He is a member of the Board of the Holcim Foundation (2010-) and was a member of the Academic Committee of the Holcim Foundation (2010-19). He was Head of the Holcim Foundation Awards jury for Europe (2008 & 2017), Head of the Global Innovation prize jury (2012), and a member of the Holcim Foundation Awards jury for Latin America (2014 & 2020), and North America (2017 & 2025).

He was a workshop moderator on Compact city - Sustainable or just sustaining economic law? at the 4th Holcim Forum 2013; on Planetary Scale – Exploring patterns of worldwide urbanization at the 5th Holcim Forum 2016; and on Catch 22: Material needs versus material impact at the 6th Holcim Forum 2019.

He founded Harry Gugger Studio in 2010. The studio develops projects spanning a wide range of scales, with an emphasis on urban studies including research findings of his professorship at the EPFL where he was appointed tenured professor in 2005. At the EPFL he directed the Laboratory Basel (laba), dedicated to territorial, urban and architectural design until he retired in 2020. The laboratory oversaw the national participation of Bahrain “Reclaim” at the Venice Architecture Biennale 2010 winning the Golden Lion award.

He commenced a 19-year collaboration with Herzog & de Meuron (HdeM) in 1990 when he was an assistant at their summer school in Karlsruhe, Germany. He was a partner of the firm (1991-2009): his last projects at HdeM included CaixaForum, Madrid (2001-08) and the Tate Modern Extension, London (2004-15). His design for the Laban Dance Centre in London (1998-2003) was awarded the RIBA Stirling Prize 2003, and he received the Swiss Art Award Prix Meret Oppenheim 2004.

Harry Gugger started his professional career as a toolmaker’s apprentice (1973-77). He studied architecture at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH Zurich) with Flora Ruchat and at Columbia University, New York with Tadao Ando (1984-89). He was visiting professor at the Hochschule für Architektur und Bauwesen in Weimar, Germany in 1994, and an External Examiner at the AA School of Architecture in London (2000-06).