playze

playze is an architectural practice with studios in Basel, Berlin, and Shanghai. It was founded in 2007 by Pascal Berger from Switzerland, Mengjia He from China, and Marc Schmit from Luxembourg. Our various backgrounds make playze inherently transcultural, with friendship and respect across boundaries underpinning everything we do.

Our inspiration comes from a deep engagement with the different countries and cultures in which we operate, and finds its way into projects spanning large-scale urban planning to compact interior architecture and exhibition design. Delivering these varied projects are teams specialised in their local environments, and at the same time connected on a transcultural level. To do justice to this way of working, playze is a multipolar organisation without hierarchies between its studio locations.

In 2021, we expanded our network by founding playze timber in collaboration with Maximilian Schröder as co-founder. playze timber focuses on the design of rigorously sustainable timber projects.

playze is also active in the academic field. pascal berger acted as academic director of the university of hong kong, shanghai study centre. marc schmit directed the master theses at alice, epfl in lausanne, switzerland. he mengjia is teaching at tongji university in shanghai.