Team
Professor Tom Emerson obe DipArch(Cantab) riba sia
Founded 6a architects with Stephanie Macdonald in London in 2001. 6a has recently completed the new mk Gallery in Milton Keynes, the South London Gallery, a photography studio complex for Juergen Teller and Cowan Court at Churchill College, University of Cambridge. 6a architects has received several riba Awards, the Schelling Medal in 2012 and was shortlisted for the Stirling Prize in 2017. Emerson appointed Officer of the British Empire (obe) in the 2021 New Year Honours List for services to architecture and education and was awarded the 2018 Conrad Ferdinand Meyer Prize in Zürich.
Work and writings by the practice have been exhibited and published internationally. Books include Never Modern produced in collaboration with Irénée Scalbert (Park Books, 2014) and a monograph by El Croquis was published in 2018.
He studied at the University of Bath, the Royal College of Art in London and the University of Cambridge. He taught at the Architectural Association (2000-04), Cambridge (2004-10) and, since 2010 has been professor of architecture at the eth Zurich.
Lucio Crignola
studied architecture at eth Zürich and fadu Universidad de Buenos Aires. He has worked for different architecture offices in Switzerland and Chile on various design, competition and construction projects. Together with Tobia Rapelli he has founded the Zurich-based architecture office CRRA Studio. He joined the Chair of Prof. Tom Emerson for Design and Construction at ETH Zurich as teaching assistant in summer 2019.
Lorenza Donati
Is an architect and co-founded with Antoine Berchier the practice ALIAS based in Zürich/Paris. She graduated in 2015 with Palace Robert at the Studio Tom Emerson, she worked with 6a Architects, Illai, and collaborated with Bruther as a project manager on various projects and competitions. Aside she taught the first-year studio with Prof. Christian Kerez, the Master studio S+ with Arno Brandlhuber and various workshops at ENSA Paris Malaquais and Royal Academy of Fine Arts x UAntwerp. Regularly she is invited to juries at the Academia di Mendrisio, ETHZ, EAV&T Paris-Est, and HSLU. Currently, she is the co-president of the Verein Kunsthalle Bern. She joined the Chair of Prof. Tom Emerson for Design and Construction at ETHZ as a teaching assistant in spring 2022.
Sonja Flury
is a Zurich-based architect and curator. After completing her Masters at ETH Zurich in 2018, she joined the artist-residency Akademie Schloss Solitude in Stuttgart working in the art, science & business department. From August 2019 onwards she joined the Chair of Prof. Tom Emerson as a teaching assistant. She is a founder and president of the Verein ProSaffa1958-Pavillon aiming to retrieve and rebuild Berta Rahms's contribution to the Saffa 1958. Her interest in softening the boundary between planning and building is put into practice as part of the architectural practice Architekturgenossenschaft C/O. She engages in critical discourses surrounding Swiss building culture as a member of ZAS*. Her curatorial work includes the exhibition "Engaging with Histories" at the Akademie Schloss Solitude, "Power of Mushrooms" at the gta Ausstellungen and the U5 Studio XOX as part of Kunst: Szene Zürich.
Michelle Geilinger
is an architect based in Zurich and studied architecture at ETH Zurich and FAU São Paulo. After graduating in 2018 she worked together with Kueng Caputo for five years on material research, exhibitions, design and construction projects. In 2022 she joined the Chair of Prof. Tom Emerson for Design and Construction at ETH Zurich as a teaching assistant.
Julius Henkel
graduated as an architect from ETH Zürich after studying at the Bauhaus-University-Weimar and the EPF in Lausanne. He was practicing in various offices in Chur, Zürich, and Basel, among which Angela Deuber, Herzog & de Meuron, and the artist Pedro Wirz.He was teaching as a studio director at the Chair ALICE at the EPFL and joined the Chair of Prof. Tom Emerson for Design and Construction in 2023. His interest lies in the intersections of arts and architecture with a special focus on material research, physical crafting, and DIY culture.
Martin Aeschbacher
was trained as a landscape gardener in Bern and then studied landscape architecture in Rapperswil. He has been working as project manager at Ganz Landscape Architects since 2019, in various fields from competition to construction management. He has a passion for natural stone and is regularly involved in practice with dry stone walls. He has been part of the Studio Tom Emerson team since 2023.
Current Student Assistants
Janic Caduff, Balthasar Dahler, Areti Gijzen, Gian Hugi, Delia Mattys, Florin Meier, Janis Stainhauser