Wiel Arets, born 1955 in Heerlen, the Netherlands, graduated from the Technical University Eindhoven in 1983. In the same year he established Wiel Arets Architect & Associates in Heerlen. In 1997 the office was moved to Maastricht. In 2004, a second office was opened in Amsterdam, with a third opening in Zürich during 2008.

The studio of ‘Wiel Arets Architects’ has extensive experience in the fields of urbanism, and public, private and utility buildings on every scale. Additionally, the studio develops products for both limited and mass production in collaboration with leading design manufacturers.

Wiel Arets has held a number of academic positions at some of the world’s most renowned schools and universities: from 1986 to 1989 he taught at the Architectural Academies of Amsterdam & Rotterdam, from 1988 to 1992 the Diploma Unit Master at the Architecture Academy London, visiting professor at Columbia University, and from 1991 to 1994 he held several visiting professorships at The Cooper Union in New York, the HAK in Vienna, and the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen. From 1995 to 2002 he was dean of the Berlage Institute Amsterdam/Rotterdam, and held the Berlage Institute Professorship at the Technical University Delft until 2009. Since 2003 he has been a member of the Advisory Board at Princeton University. In 2004 he accepted a tenure professorship at the UdK in Berlin.

The work of Wiel Arets Architects has been widely published in magazines and several monographs, such as El Croquis, have been produced. The firm’s work has been recognized through various awards and nominations; the ‘1994 Mies van der Rohe Pavilion Award for European Architecture’ with special mention ‘Emerging Architect’, the 1998 UIA Nomination as one of world’s thousandth best buildings of the 20th century for the Academy of Art and Architecture in Maastricht, the 1988 Charlotte Köhler Award, the 1989 Rotterdam Maaskant Award, the ‘2005 BNA Kubus Award’ for the entire oeuvre and the Rietveld Prize given in 2006.