During our London Design and Architecture Educational Tour 2018 we are going to experience a private guided tour of some of the most important architectural practices , , and the Royal Institute of British Architects.

Two visits will consist of a tour of the offices with a senior architect, a general presentation of the practice and one of the practice's latest projects. The Zaha Hadid Gallery will offer a tour of the latest exhibitions showcasing the work of Zaha Hadid Architects and Zaha Hadid Design.

AECOM, will be introduced by the Creative Director Erik Behrens. Erik is a German Designer and Architect who heads up the London Design Studio for Special Projects. His studio's work is innovative and signified by ambitious designs, many defying traditional architectural conventions and dimensions.

He joined AECOM in 2006 and played a key role in the Design Team delivering the design for the Olympic Games in London 2012. Since 2007 he has been working on a series of high profile developments in Qatar including the world-class Education City, Msheireb and Lusail Expressway Artscape projects.

He is the responsible Design Director and Design Architect for the prestigious new Al Wahda Arches and Visitors' Center in Doha and various iconic Bridge Structures and High-End Development projects throughout the Middle East, US and Europe.

Prior to joining AECOM, he worked with the American architect Prof. Alex Wall AA Dipl. (former Partner of Rem Koolhaas, OMA and Tutor of Zaha Hadid) and the Dean of the USC School of , Qingyun Ma, with his Shanghai-based office MADA s.p.a.m. He has lectured and exhibited internationally including at the Venice and Shenzhen- Hong Kong Biennale and the Aedes Architecture Forum in Berlin. He has directed research and design studios at the KIT in Germany and is a regularly invited design critic at Universities including the TU Munich, Harvard GSD, Bartlett UCL and AA London.

Erik Behrens

AECOM is an American multinational engineering firm that provides design, consulting, construction, and management services to an ever increasing number of clients. Named one of Fortune magazine's “World's Most Admired Companies” for the fourth consecutive year, AECOM designs a wide range of building types that each excel at their function, provide a high-quality environment for people, strengthen their client's brand and identity, conserve energy and water, and complement their contexts. The tour will be guided by Creative Director Erik Behrens.

TP Bennett, an award-winning architectural, interiors and town planning practice with over 90 years' experience across a broad range of projects in both the private and public sectors. Headquartered in London and with a global network of partners in almost 50 countries, TP Bennett have a broad client base of leading developers, institutions and occupiers including financial, professional services and technology companies. We will visit the studios with a senior architect and designer of the practice, who will introduce their philosophy and give an overview of their latest projects. The tour will be guided by TP Bennett directors Cristiano Testi and Caterina Polidoro.

Cristiano joined TP Bennett's interiors division in 2011, since when he has designed several projects including PwC's HQ refurbishment at Embankment Place, Johnson & Johnson's London Innovation Centre, and shipbroker Clarksons' relocation to St Katharine Docks. With experience in many complex office designs involving blue chip clients and prominent developers, Cristiano has led projects with occupiers as varied as Facebook, Société Générale and Nationwide Building Society. He enjoys working alongside clients, consultants and contractors to ensure that each design is unique and of consistently high quality. Often advising companies at board level, Cristiano is a keen advocate of research and development in the interiors sector. He has served as chair of the British Council for Offices' NextGen Committee for professionals under the age of 35, and is a Fellow of the RSA.

Cristiano Testi

Caterina Katia Polidoro is an architect and urban designer with a wide design experience ranging from large-scale masterplanning and regeneration schemes to architecture and interior design. At tp bennett Katia, is responsible for major retail and mixed-use developments in the UK, including
Hounslow High Street Quarter, Rochdale Riverside Development, and she is currently engaged in the regeneration of Luton Town Centre and Hemel Hempstead. As well as the UK, Katia also takes her expertise to international markets, via international conferences, and the countries in which she has worked on schemes include Italy, France, Germany in Europe, Turkey, Bahrain and Azerbaijan in the Middle East and Thailand.

Katia's work has been recognised by ICSC (International Council of Shopping Centres) Awards. She is an active mentor to Part I and II students at RIBA and works as an external examiner with a number of London universities. As a member of the architectural NGOs Article 25 (Development & Disaster Relief) and Architecture Sans Frontières UK, she has also been involved in community and regeneration work overseas.

Caterina Polidoro

Zaha Hadid Gallery The Zaha Hadid Gallery showcases the latest in architecture, interiors, furniture, and product design through curated exhibitions, and provides insight into the process, and ethos of the architecture practice, and design studio that was founded by Zaha Hadid over 35 years ago. Exhibited for the first time in London, the Zaha Hadid Gallery will feature recent product collaborations including Zaha Hadid Design for Royal Thai, and Zaha Hadid Architects for Nagami, and a curated presentation of the studio's in-house 3D printing research in construction.

Finally we will take a guided tour of the Royal Institute of British Architects headquarters to learn about the history and design of English landmark building. The building tours offer insight into the architecture profession and the RIBA's role in championing great architecture.

The educational tour is free thanks to the support of Lavagnoli Marmi an historic name in the Italian marble industry which combines the consolidated traditional crafts of four generations of quarriers, stonemasons and master craftsmen with cutting edge technologies for processing marble and granite, producing particularly in the fields of art, architecture and design.

Discover more here: London Design and Architecture Educational Tour 2018
Follow our tour with #architectoursLND18 and #lavagnoli on social media