JOTT architecture and urbanism is a young urban design and research studio with an international outlook based in Frankfurt am Main. The studio was founded in Berlin in 2012 by Janna Hohn and Josh Yates with a focus on the crossover area between the fields of architecture and urban design in both academic discourse and practical design. In addition to the studio’s core skills built around urban masterplanning, urban design interventions and the intricacies of housing design we have in recent years been developing a specialism in how the currently emerging ideas around the productive city can be integrated into contemprary design practice and lead to a genuine urban mix.
The studio is a 2-time winner of prestigious Europan urban design competition and has developed a reputation for innovative solutions in urban practice. Innovation that is backed up by extensive design and project experience in England and Germany at both an urban design and an architectural level. We believe that the basis of good urban design is a strong and structured analysis of the situation that can lead to a genuine understanding of the defining structural and spatial characteristics of a given area. It is on the basis of this understanding that design innovation can provide the specific solutions that enhance the specific, and often enigmatic, qualities of the locus. We further believe that urban design can and must be an inclusive process bringing together many themes and actors. It is only through a careful combination of the specifics of the site, the innovation of the designer and the interweaved matrix of stakeholder wishes that we can together develop the dynamic, inclusive and sophisticated spaces that our cities need.
Janna Hohn - Prof. Dr.-Ing.
Janna is a Professor for Urban Design at Frankfurt University of Applied Sciences and a registered architect. She is a member of the committee for Europan Deutschland and has previously taught urban design at the Bauhaus Universität Weimar and the Technische Universität Berlin.
Janna Hohn studied architecture at TU Braunschweig in Germany with international exchanges at the ETH Zürich and Amsterdam. Following her studies, she moved to London working for AHMM and Maccreanor Lavington. As her career has developed, Janna has found an ever-increasing focus on the issues of urban design and town planning in European Cities, first with CHORA architecture & urbanism in London and Berlin and then through her doctoral thesis into the ‘Loss of the Urban Back’ which concentrates on the relevance to the modern Europan city of under-valued land along infrastructure corridors and the implications of its regeneration.
Josh Yates - BSc. MArch. ARB
Josh Yates is an architect and urban designer who has extensive experience in practice in both the UK and Germany. Following their joint success in the Europan 11 competition, he founded JOTT architecture & urbanism together with Janna Hohn in 2012.
Josh studied architecture at the University of Bath in the UK. Thereafter he gained a wide experience of designing, co-ordinating and leading architectural and urban design projects first in London and the UK for the Anglo-Dutch practice Maccreanor Lavington then of German projects for German-Danish practice Lorenzen Mayer Architekten in Berlin. He teaches architectural and urban design at the School of Architecture Bremen and Frankfurt University of Applied Sciences.