Graft
GRAFT was established in 1998 in Los Angeles, California by Lars Krückeberg and Wolfram Putz. Thomas Willemeit joined the firm in 2001 and opened an office in Berlin, Germany the same year. In 2005, Gregor Hoheisel, who had been partner in Los Angeles in 2000 to 2001, became Partner of GRAFT Beijing, founded in 2001. In 2007, Alejandra Lillo became partner for Graft LA.
GRAFT is a full service architectural firm with the collective professional experience that encompasses a wide array of building types including Fine Arts, Educational, Institutional, Commercial and Residential facilities. The firm has been awarded the Honor Award 2005 from the AIA in Los Angeles, the Contract World Award 2005 and 2004, the Hospitality Design Award 2005, along with numerous other international awards and prizes.
"Architecture is a deliberate recreation of a new and special reality that grows from our response to life. It cannot be copied; it must be created."
GRAFT was conceived as a Label for Architecture, Urban Planning, Exhibition Design, Music and the "Pursuit of Happiness". Since the firm's inception, it has been commissioned to design and manage a wide range of projects in multiple disciplines and locations. With the core of the firm's enterprises gravitating around the field of architecture and the built environment, GRAFT has always maintained an interest in crossing the boundaries between disciplines and "grafting" the creative potentials and methodologies of different realities. This is reflected in the firm's expansion into the fields of music, car design, art installations, academic projects and "eventings" executed by their in-house production department as well as in the variety of project locations throughout the globe.
"We can see architecture of new combinations, the crossing of different cultures. The urban spaces of Florence, Rome, and Venice appear in the desert of the United States with the DNA of two-by-four systems, computers create buildings according to the laws of the last Nobel Prize in biology. Unexpected and surprising misunderstandings, global transfers of architectonic beauty, robust crossbreeds - architecture derived out of circumstances, which can only be created through the grafting of different realities."
The Graft Team
Lars Krückeberg, Founding Partner
Wolfram Putz, Founding Partner
Thomas Willemeit, Founding Partner
Gregor Hoheisel, Founding Partner Beijing
Alejandra Lillo, Partner
Neiel Norheim, Project Manager
Neiel was born 1975 in Pasedena, California. He studied at the California Polytechnic State University San Luis Obispo from 2000 and graduated in 2003 with a bachelors in architecture and a minor in sustainability. From 2001 to 2002 he studied at the Denmark International Studies Program. He was a designer for Coop Himmelbau from 2003 to 2004. Since 2004 he has been a designer and project manager with Graft. Since 2005 he has been a practicing design professor for Pasadena City College specializing in materials and construction.
Stefan Beese, Senior Associate, Production Designer
Stefan was born 1969 in Flensburg, Germany. He studied Architecture at the University of Applied Science, Kiel from 1992-1994. He founded 'beesign-production design' in 1995, while studying Interior Architecture and Production Design at the University of Applied Science for Design and Media in Hanover, Germany. Since 1999, Stefan has been working with Graft as Project Manager and Production Designer. In 2000 the Los Angeles branch of beesign was founded.
Verena Schreppel, Organization, Communication
Verena was born in 1977 in Bassum, Germany. She studied product design at the University of Fine Arts in Hamburg and the Faculty of Fine Arts at the Universidad Complutense Madrid. She has worked as a Designer for the Peter Schmidt Studios, Hamburg; Czech Glass Artist Jan Adam and Studio Dror, NYC, where she became Studio Manager. In 2005, she founded the design Studio Verena Schreppel. Since 2005, she has been working as a consultant in communication and organization for numerous enterprises related to the fields of architecture and marketing, and joined Graft in 2007.
Christoph Rauhut, Coordination, Designer
Christoph was born in 1984, in Essen, Germany. He studied at the Rheinische-Westfälische Technische Hochschule Aachen, Germany from 2003 to 2006, and at the Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zürich, Switzerland from 2006. He has been a designer with Graft since 2007.