Naiara Vegara

Naiara Vegara has an AA Diploma and is a registered architect ARB/RIBA Part III. She is currently Director of Metropoli Cities Lab London, working in projects around the world at the scales of urban design, landscape and architecture; and Director of the AA Visiting School Semester Programme since Spring 2012. Naiara also teaches on the AA Master's in Housing and Urbanism programme, has been running the AA Streetware Visiting School in Southeast Asia since 2012 and is currently a PhD candidate under the research topic of Streetware. She has been a visiting critic at many architectural schools and has presented her research on virtual environments and the design process in architecture as workshops at the Universities of Columbia, Princeton, Pennsylvania and Taylors in Kuala Lumpur.

 

Isabel de la Mora Mier

Isabel de la Mora Mier is an ARB registered Architect, and graduated from ETSA at Universidad de Navarra in Spain in 2009, where she also studied Landscape Design. With an interest in design, new technologies and architectural theory, Isabel is a regular crit at the AA, and is invited to international conferences and tutoring sessions at Chelsea School of Arts, Greenwich University, University of East London, ETSAUN and others. After graduating, she worked for Batlle I Roig in Barcelona, and moved to London in 2008, when she joined Acme Ltd as a Project Architect for several UK and international schemes. Isabel is now an Associate at Piercy & Company. Since joining the practice in 2016, she has led two award winning office schemes for Brockton Capital’s co-working portfolio, Fora, and recently completed the new Boston Consulting Group London Headquarters.

 

Marie-Isabel de Monseignat-Lavrov

Marie-Isabel de Monseignat-Lavrov has an AA Diploma and is a registered architect ARB/RIBA Part III. She is currently Director of MDEM Architects, Co-director of Studio Goldy and Course Master of the AA Visiting School Semester Programme since Autumn 2014. She previously taught a bachelor course at the UAL Chelsea College of Art and Design, taught the AA Summer School Programme in 2008 and 2009 and led a workshop and lecture at SIVA (Shanghai Institute of Visual Arts) in 2014. Marie-Isabel is a regular visiting critic at various architectural schools including the AA, Central Saint Martins, and University of Westminster in London. She has worked in the fields of urban masterplanning, landscaping, architecture, interior design and art installation in various offices: in Amsterdam for MVSA, in Paris for Alberto Pinto, in Buenos Aires for Sanchez Elia, in New York for Dekar Design and in London for Acme Ltd, winner of the RIBA Manser Medal Award for the Hunsett Mill House project in 2010. At Acme Ltd, she led a team of 4 architects on the retail extension of Westquay in Southampton UK, a project that was awarded the Prix Versailles in 2018.

Katya Larina

Katya Larina received her Master’s degree in Landscape Urbanism from the Architectural Association, London. Katya is currently a senior architect and urban designer at Gustafson Porter, London, and Course Tutor of the AA Visiting School Semester Programme since Spring 2017.  Katya has been co-directing a series of independent workshops. She has also been invited as an expert and guest lecturer at Institute Strelka in Moscow, the UCL’s Bartlett School of Architecture and Architectural Association School in London. Katya is co-founder of the research and education project U:Lab.spb, which develops tools that are used in the fields of design and analytics of critical urban environments of Russian cities. U:Lab.spb focuses on social economic strategies that combine knowledge from the fields of sociology, economics, urban planning and ecology to foster the redevelopment of Russian industrial cities and knowledge centres.

Dimitris Gyftopoulos

Dimitris Gyftopoulos holds a Master degree in Architecture of Urban Design from the Bartlett School of Architecture (UCL) and is a registered architect ARB/RIBA Part III. Dimitris is the Director of Mitsimotto, overseeing projects of various natures and scales around the world. Currently he is also acting as the Operations Manager of Riverton, representing a Gulf business family with diversified interests ranging from global industrial portfolio to real estate investments in London and Continental Europe. He is a Course Tutor of the AA Visiting School Semester Programme since January 2018. Through his professional experience in architecture, he was involved in various building projects including design, construction, exhibition installations and design competitions. One of the highlights of his career was his participation in the “Marble Pavilion” installation for the 2009 Interior Design Show in Athens, where the pavilion was featured in the November 2009 issue of Wallpaper* Magazine.