Professor Hanif Kara OBE

Hanif is co -founder and design -director of the interdisciplinary engineering practice AKT II in London, where he leads the firm’s 350 designers and technicians – who collectively offer 50 cultural backgrounds and 30 languages – to apply insight from the company’s work throughout 50 countries.

He is widely recognised as a creative driving force in the “world of design” and within the team’s pioneering, design -led ethos, which is evidenced with over 350 design awards including four RIBA Stirling Prize wins (the UK’s highest architectural honour). Hanif is a professor in practice of architectural technology at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design, a member of the scientific review panel for the ETH Zürich’s digital - fabrication laboratory and currently sits on the FCT Research Panel as advisor for the Alvaro Siza Foundation.

He is a steering committee member for the Glasgow School of Arts’ Mackintosh re -building programme and served on the Steering Committee and Master Jury for the Aga Khan Award for Architecture. He continues as a senior advisor to the Aga Khan Development Network. Hanif is a member of the UK’s National Infrastructure Commission (NIC) Design Group and was previously the first structural engineer to be appointed to the UK Design Council’s ‘CABE’ commission.

Based from London, Hanif holds fellowship with the UK’s Royal Academy of Engineering (RAE), Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) and Royal Society of Arts (RSA), and has most recently been appointed to the 2021 global Dezeen Awards judging panel. His work is widely published including: Interdisciplinary Design, Design Engineering Refocused and the Architecture of Waste.