Bernd Kniess is an architect and urban planner. Since 2008, he has been Professor of Urban Design at HafenCity University Hamburg, where he established the master’s program with an explicitly interdisciplinary focus.

His work explores the contemporary city as a socially produced assemblage characterized by fundamental instability. His research centers on the conditions of urban becoming and on future-oriented, speculative projections that open up possibilities for transformative urban design. In this context, he focuses on the conception, design, and implementation of Urban Living Labs as instruments for collaborative knowledge production and co-creation. He has led and contributed to projects such as University of Neighborhoods (2008–14), Building a Proposition for Future Activities (2015–18), and Future City Friedrichstadt (2016–22). He is currently part of a research consortium within the BMFTR-funded project More Housing (2025–30), which explores innovative approaches to collaborative living and integrated neighborhood development.

From 2019 to 2020, he held the Graham Willis Professorship at the Sheffield School of Architecture. Since 2009, he has been a member of the North Rhine-Westphalian Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Humanities.