IDS Trade Days

Internationally acclaimed architect Francis Kéré garnered critical praise early in his architectural practice when awarded the prestigious Aga Khan Award for Architecture (2004) for his first-ever design, a primary school he realized in collaboration with the residents of his native Gando, Burkina Faso. Since then, Kéré has become one of the most distinguished contemporary architects of his time. Noted for his pioneering of a communal approach to design, Kéré is commited to using sustainable materials and modes of construction in all of his work.

Inspired by a curiosity for the particularities of any given locality and its social tapestry, he has gathered a diverse, agile team at his Berlin-based Kéré Architecture offices, to take on projects across four continents. Most prominently these include his design for the Burkina Faso National Assembly, the Léo Surgical Clinic & Health Centre (2014), the Lycée Schorge Secondary School (2016), the Serpentine Pavilion (2017) and Xylem (2019), a gathering pavilion for the Tippet Rise Art Center.

Underpinning his architectural practice are his past and current teaching engagements at TU München, the Harvard Graduate School of Design, the Accademia di Architettura di Mendrisio, and Yale University as well as his participation in solo and group exhibitions including at the Venice Biennale of Architecture, the Museo ICO in Madrid, the Architekturmuseum in Munich, the MoMA in New York, the Royal Academy in London and the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Named a Top 25 Visionary by TIME Magazine, and was named “Most Influential Industrial Designer in the World” by Forbes, Yves Béhar is a designer and entrepreneur who believes that integrated product, digital, and brand design are the cornerstones of any business. He is the founder and chief designer of fuseproject, founded in 1999.

Béhar was part of pioneering design as a force for positive social and environmental change. His humanitarian work includes One Laptop Per Child, which has given 2.5 million laptops to children in developing countries, and See Better to Learn Better, which distributes free corrective eyeglasses to schoolchildren in Mexico and California. For these Béhar was honored with the INDEX Award, making him the only designer to have received the award twice. 

His collaborations with partners such as Herman Miller, Movado, Samsung, Puma, Issey Miyake, Prada, SodaStream, Swarovski, Canal+, British Gas, Nivea and others have received international acclaim. He is widely   recognized for products such as the One Laptop Per Child, the breakthrough Jambox wireless speaker, the smart baby sleeper SNOO, and the widely successful Herman Miller Sayl task chair. 

Béhar's works are in the collections of museums worldwide, including the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Centre Pompidou and the Art Institute of Chicago.