the
permanent
beta.
architectures
to enable.
agency. learning. innovation.
IMPULSES · INTERVENTIONS · ADVISORY · books
the permanent beta is my independent work for designing the conditions in which organizations can explore, grow and innovate.
Combining architectural thinking, organizational design and innovation management, I help companies, universities and institutions rethink how people work, learn, develop agency and create value in times of transformation and AI.
ways to work together
impulseS
Sharing ideas that change how we see architecture, agency, and transformation in the age of AI.
Based on my research and practice, I blend architectural thinking with organizational design and innovation management to re-define work and education. Core to my themes are empowerment, self-efficacy and the emerging intelligence of organisations – amplified by physical and virtual spaces.
In keynotes, panels, podcasts, articles.
Keynotes
Innovation as a spatial process
Munich Urban Colab x JLL „Inspiration & Talk: Innovation – Location“, Munich
Foto: Bert Willer
Architektur ist
eine Innovations-disziplin
Impulsvortrag Thüringer Architekt:innentag 2025, Erfurt / online Foto: Michael Voigt
Architectural Innovation Design - A Space Odyssey
Spacewalk Talks 2024, Mainz
Foto: Robot Spaceship
From New Work to New Research
SIEMENS RIE Conference 2024 "Bringing an Ecosystem to Life"
Foto: SIEMENS
podcasts
Der Raum & KI
Zoomer Meets Boomer:
Reverse Mentoring mit Oskar und Michael Trautmann
Folge #74
Permanent Beta
New Work Chat
mit Gabriel Rath
Folge #351
press
De (AE)Deficio
Warum gilt Scheitern in der Architektur als Makel, während Start-ups daraus lernen dürfen? Deutsches Architekt:innenblatt Q3 / 2026
Smart City und Lebenswerte stadt
Tagesspiegel Background mit Bastian Hosan, 22.01.2025
Foto: Bert Willer
Raus aus der Komfortzone
Der Architekt und Vernetzer Christos Chantzaras wünscht sich mehr Räume für Spontanes - für eine bunte Stadt“ – Reportage. Christiane Lutz, Süddeutsche Zeitung, 23.08.2020.
ways to work together
interventions
Making transformation tangible through focused formats, spatial prototypes and public platforms.
From half-day workshops and five-day design sprints to innovation spaces, manifestos and conferences, I work with organizations, institutions and start-ups in the built environment to test ideas, mobilize people and turn possible futures into shared experiences.
Workshops
vitra work hackathon series
Tokio, Stuttgart, Singapore, Karlsruhe
2017-2019
Mission Statement workshop
New European Bauhaus - Lighthouse Project of City of Munich and Technical University of Munich, 2025
Building Liquid Networks
Archiktenkammer Baden-Württemberg
2025
Architectural Innovation Design
Perspektivenwechsel für Innovation, Space Day 2024, Hamburg next.media
Labs
the Circular
University
Design sprint at Technical University of Munich with vitra, AECOM and AllmannSattler Wappner Architekten, 2017
Metaverse
Design Lab
Design sprint at Technical University of Munich with MUC.xyz, 2022
TUM Venture Lab Built Environment
Incubator space at Technical University of Munich, Co-Managing Director 2020-2024
Manifestos & conferences
LIQUID Campus
Manifesto
Guidelines for future-proof learning spaces with Christina Schwalbe and Julius Othmer, supported by Stifterverband der detuschen Wissenschaft, 2024
Future of Construction - Industry Insights
Co-organizer at TUM, 2023
GNI Sympoisum:
AI for the Built World
TUM Georg Nemetschek Institute Symposium and Expo, Co-rganizer 2024
Make Munich Weird
Initiative with Isabell Welpe, Alain Thierstein and Thomas Sattelberger on creative areas as hotbeds for innovation, 2019-2020
ways to work together
Advisory
Creating a shared understanding of the challenges and prototyping possible ways forward.
I advise organizations and ventures at the point where transformation and initiative is necessary, Working in Phase Zero we frame the challenge, align different perspectives and develop a shared direction towards turning ideas into action. As transformation, innovation project or new venture.
By combining architectural thinking with innovation and organizational expertise, I help turn complex ambitions into actionable systems, environments and next steps.
For companies rethinking how they work, universities building curricula and spaces for future skills, and AEC founders and established actors shaping their vision into a concrete offer.
permanent
beta
about / Explore
1.
permanent beta will be a relief for us and for our buildings. It will relieve us from the predominant thinking of optimization, acceleration and control. It will “relieve” the buildings we work and live in, the areas and spaces - where we produce, create, invent and innovate - from being perfect, and under control. Office spaces will be not set for management purpose, they will be designed for self-organization, exploration and discovery. They even will not be designed anymore, as design aims for a final state. They will be re-designed by us, temporarily, and by themselves, each day again. Buildings will literally start to learn.
2.
during my architectural studies I wanted to leave the studio environment and enter a real office to work. But the studio environment followed me. It is here now, and it will become common. The freedom it provides, the adaptability and openness will vanish the boundaries between desk work, prototyping, meeting, concentration, experimentation and lab. More to that, the studio environment will evolve as sociomaterial practice. It is an assistant, a supportive space, an incubator. As digital tools are already supporting us, to handle our tasks and challenges, the studio and the building will become constructive, will change fast according needs, be part of our team, and will enable engagement with others, as well as contemplation with ourselves.
3.
This vision isn't entirely new—it was once imagined as a "super-stage," a framework for infinite possibilities that adapts to human activity while machines handle the mundane. Cedric Price and Joan Littlewood’s Fun Palace was a 1960s blueprint for this cybernetic potential, and today we have the actual tools to realize it within our physical structures. However, our motivation has evolved. We aren't simply driven by play, but by the urgent need to redefine how we work, create, and coexist. By redirecting our focus toward global challenges and social agendas, we allow creative invention to become our primary mode of existence. In this state, professional life is synonymous with continuous learning. We are moving away from the 20th-century obsession with incremental improvement and toward an intuitive state of high awareness. Welcome to the permanent beta, where every environment is transient and every change is immediate. We aren't waiting until tomorrow to reshape our world; we are doing it right now.
architecture,
business,
science.
about / Explore
Prof. Dr.-ing. Architekt, Dipl.-KFM.
I am an architect, researcher and consultant for transformation projects. For over 20 years, I have been working on the topics of innovation processes, future of work and education, and future-ready physical spaces. In 2017, I transitioned to academia and joined the Technical University of Munich (TUM) to focus on entrepreneurship and innovation in architecture. I developed new methods for innovation management, and prototyped new (physical) spaces for innovation at academia and industry.
As one of two Managing Directors of the TUM Venture Lab for the Built Environment, I have set up an unique center of gravity to supports idea development and start-ups in the field of sustainable built environment with an emphasis of new technologies. Since 2023 I am expert in a Community of Practice for future environments at higher education. With the resulting Liquid Campus Manifesto we aim for mutual development of didactics and learning environments.
Since November 2024 I am professor for entrepreneurship in the built environment at the Frankfurt University of Applied Sciences - the first professorship of its kind in the education of architects and civil engineers. There I deepen my works on empowerment, sefl-efficacy and entrepreneurial agency. About my topics I speak and conduct workshops frequently at leading conferences and organizations.
Architecture is an innovation and entrepreneurship discipline. With its systemic approach and capability for synthesis it has much to offer for the development of sustainable organizations and businesses.
Foto: Bert Willer
About / Explore
books
My contributions and books expand architecture from designing buildings to shaping the systems in which people and organizations act. Drawing on research and practice, they offer new perspectives and practical methods for applying architectural thinking and space as innovation management.
About / Explore
Professorship
As Professor of Entrepreneurship in the Built Environment at Frankfurt University of Applied Sciences, I explore how students and professionals can actively shape the transformation of architecture, civil engineering, geomatics and real estate. Entrepreneurial thinking expands disciplinary expertise with the capacity to create opportunities, formulate propositions and turn ideas into action.
My venture design studios build hands-on environments for entrepreneurial learning and personal development. Working with real-world challenges, students explore possibilities across disciplines and make their ideas tangible through sketches, models, prototypes and business concepts. Testing these propositions in real contexts builds creative confidence, agency and the ability to initiate meaningful change.
My research connects three fields: AEC ventures investigates how new ventures emerge from architecture and construction; CraftTech explores how skilled trades and digital technologies can generate new responses and business models for climate adaptation; Future of Work and Education examines the spaces and organizations of learning. Through initiatives such as the Liquid Campus Manifesto and the Campus Prototyping Lab, I investigate how campuses can become adaptive environments for learning, collaboration and transformation.
The Campus Prototpying Lab was featured in 2025 in the online Strategic Intelligence Section of the World Economic Forum on Education and Skills: Workforce Readiness.
About / Explore
2026
„Liquid Campus – Prototyp vor Masterplan“ - Eröffnungsvortrag „Bau und Betrieb von Hochschulen. Fachkonferenz mit Best Practices Tübingen.18./19.11.2026. (bevorstehend)
„De (ae)deficio – Warum gilt Scheitern in der Architektur als Makel, während Start-ups daraus lernen dürfen?“ – Deutsches Architekt:innen Blatt - Kommentar online und print, S. 42. Q3/2026.
„Architektur ist eine Innovationsdisziplin“ Der Architekt und Betriebswirt Christos Chantzaras über Unternehmensgeist, Innovationsprozesse und die Qualitäten von Architektinnen und Architekten als Entrepreneure, Deutsches Architekt:innenblatt, Mai 2026.
„Der Raum & KI“ – Zoomer Meets Boomer: Reverse Mentoring mit Oskar und Michael Trautmann Folge #74
2025
„Innovation as Spatial Process“ - Vortrag und Panel mit Dr. Christian Scharpf, Prof. Dr. Alexandra den Heijer und Fritz Maier Hartmann. Munich Urban Colab x JLL „Inspiration & Talk: Innovation – Location“, München, 12.11.2025
„Der Wert der Kreativität | Die Ursprünge des Denkens, Innovation und Artistic Thinking“ -
Forum für Baukultur der Bayerischen Architektenkammer mit Wolf Lotter und Christos Chantzaras. München, 20.10.2025.
CraftTech Innovationsforum – Impulsvortrag „Vom Werkzeug zur smarten Assistenz“, Frankfurt UAS (House of Science and Transfer), 23.09.2025.
„Das Büro der Zukunft. Wie Räume unsere Kultur prägen“ – New Work Chat mit Gabriel Rath Folge #352, 19.09.2025.
"Leaving the Plan - What Innovators Could and Should Learn From Architectural Processes and Success Levers" - Impuklse at accenture Innovation Hub, Munich
„Wenn man Systeme nur optimiert, verliert man die Menschen“ – Tagesspiegel Background mit Bastian Hosan, 22.01.2025
2024
Heilbronn Slush'D – "Future of Work" Panel mit Lisa Rosa Bräutigam und Stephan Rauscher, Heilbronn. 24.10.2024
Co-organizer TUM GNI Symposium and Expo on Artificial Intelligence for the Built World, From basic resarch to industrial application and back. München, 10.-12.09.2024.
„Organisationen räumlich verstehen“ – On the Way to New Work, Podcast mit Michael Trautmann Folge #432, 24.06.2024.
„From New Work to New Research – How physical spaces shape the way we work, learn, research“ – Impulse Talk at Siemens Research and Innovation Ecosystem (RIE) Munich Conference - Bringing an Ecosystem to Life, München, 03.06.2024.
2023
Co-organizer TUM Future of Construction Symposium 2023 Symposium on Human-Machine Teams for Design and Sustainable Construction, Munich, September 11-13, 2023
„Von New Work zu New Education - Die räumliche Transformation unserer Lernwelten“ – Vortrag, Fachkonferenz Bau und Betrieb von Bildungseinrichtungen. München, 04.05.2023.
2022
„Future Talk - Wie wir morgen leben und arbeiten“ – Interview, Cordula Rau, architektur aktuell, 05.2022.
2020
„Raus aus der Komfortzone. Der Architekt und Vernetzer Christos Chantzaras wünscht sich mehr Räume für Spontanes - für eine bunte Stadt“ – Reportage. Christiane Lutz, Süddeutsche Zeitung, 23.08.2020.
„Make Munich Weird“ – Podcast, Munich Next Level, mucbook, 07.2020.
„Make Munich Weird - Wege zu einer ver/rückten Stadt.“ - Organisation, Impuls und Moderation. München, 26.02.2020.
„Raum-Impuls: Kultur, Kreativität & Innovation als räumlicher Prozess“ – Impulsvortrag für die Paneldiskussion der Münchner OB Kandidaten - Reiter, Habenschaden, Frank. vdmk, München, 03.02.2020
2019
„raum-blick / rück-blick - die räumliche transformation“ – Impuls. Handelsblatt Change Congress 2019, Berlin, 13.11.2019.
„München soll schräger werden“ – Reportage, Susanne Hermanski, Süddeutsche Zeitung, 29.07.2019.
„Make Munich Weird - Why Space Matters“ - Keynote. 1E9 Conference. München, 11.07.2019.
„Form Follows Disruption - The interdependence of space for the future of work and innovation“ – Keynote. DWIH New-Dehli/ Indo-German Symposium - Future of Work 2019. Neu Dehli, 19.03.2019.
2017
„Stir, Blend, Disrupt: How Architects Think & What Managers Can Learn“ – TEDxTUM Talk, Munich, 02.12.2017.