Martina van Lierop (Germany) 

Martina is a Landscape Architect with a practical and academic background with experience in interdisciplinary, participatory and international projects. The main theme in her work is connecting environmental priorities with social and economic values in transdisciplinary design processes in relation to topics as ecosystem services, ecological design, green infrastructure, and climate change. At Wageningen University, she taught “Advanced Design Research Methods”, supervised master thesis students, and assisted in design studios. She enjoys to share and gain knowledge through interaction with other people, and expects that MRSL is a combined effort of students and mentors to find creative and innovative solutions.

 

Pedro Ressano Garcia (Portugal) 

Pedro teaches at ULHT Lisbon, where he is Chair of Department of Architecture and Urban Planning. He holds a master degree in Architecture from UCLA. In 2008, he received his PhD Degree from Universidade Portucalense, Oporto. His first book “Tagus Plataform – Back to the River, Lisbon’s waterfront and the 21st Century” was published in 2010. In previous ISOCARP events Pedro had the chance to interact and develop ideas with students/young professionals exposed to different contexts and cultural environments. The contemporariness of each generation is revealed over subtle examples that values human and spiritual dimensions. Pedro Garcia is often curious about new parameters.

 

Giorgio Gasco (Italy, Turkey)

Giorgio is a visiting assistant professor at Bilkent University, Department of Architecture. He studied in Torino (BArch) and in Barcelona (MArch, Ph.D). He was visiting lecturer at the Barcelona Architecture Center where he offered seminars and lectures. Part of Giorgio’s academic career is also devoted to participate in International Architectural Design Workshops, where usually he tutors students in studios and gives talks and lectures. His research deals in particular with architectural design education and theory, urban studies, and the architectural discourse in the early republican period in Turkey. Some of Giorgio´s works are published in journals such as Belleten, Metu JFA, and Abitare.

 

Irina Shmeleva (Russia) 

Irina Shmeleva´s background is Psychology with specialisation in Engineering Psychology, Ergonomics, Environmental Psychology and Cross-cultural Psychology. Her interests for the last 15 years are in the multidisciplinary field of sustainable development, especially understanding how human culture, values and behaviour can influence sustainable cities development.

During the last years Irina taught: Sustainable Cities Development, Regional Ecological Policy, Intercultural Communication, Methodology and Research in Urban Studies.  She lives and works in Saint Petersburg, one of the Baltic Coastal Cities, and also having an interest in other coastal Baltic cities, the MSRL project is of great interest for her. Irina regularly takes part in the HELCOM Baltic Sea conference and understands that some special topics are not covered by such international projects.

Two topics announced by MSRL are of particular value for her: Multicultural coastal cities: new challenges of urban policies and Integrating eco-systems approach into design of coastal cities. Both correspond to Sustainable Development Goals 11: make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable. Irina´s expectation from MSRL is that the knowledge and enthusiasm of the students will bring solutions for the Baltic Coastal Cities in these topics.

 

Othman Al-Mashhadani (Iraq)

Architect & Urban Planner, Othman finished his MSc in Architecture in 2010 at the Architectural Engineering department, University of Baghdad. In 2011, he earned a PG Diploma in Environmental Management from Maastricht School of Management. He has been senior architect of ArchiLink for Art & Design, an SME based in Baghdad, Iraq, that was established in 2003. His main duties at the company are designing and developing architecture schemes for project implementation, managing the stages to reach the desired outcomes.

Occasionally, Othman conducts meetings with project stakeholders. Moreover, he helps implementing new design technologies with other team-members that leads to many successful projects. He has interest in capacity building, sustainable development, heritage preservation and using green methods in architectural design and urban planning.  Othman´s goal in any architectural project is “to meet today’s needs by using only local renewable resources in balance, so that the needs of future generations will be provided too”.