Co-founder and Design Director, AKT II and Professor in Practice of Architectural Technology – Harvard GSD

Hanif offers 40 years’ experience in the strategic leadership of design. He’s a co-founder and design director of the design-led, interdisciplinary engineering practice AKT II (which was founded in 1996, as Adams Kara Taylor); today, he leads the firm’s 350 engineers, designers and technicians, who collectively offer 50 cultural backgrounds and 30 languages, to apply insight from the firm’s work throughout 50 countries. AKT II’s service to both the art and science of design is evidenced with 350+ design awards including four RIBA Stirling Prize wins (and including the current 2021 Stirling Prize, which was won by Grafton Architects’ Town House for Kingston University).

Hanif also offers an unparalleled insight from global architectural thought-leadership. He’s a professor in practice of architectural technology with the Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design (Harvard GSD), and has previously taught with London’s Architectural Association, as well as for further institutions in mainland Europe.

He was the first structural engineer to be appointed to the UK Design Council ‘CABE’ commission, the RIBA Stirling Prize jury, the RIBA President’s Medal jury, and the Aga Khan Award for Architecture master jury, and continues to serve all three organisations as an advisor and design reviewer.

He’s been an Architecture Foundation board-trustee for the past decade, and has most recently been appointed to the Alvaro Siza Foundation’s research advisory panel, the Glasgow School of Art ‘Mackintosh Building reconstruction’ steering committee, and the RIBA Honours Committee (which awards the RIBA Royal Gold Medal).

Institutionally, Hanif is a fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering (RAE), the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA), the Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE), the Institution of Structural Engineers (IStructE), and the Royal Society of Arts (RSA).

His insight into design, and particularly into interdisciplinarity, is meanwhile published internationally in numerous books, magazines and technical journals.