Christos Passas

Design Director at Zaha Hadid Architects

Christos Passas joined Zaha Hadid and originally worked as a collaborator and a senior designer since February 1998.

Now a director, he is responsible for leading a wide range of major projects and competitions within the practice. Christos taught Parametric Design and Urbanism at the Architectural Association with Patrik Schumacher in London (2007-2010), working on the exploration of digital and parametric techniques for the formation of large urban settlements.

He subsequently went on to serve as Guest DAAD Professor in the Dessau Institute of Architecture (HA) at Bauhaus, Dessau (2008-2012), working on the implementation of digital design skills for large scale objects with a complex geometry and character, exploring uniqueness, diversity, and complexity.

He regularly participates in design juries at universities across the UK and Europe, and is a frequent guest lecturer in parametric design, design thinking, and the role of architecture. Christos has been involved in many of the practice's seminal Projects such as the Rosenthal Centre for Contemporary Art in Cincinnati; the MAXXI: National Museum of 21st Century Art in Rome; and the Sheikh Zayed Bridge in Abu Dhabi. He co-authored the design of the Phaeno Science Centre project in Wolfsburg, Germany, which was shortlisted for the Sterling prize in 2006 and received the RIBA European Award in the same year.

Christos has served as Design and Project Director for a large number of cultural, mixed-use and master- planning projects in the US, Germany, the UK, Greece, Cyprus, Serbia, the Middle East, the UAE, Russia and the far-east. During his 22+ year tenure in the office he has co-authored a number of seminal projects for the practice, such as the OPUS and Melia's Me Hotel in Dubai, the highly sustainable urban intervention of Eleftheria Square in Nicosia, the futuristic Dominion Tower in Moscow.

More recently, Christos has been leading design team that successfully won competitions for a new generation of the practice's projects such as the Technopark HQ for Sberbank in Skolkovo, the Oppo HQ for the Chinese mobile company, the Philharmonic Hall in Yekaterinburg and the Moscow Metro station for Klenovyi Boulevard.