Staff

In 2014 Kees Kaan founded KAAN Architecten together with partners Vincent Panhuysen and Dikkie Scipio, after collaborating with Felix Claus for 25 years as Claus en Kaan Architecten. 

He has built up a national and international range of projects, urban planning, architecture and interior design, among which in the last five years the won competitions for the master plan El Prat de Llobregat in Barcelona, the Chambre des Métiers et de l’Artisanat in Lille, the Royal Museum of Fine Arts in Antwerp and the Pharmacy building on the campus of the University of Granada. 

Realized projects include the Supreme Court of The Netherlands, Provinciehuis Noord-Brabant and the multiple awards winning the Crematorium Heimolen in Sint-Niklaas, Belgium, the Netherlands Forensic Institute in The Hague, awarded with the Lensvelt De Architect Interior Prize, and the Royal Netherlands Embassy in Maputo, Mozambique. Various books and exhibitions have been dedicated to his body of work. 

Kees Kaan has been a practice professor of Architectural Design (Chair of Materialization) at the Delft University of Technology since 2006. In 2012 he founded a new Chair ‘Complex Projects’. The ambition of this program is to develop analytical and critical thinking skills on any scale projects in the city, merging knowledge from the different fields of architecture and urbanism.  

As well as taking on a range of peripheral activities, he is an international lecturer and member of various juries and boards both in the Netherlands and abroad, in cities like Barcelona, Berlin, Dublin, Madrid, Mexico City, Paris, Split, São Paulo, Brasilia, Novosibirsk and Tokyo. 

Henri van Bennekom (1964) graduated cum laude from TU Delft faculty of Architecture, and graduated from the Amsterdamse Technische Hogeschool. He has worked primarily as a designer/project leader on large public buildings, such as the headquarters of ‘De Nederlandsche Bank’ in Amsterdam, The European Patent Office in The Hague (at A+D+P Architecten), the Netherlands Forensic Institute in the Hague (with Claus en Kaan Architecten), and the Courts of Justice in Zwolle (for the Governmental Building Agency). Henri van Bennekom is founding partner of the architectural firm ‘VBVP Architecten’, mainly designing private residences in The Netherlands and The United States. Together with Kees Kaan he is responsible for the Chair of complex projects. 

After graduating in architecture (1998) from the University of Karlsruhe in Germany, Henriette Bier has worked with Morphosis (1999-2001) on internationally relevant projects in the US and Europe. She has taught digitally-driven architectural design (2002-2003) at universities in Austria, Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands and since 2004 she mainly teaches and researches at Technical University Delft (TUD) with focus on Robotic Building. She initiated and coordinated (2005-06) the workshop and lecture series on Digital Design and Fabrication with invited guests from MIT and ETHZ and finalized (2008) her PhD on System-embedded Intelligence in Architecture. She coordinated EU projects E-Archidoct and F2F Continuum (2007-10) and led 4TU projects RDCB and Adaptive Joints (2015-18). 2017-19, she has been appointed professor at Dessau Institute of Architecture. Results of her research are internationally published in books, journals and conference proceedings and she regularly lectures and leads workshops internationally.

Olindo Caso graduated at the Faculty of Architecture of the University of Naples ‘Federico II’ (1988, with honourable mention). In 1990 he began collaborating with the Delft University of Technology (TU Delft), the Netherlands, where in 1999 he achieved his Ph.D. defending a dissertation about the impact of ICT applications for the design of spatial settings. Presently he is part of the ‘Complex Projects’ Group at the Department of Architecture of the TU Delft, and a member of the research group ‘Architecture and the City’. At TU Delft Olindo is engaged in master education and research activities. In doing this, Urban Architectre and Hybrid Buildings are the guiding theme’s. Main specific research interests relate to the architecture of the infrastructure, in particular the cultural infrastructure and the infrastructure of mobility. Olindo Caso is a specialist in multidisciplinary research. He is the author of (international) publications and research reports, among which Architettura contemporanea: Olanda (Milan:Motta, 2009) and ATLAS. Makerspaces in Public Libraries in the Netherlands (Delft: TU Open, 2019).

Esther Gramsbergen has a degree in architecture from TU Delft and worked as an architect in various offices, among which Karelse van der Meer Architecten (Groningen, Rotterdam) and the Architecten Cie. (Amsterdam). She has been teaching and researching at the TU Delft since 1999 and is co-author of Zakboek voor de woonomgeving (2001). She has further publications on urban morphology of Amsterdam and Dordrecht. In 2009 she became editor of OverHolland, a series of books dedicated to the study of the Dutch Town, published on behalf of Delft University of Technology, Faculty of Architecture. In 2011 she was awarded the title of dottore di ricerca at the IUAV University of Venice for her study Inner fringe belts and the formationof the knowledge infrastructure in Amsterdam, 1578-1880.

Hrvoje Smidihen is a project architect in KAAN Architecten, and lecturer at TU Delft. He completed his undergraduate studies at the Faculty of Architecture in Zagreb and worked for Studio Up in Croatia. He received a Master’s degree in Architecture and Urban Planning (with honours) from the Technical University in Delft and garnered an Archi Prix nomination with his final graduation project. Soon after graduation, in 2015, he joined KAAN Architecten, where he has been involved in numerous projects in different phases. After leading the winning team for the New Schiphol Terminal competition in 2017, he continued his involvement in the development of the terminal design. Active as a teacher and researcher, Hrvoje leads a graduation studio lab in the Chair of Complex projects since 2017, where he is investigating the future of large-scale urban developments. In 2019, he collaborated with AMS institute on ‘Future of Amsterdam, AMS 2050’. 

Yağız Söylev is a Rotterdam-based architect.
He received his Master degree in architecture with honours from TU Delft in 2018. He attained a BArch degree at Istanbul Technical University in 2014. Currently, he is a lecturer and researcher at the chair of Complex Projects at Delft University of Technology.

He is the associate curator of Vardiya/The Shift which is presented at the Pavilion of Turkey, in the 16th International Architecture Exhibition, la Biennale di Venezia in 2018. He is the co-author of the TWTRATE project which was exhibited in the 2. Istanbul Design Biennial in 2014. Soylev collaborated in the FLOWCITY project in Shenzhen Biennial in 2019.

His work experience includes practising at KAAN Architecten, Netherlands and KPM - Kerem Piker Mimarlık, Turkey. He collaborated in Akyazı Cultural Center Project, which received the Best Project Prize in the 15th National Architecture Awards in Turkey. In 2017, He has taken a part in “The Productive Heart of New-Ulm”, which received the Neu-Ulm First Prize in Europan 14.

His research interests include biopolitics of architecture, the power of architecture as a tool of control in everyday life. He investigates the changing role of the architect in the contemporary practice and his master thesis primarily focuses on the commoning practices and the open architectural design strategies in the context of the informal settlements of Valparaiso, Chile. 

Fatma Tanış is researcher and lecturer at TU Delft and the coordinator of the Jaap Bakema Study Centre at Het Nieuwe Instituut, Rotterdam. Tanış trained as an architect in Istanbul and Stuttgart. She received Master's degrees in Architectural History (Istanbul Technical University) and Conservation and Restoration of the Historic Built Environment (Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University). Having a particular interest in in-between realm, she has explored the specificity of port cities through the notion of cosmopolitanism in her doctoral dissertation titled 'Urban Scenes of a Port City: Exploring Beautiful İzmir through Narratives of Cosmopolitan Practices (2022)' and obtained a PhD at Delft University of Technology. In her doctoral project, she combined her personal interest in literary writing with her interdisciplinary background to explore İzmir from a cross-cultural perspective. Her other publications include 'Spatial Stories of İzmir (2020)'; 'Space, Represention, and Practice in the Formation of İzmir during the Long Nineteenth Century in Migrants and the Making the Urban-Maritime World: Agency and Mobility in Port Cities, c. 1570–1940, eds. Christina Reimann, Martin Öhman (New York, London: Routledge, 2020)'; and a themed issue 'Narratives #1: Mediterranean and Atlantic Cities (2021)'.

Her deep interest in architectural research dates back to her bachelor's. She conducted an external research project, parallel to her training in architecture at the Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University. Her research on 'Modernism and Oscar Niemeyer' was awarded competitively in 2012 by Emre Arolat Architecture. The grant was outsourced from the Aga Khan Awards for Architecture. Next to her research, she has been involved in lectures. She was a teaching assistant in 'Building Green' with Prof. dr. -ing. Carola Hein (TU Delft), and in 'The Global Turn: Modern Architectures and Movements since 1851' with Prof. dr. Tom Avermaete (ETH) & Prof. dr. Michelangelo Sabatino (IIT), in the Department of Architecture at TU Delft. She lectured to master students in the Diploma Studio of Methods & Analysis with Prof. dr. ir. Klaske Havik (TU Delft). She is currently tutoring MSc 1 students for the course 'Architectural Positions: Delft Lectures on Architectural Design and Research Methods' addressing contemporary positions in architectural discourse and practice.

Manuela Triggianese (1987) is Assistant Professor at the Department of Architecture at the Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment. She coordinates the master program for the Chair of Complex Projects. Graduated with honours in Architecture from the University of Campania Luigi Vanvitelli in Italy, in 2014 she obtained the doctoral degree at the Faculty of Architecture in Venice (IUAV). In 2015 she worked as visiting researcher at the Beijing Technical University. Since 2016 she collaborates with Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Metropolitan Solutions and TU Delft Deltas Infrastructure Mobility Initiative. Her research results have been published in journals and international conference proceedings. In the role of Editor-in-Chief, she recently published the book Stations as Nodes (TU Delft Open, 2018).

Jelmer van Zalingen completed his Masters of Architecture at the Delft University of Technology in 2017 with honours. His graduation work was nominated for the ArchiPrix. He has been working since at the chair of Complex Projects and teaching in the graduation lab. Jelmer has organized a series of events and exhibitions for the chair of Complex Projects including working as an editor for the AMS 2050 future catalogue publication. Jelmer is currently a practicing architect at the office of KAAN Architecten in Rotterdam, where he has been involved as an architect on multiple projects, including the New Schiphol Terminal project.

Halina is a PhD Researcher under one of the twelve PhD Projects granted by the Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment of TU Delft in 2021. She has graduated in Architecture and Urbanism in 2015, at the Pontifical Catholic University of Goias, in Brazil. She obtained her Master’s degree in Architecture in UCLA, where she worked as Graduate Student Researcher for the Now Institute, a collaboration between UCLA and Morphosis Architects (2015-2016). She then contributed with Skidmore, Owings and Merrill LLP, in Los Angeles, until 2017 as an Architect and Urban Planner. She then relocated to Rotterdam, The Netherlands, where she started collaboration with MVRDV as an Architect and Urbanist from 2018 to 2021. Since August 2021, she is a Ph.D. researcher working on the topic of Data-Supported Design for Transport Nodes and Sustainable Urbanization.