Joanne Hayek is an architect, designer, and coder currently based between Beirut and Dubai. Her work focuses on cross-disciplinary research for the design of sustainable futures. Her practice spans across scales and sectors through a variety of projects that combine social entrepreneurship and academic research. Joanne is the co-founder of sustainable fashion brand Vanina, founder of design lab An Open Studio, co-founder of digital platform Emerge Beirut, senior lecturer at the American University of Beirut (AUB) and adjunct faculty at the Dubai Institute of Design and Innovation (DIDI). She holds a Bachelor of Architecture from the American University of Beirut and a Master of Science in Advanced Architectural Design from Columbia University GSAPP, where she was awarded the Honor Award for Excellence in Design, the William Kinne Fellows Prize, and the Lucille Smyser Lowenfish Memorial Prize.
Mayssa Jallad is an urban researcher and musician based in Beirut. After having graduated in Architecture from the American University of Beirut in 2013, she pursued a Master in Historic Preservation at Columbia University’s GSAPP, where she graduated in 2017. Mayssa worked in Historic Preservation for a year in New York, then returned to Beirut to pursue urban research and a new music project entitled Marjaa. She is now a researcher and Citizen Science coordinator with RELIEF Centre, an academic research collaboration between the UCL, AUB and LAU, which studies Prosperity in different neighborhoods in Lebanon.
Salim Al Kadi is a graduate of the American University of Beirut and later completed his graduate studies at Columbia University. He has designed and completed multiple architectural projects including the celebrated MINA 1394 office building in central Beirut. He has been a senior lecturer at the American University of Beirut’s Department of Architecture and Graphic Design since 2011. Salim is a co-founder of Sigil, an art collective that has exhibited worldwide including the Venice Biennale, Marrakech Biennale, Oslo Architecture Triennale and Triennale di Milano.
In 2016 Salim produced ‘K29 Keffiyeh’. It went on exhibit in New York’s Museum of Modern Art as part of the Items: Is Fashion Modern? exhibit. K29 Keffiyeh was later acquired by MoMA for its permanent collection. In January 2020, Salim offered publicly and open source for free download ’Beirut 001’, as the first digital 3D model of Beirut – “a preliminary tool to collectively re-imagine our city”. Since the Beirut Port Explosion on August 4th, it has been used by first-aid responders, students, and professionals alike, including ARUP, Forensic Architecture, and Rice University’s Spatial Lab. Salim currently lives in Beirut.