Simon Battisti (1983 USA) is an architect and educator based in Tirana, Albania. He is a 2014–2015 Fulbright Fellow in Albania, and is a visiting instructor at Epoka University’s Department of Architecture. He holds a Master of Architecture from the Harvard University Graduate School of Design, where he cofounded the Harvard GSD’s student journal Very Vary Veri. He writes regularly about architecture and urbanism, and is editor of Flexible Leviathan: Reconsidering Scale and Fixity in Iztapalapa, Mexico City (Harvard GSD, 2015). He has worked in design offices in Los Angeles, Mumbai, and New York City. In Albania he is researching alternative procedures of construction finance.

Jurtin Hajro is the director of CoRDA – Center of Research and Design in Architecture and a professor in the Department of Architecture at Epoka University in Tirana, Albania. He received his Bachelor and Master courses in Architectural Design at the Middle East Technical University - Ankara, in 2009, following experiences as an assistant researcher in the same university. He practiced as a fellow architect in important Istanbul-based architecture studio beside Emre Arolat Architects and as a senior architect at Zambak Architects with whom he was assigned the design of Epoka Social Center, to be completed during his direction at CoRDA, a building that has received international attention in award nominations and academic publications. Jurtin Hajro is following the PhD studies on Architectural Tourism at Epoka University.

Olv Klijn graduated Cum Laude at the faculty of Architecture, Building and Planning of the Technical University of Eindhoven. He started writing articles for several architectural magazines during his career as a student. As an artist in residence he stayed at the Canadian Banff Centre. After that Klijn worked at OMA in Rotterdam. In 2004 he started to work as an independent architect and founded OK-studio. He is author of several publications such as ‘VMX-agenda’, ‘10xDenBosch’, ‘Architect by Accident’, ‘Station Centraal’ and ‘The making of…”. Together with Eric Frijters he founded .FABRIC in 2007. The office won Prix de Rome in 2010. In 2011 both Klijn and Frijters received recognition as one of the 40 emerging European architects under 40 years old. One year later they were nominated for the Iakov Chernikhov International Architecture Prize ‘for designers, that stand in the field experiment with innovative architecture, education and research in architecture and urbanism’. Klijn is an Assistant Professor at the Technical University in Delft and regularly teaches design-research at the various Academies of Architecture in the Netherlands.

He is the Deputy Minister of Education and Sports since October 2013. Previously he was the Executive Director of Agenda Institute, a think-tank in Tirana that undertakes research and analysis on public policies in Albania, particularly in the fields of good governance, European integration, economic and social development. Prior to taking up this responsibility in January 2008, Arbjan worked for MJAFT! (Enough! in English), Albania’s most successful civic movement that grew out of a youth movement. MJAFT seeks to achieve a well-governed Albania with active citizens, strong communities and a positive image in the world. Between 2005 and 2007, Arbjan was Policy Director at MJAFT, and between 2003 and 2005, he was MJAFT’s Communications Director. Before joining MJAFT, Arbjan ran the Albanian National Debate Association for three years, coordinating the debate programmes of Albania’s universities and high schools. Arbjan holds a Master’s degree in Political Communications from the University of Sheffield in the UK and, prior to that, studied journalism at the University of Tirana.

EM2N with Mathias Müller (*1966) and Daniel Niggli (*1970) has 70 collaborators working on construction and competition projects in Switzerland and abroad. In addition to a number of awards including ‘best architects’, ‘Um-sicht- Regards-Sguardi’, the ‘Auszeich-nung Guter Bauten’ from the City of Zurich, the Canton of Basel-Stadt and Basel-Landschaft, they received the ‘Swiss Art Awards’ in Architecture. Mathias Müller and Daniel Niggli were visiting professors at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne, as well as in Zurich. Daniel Niggli is a member of the construction commitees in Berlin (2008– 12) and Zurich (2010– 14). Their important recent construction projects include the Keystone OfficeBuilding Prag (2012), the Culture and Congress Centre Thun (2011), ‘Im Viadukt’– Refurbishment of the viaduct arches in Zurich (2010), the Hotel City Garden in Zug (2009) and the expansion of the Public Record Office Basel-Landschaft in Liestal (2007). Planning and construction work has started on, among other projects, the new campus for the University of Applied Sciences and Arts at the Toni Site in Zurich (since 2006), the Swiss Film Archive in Penthaz (since 2007), the Housing Riedpark in Zug (since 2008) as well as buildings in Ordos, Inner Mongolia.

Ms. Brunilda Paskali has over 17 years of experience in leading and managing the organizational and financial administration of “WISDOM” shpk. Part of her job description was being in charge of the Board of Directors of WISDOM shpk and creating national and international networks with strategic national and foreign partners. Ms. Paskali was for 5 years Head of the Scientific and International Relations Department, as well as lecturer at the Faculty of Economic and Social Sciences at WISDOM University. She completed a two-year Master’s degree from Norwich University in Vermont, USA in the field of Diplomacy, specializing in “Conflict Management” and has undertaken a series of postgraduate trainings in the field of International Relations and Diplomacy, International Employment Law and Business Immigration. She has organized and held speeches in several national and international conferences in the legal, economic and psychological field and the development of higher and vocational education. Since 2012 she is the deputy minister of the Ministry of Economic Development, Trade, Tourism and Enterprise.

Anila Shehu, was born in Tirana, in 1975. She graduated at the Faculty of Philology and History, got a master in the Faculty of Economics, Public Administration. During the years 2000-2011 she worked in several management positions in Tirana municipality. Since October 2013, she holds the position of the general director of Nr1 university student residence, Student Town.

Francesco Zuddas (b. 1981) studied engineering, architecture and urbanism at the University of Cagliari and the Architectural Association where he received a Laurea cum laude and a Master of Arts with distinction. Since 2008 he’s developed extensive research in Europe, North America and South-East Asia and has published articles and a book, and lectured on the relations between urbanism, architecture and the Knowledge Economy. He has taught urban and architectural design studios and history and theory classes at the School of Architecture of the University of Cagliari. He was Visiting Scholar at the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation of Columbia University where he developed research that led to a PhD in architecture with a thesis titled “The University as a Settlement Principle. The territorialization of knowledge in 1970s Italy”. In parallel to his main academic activity, in 2009 he started Urbanaarchitettura with Sabrina Puddu, an office working on small scale domestic projects and urban design competitions. He’s currently coauthoring a book on the project of the university as a critical ground for experimenting new spatial solutions for a re-engagement between urban living & working.