KEYNOTE SPEAKERS
We are excited to offer you this amazing schedule of inspirational keynote speakers. The speakers will be part of each evening's general sessions.
Paul Polak
December 29
Mr. Polak is the founder of Colorado-based non-profit International Development enterprises (IDE) and he is dedicated to developing practical solutions that attack poverty at its roots.
For the past 25 years, Mr. Polak has worked with thousands of farmers in countries around the world-including Bangladesh, India, Cambodia, Ethiopia, Myanmar, Nepal, Vietnam, Zambia and Zimbabwe-to help design and produce low-cost, income-generating products that have already moved 17 million people out of poverty.
Before establishing IDE, Mr. Polak practiced psychiatry for 23 years in Colorado. To better understand the environments influencing his patients, Paul would visit their homes and workplaces. After a trip he made to Bangladesh, he was inspired to use the skills he had honed while working with homeless veterans and mentally ill patients in Denver to serve the 800 million people living on a dollar a day around the world. Employing the same tactics he pioneered as a psychiatrist, Paul spent time "walking with farmers through their one-acre farms and enjoying a cup of tea with their families, sitting on a stool in front of their thatched-roof mud-and-wattle homes."
Alfred von Bachmayr
December 30
In 2003, Mr. von Bachmayr and others started World Hands Project, an organization that facilitates community by creating living systems that are simple, sustainable, culturally appropriate, cost-effective and that honor indigenous wisdom and modern technologies.
In the late 1980's, Mr. von Bachmayr turned to low-income housing and was a founder of the Affordable Housing Alliance in Boulder, CO. In the 1990's, he worked with Habitat for Humanity in Santa Fe and was Director of Earthworks Institute (EWI). During his time at EWI, he lead a project in the Fiji Islands. The project involved low-cost structures from native materials in a developing world context. After Fiji, Mr. von Bachmayr was one of the founding members of Sustainable Communities Inc. (SCI) in Santa Fe that focused on sustainable development throughout the Southwest. With SCI, Alfred built a straw bale house in the Navajo Nation.
In 2002, Mr. von Bachmayr co-founded Builders Without Borders (BWB) with a group of straw bale builders from New Mexico. Through his work with BWB, Alfred attracted the attention of a missionary group, Casa de la Cruz, which constructs low-income housing on the Mexican border. Through a joint effort, Alfred initiated a straw bale building program that was an alternative for several years to the pallet and cinder block houses normally seen in the border areas.
Through his continued involvement with SCI, Alfred became interested Zero Emissions Research and Initiatives (ZERI), a systems thinking utilizing natural cycles to eliminate waste streams. In 2003, he was certified by ZERI and now applies these principles to housing and development projects.
Learn more about Alfred von Bachmayr.
Will Bruder
December 31
For 40 years, Will Bruder has explored inventive and contextually exciting architectural solutions in response to site opportunities and user needs. Will is a craftsman in his concern for detail and building processes, and a sculptor in his unique blending of space, materials, and light.
Self-trained as an architect, Mr. Bruder has a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in sculpture from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Supplementing his studio art education were studies in structural engineering, philosophy, art history and urban planning, followed by a full architectural apprenticeship under Gunnar Birkerts and Paolo Soleri. Subsequent to becoming registered, he opened his own studio in 1974. Most of Mr. Bruder's 450 commissions have celebrated the craft of building in ways not typical in contemporary architecture, striving to invent form specific to function and his clients' aspirations. Through his creative use of materials and light, his ability to raise the ordinary to the extraordinary is renowned.
Michel Rojkind
January 1
Michel Rojkind was born in Mexico City, Mexico. When he was 18, he joined Aleks Syntek's band "La Gente Normal," as its drummer, with whom he continued playing untill 1999, when the band broke apart, after 12 years and 4 albums. While playing with "La Gente Normal," Michel studied architecture and urban planning at the Universidad Iberoamericana in Mexico City and, after working on his own for several years, he teamed up with Isaac Broid and Miquel Adria to establish the architectural firm "Adria+Broid+Rojkind" (1998-2002). With the idea of exploring new challenges that address contemporary society, to design compelling experiences that go beyond mere functionality, and to connect at a deeper level with the intricacies of each project, he established, in 2002, an independent firm (rojkind arquitectos), recognized by Architectural Record in 2005 as "one of the best ten Design Vanguard firms."
