The Quiet Tower

Noriaki Hanaoka is a Japanese architect and founder of Noriaki Hanaoka Architecture, a Nagano-based practice established in 2015. Educated at SCI-Arc in Los Angeles and Columbia University GSAPP in New York, where he received the Lucille Smyser Lowenfish Memorial Prize, Hanaoka combines international design experience with a strong connection to the Japanese context. Prior to founding his own studio, he worked in the offices of Tadao Ando and Toyo Ito. His work has received numerous recognitions, including the Grand Prize of the JIA Nagano Architecture Award in 2022.

Kaowen Ho is a British architect and Founding Director of Unknown Works, an award-winning London-based architecture practice recognized for its innovative, culture-led, and sustainable design approach. Working across cultural, commercial, workplace, infrastructure, and research projects, the practice creates architecture that combines environmental responsibility with strong civic and social ambitions. Recent work includes headquarters and research facilities, environmental research stations, performance venues, and off-grid health and education centres across Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. Before co-founding Unknown Works, Ho led teams at Heatherwick Studio and Foster + Partners. He has taught and examined at The Bartlett and London Metropolitan University, and regularly lectures internationally on architecture, material innovation, and design.

Gustav Jerlvall Jeppsson is founder of STRÅ Arkitekter in Oslo. With a strong focus on context, materiality, and craftsmanship, he develops thoughtful designs across scales, from bespoke homes to institutional projects. Grounded in Scandinavian design tradition, his work integrates structure, light, and texture to create spaces that are clear, inviting, and enduring, where quality, longevity, and human experience meet.  

Einar Jarmund is a Norwegian architect who graduated from the School of Architecture in Oslo in 1987 before completing a Master’s degree in Architecture at the University of Washington in Seattle in 1989. After returning to Norway, he co-founded Jarmund/Vigsnæs AS Arkitekter MNAL in 1996, a practice that became known for its thoughtful, concept-driven architectural work across a wide range of scales. In 2019 he established the Oslo-based studio Einar Jarmund & Co AS Arkitekter MNAL, continuing his long-standing commitment to carefully conceived and precisely detailed architecture. Jarmund’s practice works across Norway and other European countries, undertaking projects that span urban planning, landscape, buildings, and interiors. His approach is rooted in understanding the spirit of each site—urban or rural—and developing an independent concept for every project rather than relying on a predetermined stylistic direction. The studio gives priority to early involvement in creative programming and maintains an attentive relationship to context, aiming to respond to surroundings with clarity, sensitivity, and purpose. Through this work, Jarmund has established a practice defined by its breadth, its rigor, and its dedication to exploring all corners of the architectural field.

Bernardo Quinzaños Oria is a Mexican architect and the founder and director of Centro de Colaboración Arquitectónica (CCA), an award-winning architecture practice based in Mexico City. His work spans housing, public infrastructure, cultural projects, and urban-scale interventions, exploring architecture as a catalyst for social and cultural transformation. CCA is recognized for its emphasis on context, materiality, craftsmanship, and technical rigor, integrating research, experimentation, and construction into a cohesive design process. The practice has received numerous international distinctions, including Emerging Voices from The Architectural League of New York, a shortlist for The Architectural Review Emerging Architecture Awards, ArchDaily Building of the Year, and The Architect's Newspaper Best of Design Award. CCA's work has been widely published in leading international platforms including Architectural Digest, Arquine, Azure, Domus, FRAME, Wallpaper, and Rizzoli.

Caspar Schols is a Dutch designer, architect, and artist whose work explores the meeting point between architecture, ritual, and human presence. Originally trained in physics at the University of Amsterdam, he later broadened his focus through studies at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy of Arts and a scholarship at the Architectural Association in London. His practice is deeply informed by an early life spent building shelters in the forest and by a lifelong interest in how physical interaction shapes perception. In 2016 Schols designed and hand-built Garden House, a forest guest pavilion created for his mother, a project that quickly drew international attention and led to nominations for the Dirk Roosenburg Award, Radical Innovation Award, and Dezeen Small Building Longlist. This work laid the foundation for Cabin ANNA, the kinetic wooden structure for which he is best known. Developed through his studio, ANNA has received global recognition, including Architizer’s A+ Project of the Year, World Hotel Building of the Year at the World Architecture Festival, and awards from Arc22, FRAME, and AHEAD Europe. Schols now leads Studio Caspar Schols and is co-founder of the Carroccera Collective in Northern Italy, where he continues to develop kinetic habitats, sculptural installations, and spatial concepts that deepen the relationship between dwelling and the natural landscape.

Snorre Stinessen is a Norwegian architect with a small international practice by Stinessen that has received numerous international awards within a variety of disciplines: architecture, interior design, design and landscape design.

Gabrielė Šarkauskienė is a Lithuanian architect, Associate Professor at Vilnius Gediminas Technical University, and Managing Partner of ŠA Atelier, an architecture practice based in Vilnius. Her work spans architecture, interiors, exhibition design, and public space, with a particular focus on context-driven design, timber architecture, sustainable materials, adaptive reuse, and circularity. Alongside professional practice, she is actively engaged in architectural education, research, and public discourse, regularly lecturing and presenting her work internationally. ŠA Atelier has received numerous awards in open and invited competitions, including first prizes for the reconstruction of the Šeškinės Primary School in Vilnius and the Curonian Smart Manufacturing Hub, while the practice's work has been widely recognized for its thoughtful integration of architecture, landscape, and material innovation.