Madeleine Kessler is an architect, curator and urban designer dedicated to designing joyful people-centred places. She is Director of Madeleine Kessler Architecture, Unscene Architecture and co-curator of the British Pavilion at the 17th Venice Architecture Biennale. Trained as an architect and engineer, her work explores architecture as a conversation about the city at every scale, placing community, craft and placemaking at the heart of design. Passionate about promoting a creative understanding of the city, she is a member of the National Infrastructure Commission’s Design Group; a Visiting Professor at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology; and lecturer at the London School of Architecture and Architectural Association. She is regularly invited to speak and critic internationally, including at Harvard GSD, University of Luxembourg, and Royal Institute of Art Stockholm. In 2020 she was named in the Architects' Journal's 40 under 40, and she was awarded the 2019 RIBA Rising Star Award.