Oliver von Malm

Oliver von Malm studied Architecture in Innsbruck, Austria. During his studies he worked in renown architecture offices Snohetta in Oslo and Zaha Hadid Architects in London and Beijing. In 2011 he left Beijing and traveled through Pakistan, India and Kenya and Tanzania and founded the initiative "Start Somewhere" after a 4 day visit in Kibera, Nairobi. Starting off as a private initiative, Start Somewhere is now a social business that enables people in informal settlements to produce their own innovative building materials, the "TwistBlocks" which were developed by Oliver and a team of experts. Start Somewhere has realized numerous social housing projects in Kenya and is now expanding to South Africa. Oliver has done teaching multiple years at University of Innsbruck with Rames Najjar and at TU Munich at the chair of Francis Kéré.