Maud Cassaignau

Maud Cassaignau is a practicing urban designer, architect, critic, researcher and educator.

She studied at the ETH Zurich and Columbia University. Maud has worked in leading practices in Europe and USA, and realized projects with these and her own practice in Germany, USA, Switzerland, and Luxembourg. In parallel, Maud taught at the Swiss Polytechnic and lectured at the University of Applied Sciences Western Switzerland in Architecture, before staring lecturing at Monash University in 2011.

In 2005 she founded the Architecture and Urban Design practice XPACE. Their architectural and urban design works stress diversity, social and environmental responsiveness and has been widely published internationally.

Maud’s research explores processes of integrative urban transformation, potentials for intensification and the implementation of urban strategies incorporating human and natural resources as drivers for resilient growth. She is currently completing her PhD on the subject at RMIT in the invited stream, exploring methods of urban transformation using multiple modes of practice and dynamic engagement with communities to achieve change. Her pro-active research practice uses these methods to promote urban adaptation to environmental and societal challenges.

Her recent book Building Mixity!  illustrates the impact of such methods on an exemplary project, and has been shortlisted for the Australian Urban Design Award in the category Leadership, Advocacy and Research.