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Globally acclaimed designers figures make MDC a must-see all-in-one-place group. See who is speaking below or scroll down for images and bios.
Internationally-Based Headliners
Marina Tabassum - Marina Tabassum Architects (MTA) (Dhaka, Bangladesh)
Mauricio Pezo + Sofia von Ellrichshausen - Pezo von Ellrichshausen (Yungay, Chile)
Ma Yasong - MAD Architects (Beijing, China; Los Angeles, USA; Rome, Italy)
Xu Tiantian - DnA Design and Architecture (Beijing, China)
North American-Based Headliners
Anne Marie Duvall Decker, FAIA, & Roy Decker, FAIA - Duvall Decker (Jackson, Mississippi)
Billie Tsien, AIA - Studio Tsien and Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects (New York, NY)
California-Based Headliners
Lisa Iwamoto & Craig Scott, AIA - Iwamoto Scott (California)
Out of the Box
Allan Wexler
Innovator(s)
Anna Dyson - Hines Professor of Sustainable Architectural Design and Professor at the School of the Environment; Founding Director of the Yale Center for Ecosystems in Architecture
Carl Elefante, FAIA Emeritus - Principal Emeritus, Quinn Evans Architects
David Lewis
Karen Robichaud - Founder, Karen Robichaud, LLC
Katie Swenson, Assoc. AIA - Senior Principal, MASS Design Group
Corey Squire, AIA - Associate Principal, Sustainability Director, Bora Architects
Principal, Marina Tabassum Architects
Marina Tabassum is a Bangladeshi architect and educator. She graduated from Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology in 1995 and founded Dhaka-based Marina Tabassum Architects (MTA) in 2005. In her work, Tabassum seeks to establish a language of architecture that is contemporary yet reflectively rooted to place, always against an ecological rubric containing climate, context, culture, history. Her project Bait Ur Rouf Mosque was listed among the top 25 post war buildings of the world by New York Times. She received the coveted Aga Khan Award for Architecture in 2016. Among her important works is the Independence Museum and monument of Bangladesh designed in 1997.
Tabassum is a Professor at the Technical University Delft, in the Netherlands. She received honorary doctorate from Technical University Munich. As a visiting professor she has taught at Yale University, University of Toronto, Harvard University Graduate School of Design, University of Texas and BRAC University. She held the position of Academic Director of the Bengal Institute from 2015 to 2021. Tabassum served as a member of the Steering Committee of the Aga Khan Awards for Architecture from 2017 to 2022. Tabassum Chairs the Executive Board of Prokritee, a fare trade organization that promotes crafts and provides livelihood to more than 5000 women artisans of Bangladesh.
She is the founder and chairperson of Foundation for Architecture and Community Equity (FACE). Her social engagements focus on marginalisation, climate justice and architecture. She has also received the prestigious Aga Khan Award for Architecture (2025) for the Khudi Bari Initiative, marking her second time receiving this honor. Tabassum was named one of the 100 most influential people of 2024 by TIMES magazine. Marina Tabassum’s pursuit for the ‘Architecture of Relevance’ has won her various international accolades such as the Soane Medal from United Kingdom, the Gold Medal of the French Academy of Architecture, Arnold Brunner Prize from American Academy of Arts and Letters.
Founding Principal, DnA Design and Architecture (China)
Xu Tiantian was born in Fujian in 1975. She was admitted directly to the Department of Architecture at Tsinghua University in 1992. She received her Bachelor of Architecture from Tsinghua in 1997 and went on to earn a Master of Architecture in Urban Design from Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design (GSD) in 2000. She is currently a professor at the School of Architecture, Tsinghua University. Xu was named an International Honorary Fellow of the American Institute of Architects (AIA) in 2020 and elected a member of the German Academy of Arts (Akademie der Künste) in 2024.
Her work has been recognized with numerous prestigious awards, including the Swiss Architectural Award (2022), the Berlin Art Prize (2023), the Marcus Prize for Architecture (USA, 2023), the Holcim Gold Award for Asia-Pacific (2023), and the UNESCO Global Award for Sustainable Architecture. In 2025, she received the Wolf Prize in Architecture. Xu has also held visiting professorships at Yale University and the Mendrisio Academy of Architecture in Switzerland. In recent years, Xu has focused on architecture in China’s rural regions.
Her practice is dedicated to rural revitalization through a strategy she describes as “architectural acupuncture”—small-scale, site-specific interventions designed to activate local culture, agriculture, and tourism. In 2019, the United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat) recognized her Songyang “architectural acupuncture” initiative as a global model for urban–rural integration.
