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platform.MIDDLE - Perspectus Lecture

Johanna Hurme is an architect, co-founder and managing partner of 5468796 Architecture. Originally from Helsinki, Finland, Johanna received her architectural education at the Aalto University in Helsinki and at the University of Manitoba [Bachelor of Environmental Design 1999, Master of Architecture 2002] after emigrating to Canada. She co-founded 5468796 Architecture with Sasa Radulovic in 2007. With its beginnings in student design competitions, Johanna’s design partnership with Sasa spans nearly three decades, resulting in some of the firm’s most seminal projects. She brings conceptual depth and a focus on how spaces and places shape human experience. Influenced by Nordic sensibilities, her approach emphasizes clarity and restraint, reducing projects to their essence and always seeking for the “just enough.” She has also shaped the firm’s ethos, broadening architectural practice to intersect with politics, economics, social activism, cultural research, and pragmatic engagement.

With a keen interest in housing and design culture, Johanna is an activist and an advocate, having initiated and co-created spearheaded number of design related events and programs, including Table for 12 + 1200, Chair Your Idea, Design Quarter Winnipeg, and Walk-Winnipeg. She is past Chair of the Winnipeg Chamber of Commerce, President Elect of RAIC I Architecture Canada, and a past member of the International Council of the New-York based Van Alen Institute. In 2019 she was named visiting Professor-Morgenstern Chair at the College of Architecture, IIT, Chicago, and most recently, she was invited to teach at Cornell University as the Gensler Visiting Critic. She has also taught design at the University of Manitoba, Toronto, Calgary and Montreal. Johanna lectures extensively and is co-author of ‘Innovative Solutions for Creating Sustainable Cities’ (2018), and 'platform:MIDDLE', Housing for the 99%, published in Dec of 2023. In 2017 Johanna was named a Fellow of Royal Architectural Institute of Canada.