Jury

The jury is composed by the keynote speakers invited to the ‘Confronting Informality’ symposium, along with other 2 professors from the Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment of TU Delft.

Moderator

Sukanya Krishnamurthy (India), Eindhoven University of Technology

Sukanya is currently assistant professor at the Chair of Urbanism and Urban Architecture (Faculty of the Built Environment) at TU Eindhoven (Netherlands). Trained as an architect and urbanist in India and Germany, I received my Ph.D. in Urban Studies and Architecture from Bauhaus University (Germany) in 2012. Prior to joining the Chair of Urbanism and Urban Architecture at the Technical University of Eindhoven in October 2014 as an assistant professor in Urbanism and Urban Architecture, I spent the course of my graduate studies and professional life, working as an architect, designer, and lecturer, researcher in Bangalore (India, 2006-07), Aachen, Dessau, Weimar (Germany, 2007-12) and Toronto (Canada, 2012-14).

Speakers and members of the jury

Ignacio Cardona (Venezuela), GSD Harvard University, Cambridge

PhD candidate at GSD Harvard University. Architect (Universidad Simón Bolívar, Caracas, 1998) and urban designer (Cum Laude, UNIMET, Caracas, 2003), and a Doctor of Design candidate at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design (Cambridge, 2018). Since 2008 he has directed Arepa Architecture Ecology and Landscape (www.arepa.info), a workshop that has won several national (Venezuela) and international competitions.

Ignacio Cardona focuses his studies on creative methodologies of design research to weave together fragmented urban fabric in the cities of the Global South in order to promote social equity, particularly in areas often characterized by being highly conflictive and violent. The work intends to address issues of fragmentation, connectivity and social equity in urban environments that although very dense are nevertheless highly malleable and hold potential for effective intervention.

Ignacio is an Architect (Universidad Simón Bolívar/1998) and cum-laude Magister of Urban Design (Universidad Metropolitana/2003) and Founder of “AREPA: ARQUITECTURA ECOLOGÍA Y PAISAJE” an important Venezuelan think tank that has become a reference on urban phenomena in Latin-America, that has developed several projects with the philosophy to articulate the technical knowledge of design with felt needs of communities.

Before starting the Doctor of Design at the Harvard GSD, he developed a career as professor in the Universidad Simón Bolívar (Caracas, Venezuela) for ten years In Studios about architecture and urban design, and as advisor of more than 50 thesis of undergraduate and graduate students. Ignacio also has been Visiting Professor in the Magister of Urban Design at Universidad Metropolitana (Caracas, Venezuela), and in the Bachelor of Science in Architecture at Wentworth Institute of Technology (Boston, USA).

Ellen Geurts (The Netherlands), IHS Institute for Housing and Urban Development Studies, Erasmus University, Rotterdam

MSc Technology and Society, Technical University in Eindhoven 2003, and MSc in Housing, WITS University Johannesburg, South Africa 2005. Ellen is a housing specialist who has worked as consultant, lecturer, trainer and researcher since 2005. At IHS she lectures in the Urban Housing and Livelihood specialization on finance, policy and public housing issues. She lectures in several short courses of IHS and coordinates the short course “Developing Social Housing Projects” and the ‘ICHUD’. Ellen has been involved in acquisition and management of project activities at IHS; she has developed many project proposals, including composition of consortium teams, selection of experts, methodological development and budgeting. She is the project manager for a number of international urban management projects of international clients.

Nipesh P Narayanan (India), University of Lausanne, Switzerland

PhD candidate at the University of Lausanne, Ex- Assistant Professor at the Sushant School of Art and Architecture (India) and Urban Designer at Micro Home Solutions. He has conducted studios and worked projects on In – Situ Slum Rehabilitation and low-income housing in the informal sector. His core research lies in upgrading strategies for informal settlements.

Alonso Ayala Aleman (Venezuela), Institute for Housing and Urban Development Studies (IHS) at Erasmus University, Rotterdam

Alonso is PhD in Spatial Planning in Developing Countries by Raumplanung Fakultaet, TU-Dortmund, Master in Regional Development Planning at the School of Urban and Regional Planning, University of the Philippines, Master in Regional Development Planning, SPRING Programme, TU-Dortmund. Alonso Ayala is an architect and development planner specialized on the fields of regional development planning, human settlement planning and urban and housing research in emerging economies, as well as academic and professional capacity building. He has recently defended his PhD at the Faculty of Spatial Planning of TU Dortmund University. The title of the dissertation is: Urban Upgrading Intervention and Barrio Integration in Caracas, Venezuela. He has over fifteen years of working experience. He has conducted field research on informal urban processes in Venezuela, Bangladesh and the Philippines. His specific fields of expertise are: Manager of  housing projects, Planner of human  settlements, Researcher of housing and urban development in the developing world, Lecturer of human settlement planning and housing in developing countries, Facilitator of urban and regional planning workshops and Trainer of trainers and institutional capacity building.

Abigail Friendly is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Human Geography and Spatial Planning at Utrecht University, and a fellow at the Global Cities Institute at the University of Toronto.

Originally from Canada, she focuses on urban policy and planning. participation and urban politics in Brazilian cities. Recent projects have explored metropolitan planning, social justice, urban social movements, and the right to the city in Brazilian cities, and comparative research on land value capture and city diplomacy in São Paulo and Toronto.