Master jury

Amale Andraos, Professor at the Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation, is committed to design research that has focused on climate change and its impact on architecture as well as on the question of representation in the age of global practice. Her publications include: We’ll Get There When We Cross That Bridge (Monacelli Press, 2017); The Arab City: Architecture and Representation (Columbia Books on Architecture and the City, 2015) co-edited with Nora Akawi; 49 Cities (Inventory Press, 2015); and Above the Pavement, the Farm! (Princeton Architectural Press, 2010) in collaboration with Dan Wood. Andraos is co-founder of WORKac, a New York-based firm that focuses on architectural projects that reinvent the relationship between urban and natural environments. WORKac was recently named the #1 design firm in the United States by Architect Magazine and has also been recognized as the AIA New York State Firm of the Year. Its projects include the Miami Museum Garage in Miami’s Design District; The Edible Schoolyards at P.S. 216 in Brooklyn and P.S. 7 in Harlem, a public library for Kew Gardens Hills, in Queens, and the Stealth Building (all in New York) and a new student centre for the Rhode Island School of Design. Current projects include a large-scale residential development in Lebanon, the Beirut Museum of Art in Lebanon, a new public library for North Boulder Colorado and new offices for a headquarter bank in Lima, Peru.

Andraos has taught at numerous institutions including Princeton University, Harvard University and the American University in Beirut. She serves on the board of the Architectural League of New York, the American University of Beirut Faculty of Engineering and Architecture International Advisory Committee, and the Advisory Council for the New Museum’s incubator space New Inc, in New York.  

Kazi Khaleed Ashraf is the director-general of Bengal Institute for Architecture, Landscapes and Settlements, in Dhaka, Bangladesh. The Bengal Institute focuses on challenges of the contemporary city, and the organization of land, water and settlements, in the critical ecological dynamics of a terraqueous landscape. As an architect, urbanist and architectural historian, Ashraf works at the intersection of settlement-form, landscape architecture, and architectural theory. He is involved in townscape and urban design for several cities and towns in Bangladesh, and currently directing a multi-disciplinary research project on the River Padma, the last leg of the Ganges, that involves historical, settlement and ecological investigations of the largest delta in the world.

After teaching at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, University of Pennsylvania, Temple University and Pratt Institute in the US, Ashraf became instrumental in establishing the Bengal Institute as a major centre of urban investigation and architectural activism. Ashraf received a PhD from the University of Pennsylvania and his Masters from MIT and BArch from BUET in Dhaka.

Ashraf has authored several books and numerous essays on various historical and theoretical topics, including architecture in India and Bangladesh, and the city of Dhaka. His writings on the architecture of Bangladesh have provided a theoretical ground for understanding both the historical and contemporary forms of architecture in the region. Ashraf’s publications include: The Hermit’s Hut: Architecture and Asceticism in India; Designing Dhaka: A Manifesto for a Better City; An Architect in Bangladesh: Conversations with Muzharul Islam; and Louis Kahn’s National Capital in Bangladesh. His articles and essays have appeared in numerous publications, including The Architectural Review, Architectural Design, Journal of Architectural Education, RES, MIMAR and Economic and Political Weekly. Ashraf has established an international publication series called Locations: Anthology of Architecture and Urbanism that presents works and features from around the globe.

Lina Ghotmeh is a French-Lebanese architect who leads Lina Ghotmeh – Architecture, an international multidisciplinary practice established in Paris. Echoing Ghotmeh’s lived experience of Beirut – she was born there in 1980 – the office’s work is orchestrated as an “Archeology of the Future”, where every project develops from thorough historical and material research, learning from a vernacular past to build a new “déjà-là”. In this process, architectures emerge from a close understanding of their environment, which results in a symbiotic and ecological dialogue with the Earth. Among her projects, Lina Ghotmeh is renowned for the Estonian National Museum; Réalimenter Masséna, a wooden tower dedicated to sustainable feeding in Paris; and Stone Garden, in Beirut, where craft is at the heart of the building. Among other projects, her studio is currently designing and leading the construction of Hermès Manufacture, a passive (ecological) building in Normandy, and the urban rehabilitation of the Maine Montparnasse grounds in Paris.

Lina Ghotmeh carried out her architectural studies at the American University of Beirut. She has lectured internationally and taught at the Ecole Spéciale d’Architecture. She now holds teaching positions at the Yale School of Architecture and the University of Toronto and is co-president of the RST ARCHES Scientific Network. She is the recipient of multiple awards, including the 2020 Tamayouz “Woman of Outstanding Achievement” Award; the French Fine Arts Academy Cardin Award 2019; the French Academy Dejean Prize 2016; the Grand Prix Afex 2016; and the French Ministry AJAP Prize 2008. She was nominated for the Schelling Architecture Prize 2020. Her work is currently exhibited at the 17th Architecture Biennale in Venice. She has also been published widely in books and magazines, including Phaidon, RIBA, Domus and Architectural Record.

Anne Lacaton founded the office of Lacaton & Vassal in Bordeaux in 1989 with Jean Philippe Vassal. Their work focuses on generosity of space and economy of means and uses carefully the values of the already there to do more with less. Many projects are hybrids between contemporary building concepts and more diverse techniques. The practice is committed to overturning standard building practices. Amongst their most famous works are the Palais de Tokyo in Paris, the École Nationale Supérieure d’Architecture in Nantes and the art collection project FRAC Nord-Pas-de-Calais in Dunkerque. They received the 2019 EU Mies Award for the best contemporary architecture in Europe for Grand Parc Bordeaux. They have also undertaken significant housing projects, including “House Latapie”, in Bordeaux, “Cité Manifeste” social housing in Mulhouse and Paris; the transformation of modernist social housing blocks in Paris and Bordeaux; and a housing tower block in Geneva.

Anne Lacaton and Jean Philippe Vassal have received a number of awards, including the Pritzker Architecture Prize in 2021; the BDA Grand Prize 2020 (Bund Deutscher Architekten); the European Union Prize for Contemporary Architecture – Mies van der Rohe Award; the Grand Prix National d’Architecture; and the Global Award for Sustainable Architecture.

Lacaton has taught at the École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) between 2004 and 2018, at the University of Florida, the State University of New York at Buffalo and at Harvard University. Lacaton was appointed as Associate Professor of Architecture & Design at the Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule (ETH Zürich) in 2017. Her academic teaching focuses on an ideological and socio-political approach to architecture and her designs and constructions support human use rather than iconic display. Anne Lacaton graduated in architecture from the École d’architecture in Bordeaux, followed by a degree in town planning at Bordeaux University.