Principals

Craig Schwitter

Chuck Hoberman

Chuck Hoberman
Nowhere do the disciplines of art, architecture, and engineering fuse as seamlessly as in the work of inventor Chuck Hoberman, internationally known for his "transformable structures." Through his products, patents, and structures, Hoberman demonstrates how objects can be foldable, retractable, or shape-shifting. Such capabilities lead to functional benefits: portability, instantaneous opening, and intelligent responsiveness to the built environment.

Hoberman is the founder of Hoberman Associates, a multidisciplinary practice with clients ranging across sectors including consumer products, deployable shelters, and space structures. Examples of his commissioned work include the transforming LED screen that served as the primary stage element for U2's 2009 world tour and the Hoberman Arch in Salt Lake City, installed as the centerpiece for the Winter Olympic Games (2002). Other noteworthy commissions include a retractable dome for the World's Fair in Hanover, Germany (2000); the Expanding Hypar (1997) at the California Museum of Science and Industry; the Expanding Sphere (1992) at the Liberty Science Center, Jersey City, New Jersey; and the Expanding Geodesic Dome (1997) at the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris.

Hoberman's work has been exhibited several times at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. In 2008 his commissioned installation Emergent Surface was part of the exhibit "Design and the Elastic Mind."

In 2008, alongside Buro Happold Principal Craig Schwitter, Hoberman formed the Adaptive Building Initiative. The joint venture united Hoberman's design vision with Buro Happold's 30 years of engineering excellence to develop retractable façades, responsive shading and ventilation, operable roofs, and canopies for the built environment.

Hoberman holds a bachelor's degree in sculpture from Cooper Union and a master's degree in mechanical engineering from Columbia University. He won the Chrysler Award for Innovation and Design in 1997.

Craig Schwitter
Born in 1967, Craig Schwitter joined Buro Happold in the spring of 1992 after completing his academic training in specialized structures. He is one of the youngest people in the practice to have been made a Principal at the age of 33.

Starting out in the Bath, United Kingdom office, he worked on a number of projects, including Eastleigh Tennis Centre, where he put his special-structures knowledge into action. "I left the U.S. looking for something different and found Buro Happold," says Schwitter, who describes himself as a native New Yorker with a mixture of Swiss and Italian heritage. After a two-year period in Bath, Schwitter returned to New York, where he joined FTL Happold. "At FTL architecture and engineering are combined into a single practice," says Schwitter, who was tasked with "growing the engineering side of the business."

In 1997 Schwitter returned to Bath, where more special-structure work followed. He was involved in the design and construction of the Butlins Skyline Pavilions, which made use of tensile structures, and the Millennium Dome in Greenwich, where he worked on-site. In the fall of 1998 Schwitter founded the first North American office of Buro Happold. Since then the region has grown to more than 200 staff based in multiple office locations, including New York, Los Angeles, Boston, and Toronto. The North American offices offer a full spectrum of engineering services, including structural, MEP, and façade, special projects engineering, lighting design, sustainability consulting services, and geotechnical services. With a focus on integrated engineering and the use of appropriate technology, Schwitter has played a hands-on role in ensuring a high level of quality in Buro Happold's projects and breakthrough innovations on recent high-profile engineering commissions with the firm.

One of Schwitter's biggest interests is the interaction between architecture and engineering. He was appointed to the first Bedford Distinguished Chair of Architecture and Engineering in the architectural and civil engineering departments of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in New York in January 2001. He describes this as "a real honor" and where "my job will be to promote architecture and engineering and to establish engineering as a creative discipline."

Schwitter holds a bachelor of science in civil engineering degree from Johns Hopkins University and a master of science in civil engineering degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.