Gustav Kjær Vad Nielsen

Gustav Kjær Vad Nielsen is an architectural designer and urban researcher. He researches histories of participatory planning and civic design with an interest in how architects and planners might lend real power and meaning to future paradigms of collective citizen-led planning and design through actively supporting organizing in underrepresented communities and structurally oppressed social groups. Parallel to his academic pursuits he explores an activist “open” practice that straddles curatorial inquiries, imaginary and actual design proposals, community organizing and strategic planning.

Nielsen received a BA in Architecture from Aarhus School of Architecture in Denmark and a Master of Architecture I from Yale School of Architecture where he studied as a Fulbright student. He has worked with OMA in Rotterdam and SLETH in Copenhagen and is currently working as a researcher associated with the Master in Architecture Programme at the University of Luxembourg amongst other things.