Wiel Arets, Dutch architect, born at Heerlen in 1955, graduated from the Technische Universiteit of Eindhoven in 1983. In 1984 he established Wiel Arets Architect & Associates in Heerlen. In 1996 the office was moved to Maastricht. He has held a number of academic positions: he taught at the Architectural Academies of Amsterdam and Rotterdam, at the Architectural Association in London, as Visiting Professor at Columbia University and the Cooper Union in New York, at the Berlage Institute in Amsterdam, the Hochschule für Angewandte Kunst in Vienna and at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen. He held the Mies van der Rohe chair at the etsab in Barcelona. His major works include the Academy for Arts and Architecture in Maastricht (1990-93) and the headquarters of the azl pension fund at Heerlen (1990-95). Bettina Kraus, born 1970 in Nuremberg, has been a partner of Wiel Arets Architect & Associates since 2000. After training at the eth in Zurich and hdk in Berlin, she graduated in Architecture from the Technische Universität in Stuttgart in 1996.