Lars Gräbner
Lars Gräbner, an associate professor of practice in architecture at the University of Michigan’s Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning, teaches architecture, urban design, and advanced construction methods. In 2004, he co-founded VolumeOne Design Studio, an architectural practice based in Detroit and Berlin, with Gerrit Grigoleit. Gräbner focuses on urban design and innovative housing in various scales, exploring the built environment under social considerations and the advancement of building performance, especially in sustainable aspects.
A licensed architect, Gräbner, through his practice at VolumeOne, specializes in residential and public projects with urban design challenges. His focus is an interdisciplinary approach to projects, where he involves specialists from various fields. Among his projects were a commissioned residence in northern Germany and a villa in Mallorca, Spain. With the successful competition submission for the Anhui Province Acrobatic Center in March 2011, Gräbner expanded his international practice to China, where he contributes to larger urban design projects and signature buildings.
Prior to that, Gräbner had gained experience in urban design, project development, and construction documentation in several architectural offices since 1995, when he was lead designer and project architect for many residential, public, and urban projects. Beginning with the successful competition for the extension to the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, Gräbner had been the lead designer for some 25 projects at Studio Daniel Libeskind, an international architectural firm, then based in Berlin. The projects ranged from scenography and exhibitions, to theaters, museums, and large urban design projects.
Gräbner has been involved in a research project on didactics with Professor Marc Angélil and on urban morphology with Professor Franz Oswald, both at ETH Zurich. Currently, he is collaborating with Taubman College’s Harry Giles on an interdisciplinary research project on medium-rise, high-density modular housing. Gräbner conducts research on Detroit, and contributed to Mapping Detroit: Land, Community, and Shaping a City (Wayne State University Press, 2015).
Gräbner studied architecture in Berlin and Hannover, Germany, and Copenhagen. He received his professional degree at the Universität Hannover and was awarded the 1996 ‘Preis der Universität Hannover’ for Outstanding Work at the Department of Architecture.