Jana Revedin


Jana Revedin is an architect, theorist, and writer.
Born in Constance, Germany, Jana Revedin is an architect, theorist and writer.
The holder of a PhD in architectural and urban sciences and a full professor of architecture and urbanism, she studied architecture and urbanism in Buenos Aires, Princeton and Milan and taught at IUAV University in Venice as an assistant to Aldo Rossi. It was here that she presented her doctorate on the role of public space in the development of a democratic civic identity during the early German reform movement of the Bauhaus.
Since receiving her authorisation to direct scientific research from the Ministry of Universities and Scientific Research in Rome in 2000 she has been appointed an associate professor of architecture and urbanism at Beuth University in Berlin and the University of Umeå in Sweden and a full professor at Blekinge Institute of Technology in Karlskrona, Sweden. 
In 2016 she was appointed a full professor of architecture and urbanism at the École spéciale d’architecture in Paris and commissioned to develop a two-year master’s programme “The collective factory: experimental open-work design”. In 2017 she was invited to join the École nationale supérieure d’architecture in Lyon as a visiting professor and member of the LAURE Research Laboratory – which is part of the UMR 5600 “Environment, city, society” of the National Centre for Scientific Research.

Scientific and Civic Engagement

In 2005 the European Commission invited her to set up the first European student competition for sustainable architecture whose winning projects were exhibited at the Venice Biennales in 2008, 2010 and 2012. In 2006 she created the Global Award for Sustainable Architecture which is awarded every year to five architects who are engaged in the search for a new architectural and urban ethics and gave birth to a global collective of scientific and professional exchange and experimentation.
In 2009 she created the LOCUS Foundation, which supports research into the methodology of sustainable design and the application of this methodology to projects of experimental urban renewal.

Architectural Theory

Her theory of “radicant design” proposes the collective transformation of the contemporary city on the basis of an “open-work” morphology of participative experimental processes. “Radicant” urban renewal experiments and the related interdisciplinary pedagogy seek to demonstrate that the architectural and urban project, understood as a collective process of co-programming, co-conception and co-production, is evolutionary, incremental and capable of being modelled. Jana Revedin teaches, works and writes in her mother tongue, German, as well as in English, French, Italian and Spanish.

Awards and Recognition

The author of prizewinning projects and reference works on sustainable architecture and cities and their ethical and socio-political rootedness, starting with the German reform movement of the Bauhaus, she won the AESOP Prize for Teaching Excellence and the Global Prize of the Urban Revitalisation of Mass Housing competition of UN Habitat. Appointed a Chevalier des Arts et lettres in 2014 she has also been honoured by the French Academy of Architecture with the Medal for the Direction of Doctoral Thesis of Excellence and the Prospective Medal.
Her best-selling biographical essay “Jeder hier nennt mich Frau Bauhaus”  on the emancipatory influence of the journalist and writer Ise Frank, Walter Gropius’ second wife, on the Bauhaus movement has been nominated for the Grimme Prize, the Leipzig Book Fair Award 2019 and the Walter Kempowski Prize Niedersachsen.

Scientific Committees

Jana Revedin is invited to deliver keynote lectures on sustainable architecture and urbanism and participatory design all around the world and sits on the juries of numerous international prizes in the areas of architecture and urban development including: Europan France; Europan Sweden; the Architecture Prize of the International Union of Architects ; the Sustainable Urban Landscape Award ; the Grand Prix de l’Architecture, France; the Blue Award, Austria; the Global Award for Sustainable Architecture, Paris and the selection juries for the commissioners of pavilions at the Architecture Biennale in Venice.
She has been the UNESCO Expert for Sustainable Architecture and Urban Design since 2002 and the UNESCO Delegate to the University Education and Research Commission of the UIA since 2012. This commission defines the international criteria for architectural education and the level of scientific research in architecture during the biennial meetings of the UIA Biennale and the Habitat Conferences of the UN. It has also elected her President of its evaluation committee, whose role is to advise and evaluate schools of architecture and urban design and schools awarding doctorates in the science of architecture and urbanism in line with the UNESCO Charter that was drawn up in partnership with the Royal Institute of British Architects and adopted by the UIA.
Since 2019 she has been a member of the Board of the University of Architecture and Landscape ENSAP Bordeaux.

Publications