Jury

© Helga Blocksdorf

After graduating from the University of the Arts Berlin in 2001, Helga Blocksdorf acquired in-depth experience in construction management, execution planning and competitions at Staab Architekten, Berlin (2002–2007). Between 2001 and 2013 she was part of the artist collective après-nous, which held international exhibitions and staged installations in cities such as Copenhagen, Berlin and New York. From 2007 to 2102 she worked as a research assistant in the team headed by Prof. Ute Frank at the TU Berlin and in 2020 she held the position of guest professor of constructive design at the Bauhaus-Universität Weimar.

Since 2013 she has headed the office Helga Blocksdorf/Architektur in Berlin. In 2021 she was appointed professor and head of the Institute for Construction at the TU Braunschweig. In 2025 she obtained her doctorate as part of the Programme for Design-Based Doctorates (Programm entwurfsbasierte Promotion, PEP) at the TU Berlin.

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Hiromi Hosoya is a founding partner of Hosoya Schaefer Architects. She has bachelor degrees in English Literature, Fine Arts, and Architecture, as well as a Master in Architecture from Harvard University Graduate School of Design. For five years she worked at Toyo Ito & Associates in Tokyo until she became independent in 2003. She has taught interdisciplinary design studios at Cornell University in 2005 and 2006 and was a professor at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, Austria from 2007 to 2012. In addition, she taught an advanced architecture design studio and an urban design studio at Harvard GSD in 2011 and 2018. She is currently a full professor at Keio University in Tokyo, Japan.

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Jan Knippers is since 2000 head of the Institute for Building Structures and Structural Design (ITKE) at the University of Stuttgart and a consulting structural engineer. His interest is in innovative and resource-efficient structures at the intersection of research and development and practice.

He was dean of the Faculty of Architecture and Urban Planning in Stuttgart and is since 2019 Deputy Director of the Cluster of Excellence IntCDC “Integrative Computational Design and Construction for Architecture”. In IntCDC he co-developed a robotic winding process for fibre composite systems that enables novel lightweight building systems as used in the Fibre Pavilion at the Bundesgartenschau 2019 in Heilbronn or the Maison Fibre at the Biennale Architettura 2021 in Venice.

Another interest are advanced timber structures for segmental shells or multi-storey buildings. In addition to this he designed the Central Axis for EXPO 2010 in Shanghai, one of the largest membrane structures of the world, and the compliant facade for the Thematic Pavilion at EXPO 2012 in Yeosu, South Korea.  

© Urban Zintel

As the founder of one of the leading engineering companies in the DACH region, entrepreneur and developer, Bernd Sacher has more than 30 years of planning and project experience. His expertise in the fields of fire protection, structural engineering and the execution of technically highly complex construction projects ranges from airports to climate-neutral timber construction. 

© Tim Petersen

Jakob Schoof has been deputy editor-in-chief of DETAIL since 2019. After graduating with a degree in architecture from the University of Karlsruhe in 2000, he completed an internship at the architecture magazine AlT, where he worked as an editor and head of corporate publishing. In 2009, he joined Detail, where his responsibilities included the magazine and book series Detail Green on sustainable construction and the magazine structure on structural engineering topics.

© Jim Stephenson

Jonathan Tuckey studied Anthropology at University before founding his design practice in 2000, specialising in historic renovation, sustainable intervention and combining contemporary design with layers of built heritage to explore ways in which old and new can co-exist and elevate one another. 

Tuckey Design Studio is now a team of 25 and has garnered an international reputation for transforming existing buildings and sustainable new-build construction. The practice is based in London, and from a recently opened satellite studio in Andermatt, Switzerland. 

Tuckey Design Studio has worked on commissions such as the King’s Cross Gasholders in London, Michelberger Hotel in Berlin, Trevarefabrikken cultural venue in Norway, Wachthuus restaurant and ski lodge in Switzerland and the pioneering Rammed Earth House in Wiltshire, England.

© Caroline Steffen

Annelen Vollenbroich (born 1986) is an architect and co-founder of Nidus, an architecture firm based in Düsseldorf. She studied architecture at ETH Zurich and the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) and received a scholarship from the German National Academic Foundation during her studies. Her research and professional practice focus on forward-looking utilisation concepts and the preservation of existing buildings through innovative design strategies. In 2016, she and Ana Vollenbroich founded Nidus, an interdisciplinary company that combines property development and architecture, design and cultural discourse, and realises its own construction projects.

Schmidt-Vollenbroich has taught at various architecture faculties and contributes to the academic debate on adaptive reuse, sustainable construction methods and architectural heritage. Since 2020, she has been a board member of the Cologne Architecture Prize. Her work has received numerous awards, and in 2024, Nidus was named one of the 100 most influential international design studios by Architectural Digest. She lives and works in Düsseldorf.