DESIGN ATELIERS

MEET THE LANDSCAPE OF[F] LIMITS 2025 ATELIER LEADERS


ATELIER 01

Francesco Garofalo

Francesco Garofalo is a landscape architect, founder of Openfabric, Visiting Professor at Politecnico di Milano and Design Critic at Harvard GSD. Since founding Openfabric, Francesco has led numerous award-winning projects globally including public spaces like Into the Wild (The Hague), Gridgrounds (Amsterdam), Into the Forest (Mantua) and the 24-hectare Reggia di Rivalta Park (Reggio Emilia). He has also been involved in large research projects with spatial impact such as Migrating Mediterranean, A20 Ring Road in Rotterdam and its Maritime Cluster. He frequently lectures and teaches internationally at institutions like Cornell AAP (New York), MIT (Cambridge MA), Cornell University (Ithaca, NY), Hong Kong University IAAC (Institute of Advanced Architecture of Catalonia), London Metropolitan University. 


ATELIER 02

David Garcia

David A. Garcia is a practising architect, educator and researcher, with a degree in Architecture from the Bartlett and a degree in Art and Theory from UAB, Barcelona. He is an Associate Professor at the Royal Danish Academy School of Architecture and director of the international Master Program “Architecture and Extreme Environments” where yearly fieldwork and 1:1 experiments to challenged world sites define the course’s innovative approach to architectural design. Much of this methodology is unfolded in his latest publication “Extreme Environments: Architectural Possibilities for a Challenged World”. He is founder of the practice MAP Architects, which focuses on merging arts and sciences in innovating for design in challenging environments. The practice publishes the annual pamphlet “Manual of Architectural Possibilities” where speculative of present challenges are manifested through themes, data collection and design proposals. He has represented Denmark at the International Architecture Venice Biennale in 2012, 2016 and 2023 and has received the international prize for teaching and innovation from the UIA in 2020. 


ATELIER 03

Matthew Phillips

 Matthew Phillips (hszjn398.global) is an architect based in Zurich. Through collaborative projects, he writes about, teaches, curates, publishes, commissions and appropriates architecture, art, music, and film. He has taught at ETH Zurich, the Royal Danish Academy, the London School of Architecture, the Royal College of Art, and TU Berlin. Since 2019, he has collaborated with Elli Mosayebi at ETH Zurich. With oolsland, he works on interdisciplinary conceptual art projects. In 2022, he co-established Zurich International, an association with headquarters in a 300 m2 former office building in Zurich. It empowers people to work autonomously and collaboratively. In 2023, he cofounded doublenegative.global, an association that develops strategies and products to optimise life cycles and the associated processes to reduce CO2 emissions within the art world.

Nelly Pilz

Nelly Pilz (studiopilz.net) is an architect based in Zurich. She studied architecture at the TU Berlin, the Accademia Mendrisio and the ETH Zurich. After graduating she worked on social and cooperative housing projects for Knapkiewicz & Fickert Architects and studied art history at the University of Zurich. She has teaching experience at bachelor’s and master’s levels.
Since 2018, she is collaborating with Elli Mosayebi at ETH Zurich. With her current office studiopilz she works on collective projects, competitions and strategies that move between architecture and art. In 2023 she cofounded the association doublenegative.global, which develops strategies and products to optimize life cycles and the associated processes to reduce CO2 emissions in the art world.