Wolf Mangelsdorf studied architecture and civil engineering at Karlsruhe University, Germany, and Kyoto University, Japan.

From 1997 to 2017, he worked in the UK, first with Anthony Hunt Associates in their Cirencester and London offices, and then with Buro Happold in London, where he became a partner in 2008. In 2017, he was transferred to Buro Happold’s New York office. Having led the structural engineering team in London and later structural engineering globally, he now has an executive role as Global Head of Design, Technology and Innovation.

Mangelsdorf has worked with some of the world’s leading architects on numerous high-profile projects across the world, including the regeneration of Battersea Power Station in London, the lifting of the Cutty Sark in London, Morphosis in Macau, the Beijing Daxin Airport, the Riverside Museum in Glasgow, which are all connected by a common theme of developing intelligent structural approaches for architecturally and technically highly complex projects in multi-disciplinary contexts.

Building on this project work, Mangelsdorf has led the development and application of computational design within Buro Happold, which has resulted in industry-leading approaches to inter-disciplinary engineering modelling, interoperability, and tool creation. His research work has most recently been focused on concepts for the industrialization of the construction process, and has also involved robotic construction and novel material approaches.

Throughout his professional career, Mangelsdorf has been active as an educator, most notably at the Architectural Association, where, from 2000 to 2015, he initially oversaw technical studies in Diploma School and then was closely involved with the Emergent Technologies MSC/MArch course. His teaching engagements also comprise work at MIT, U Penn and Politecnico di Milano and guest lectures at numerous other universities.