Dr. Christian Gänshirt is an architect, researcher and passionate educator; he currently is a Visiting Professor at the Politecnico di Milano, Italy. His research interests are design theory, and the intersections between mainstream architectural theory and the discourses of sustainability in architecture and urban design. He served as a Senior Associate Professor at Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University in Suzhou, China, where he directed the MArch programme, achieving the first RIBA validation for such a programme in mainland China. He taught at the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech), Berlin University of the Arts (UdK), Leibnitz University Hanover, and the Brandenburg University of Technology (BTU Cottbus). He has been Visiting Professor at The University of Hong Kong, and an Interim Professor heading the Architectural Theory and Design chair at Kassel University, Germany.He was a project architect in the office of Álvaro Siza in Oporto, Portugal, and worked with architect José Paulo dos Santos in Oporto. He is registered with the Berlin Chamber of Architects since 1996, when he set up his own practice. He co-edited the Internet architectural theory magazine [www.cloud-cuckoo.net], serves on the advisory board of [www.flusserstudies.net], and published in magazines, journals, and national newspapers like Archithese, Bauwelt, Süddeutsche Zeitung, Frankfurter Rundschau, Stadtbauwelt, and L'Architecture d'Aujourd'hui. His book 'Tools for Ideas – Introduction to Architectural Design' has been published in German, English and Chinese. He is lecturing and a visiting critic at architecture schools internationally.He received his PhD (Dr.-Ing.) from the Brandenburg University of Technology (BTU Cottbus), Germany, with a thesis on design tools, using Vilém Flusser’s phenomenology of ‘Gestures’, Otl Aicher's design thinking, and the practice of Álvaro Siza as main references. He received his architecture diploma (Dipl.-Ing.) from Karlsruhe University (now Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, KIT), Germany. He also studied under Luigi Snozzi at the École Polytechnique Féderale de Lausanne, Switzerland.