Chris Middleton, co-founder of Kinzo, spoke at ISH 2025 about adaptive design and the deliberate integration of technical infrastructure into architecture. Originating from Berlin’s club scene, Kinzo pursues an innovative design approach that keeps technical elements visible and incorporates them as design features. Through various projects – from office buildings to modular living concepts – Middleton demonstrates how functional and aesthetic synergies can be achieved. Sustainable solutions, such as gravity-based ventilation systems, also play a central role. Middleton emphasizes the need to adapt architecture to modern requirements to create attractive, flexible, and inspiring spaces for the future.
Chris Middleton...
...is the co-founder and managing director of Kinzo, an architecture and interior design studio based in Berlin. After studying architecture at UdK and TU Berlin, he ran the Kinzo Club in Berlin until 2004 and worked in Berlin and New York. In 2005, he founded Kinzo, an international architecture firm with a special focus on interior design, New Work, and existing building redevelopment. In multidisciplinary teams, Kinzo develops concepts that bring people together in unique spaces. Innovation, quality, efficiency, and sustainability are at the core of its consulting and design approach.
