Zak Kyes is a London-based graphic designer. He founded Zak Group in 2005, and since 2006 has been the art director of the Architectural Association (AA), London, where, in 2008, he cofounded the publishing imprint Bedford Press. His design projects include the Cybermohalla Print Studio at Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Copenhagen (with Nikolaus Hirsch and the Cybermohalla Ensemble, 2011); the Serpentine Gallery Manifesto Marathon, London (with Hans Ulrich Obrist, 2008); and the Sternberg Press Solution series (with Ingo Niermann, since 2008). He has curated the touring exhibition “Forms of Inquiry: The Architecture of Critical Graphic Design” (2007–09); “The Information Economy” at MoMA PS1, New York (2010); and “Bridge The Gap? 8” at Center for Contemporary Art, Kitakyusha (with Charles Arsène-Henry and Akiko Miyake, 2011). He has edited publications including Iaspis Forum on Design and Critical Practice: The Reader (Sternberg Press, 2009), Exhibition Prosthetics (Bedford Press, 2010), COSEY COMPLEX Reader (ICA, 2010), and Space Is the Time You Need to Go to Someone Else (CCA Kitakyusha, 2012). Kyes has taught at the AA School of Architecture and at Ecole cantonale d’art de Lausanne.

Can Altay is an artist living in Istanbul. His installations of videos, mappings, books, and photographs incorporate different forms of research on the urban environment. Altay studies improvised architectures in the city, as well as hidden structures of support, unauthorized systems of organization, and models of cohabitation. He further investigates the production of ideas and notions of public space through “setting a setting”: a body of work where he proposes spaces and constructs for gatherings. The clashes and overlaps between function and meaning and unpredictable reconfigurations within systems are some of his main interests. Altay has had solo exhibitions at Casco, Utrecht (2011); The Showroom, London (2010); Künst-lerhaus Bethanien, Berlin (2008); Sala Rekalde, Bilbao (2006); and Spike Island, Bristol (2007). His work has been included in the Istanbul, Havana, Busan, Gwangju, and Taipei Biennials; and in museums and galleries such as the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven; Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie Karlsruhe; MoMA PS1, New York; and Platform Garanti, Istanbul.

Charles Arsène-Henry is a writer and editor based in London. Arsène-Henry founded White Box Black Box, a speculative agency exploring formats of research and fiction. In 2011 he co-curated the exhibition “Translated By” at the Architectural Association, London, where he teaches the media studies seminar Shapes of Fiction.  With the Luma Foundation, he is currently conceiving The Library Is on Fire.

Shumon Basar is a writer and curator based in London. He is currently working  on his first novel, titled World!World!World!. Basar is coeditor of Cities from Zero (Architectural Assocation, 2007), With/Without (Bidoun, 2007), Did Someone Say Participate? (MIT Press, 2006), and Hans Ulrich Obrist Interviews: Volume 2 (Charta Art, 2010), and is a contributing editor to Bidoun and Tank magazines, as well as cofounder of Sexymachinery. With architect Eyal Weizman and artists Jane and Louise Wilson he made the film Face Scripting, which debuted at the 2011 Sharjah Biennial. He directs the cultural program at the Architectural Association, London, where he co-curated the audio exhibition “Translated By” (2011) and launched a new “live magazine” titled Format: The Shapes of Discourse. 

Richard Birkett is curator at Artists Space, New York. Since 2010 he has co-curated exhibitions with Artists Space director Stefan Kalmár, including “Mark Morrisroe: From This Moment On” (2011) and “‘Identity’” (2011). Previously he was curator at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, curating projects including “Chto Delat? (What is to be done?) – The Urgent Need to Struggle” (2010), “Calling Out of Context” (with Jamie Eastman, 2009), “Talk Show” (with Will Holder and Jennifer Thatcher, 2009), and “Nought to Sixty” (2008). He has contributed texts to artists’ monographs and art periodicals, and edited publications including COSEY COMPLEX Book (with Maria Fusco, Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König, 2012) and Dispersion (with Polly Staple, ICA, 2008).

Andrew Blauvelt is curator of architecture and design and chief of communications and audience engagement at the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis. From 1998 to 2010 he also served as design director of the Walker, heading its in-house editorial, publishing, and graphic design studio. He has curated several traveling exhibitions including “Graphic Design: Now in Production” with the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, New York (2011); “Worlds Away: New Suburban Landscapes” with the Heinz Architectural Center at Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh (2008); “Some Assembly Required: Contemporary Prefabricated Houses” (2006); and “Strangely Familiar: Design and Everyday Life” (2003). He writes about design and culture for a variety of publications and is a contributing writer for DesignObserver.

Edward Bottoms is the archivist at the Architectural Association Library, London. His areas of research include Georgian portraiture, collecting and patronage on the early Grand Tour, and nineteenth-century architectural cast museums. Bottoms’s work with the archives has resulted in articles on the Royal Architectural Museum; Anglo-Swedish architectural exchanges in the interwar period; and student-initiated magazines, journals, and periodicals. The archives house a substantial collection of material on the social and intellectual history of architectural education, dating back to the association’s origins in the 1840s. Its holdings include a wealth of student drawings, models, posters, and ephemera, together with the association’s educational and administrative records. The archives highlight the significance architecture schools have in the formation, propagation, and transmission of architectural culture, theory, and practice.

Wayne Daly is a graphic designer at the Architectural Association (AA) Print Studio, London. Daly studied at Ireland’s Waterford Institute of Technology as well as at the London College of Communication (LCC). He recently established the micro-press Precinct, publishing books which focus on music criticism, including a recent essay by Adam Harper on the work of American musician John Maus. He has written for The National Grid and A Circular, and has guest-lectured at LCC, Werkplaats Typografie, and the American University of Beirut. In the summer of 2008, he founded Bedford Press with Zak Kyes at the AA.

Jesko Fezer is a Berlin-based architect and professor for experimental design at the Hochschule für bildende Künste Hamburg. In cooperation with the institut für angewandte urbanistik, Fezer realized architecture projects in Munich, Stuttgart, Berlin, Utrecht, Graz, New York, and London. He is cofounder of the thematic bookshop Pro qm and coeditor of the political architecture magazine An Architektur. Most recently, he codirected the research program “Civic City: Design for the Post-Neoliberal City” at the Institute for Design Research at Zürcher Hochschule der Künste. Fezer specializes in postwar architectural history, design methodology, participation, and process-based urbanism.

Joseph Grigely is an American artist and cultural critic whose work explores the malleability of communication and the ways art can be unmade and remade through its own dissemination. Grigely’s books include Textualterity: Art, Theory, and Textual Criticism (University of Michigan Press, 1995), Exhibition Prosthetics (Bedford Press, 2010), and the forthcoming Textualterity 2. He is currently professor of visual and critical studies at the Art Institute of Chicago.

Nikolaus Hirsch is currently director of Städelschule and Portikus in Frankfurt am Main. An architect, Hirsch has designed the New Synagogue, Dresden; the Hinzert Documentation Center; the Bockenheimer Depot Theater, Frankfurt (with William Forsythe); unitednationsplaza, Berlin (with Anton Vidokle); European Kunsthalle, Cologne; and numerous exhibitions, including “Making Things Public”, curated by Bruno Latour, at Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie Karlsruhe (2005); and “Indian Highway” at Serpentine Gallery, London (2008–09). He is currently designing a studio for Rirkrit Tiravanija’s The Land and the Cybermohalla Hub in Delhi, a hybrid between school, community center, and gallery, that involves seventy young practitioners engaging their urban context through various media. Hirsch has curated “Ersatz-Stadt: Representations of the Urban,” at the Volksbühne, Berlin (2005); “Cultural Agencies,” Istanbul (2009–10), and “Time/Bank” at the Portikus (2011). His books include On Boundaries (Lukas & Sternberg, 2007), Track 17 (Sternberg Press, 2009), and Institution Building (Sternberg Press, 2009).

Markus Miessen is an architect and writer. He initiated the Participation book quartet, and has published around the question of critical spatial practice, institution building, and spatial politics. His architectural projects include the Loughborough University Arts Centre and Radar Hub; Gwangju Biennial Hub; Performa Hub, New York; and Antigua Oficina De Correos Y Telégrafos, Manifesta 8, Murcia. In 2008, he founded Winter School Middle East. He has held academic positions at the Architectural Association, London (2004–08); Berlage Institute, Rotterdam (2009–10); and Hochschule für Gestaltung Karlsruhe (2010–11). Miessen is now professor of Critical Spatial Practice at the Städelschule, Frankfurt am Main; and guest professor at Haute école d’art et de design, Geneva; as well as at the University of Southern California, Los Angeles.

Michel Müller is professor at the Cologne Institute for Architectural Design. Müller wrote his PhD dissertation on the planning methods of convertible architecture. His work includes the Erasmus Kittler Power Station, Darmstadt; the Alte Maschinenhalle, Dornach; and numerous exhibitions, includ-ing “Making Things Public,” curated by Bruno Latour and Peter Weibel, at Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie Karlsruhe (2005); “Frequencies [Hz]” at Schirn Kunst-halle, Frankfurt am Main (2002); and “Indian Highway” at Serpentine Gallery, London (2008–09). Müller’s ongoing research on institutional models has resulted in projects such as the Bockenheimer Depot Theater, Frankfurt (with William Forsythe); unitednationsplaza, Berlin (with Anton Vidokle); the Cybermohalla Hub, Delhi; a studio for Rirkrit Tiravanija’s The Land; and a temporary living structure for the homeless in Frankfurt.

Radim Peško is an Amsterdam-based graphic designer whose work focuses on typography as an intersection of technologies and language, as well as type design and occasional exhibition projects. In addition to his online eponymous digital type foundry, Peško regularly collaborates with artist Katerina Šedá and currently teaches at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie, Amsterdam.

Barbara Steiner is a curator and writer. Currently she is working on a collaborative art project about Europe, which takes place in ten cities in and outside the European Union and in the newspaper Fair Observer. From 2001 to 2010 she was director of the Galerie für Zeitgenössische Kunst Leipzig.