Nora Akawi ‘11 MSCCCP is an Assistant Professor at Cooper Union School of Architecture, former faculty member at GSAPP. As a student at GSAPP, Akawi’s thesis, advised by Professor Felicity Scott, was on the role of archives in the formation of Palestinian future spatial imaginaries. Her research focuses on bordering and ruination as the architectural project of settler colonialism. She formerly directed GSAPP’s Studio-X Amman, where she helped found the Janet Abu-Lughod Library and Seminar.

Here are some links to learn more about Nora Akawi’s practice:

• Akawi and Interim Projects co-founder Eduardo Rega Calvo delivered a presentation titled “Rehearsing Exits” at the Practice and Pedagogy lecture series at the Architectural Association in 2022.
• Akawi and musician-composer Khyam Allami had a conversation on Tuning, Bias, and the Wild Beyond as part of L’Internationale Online’s public talks in 2021.
• Akawi curated the exhibition “Al Majhoola Min Al Ard” (This Earth’s Unknown) at the FRAC Center’s Biennale d’Architecture d’Orléans in 2019.
• Akawi delivered the lecture “Traversing Territories” as the 2018 Harvard GSD Aga Khan Lecture.
• The Arab City: Architecture and Representation, (Columbia Books on Architecture and the City, 2016) is a book co-edited with Dean Emerita and Professor Amale Andraos and Caitlin Blanchfield ‘14 MSCCCP that engages contemporary architectural and urban production in the Arab worlds.
• Akawi’s presentation at the “GSAPP at the Venice Biennale” event on September 21, 2018 presented her curation of the Bahrain Pavilion and its associated publication Friday Sermon.

Joanne Hayek ‘12 MSAAD is the founder of An Open Studio, a multi-disciplinary practice for the design of sustainable futures, as well as the lifestyle label Vanina. Hayek is also a senior lecturer at the American University of Beirut’s Department of Architecture and Design and assistant professor at the Dubai Institute of Design and Innovation (DIDI). Following the explosion, which demolished their ateliers and store in Gemmayze, Hayek and Vanina co-founder Tatiana Fayad stated in Financial Times, “Today, more than ever, we are determined to continue expanding our brand internationally, grow our local network of creation, and support our family of artisans.”

Here are some links to learn more about Joanne Hayek’s practice:

• Les Eternelles is a line of marble-like textured handbags crafted from discarded plastic for Vanina. The sustainability-focused company was profiled in the New York Times article “Upcycling Coins, Plastic Bags and Keys for Social Change.”
• The app and installation “Shape your City” enabled visitors to the 2021 Dubai Design Week to engage in the future of Dubai’s mobility, landscape, zoning, and cultural preservation.
• “The Immuno-responsive city: Computational Mapping of Post-blast Beirut,” presented as part of Beirut Shifting Grounds at the 17th Venice Architecture Biennale in collaboration with Balsam Madi, traced the networked self-organization of first-aid, relief, and reconstruction in Mar Mikhael following the Port explosion on August 4, 2020.

Marwan Ghandour ‘88 MSAAD is the director of the School of Architecture and Emogene Pliner Professor at Louisiana State University and a partner at the Beirut-based architectural firm Bawader Architects. Ghandour’s academic projects include comparative urban regeneration strategies in the global south, the expansive space of the modern state and its urban management tools, and design at the geo-communal scale where ecology, urbanization, infrastructure, and politics are integrated. Most recently, Ghandour participated in the 2020 “Emergency Architecture and Planning: Recovering Beirut Post-Explosion” event hosted by the GSAPP Collective for Beirut.

Here are links to articles and a lecture to learn more about Marwan Ghandour’s practice:

• “The Urban Infrastructure for Sustainability: Learning from Kigali” (SFC2016 Conference, 2016)
• The lecture “Monoculture: The Expansive Space of the State and its Global Limits” (CEAH Symposium, 2016)
• “Who is ‘Ain al-Hilweh?” (Jadaliyya, 2013)
• “Spatial Erasure: Reconstruction Projects in Beirut” with Mona Fawaz, (ArtEast Quarterly, 2010)
• “The Early Maps of Iowa and their Politics” (chapter in book The Politics of Making, 2007)
• “The Architect-Citizen: The Nature of Civic Engagement in Postwar Reconstruction Projects in Lebanon” (Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture Conference, 2012)
• “On cities and designers: a Baalbeck Story” (Architectural Research Quarterly Vol. 10, Issue 1, 2006)
• “The Reconstruction of Haret Hreik: Design Options for Improving the Livability of the Neighborhood” with Mona Fawaz. (Beirut: Reconstruction Unit at American University of Beirut, 2007)