The Jury – Drawing of the Year 2016

The international jury of the student competition Drawing of the Year 2016 consists of Architect and Curator Eva Franch i Gilabert (US), Architect Kasper Heiberg Frandsen (DK), Architect Sergei Tchoban (DE), and Architect and Rector Torben Nielsen (DK) (from left to right below).

Eva Franch i Gilabert

Eva Franch is a New York based architect, curator, educator and lecturer of experimental forms of art and architectural practice. In 2004, she founded her solo practice OOAA (Office of Architectural Affairs) and since 2010 she has been Chief Curator and Executive Director of Storefront for Art and Architecture in New York.

In 2014 Eva Franch was selected by the US State Department to represent the United States Pavilion at the 2014 Venice Architecture Biennale with the project OfficeUS. Eva Franch has taught at Columbia University GSAPP, the IUAV University of Venice, SUNY Buffalo, and Rice University School of Architecture.

For Eva Franch, architectural drawings have a special sensibility towards creating new modes of architectural representation: “While architectural representation conforms to a system of standards and guidelines that allow for the production of buildings, architecture is also the practice of giving form to thought. In the process of creating edifices that house social, political, and spatial relations, architects make visible the functions of society in operational and aspirational terms.”

Sergei Tchoban

Sergei Tchoban (born 9 October 1962) is a Russian and German architect. He is academician of the Moscow branch of the International Academy of Architecture and honorary academician of the Russian Academy of Arts. Sergei Tchoban studied architecture at the Imperial Academy of Arts, St. Petersburg. In 1995 he became managing partner of the Bureau nps tchoban voss.

Since 2015, he has been the leading partner of the office together with Ekkehard Voss. In 2009 he founded The Tchoban Foundation – Museum for Architectural Drawing in Berlin.

In parallel with actively working in design, Sergei Tchoban has, throughout his career, engaged in architectural graphics. His graphic works have been exhibited in leading galleries and museums throughout Europe. Several monographs devoted to Sergei Tchoban’s drawings have been published. Tchoban has curated the Russian pavilion at the Venice Biennale of Architecture twice.

Sergei Tchoban finds drawing essential to architects and the development of new ideas: “The task of an architect is multifaceted and requires a lot of brainpower and a wide diversity of ideas.  Throughout the long process from the first concept of a building to the final result, the architectural drawing plays an indispensable mediating role between thoughts, visions, and realization. Moreover, the drawing process evokes outstanding ideas and creative solutions.”

Kasper Heiberg Frandsen

Kasper Heiberg Frandsen (born 1971) graduated from The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, Schools of Architecture, Design and Conservation in 1996. He has owned his own architecture office and worked as an architect with Buffi Associés in Paris and Erik Christian Sørensen at Zibrandtsens Architects.

In 2000, Kasper Heiberg Frandsen was employed at schmidt / hammer / lassen / architects, where he, in 2006, became associate partner. Kasper is part of the office’s creative leadership.

Kasper Heiberg Frandsen has been responsible for business development within health care as a new sector of schmidt hammer lassen architects. He is also design manager for the company’s national as well as international hospital projects. Kasper Heiberg Frandsen is deeply committed to the development of the company’s sustainability profile.

Kasper has been an examiner at graduation examinations at Aarhus School of Architecture since 2007, and he is an experienced speaker at higher educations and conferences in Denmark and abroad.

Torben Nielsen

Architect MAA Torben Nielsen (DK) has taught and carried out research at Aarhus School of Architecture since 1994 and has been Rector at Aarhus School of Architecture since 2010.

By establishing modern workshop facilities, he has emphasised students’ hands-on skills and their ability to test their ideas in 1:1. He has also strengthened the school’s international orientation through recruitment and cooperation with schools of architecture and universities located in such diverse locations as China, Mexico, and Australia.

As an architect, Torben Nielsen has mainly worked with the relationship between architecture and light – and his work on this theme has been exhibited several times.