ANNA HERINGER aims to build through architecture the life of communities, supporting local economies and fostering ecological balance. Before studying architecture at the University of Arts in Linz, Austria she spent a year as development learner in Bangladesh and got deeply involved in rural development with the NGO Dipshikha. These experiences are the basis of her architectural projects in developing countries, mainly in Bangladesh. Her design for her diploma, a school built out of earth and bamboo was realized in 2006 in partnership with Eike Roswag. The building won the Aga Khan Award for architecture amongst other awards and was the starting point for Heringer for a series of projects built out of local ressources. Building with local materials, mainly mud is for her an important solution for a global, non-exclusive strategy for sustainabilty and for a strong identity of the place and context to emerge. Her work is described as “beautiful, meaningful and humane“ (Jury of the Aga Khan Award). From 2008 to 2011 Anna Heringa led the studio BASEhabitat—architecture for development at the University of Arts in Linz. She lectured worldwide and conducted international workshops on sustainable architecture in Bangladesh and Austria. Since 2010 she has been the honorary professor of the UNESCO Chair Earthen Architecture Programme. Currently she is a Loeb Fellow at the Harvard Graduate School of Design where she endeavors to demonstrate that sustainability ultimately is a synonym for happiness.

Her work was shown at MoMA in New York, la Loge in Brussels, Cité d`architecture and du patrimoine in Paris, the MAM in Sao Paulo, the Aedes Galery in Berlin and at the Venice Biennale in 2010. She won the AR Awards for Emerging Architecture  twice in 2006 and 2008 amongst others,most recently, the Global Award for Sustainable Architecture in 2011.