Lars Hesselgren, born in Ethopia in 1945, his father serving as professor, in the early 1960s, and then Head, at the Architecture Department at the Haile Sellassie University in Addis Ababa.
and studied at the Lycee Franca-Ethiopien (Lycee Guebre-Mariam), in Addis Ababa, from 1961-64. He then transferred to the Architectural Association (AA), in London, entering the five-year AA Diploma course in September 1965. Taking a year out, in 1968, Lars worked on the archaeological Expedition at Siraf, Iran, funded by the British Institute of Persian Studies. For the final year of his AA Diploma course, Lars elected to study within the AA Department of Development and Tropical Studies, where his tutor appears to have been Michael Safier and his final thesis project on the urban structure of Addis Ababa, using computer mapping – two slides from which survive in the AA Archives. Following his graduation with both an AA Diploma and Certificate in Development and Tropical Studies, Lars embarked upon a post-graduate degree in architectural theory from the Bartlett, University College London, where he developed his interest in applied mathematics and computing. He subsequently worked in multiple architecture offices in London including YRM Architects (1980-1991), Kohn Pedersen Fox International (IT Director, 1991-2009), and PLP Architecture (Director of PLP Research in Architecture and Urbanism and a Senior Associate Partner, 2009-). From 2001 he has been a founder and director of SmartGeometry, an informal, international network of researchers and architects exploring creative computational design methodologies. He has also been a visiting professor at the Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg from 2012 to 2019. In the past decades, Hesselgren spent most of the time working with and managing Computer-Aided Design systems. His research work facilitated implementations of many significant projects such as Heron Tower at 110 Bishopsgate (2007) and Pinnacle Tower. At PLP, his research has led to the development of Integrated Urban Mobility on advanced mobility systems. Hesselgren has published several writings and co-chaired events to promote parametric thinking in architecture design both in the US and Europe. In 2002, he received the Bentley Lifetime Achievement Award.
Sources:
- Architectural Association Student Register 1945-1972, AA Archives
- Architectural Association Diploma Roll Book, 1964-1975, AA Archives
- Architectural Association Registrar’s Student Records, 1970-71. AA Archives
- Whitehead, Hugh, Lars Hesselgren, and J Parrish. ‘The Origins of Smartgeometry’. In Inside Smartgeometry, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, 2013, pp20–35.
- Lars Hesselgren, Long CV. Personal correspondence with Edward Bottoms, July 2024.
- Lars Hesselgren, Director. PLP website. Accessed 20th Jan. 2026: https://plparchitecture.com/lars-hesselgren/
