Alexander Sverdlov
Founding Partner

Alexander Sverdlov is an architect with 22 years of professional experience in design and construction.

After graduating from the Berlage Institute in the Netherlands, he joined Neutelings-Riedijk architecten (Rotterdam) in 2000 to work as an architect and a project architect for architectural and masterplanning competitions. His work has been featured in major Neutelings-Riedijk exhibitions and publications.

In 2003-2004, he worked at OMA/AMO (Rotterdam) to lead the Hermitage Museum extension. Later on, he continued his career at WEST 8 (Rotterdam) as a project architect for several award winning international projects, including the famous Park Lineal in Madrid (the 1st prize).

Alexander co-founded SVESMI Holding BV in 2007, while working as a project architect at de Architekten Cie (Amsterdam). In the same year, he was invited by Winy Maas (MVRDV) to join the team of tutors and curators at the Why Factory, the research institute for the future city, at the Delft Technical University.

Up until today Alexander teaches and lectures internationally.
At SVESMI, he leads architectural projects and defines the design agenda of the office.

Anastassia Smirnova-Berlin
Founding Partner

Anastassia Smirnova-Berlin is a designer and researcher. Scenographer by education she has been part of many multidisciplinary projects and her competencies range from design and writing to educational and curatorial programming.

In 2000-2007, she has been working as a freelance author for professional and popular press and published a guide book for Amsterdam of which almost 200 000 copies were sold. Later on, by invitation of an architect Rem Koolhaas, she joined AMO, a think-tank within the Office for Metropolitan Architecture.

After co-founding SVESMI, Anastassia also became part of the educational team at the Strelka Institute for Media, Architecture and Design alongside Rem Koolhaas (OMA), Yuri Grigoryan (Meganom) and David Erixon (Hyper Island). With the latter she has been directing Institute’s education program in 2013-2015.

After that, she has also curated and has come to be an academic director of an international MA program Advanced Urban Design at the Graduate School of Urbanism (HSE). She also worked as an educational programmer for the Amsterdam Academy of Architecture and Groningen University.

In 2022, Anastassia curated a seminal exhibition and a publication called Visionaries for the Lisbon Architecture Triennial TERRA.

At SVESMI, Anastassia leads preservation projects and is responsible for various research, educational, and cultural activities.