Baerbel Mueller and Juergen Benson-Strohmayer

Baerbel Mueller
Baerbel Mueller is an architect, researcher, and curator based between Austria and Ghana. She is an associate professor at the Institute of Architecture at the University of Applied Arts Vienna and the founder of nav_s baerbel mueller, a practice focused on architecture and urban research in diverse cultural contexts. She also founded and leads [Applied] Foreign Affairs, a lab investigating spatial, environmental, and cultural conditions in rural and urban Sub-Saharan Africa. Her work spans architecture, urban research, installations, scenography, and curatorial projects, often combining artistic research with built interventions. Through her context-driven approach, Mueller develops architecture that responds to place, ecology, community, and cultural exchange.

Juergen Benson-Strohmayer
Juergen Benson-Strohmayer is an architect, researcher, educator, and the founder of TAELON7, a translocal architecture and research practice working between Europe and West Africa. His work explores architecture as a tool for social, cultural, and environmental transformation, with a strong focus on civic space, material systems, climate, and collective forms of occupation. Through TAELON7, he develops buildings, installations, exhibitions, and public infrastructures that respond carefully to their context while opening new possibilities for use, gathering, and exchange. His practice has received international recognition, including the Holcim Gold Award for Sustainable Construction and the Fassa Bortolo International Prize for Sustainable Architecture Silver Medal. Grounded in precision, construction, experimentation, and collaboration, his work reflects a belief that architecture can support more equitable, resilient, and imaginative futures.