Jury Alumni

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  Andrea Simitch

  Associate Professor, Cornell University, Department of Architecture

  2016 Built Environment Jury Member

  Andrea Simitch is an Associate Professor in the Department of Architecture at Cornell University. She teaches courses in architectural design, architectural representation, and furniture design. She served as Director of the Bachelor of Architecture program from 2011–14, as Director of Undergraduate Studies from 2007–08, and as Associate Dean of AAP from 2002–03. She has been a panelist on the New York State Council on the Arts, a department representative for the Cornell Council for the Arts, and was a faculty collaborator with the Andrew Goldsworthy workshop at Storm King. Val Warke and she partner in a collaborative architectural practice and recent projects include the Nalati National Park Resort and the Eco-Tourism Strategic Planning Proposal, both for Nalati, China, as well as numerous design competitions that include the Arbedo Castione school in Ticino, Switzerland, the Center for Promotion of Science of the Republic of Serbia Competition, Benetton Competition "Designing in Teheran”, and the Stockholm City Library Competition.
  
  She has taught extensively for Cornell in numerous international venues that include Europe and Central and South America and is regularly invited to lecture and participate in diploma juries and symposia at peer institutions, most recently in Italy, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland. Student work from her furniture design course has been exhibited at the International Contemporary Furniture Fair in New York. She was a 2015 Fellow at the Baer Art Center in Hofsós Iceland. The Language of Architecture: 26 Principles Every Architect Should Know, a book she co-authored with V. Warke and published by Rockport Publishers (June 2014) has been translated into four languages. She received her B.Arch. from Cornell in 1979 and also attended Occidental College and l'Ecole Special d'Architecture in Paris.

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  Hartmut Gaßner

  Founding Partner, Gaßner, Groth, Siederer & Coll.

  2016 Built Environment Jury Member

  Hartmut Gaßner is a founding partner of Gaßner, Groth, Siederer & Coll. He focuses on renewable energy law (photovoltaic, geothermal, wind power projects), nuclear law, emissions trading, Stadtwerke, PPP procurement, recycling business, ministerial and municipal consulting, associations and policy advice. He studied law in Berlin, was a research associate of the Bundestag Greens (Otto Schily, Flick committee of inquiry), and had a traineeship in Berlin, admitted in 1987 before establishing GGSC.

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  Arthur Huang

  Co-Founder/CEO, MINIWIZ

  2016 Built Environment Jury Captain

  Arthur Huang is a structural engineer, architect and innovator of loop economy building material solutions. He founded Miniwiz in 2005 and has led the firm since.
  
  Miniwiz is a global leader in post-consumer recycling technology with applications focused around built infrastructure and architectural solutions. For over 10 years, Miniwiz has been challenging the existing linear supply chain by using post-consumer recycled materials for high performance applications, retail store interiors, factory campuses and consumer goods.
  
  Miniwiz gained recognition worldwide for first executing upcycling technologies and developing solutions that enable the switch to the circular economy. Three National Geographic Channel Episodes have been dedicated to Miniwiz , documenting the following Miniwiz Projects: The Ecoark Museum, the worlds first nine story tall museum made form post-consumer Materials (2010), Polliboat (2011), SDTI electronic waste recycling campus (2015). Miniwiz brought trash materials to the retail industry, equipping Nike’s high-end stores (Nikelab) with fixtures made from trash, in the heart of the world’s most premium cities: NYC, London, Paris, Milan, Shanghai, Hong Kong and Tokyo.
  
  Among other honors, Miniwiz under Arthur Huang’s leadership won the Financial Times’ “Earth Award” in 2010 and The Wall Street Journal’s “Asian Innovation Award” in 2011. Miniwiz received the “Technology Pioneers 2015” title by the World Economic Forum, recognizing the potential of the new industry that Miniwiz is leading and the positive impact of its activities on the state of the world.
  
  Miniwiz holds invention patents and trademarks for various mechanical and chemical up-cycling technologies, including Polliber™, a composite made of reprocessed organic waste with recycled polymers, Natrilon™, a yarn made of recycled PET reinforced with Nano SiO2 from rice husk, Pollibrick™, a mechanical interlocking system, and many others.

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  Giorgio de Mitri

  Creative Director, Sartoria Comunicazione

  2016 Built Environment Jury Member

  Giorgio de Mitri is an italian creative director who founded Sartoria Comunicazione, one the most relevant independent communication firms woldwide. He is also the publisher of CUBE and the founder of Fondazione de Mitri, a nonprofit artistic and cultural organization located in Modena, Italy. Among other projects in 2015 he co-curated The Bridges of Graffiti exhibition, a collateral event of the 56th Venice Biennale.