Binke Lenhardt founded the award-winning architecture practice Crossboundaries, together with Hao Dong, 2005 in Beijing. She graduated from architecture in Germany and the United States and worked in both countries, before moving to China in 2002. She is a registered architect in Germany and appointed member of the BDA (Association of German Architects) and has been practicing for almost two decades working on diverse projects in Germany, Holland, the US and China.
Her approach to projects of any given nature and scale is always driven by the curiosity to examine and expand the designated programs so that they reach their highest and most community beneficial potentials. Binke follows the projects of the office all the way to realization, always with a keen attention to details and readiness to learn and improve on available technical solutions. She engages actively in any stage of project development and welcomes the exchange and interaction with the client and user whenever possible.
What we, as architects, can provide to society is so much more than the definition of the architectural profession contains, creating buildings or spaces. I am interested in a meaningful and interactive discourse that engages the client beyond the initial imagination and offers an extended value to all participants and has bigger impact. To encourage a client to think in new directions is what motivates me.
In fact, I don’t have a personal dream project, at least not momentarily… A lot of projects we are involved with have very complex programs and I find the diversity within a program very inspiring. Our studio got used to working with challenges of refurbishments, renovations and projects under construction, which needed to be adjusted while they were built and I feel that all these challenges offer special opportunities.
The incubator project „Future of Living“ was one of three projects that received support from the CITYMAKERS China – Germany program during its second year of funding. We want to know: What happened since then, how did the project continue? On behalf of the team, Iris Belle answered the questions.
From Dialogue to Action: Since 2016, CITYMAKERS supported the realization of selected project ideas in the context of liveable city making. Read here about the ‘CITYMAKERS-Future of Living’ incubator team.
Get to know CROSSBOUNDARIES, award-winng architecture studio in Beijing, founded by Binke Lenhardt and Hao Dong, pioneering in the field of architecture for the future of education. For the CITYMAKERS accelerator program the team brought their vision along to not only create physical learning environments: Creating design thinking based learning programs for kids to become better city makers in the future.