French-American architect Cooper Copetas, a graduate of the University of Miami School of Architecture and Urban Design, began his career at the age of 21 under the tutelage of 2008 Pritzker Prize architect Jean Nouvel in his Paris atelier. Copetas later relocated to Miami to create a Smart City Design Lab with the Beacon Council and the Miami Downtown Development Authority, from where he subsequently joined the San Francisco-based SB Architects in their Coral Gables studio.

At the age of 25, Copetas’ architectural plan to renovate the nearly ten-century-old Notre-Dame-de-Paris cathedral in the wake of a devastating 2019 fire was the subject of a cover story in Time magazine. CBS Television News described his design to restore the UNESCO World Heritage Site as “remarkably impressive.” His proposal won the 2020 American Institute of Architects Theoretical and Research Design Award. The private homes, hotels, corporate campuses, and cities Copetas has designed are global in size, scope, and on display in Vietnam, California, China, and Central America.

Although Copetas is a classically trained architect - - with professional experience honed in France, Italy, and at Ferguson & Shamamian Architects in New York - - he specializes in parametric design: a procedural programming system for engineering algorithms that, among other capabilities, can seamlessly and visually solve design and construction challenges.