L.E.FT

Lecture by L.E.FT Architects (Ziad Jamaleddine and Makram el Kadi)
Response by Amale Andraos, Dean of Columbia GSAPP

Co-founded by Ziad Jamaleddine, Assistant Professor of Architecture and Makram el Kadi who teaches at the American University of Beirut, L.E.FT is dedicated to examining the intersections of cultural and political productions as they relate to the built environment.

With an interest in diverse programs, a focus on unconventional interpretations of design is posited, redefining the relationship between the object and both its context and its users from a social as well as an aesthetic perspective.

Spatial qualities as well as programmatic typologies are understood in their importance and role within a specific social context. The specificity of a ‘Site’ is thus understood not only as a physical context within which one is designing but primarily as a socio-political and economical context.

The firm has been recognized internationally with numerous awards, publications, and exhibitions for quality and excellence in design including a 2010 Emerging Voices Award from the Architectural League of New York. The partners combine their practice with research projects they conduct in the form of studios at several universities in the U.S. including Yale, UPenn, Cornell University and Columbia GSAPP. LEFT was commissioned to design a project for Right to Shade at the inaugural Sharjah Architecture Triennial Rights of Future Generations and their TAWAF – A Genealogy of a Tree was featured in Broken Nature: Design Takes on Human Survival at the Milann Triennal in 2019.

Currently, LEFT is designing residential and cultural projects in New York, Beirut, Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait.