New board for 2026 announcement
We are pleased to announce our new board for 2026.
The board is elected annually by Building Diversity’s community. This year is made up by 6 internal and 3 external members. The board of plays an important role in shaping the organisation’s direction and ensuring its operation. Collectively the board takes shared responsibilities and different tasks to contribute to its development like strategic direction and leadership, financial management, representation and advocacy and organisation members engagement.
Internal board members
Yalda Pilehchian
Yalda is an urban designer and architect based in Copenhagen, Denmark, born and raised in Iran. Her work focuses on strategic urban design, citizen participation, and process design, and she currently works at the Danish Town Planning Institute. Her interdisciplinary approach bridges architecture, planning, and social science, emphasizing co-creative processes that enhance quality of life and strengthen communities. In her free time, she enjoys reading, initiating local neighborhood projects, and exploring the city’s hidden spots with her young daughter.
Christine Bjerke
Christine is an architectural researcher, designer and educator working at the intersections of design pedagogy, architectural history and spatial justice. Christine is a PhD Candidate at the Royal Danish Academy where she is part of Cluster for Spatial Inclusion at Institute of Architecture and Space. Her research focuses on the relationship between architectural pedagogy and human diversity through the lens of critical disability studies. She is co-founder of Building Diversity and has recently
been part of the editorial board of the latest publication.
Luca Fauciglietti
Luca is an urbanist and graphic designer from Italy based in Copenhagen with a deep passion for food, design and photography. He believes in systemic change but acknowledges the ripple effects of individual actions. He has experience in design, communication, and event curation, focusing on community and democratic participation. He’s excited to join the board to help translate BD’s ambitious vision into practical, sustainable action.
Rosemary Zeynoun
Rosemary is a Wayfinding and Behavioral Design expert working to advance inclusivity and diversity in the field. She has been a member of Building Diversity for two years and part of the core editorial team for the organisation’s second publication, “…but, who are we building for?”, which inspired her to apply to the board. Her passion for human behavior and visual communication led her to co-found AND ORS, an online platform celebrating people and design beyond binaries.
Cathrine Mejdal
Cathrine is an independent accessibility and diversity consultant based in Denmark. She is Deaf and native Danish Sign Language user and passionate about ensuring accessible and inclusive spaces, which she believes will strengthen the feeling of belonging among the users. She brings with her a keen interest in enhancing BD’s sphere of influence and brand as a lighthouse of transformative knowledge everyone can lean into.
Jojo Nicholas
Jojo is a business development and project management professional working across architecture and urban development. Passionate about inclusive industry practices and inclusive spaces, Jojo supports the Collaborations Department to strengthen external partnerships, support industry engagement, and help grow the organisation’s reach and positive impact across the built environment. She brings a strategic lens to the organisation and will apply her global market knowledge to her contribution to the board.
External board members
Celine Vo
Celine is a business strategist working in creative industries with several years of experience with the built environment. She is passionate about supporting creativity as a means in complex problem-solving. Her background in management helps her in advancing communities towards goals related to organizational visions. Celine advocates for diversity, inclusion and equity experience from political processes and multi-stakeholder contexts across decision–making hierarchies. She is a part of Ung i Bestyrelser and has received training for Board Members from Danske Kulturbestyrelser.
Paul DeFazio
Paul is a legally blind architect, designer, and educator whose work explores blind methodologies of design, the politics of access, and advancing disabled leaders in the design professions. In his current role at the Institute for Human Centered Design, he works on accessibility and inclusive design projects across campuses, municipalities, public spaces, transit infrastructure, and cultural institutions. Paul’s teaching looks at the intersection of architecture and disability, as well as access as a creative, cultural, and political practice.
Pernille Maria Bärnheim
Pernille has a background in critical urban studies, curation and filmmaking. She is deputy director of Copenhagen Architecture Forum CAFx and associate director of the SDGs Local Learning Studio. She has a particular interest in the relation between sociality and the built environment, and considers architecture and planning multidisciplinary fields with still underdeveloped potentials for driving holistic thinking and practice across individual, societal and planetary perspectives. She looks forward to supporting the agenda of diversity as one of critical and inspirational prospects for practice, policy, research and education.