Keynote Speakers

Ed Parham, Space Syntax Limited.

Ed is an Architect and Director of Innovation and Design at Space Syntax. These roles combine the development of tools to analyse cities with their application to real-world design and planning projects. The overarching objective behind these activities is to create better cities for people by understanding the interactions between urban systems. In his time at Space Syntax he has lead international multi-disciplinary design teams to masterplan capital cities and shaped the development of digital tools that enable untrained users to make evidence-informed decisions.

Mark David Major, Abu Dhabi University.

Mark David Major, Abu Dhabi University. Dr. Mark David Major, AICP, CNU-A, is an Associate Professor in the Department of Architecture and Design, College of Engineering at Abu Dhabi University in the United Arab Emirates. He is the author of The Syntax of City Space: American Urban Grids (Routledge, 2018). Mark has thirty years of experience in the academic, private, public, and non-profit sectors in the USA, Europe, and the Middle East. He previously taught at Qatar University in Doha, Qatar, the Savannah College of Art and Design in Savannah, Georgia, USA, and The Bartlett School of Architecture and Planning at University College London in the United Kingdom. Mark was the Vice President, Business and Planning/Chief Operating Officer (COO) of Starr Sanford Design/Starr Style LLC in the USA, Land Entitlements Manager for Pulte Homes/Del Webb Jacksonville, and a former Director of Space Syntax Ltd. in London, UK. He is the recognized founder of International Space Syntax Symposia, which is now in its third decade. Mark is a Lifetime and Accredited Member of the Congress for New Urbanism (CNU-A) since 2015 and a certified planner of the American Institute of Certified Planners (AICP) since 2003. His research interests include spatial morphology, housing, real estate, and urban studies.

Oya Atalay Franck, European Association for Architectural Education

Prof. Dr. Oya Atalay Franck is an architect, architectural historian and academician. She is Professor of Architecture and the Dean and managing director of the School of Architecture, Design and Civil Engineering at ZHAW Zurich University of Applied Sciences in Winterthur, Switzerland. Her teaching covers the theory and history of architecture as well as design studio. She has taught architecture and construction, urban design and architecture theory at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Troy NY, at Bilkent University of Ankara, and at ETH Zurich. Her current research areas are a. o. design research methods (research by design), design doctorates, artistic research, interface education/research/practice, as well as higher education politics. Her recent publications address research methodologies and design doctorate programmes. She acts as an expert in various scientific bodies, a.o. the Swiss National Foundation of Research (SNF), the Research Foundation Flanders (FWO) and the Fundação para a Ciênica e a Tecnologia (FCT) as well as in peer review committees and in quality audits.

Ruth Schagemann, Architects Council of Europe

Ruth Schagemann is an architect who studied architecture at the University of Braunschweig and at the University of Stuttgart in Germany. In 2006 she founded the Architect’s office VICEVERSA Architektur + Medien together with her husband. She was elected member of the executive board of the Architects` Council of Europe (ACE) from 2016 until 2021, Coordinator of the European Network of Architects` Competent Authorities (ENACA), member of the Coordination Group Europe of the Federal Chamber of German
Architects and is head of department of national and international professional policy at the Chamber of Baden-Württemberg. Since 1. January 2022 she is the President of Architects’ Council of Europe (ACE).

Giuseppe Strappa, ISUF Italy

Giuseppe Strappa is an architect performing his professional activities in Rome and currently senior professor of Urban Morphology at the Faculty of Architecture, University  Roma Tre. He has carried out continuous research activities and teaching in Architectural and Urban Design in Bari Polytechnic, “La Sapienza” University in Rome, Laval University in Quebec City.  He has carried out design activities, either individually or in a group, since 1975 and won a number of design competitions.  He was director of the Department of Civil Engineering and Architecture at the Polytechnic of Bari, member of the Rectoral Commission of the University of Sapienza for doctorate, Director of the PhD School in Architecture and Construction in Rome. He has published a number of  books and articles on his research topics and organized international conferences in the field of Urban Design and Morphology. He is coordinator of the Regional Network of ISUF (International  Seminar on Urban Form), president of ISUFItaly and editor of ‘U+D Urbanform and Design’ Journal

Other Plenary Sessions and Round Tables

Achilleas Kalopedis, ALA Planning Partnership

Dr Achilleas Kalopedis is a Civil Engineer, a Partner and the Director of the Environmental Sector of ALA Planning Partnership with over 20 years’ experience in environmental studies & projects both in the UK and in Cyprus. His experience covers the Project Management and the execution of a number of Environmental and Planning Studies for both public and private organizations in Cyprus and the UK. His experience has provided him with the relevant knowledge and experience in sustainable measures and practices in the context of environmental improvement. His interests include methods and practices for utilising innovation to address sustainable development concerns.

Howayda Al-Harithy, American University of Beirut

Howayda Al-Harithy is Professor of Architecture and Urban Design at the American University of Beirut (AUB), where she is currently serving as Founding Director of the School of Design. She holds a Bachelor of Architecture from the Oregon School of Design, a Master of Science in Architecture from MIT, and a PhD in History of Art and Architecture from Harvard University. She is also a Research Director at the Beirut Urban Lab. Al-Harithy’s research focuses on urban heritage and contemporary interventions in historic cities. Her early research was centered on the architectural and urban practices of the Mamluk period. It engaged theoretical models of interpretation, particularly post-structuralist models, as analytic tools of the production of architectural and urban space in medieval cities. Her current research focuses on urban heritage with emphasis on the theoretical debate on heritage construction and consumption related to identity building and post-war reconstruction in the Arab world. It conceptualizes urban recovery in relation to processes of historical editing, urban trauma, and protracted displacement. She is widely published with over 50 articles, book chapters, and reports in leading journals and refereed books. She is the editor of and contributor to Lessons in Post-War Reconstruction: Case Studies from Lebanon in the Aftermath of the 2006 War (Routledge, 2010) and to the book entitled Urban Recovery: Intersecting Displacement with Reconstruction (Routledge 2021). She is the recipient of numerous grants from major international foundations, including the Kress, Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the British Academy, and the Economic and Social Research Council in the UK.

Lora Nicolaou, Frederick University

Lora is an architect, with postgraduate work in urban design and a qualification as a town planner. She was the Director of Urban Strategies at DEGW (London) (1998-2009). In parallel she held the positions of the Head of Research for the Urban Renaissance Institute (URI) at the University of Greenwich, UK (2004 -10). She is now a Professor at Frederick University, Department of Architecture, Cyprus, a co-founder of UPDU (Urban Planning and Development Unite), Frederick and has established her own design and strategic briefing / masterplanning consultancy. Lora taught in the past and parallel to her practice work, at Oxford Brookes University (JCUD) (1989- 2000). Her particular interest is the interpretation of user’s needs & preferences in a way that can intelligently inform design and integrated strategies. Recent work includes city strategies for Dublin, Rotterdam, Cambridge, Utrecht, Hereford, London and Nicosia, a number of estate strategies & master planning projects for a wide range of sectors such as health, education and residential sectors and building concept design for a number of commercial, cultural and educational buildings. Empirical research covers a wider range of issues from the implications of density on housing quality and urban character, to workplace strategies and the review of skills and project management’s structure on the ability of organisations to deliver regeneration. Publications cover an equally wide range of topics from the debate around tall buildings in the context of the European city, employment space briefing and regeneration delivery mechanisms.

Marco Maretto, University of Parma

Associate Professor of Architecture and Urban Design at the University of Parma and I.S.U.F. member since 1999, Marco Maretto focuses his research on the interpretation of the urban form as a basis for urban design: Urban Morphology, Sustainability and Urban Design can be considered the key words of his work. On these topics he published numerous studies and articles on Italian and international reviews, including: Environmental Urban Design. New teaching perspectives between Urban Morphology and Smart living (Cambridge Scholars, 2023); Sustainable neighborhoods. Towards an Analytical and Design Methodology (Sustainability, 2022); On the Thermal Resilience of Venetian Open Spaces (Heritage, 2021); The European Medium-Sized City: The Characteristics of the Urban Form (Routledge, 2021). Marco Maretto is also Springer’s Advisor Editor for “The Urban Book Series” and Scientific Referee for the magazines: Urban Morphology, Urban Design International, Sustainability, Land, Building, the Journal of Urbanism, FA_Magazine. Since 2014 he is founder and co-director of U+D_Urban form and Design international scientific journal (www.urbanform.it) and Vice-President of ISUF Italy Scientific Society (www.isufitaly.com). Marco Maretto is founder and director of RAM-Researches in Architecture and urban Morphology (www.r-a-m.it).

Laurent Antonczak, RMIT University Vietnam

Dr Laurent Antonczak is a multicultural entrepreneur specialising in digital strategies, education, entrepreneurial thinking, and mobile technology (mainly smartphones).
He holds a PhD in Management (Innovation & Technology) from the Bureau of Theoretical and Applied Economics (BETA) ¬- University of Strasbourg, France.
Conjointly to Academia, he leverages his expertise as a consultant and authority in the Creative Industries across both Europe and the Asia-Pacific area.
He leads the position of director at ATZ119, a company proficient in creating mobile content and visual communication.
Furthermore, he is one of the two founding partners at VIRTUO, a firm dedicated to mobile research and development, digital strategies, and consulting.

Vítor Oliveira, University of Porto

Vitor Oliveira is the president of the International Seminar on Urban Form (ISUF) and the president of the Portuguese-language Network of Urban Morphology (PNUM). He is Principal Researcher at the Research Centre for Territory, Transports and Environment (CITTA / FEUP) and Full Professor of Urban Morphology and Urban Planning at ULP. He is associate editor of ‘Urban Morphology’, advisory editor of ‘The Urban Book Series’ (Springer) and founding editor of the ‘Revista de Morfologia Urbana’ (2013-18). His latest books are Urban morphology: an introduction to the study of the physical form of cities (2022, 2016), Morphological research in planning, urban design and architecture (2021), JWR Whitehand and the historico-geographical approach to urban morphology (2019) and Teaching urban morphology (2018).

Wafa Al-Ghatam, University of Barhain

Wafa Al-Ghatam, a specialist in Urban Form and Society. She studies the principles and constraints that govern the generation of the built form and its social, cultural and economic functions. Her work includes developing methods and measures for analysing built space at the scale of buildings and urban areas. Her research explores the socio-economic implications of urban space of villages absorbed by cities in Bahrain, Manama and Muharraq, using the Space Syntax methodology. She is an expert in space syntax analysis and methodology. She worked for Space Syntax Limited in London and as a representative in Bahrain on a range of projects within the UK and abroad. These included strategic planning of Jeddah city in Saudi Arabia and GCC economic knowledge and urban planning. She worked as a research associate on a project on architecture and urbanism at the Technical University of Munich, Germany (TUM). Her experience spans from the East to the West, from architectural to urban projects. She has taught at Wentworth Institute of Technology (WIT), Boston USA, Boston University (BU), Boston USA, the Architectural Association School of Architecture (AA), London UK, and the Bartlett School of Graduate Studies, UCL, London UK.

 Yodan Rofé, Ben Gurion University

Yodan Rofè is a Senior Lecturer of Urban Planning and Design at Ben-Gurion University (BGU), Israel and Course Director at Building Beauty: Ecologic Design & Construction Process, a post-graduate diploma in architecture. His research interests include: beauty, order and complexity in the built environment, informal settlements, urban morphology, sustainable urban design, cognition and feeling in the built environment and street design. He is currently researching the urban codes of informal settlements and their lessons for planning, the role of global and local characteristics in the success of urban public spaces, and the impact of the physical attributes and perceptual qualities of urban streets on sense of well-being and mental health.