New York CIty

Daniel joined Henning Larsen in 2011, and has worked in several of Henning Larsen’s global offices, including Copenhagen, Munich and New York. Over the years, he has built up a vast cultural understanding of communities that we engage, a knowledge that he utilizes in his everyday work. Since 2018, he has been based in New York where he forms part of the management team of Henning Larsen’s North American office.

Currently, Daniel is leading the design for the new Visa Global HQ as part of the Mission Rock Development in San Francisco, California, a new green district emphasizng active ground plane design, and the highest standards within sustainability.

Sebastian Hofmeister is a Senior Associate at Henning Larsen who leverages a decade of experience in complex projects. He seamlessly blends his keen technical knowledge with design sensibilities, expanding his expertise across office and life science buildings like Henning Larsen’s One Milestone East Lab Building in Allston, and performing art centers—having worked with REX on the Ronald O. Perelman Performing Arts Center at the World Trade Center and the Lindemann Performing Arts Center at Brown University.

Leading sustainability strategies at Henning Larsen’s New York office, Kritika Kharbanda spearheads diverse projects worldwide, from educational, cultural, and civic buildings to labs, offices, and masterplans. Her work lies at the intersection architecture, sustainability, and technology. With a Master in Design Studies specializing in Energy and Environments from Harvard GSD with cross-enrollment at MIT, Kritika was a Social Innovation and Change Initiative Fellow at Harvard Kennedy School. Her commitments within the broader building science community include contributing to the global Carbon Leadership Forum, International Building Performance Simulation Association (IBPSA), and local carbon-focused policy efforts in Boston and New York City.

Stacy Smedley has a BA in Architecture from the University of Washington, and over 18 years in the architecture and construction professions. Her resume includes the first LEED for Homes Platinum certified project in Washington State as well as the first project in the world to be certified under Living Building Version 2.0 standards. As Sustainability Director at Skanska, Stacy has led sustainable initiatives, and is considered a subject matter expert in LEED, Living Building Challenge and carbon emissions associated with buildings and construction.

In her role at Building Transparency, she leads the continued management and development of the free, open-access Embodied Carbon in Construction Calculator (EC3) tool and works to educate and engage the building industry on actionably reducing embodied carbon emissions of building materials. Stacy has served in various advisory and leadership roles, including: Co-Chair of the Washington Businesses for Climate Action; Advisory Board Member for the University of Washington Carbon Leadership Forum; Construction Taskforce Chair for the Embodied Carbon Network; Advisory Group Member for AIA Materials Working Group; Emerging Professional Regional Chair for USGBC; Membership Chair for the Cascadia Green Building Council. She is a 2020 Grist 50 Fixer, a 2019 ENR Top 25 Newsmaker, and shared a Living Building Challenge Hero award for her work on the Bertschi School Living Science Building.

Rohit T. “Rit” Aggarwala was appointed Commissioner of the New York City Department of Environmental Protection and the City’s Chief Climate Officer in February 2022. Under his leadership, DEP has embraced a leadership role on both stormwater and coastal resilience, streamlined its procurement processes to be able to invest more money in infrastructure each year, and improved DEP’s water revenues by reducing accounts receivable and delivering revenues $250 million above budget in his first year. As Chief Climate Officer, he also led the development of New York City’s most recent sustainability plan, PlaNYC.

Prior to the Adams administration, Aggarwala served as the first Director of the New York City Office of Long-Term Planning and Sustainability under Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, where he led the creation of the first PlaNYC. He later founded the environmental grantmaking program at Bloomberg Philanthropies and served as president of the Board of Directors of the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group. He was part of the founding team at Sidewalk Labs—Google’s urban technology startup—and more recently was a senior urban tech fellow at the Jacobs Cornell-Technion Institute. He has co-chaired the Regional Plan Association’s Fourth Regional Plan for the New York metropolitan area and is an adjunct professor at Columbia University. Aggarwala holds a PhD, MBA, and BA from Columbia University and an MA from Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario.

Rustom Cowasjee is currently responsible for the design and construction of the Washington, DC, and Boston portfolios. Since joining Tishman Speyer in 1999, he has been responsible for the design and construction of the company’s projects in Northern Virginia, District of Columbia, Chicago, Philadelphia, and Boston. He was also responsible for setting up Tishman Speyer’s Design and Construction groups and projects in India. Prior to joining Tishman Speyer, Rustom worked for London & Leeds Development Corporation and was responsible for the design and construction of the commercial office building portfolio and hotels in the Americas, including in Canada, the Caribbean and South America. He has also worked as an architect for I.M. Pei & Partners in New York. Rustom graduated from Cornell University with a B.Arch. and earned a MAUD in architecture and urban design from the Graduate School of Design at Harvard University.

Dominyka Voelkle is an Associate at BIG after returning to the firm’s New York office in 2015 as a Senior Designer. She has extensive experience with building envelope design and planning for commercial and cultural buildings throughout the United States and Europe. With her experience, Dominyka has become a crucial resource for several high-rise and skyscraper projects at BIG, including The Spiral on Manhattan’s west side and River Ring, a residential high-rise in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

With a background spanning industrial design, economics, and journalism, Principal Ruchika Modi brings a multifaceted understanding of the ways in which cities function to her architectural practice. Modi’s experiences living and working in Mumbai (then Bombay), New Delhi, and San Francisco have also influenced her nuanced view of urban planning and design, inspiring her passion to find architectural solutions to a range of relevant issues, from sustainability to inequality. At PAU, Modi sets the firm’s vision in partnership with Creative Director Vishaan Chakrabarti, including shaping the firm’s diverse portfolio of projects, and overseeing all aspects of the design process.

Currently, Modi is leading the design team for the FAA’s new sustainable air traffic control tower prototype, which will be adapted to replace over 100 aging towers in regional and municipal airports across the nation. She is also project lead for Princeton University’s newest residential college, Hobson College, as well as for the master plan and design of forty-one buildings as part of a new mixed-use development in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. She spearheaded the design of the iconic Domino Sugar Refinery in Brooklyn, an adaptive reuse project transforming the historic nineteenth-century factory into offices with a mixed-use ground level, opening in the fall of 2023.

Modi holds a Master of Architecture degree from the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation at Columbia University, where she was awarded the Charles McKim Prize for Excellence in Design / Saul Kaplan Traveling Fellowship, the William Kinne Fellows Prize for Study and Travel Abroad, and the Lucille Smyser Lowenfish Memorial Prize. Modi received her BA in economics from the University of Delhi and a BA with distinction in interior architecture from the California College of Arts, San Francisco. Her work has been exhibited at the Center for Architecture in New York, the International Architecture Biennale in Rotterdam, and the China International Architectural Biennale in Beijing.

Pat Arnett joined Silman in 1999 and has been a Principal of the firm since 2017. As a studio leader, he has actively designed and managed a diverse range of adaptive reuse, renovation, and new construction projects. He frequently works with cultural institutions, universities, public agencies, developers, non profits, and he collaborates with artists on designs for temporary and permanent installations.

Since 2011, Pat has been a studio consultant for the Rice School of Architecture, and he has been an adjunct professor at Columbia University since 2013. He is currently a professional mentor for the Engineers without Borders Manhattan College chapter and was formerly the mentor for Princeton University. As a mentor for the organization, he has worked with students on projects located in Ghana, Morocco, Cameroon, and Puerto Rico.

Architect Bryan Scheib (he/him) is a Senior Project Leader in Studio Gang’s New York office, where he is engaged in cultural, educational, and public projects, and currently serves as Project Leader for One Milestone West, a new hub for advancing science and research in Boston. Previous built works include the Rescue Company 2 facility in Brooklyn and the Solar Carve tower in Manhattan. Prior to joining Studio Gang, he was responsible for residential, urban design, cultural, and institutional projects at leading design offices in New York and London. He was drawn to Studio Gang for the devotion to investigation and innovation paired with the precision of analog and sophistication of digital design. Bryan holds a Master of Architecture with Distinction from Syracuse University and Bachelor of Science in Architecture from the University of Texas.

Marc Simmons is a founding principal of Front, Inc., based in New York, and Associate Professor of the Practice in the School of Architecture + Planning at MIT. He has also served as Ventulett Chair in Architectural Design in the College of Design at Georgia Tech. Marc is a recognized global leader in the design, analysis, and implementation of innovative and high-performance building facades, with 25 years of experience including previous work at Foster + Partners, Meinhardt Facade Technology, and Dewhurst Macfarlane & Partners.

Vishwadeep Deo joined Thornton Tomasetti as a Vice President in 2022, bringing over 20 years of global experience. He leads the design of façades across various sectors, including cultural, institutional, commercial, sports, aviation, transit, and residential. As a Façade Consultant, he investigates façade system designs that intersect analysis, fabrication, assembly, optimization, materiality, and computation—driving designs to achieve more with less. Vish holds a Master of Science from the Georgia Institute of Technology and a Bachelor of Architecture degree from the School of Planning and Architecture in New Delhi, India.

His project experience includes Princeton University Hobson College, Princeton; Columbus Airport, Columbus; Cleveland Clinic Global Peak Performance Center, Cleveland; Air Traffic Control Towers, across continental US; Ronald O. Perelman Performing Arts Center, New York City; Seaport L5, Boston; MIT Metropolitan Warehouse, Cambridge; ERC Hotel, Allston; Google campus in Mountain View; Tianjin Juilliard School, Tianjin, China; Qatar Education City Light Rail Stations, Doha, Qatar; the Canadian House of Common Glass Roof and Entrance, Ottawa, Canada; and, Barclays Center, Brooklyn, among others.

Dominick Fortuna is a design professional with over 30 years of experience in engineering design, facilities management and construction of data centers, laboratories, schools, commercial office space, and retail projects.

Dom is recognized for his leadership and ability to develop and maintain strong relationships both inside and outside of Turner, expertise in managing and motivating effective teams during varied business climates, and for a relentless approach in delivering results.

Darling is CEO, creative director, and co-founder of The Architect’s Newspaper, celebrating its 20th year. The A|N media company consists of print and digital publications covering architecture and design news, as well as the Facades+ and TECH+ conferences. As A|N’s publisher, Darling won the AIA National Collaboration Award, Grassroots Preservation Award, and ASLA NY’s President’s Award. She began her publishing career as director of print production for The Gap’s European markets. She holds a BS from The University of Texas at Austin.