Gianni Botsford was born in Venice, Italy in 1960, and studied Interior Design at Kingston University (84-86) and after a long period of working in offices in London, Architecture at the Architectural Association, London (94-96), in Professor John Frazer’s Evolutionary Architecture Unit. He set up Gianni Botsford Architects in London in 1996, and has taught at the AA and London Metropolitan University, and is co-founder of the annual Studio in the Woods. The recipient of the Lubetkin Prize in 2008 for Casa Ki-Ké in Costa Rica, and numerous further awards, his research into the optimisation and control of natural light has been used throughout the projects the studio has built, which include houses in London, Costa Rica, & The Bahamas, the Layered Gallery in London, the restoration of a 14th C Palazzo in Venice, and the Smoking Pavilion in Zurich