Thomas Madreiter is a urban planning Director since January 2013 and has been Head of the Competence Center for Higher Level Urban Planning, Smart City Strategy, Participation and Gender Planning in the City of Vienna’s Municipal Department.

He has been coordinating Smart City Vienna since 2010.

Reinhard Joecks joined Foster + Partners in Germany in 1994, became a partner in 2005. During his time at the practice he has worked on cultural projects, masterplans and office headquarters in Europe and the Middle East including the Gerling Ring Karree in Cologne.

Recent work has included a masterplan for the city of Duisburg and the Black Sea Gardens eco-village in Bulgaria. He has most recently been involved with masterplans and mixed-use developments in Singapore, Tripoli, Baku and Casablanca.

Michael Horodniceanu, Ph.D., P.E., is the President of MTA Capital Construction. He leads the largest transit infrastructure construction program in the United States, overseeing $20+ billion projects. Dr. Horodniceanu served as New York City’s Traffic Commissioner and he is a recognized expert in the field of transportation infrastructure, with over 35 years of leadership experience in the public and private sectors.

Stephan Braunfels designed, as an advisor to the City of Dresden in 1991-1993, the master plan for the reconstruction of the historic city centre.

The first major competition he won was for Munich’s Pinakothek der Moderne in 1992 which opened in late 2002 and was considered one of the largest new museums in Germany. After the completion of the New Ulm Center in 2006 the office continuously expands its field of work with international projects. In addition to designs realized in Mexico, Italy, USA and Qatar the office is currently planning a new administrative building for the European Commission in Luxemburg as well as a cultural and conference centre in China.

Dorin Stefan, doctor in architecture, runs his own Architecture practice D.S. Office of Architecture S.R.L. and is University Professor at the Ion Mincu University of Architecture and Urbanism.

He’s the founding member of the Society of Romanian Architects and since 2002 vice-president of the Order of Architects of Romania and Curator for Romania at the Venice Architecture Biennial. He was organizer and participant in various exhibitions but also won distinguished awards such as the Silver medal at the Interarch World Architecture Biennial, Sofia, Bulgaria, together with Arch. Emil Barbu Popescu, the Prize of the Order of Architects of Bucharest, the Romanian Academy Award for his entire activity and the Prize of the Romanian Union of Architects “Opera Omnia”.

Șerban Țigănaș is an architect, urban planner, trainer and activist for architecture and building culture. He is a partner of the Dico and Țigănaș architecture and engineering office, associate of the planning office Planwerk and teaches at the Technical University of Cluj.

He is the winner of several awards for architecture, contests and finished works. Active in the field of profession politics in Romania and internationally, he frequently intervenes in the written and audio-visual press on issues related to construction and development. He is currently the president of the Order of Architects of Romania.

Dr. Georg Pammer, General Manager of Aspern City Smart Research, provided us with an example of successful urban planning. We saw how the space of an old abandoned airport has been transformed into the greenest (50% of the surface is green spaces) and smartest district of Vienna, which has become a multifunctional city that offers living space, jobs, spaces of leisure as well as commercial spaces on 2.4 square km.

Dipl.-Ing. Hans-Jürgen Best, currently City Manager of the city of Essen and Member of the Divisional Management Board Planning, has a vast experience in urban and spatial planning, starting with his studies in Dortmund in 1975. Afterwards, he occupied leading positions in departments for spatial planning or building and urban planning in Oberhausen and Essen.

Marcel Heroiu holds a bachelor’s degree in economics from Babes-Bolyai University in Cluj-Napoca, Romania and a PhD in regional development from Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, United States.

Key areas in which he has worked include: urban and regional development policies and competitiveness; management of EU operational programs; prioritizing projects; local and regional governance; sustainable development and climate change and the redevelopment of the outdated industrial areas. Marcel has contributed to or led projects in Romania, Poland, Turkey, USA, Serbia, Macedonia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, India, Georgia, Azerbaijan and Croatia.

Dorothee Dubrau is University Lecturer at Technical University of Darmstadt (TU Darmstadt) and a board member of the Urban Development Council in Berlin since 2007. She was a city planner and the spokesperson for BI Luisenstadt/Berlin Mitte until 1990. Ms. Dubrau was part of the District Councils for Urban Development of Berlin Mitte and Prenzlauer Berg, and, since 1997, the chairman of the pension fund board for the Chamber of Architects in Berlin. During the same year, she also joined the German Academy of Urban Development and Regional Planning.

She was a board member of the housing association Wohnungsbaugesellschaft Berlin-Mitte mbH and of Grün Berlin GmbH, a non-profit company involved in project development, building management, park and operations management, public relations and marketing.

Tilman Buchholz is the Deputy Head of the Urban Development Division of the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Building and Nuclear Safety. He has a vast experience in partnerships on urban development between the public and private sectors in Germany and dedicates a significant part of his activity to the European collaboration for the development of cities.

The vision he promotes is an integrated one and relies on the premise that a European city is compact, mixed and diverse. Moreover, the actors involved in the sustainable development of a region are not only the state, the counties or communes, but also the civil society, the economy and the academic environment. 

Jörn Walter studied urban planning at the Dortmund University. At the beginning of the 90’s he was Head of the urban planning office in Dresden and since 1999 he has been chief planning officer of the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg.

He used to be University Professor at the Technical Universities in Vienna and Dresden, at the University of Fine Arts of Hamburg and currently he’s teaching at the HafenCity University Hamburg. Prof. Walter is present in numerous committees in the field of urban development – for example in the Advisory Board of the Federal Foundation of Baukultur but also in the urban development committee of the Association of German Cities

Raluca Munteanu joined the IULIUS Company in 2012, first as Marketing Specialist and then in 2013 was appointed as Business Development Manager. She has accumulated experience in the field of both marketing and retail, working in the shopping center industry over the last years. In her capacity as Business Development Manager she helped improve the management activity for the United Business Center office buildings. Her current role within the IULIUS Company is to facilitate the implementation of numerous group-wide strategic initiatives, as well as to identify new opportunities.

Ilinca Păun Constantinescu earned her PhD degree in architecture in 2013. She currently practices architecture at Ideogram Studio, teaches theory of architecture at “Ion Mincu” University of Architecture and Urbanism Bucharest, and leads cultural projects within the IDEILAGRAM Association. Together with her team from IDEILAGRAM, she edited Shrinking Cities in Romania. Orașe românești în declin (DOM publishers&MNAC Press 2019) and realized researches and exhibitions such as: Shrinking Cities in Romania (MNAC Bucharest, 2016), On Housing (Timco Halls Timișoara, 2018), Uranus Now (MNAC, 2019, initiated by Zeppelin). She is part of the team that will represent Romania at the Venice Architecture Biennale in 2020, with the project Fading Borders.

Ullrich Sierau is the Mayor of the City of Dortmund. After completing his degree in spatial planning at Dortmund and Oxford, he worked in the Ministry of Urban Development, Housing and Transportation of the Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia. In 1994 he became the director of the Dortmund-based Institute for Urban and Regional Development Research of North Rhine-Westphalia (ILS). From 1999–2007 he served as councilor and head of Dortmund’s Department for City Planning before being appointed planning officer for Urban Planning and Infrastructure in 2007. In 2009 Ullrich Sierau was elected as Lord Mayor of the City of Dortmund and was re-elected in 2014. Since his election, Mayor Sierau has put major emphasis on implementing sustainable urban development projects. As a result, Dortmund was awarded the title of Germany’s Most Sustainable City in 2014.

With a study background of geography, history, philosophy and education, Prof. Dr. phil. Rolf Heyer, Member of German Academy for City Development and Regional Planning (DASL) was involved, while he was the CEO of the German State of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW), in a large number of local city & site development projects but also in international projects with Poland, France, Scotland and China.

Between 2014 – 2019, Prof. Dr. phil. Rolf Heyer was the CEO of WirtschaftsEntwicklungsgesellschaft Bochum and Bochum Perspektive 2022 and carried on international projects in Kuba and China. Professor Heyer offers now consultancy services for project management and brownfield development

Arch. Mihai Danciu, Jiu Valley Integrated Territorial Development Association

Mihai Danciu is an architect concerned with urban and community management.

He is a lecturer for urban planning subjects at the Faculty of Architecture and Urban Planning in Timișoara, the Faculty of Political Sciences – specialization in Public Administration in Timișoara and the Faculty of Urban Planning and Architecture in Chișinau. He is involved in projects in Timișoara, Valea Jiului (West Development Region) and Chișinau. Its beliefs are: sustainable development based on a combination of bottom-up and top-down approaches.

Allen Coliban has been the Mayor of Brasov since 27 September 2020 and was previously a senator in the Romanian Parliament from 2016-2020.

He graduated in Management at Transilvania University Brasov. He has 10 years of experience in the IT industry, eight years in business consulting and European funds, six years in organizational development and performance management. Since the beginning of his mandate, he has implemented an ambitious vision for the sustainable development of the city, focusing on alternative mobility, sustainable tourism, increasing the level of university education, attracting investors from the tech&IT area, as well as enhancing the historical, cultural and natural heritage that Brasov has.

Tatian Diaconu graduated from the Nicolae Bălcescu Land Forces Academy in Sibiu. After a three-year career as an officer, he went to France, where he attended the University of Le Havre, graduating with a master’s degree in management of organizations. Tatian has also worked for Decathlon and Bricostore as expansion manager for the Romanian, Hungarian and Croatian markets.