Initiatives for change

After studying at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich (ETH), Jurek Brüggen (*1993 in Berlin) founded the architecture firm undjurekbrüggen in 2020, based in Berlin and Werben (Elbe). The office pursues the goal of contributing to the regeneration of climate, nature and the built environment.
In 2025, Jurek Brüggen and Aimée Michelfelder founded the non-profit association AFEA - Association for Ecological Architecture. In collaboration with various stakeholders, AFEA develops initiatives and concepts for civil society, public institutions and private organizations to actively shape and implement ecological change.
Jurek Brüggen was awarded the German Academy Rome Casa Baldi Fellowship for the fourth quarter of 2025.

From April 2025, he will take over the Wüstenrot Visiting Professorship for the management of existing structures at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) for the summer semester of 2025. The aim of his teaching is to design real project initiatives - proposals and visions for existing structures that act as tangible and concrete improvements to the earth on a small scale. Students and the department thus become agents of change in architectural practice, society and the built environment.
Teaching is based on an in-depth analysis of existing buildings, the environment and existing problems and potentials. Intuition, dreams and desires play a central role in developing ecological projects as proposals for society. During the semester, these initiatives will be shared with the non-university context with the aim of initiating and supporting their realization.

After Hanna Maria Schlösser and Lorenz Kirchner, Christian Weyell and Kai Zipse, Alessandro Gess, Dijana Vučinić, Vesna Jovanović, Madeleine Kessler and Céline Baumann, Jurek Brüggen holds the eighth guest professorship of the Wüstenrot Foundation at the KIT Department of Architecture. The visiting professorships complement the courses offered by the Master's degree program in Architecture for one semester each by making relevant and responsible contributions to the major social challenges facing building in the present and future.
The visiting professorships address issues of climate change and its ecological and socio-economic consequences for the built environment, the energy transition with regard to the refurbishment of existing buildings and building culture, the scarcity of resources and the circular economy, digitalization and its opportunities for new building production, but also issues of rapid global urbanization, advancing demographic and employment-related change and its effects on the planning of new living environments and spaces.

Website
https://undjb.eu/
https://afea.site/

Instagram
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