director of the School of Architecture at Universidad Nacional Andrés Bello in Chile, and the editor of the magazine CA published by the Colegio de Arquitectos de Chile. Ms. Puga currently teaches at ETH Zürich. Last semester, she focused on the ‘cultural dimension of everyday life’ – ‘in the ability of architecture (and the ways in which it articulates space and matter) to shape and promote human interaction’.