Joseph Hoepp, AIA, LEED AP BD+C
Architect
Annum Architects

With almost 20 years of experience, Joey has a focus on approaching design challenges and opportunities with a strong technical background. His focus on building technology, construction detailing, and systems coordination has been essential to keeping complicated projects on track through the design and construction process. Joey has worked on a range of project types, including performing arts, museums, government institutions, university academics, and independent schools. He has experience on all phases of design and construction projects and has led project teams from initial master planning through multiple phases of construction.

Joey holds a Masters in Architecture Degree from the University of Pennsylvania School of Design and a Bachelors of Arts Degree from Columbia University. While Joey enjoys discussions about building and construction, he also enjoys being outdoors with his husband and 2-year-old daughter riding bikes, skiing, or enjoying the great parks and playgrounds in Boston.

Jacob Kain, AIA, NCARB, LEED Green Associate
Senior Associate
Elkus Manfredi Architects

Jacob Kain is a licensed architect who has practiced architecture for nearly thirty years. He has worked in a variety of firms, including his own, in Vienna, New York, Milwaukee and Boston, where he currently is a Senior Associate at Elkus Manfredi Architects. For the past twelve years, he has enjoyed leading teams on the design journey from concept to built work and on complex projects that span the spectrum from large-scale master plans, urban design and entitlements, to sustainable mixed-use developments that span a diverse array of project types. Most recently he completed the adaptive reuse and historic preservation for the Children’s National Research Institute on the historic Walter Reed campus in Washington DC.

Jacob received his Bachelor of Arts in Physics from Grinnell College and his Masters of Architecture from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In 2015, Jacob founded MITArchA, the MIT Architecture Alumni affinity group and served as its founding president. He lives with his family In Brookline, where he walks his two children to school, rides his bike to work, bakes bread and plays soccer on occasion.

Ben Kou
Architectural Design
BKOU Design

Ben Kou is an architectural designer and photographer with over 25 years of experience, including the last 11 years at Sasaki. Ben's career encompasses diverse projects such as museums, aquariums, commercial mixed-use framework plans, entitlements, multi-family residential, and learning environments. His interdisciplinary approach to design is enriched by his prior experience in exhibit design and visualization firms, where he developed marketing and branding solutions for the healthcare and AEC industries. He is dedicated to a design process that synthesizes aesthetic and programmatic objectives with economic, environmental, and urban perspectives, Insights that inform designs responsive to the needs of clients and communities.

Ben holds a Master of Architecture from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, with a focus on computation in design. He received the Francis Ward Chandler Prize '99 and the Sydney B. Karofsky '37 Prize for Design.

Robert Matthew Noblett, FAIA, NCARB
Partner
Behnisch Architekten

As Partner in the Boston office of Behnisch Architekten, Matt has overall responsibility for the performance of the office and the projects conducted within it. He has built a career over more than 20 years involved with and directing highly complex civic, institutional, academic and commercial projects. After graduating from MIT with an M.Arch in 1997, Matt spent six years designing and delivering the 2 million sq-ft, $535m Boston Convention and Exhibition Center as an architect and project manager with Rafael Viñoly Architects. He subsequently worked on major laboratory projects at UCLA, UCSF, and the University of Chicago, as well as a variety of residential and hospitality designs. Upon joining Behnisch Architekten in 2007, Matt directed the firm’s work on the ILFI-certified and LEED Platinum Harvard University Science & Engineering Complex. He went on to deliver the LEED Platinum Jon and Frances Angelos Law Center at the University of Baltimore, the LEED Platinum Karl Miller Center at Portland State University, the Langsdale Library at the University of Baltimore, and the Artists for Humanity Epicenter in Boston. Matt has simultaneously managed a schedule of lectures and periodic teaching appointments at a variety of institutions of higher learning. He was elevated to the AIA College of Fellows in 2022.

Meelena Oleksiuk Turkel
Cofounding Partner
Turkel Design

Meelena Oleksiuk Turkel is a cofounding partner of Turkel Design, alongside her husband, Joel Turkel, and Jake Wright. Their practice specializes in designing elegant modern homes using high-quality materials and precision prefabrication, and has designed more than 200 projects in 34 states and 7 countries. Originally from Toronto, Meelena was trained in Canada, Switzerland, and the United States, earning a Bachelor of Arts in Architecture from the University of Toronto, and a Master of Architecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Before cofounding Turkel Design, she worked in Japan, Toronto, Virginia, and Louisiana on projects related to housing and the residential landscape. Meelena and Joel Turkel divide their time between Boston and Palm Springs, California. Their home in California, Desert House, is a “living lab” for Turkel Design. A Featured Home at Palm Springs Modernism Week 2019, it has appeared in various publications, and continues to be a source of joy and inspiration for their family and the practice.

Dabota Wilcox
Designer
Turkel Design

Dabota Wilcox is a designer at Turkel Design. Originally from Boston, she graduated from Syracuse University School of Architecture with a Bachelor of Architecture in 2017 and has been working at Turkel Design since then. She’s worked on various residential projects in a range of capacities, from designing, to leading a custom design from schematic design to construction, to managing a small team. Her sensibility for modern design and simple design techniques fuels her passion.