Benjamin Ruffieux & Jessica Baker

Benjamin Ruffieux

Ben is a Sailboat Captain and photographer. Ben was born in a land-locked Switzerland, but by the age of 13 knew his destiny lay elsewhere, on a boat on the open ocean. Ben has spent the majority of his past 15 years living and working off a sailboat. The first 7 years was an engineless boat called ‘Dira’ which he sailed in every ocean until discovering what it was like to ‘sail in the ice’.

At which point, Ben, and his partner (and artist) Mélina Repond started a non-profit, MaréMotrice, an artist residency program on board their 15-meter expedition sailboat, the “knut”, which has been transformed into a green sailboat, running off an electric motor and renewable energy alone. Artist expeditions to the arctic document climate change in the ocean and polar regions through diverse perspectives and means of expression. The intent is to “carry out a real subjective documentation work on the changing polar regions. There is a fair amount of scientific data on global warming, ice melting, the evolution of polar fauna, but very few artistic traces are organized”.

Jessica Baker

Jessica is an avid climber, alpinist, and ski mountaineer. She has climbed and skied some of the most technical and impressive peaks, and has landed first descents in Greenland, Svalbard, Alaska’s Chugach, Wrangell-St Elias, and Chillkat range, Idaho’s Sawtooths, Wyoming’s Tetons, and Canada’s Purcell and Selkirk Mountain ranges. She has won over five big mountain freeskiing competitions landing many titles, including the 2000 North American Freeskiing Champion, 2004 US Freeskiing Nationals Champion, third overall Woman on the World Freeskiing Tour both 2004 and 2005.

In addition to her mountain pursuits, Jessica is the founder, head coach, and lead guide for Ski Divas Women’s Ski Camps. Her goal is to create an environment for women to challenge themselves with rewarding and supportive outcomes, all in the incredible setting of the world’s most majestic mountains and prime skiing conditions. Jessica spearheaded North America’s very first ski camp and associated scholarship fund for Black, Indigenous, and women of color, aiming to bring more opportunity and diversity to winter outdoor spaces.

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Every Monday, Olson Kundig starts the week with an all‑office meeting, and once a month this meeting is devoted to an outside guest speaker. The Olson Kundig Speaker Series was created by Alan Maskin over two decades ago with the goal of inspiring staff with presentations from people who work outside the realm of architecture. To date, more than 300 guests have come to speak in our offices. The forum is also available for internal speakers, who share completed project overviews, complex project details, and research findings, all with the aim of increasing our shared knowledge.

The theme of the 2025 Speaker Series is Multitudes. In an age where differing views and beliefs often estrange and divide us, it is worth noting that life itself is composed of contradiction, inconsistency, and surprise. We ourselves are no strangers to the dualities within. Multitudes explores stories from our human epoch that reveal the beauty of unexpected unions—how unrelated and seemingly opposing forces can collide to create something wonderful.