ANASTASIA ELROUSS ARCHITECTS

Biography

The Story

About ANA

Talks

Awards

The Team

Architect Anastasia Elrouss has been actively working in the architecture field for nearly 15 years. She holds a degree in architecture from the American University of Beirut, which she attended from 2000 to 2005, and where she currently teaches design courses. She first worked in Beirut at Samir Khairallah & Partners (2005-2006) and at Jean Nouvel in Paris (2007). In 2008, she became the head of YTAA and soon after became a founding partner and general manager of the architecture firm (2011-2017).

In November 2017, upon exiting YTAA, she founded her own architectural practice ANA-Anastasia Elrouss Architects. At her new firm, Anastasia continues to uphold her main design philosophy: that architectural and urban thinking can never be stagnant. For her, architecture is about exploring options and about opening a dialogue, while encouraging an ongoing conversation.

With active projects in Lebanon, France, Romania, Canada and Dubai, and others planned further afield, Anastasia is a constant traveler both for her architectural work and for her global speaking engagements. In 2014, she co-curated Agora, Bordeaux’s La Biennale d’Architecture d’Urbanisme et de Design, with Youssef Tohme, around the theme of public spaces. That same year, and in collaboration with MEXTROPOLI, she worked on redefining the meaning of public space in Mexico City through the use of informal markets.

A passionate architect and firm advocate for women, Anastasia is the founder and president of Warchée, a Lebanese NGO advocating for international social and gender equality in the workplace, both in Lebanon and abroad.

“We live in a world that is changing faster than ever. In recent years, architecture has evolved at an increasing speed, but today it feels that we are on the verge of a revolution. The time has come to impose and experiment, to push toward a new design framework. Architecture allows us to give shape to our dreams and interpret them in reality.”

Most recently, a number of Anastasia’s projects received various nominations and awards. The Haddad Compound in Canada was nominated for the German Design Awards 2019 in the category of Architecture, and the DAM-MAD villa in Beirut won the German Design Awards 2019 with a special mention in the category of Architecture. The DAM-MAD villa also won the Iconic Award 2018: Innovative Architecture – Best of Best in the category CONCEPT with distinction.

Travels, Meetings and a Desire to Change the World

I’ve known since I was a child that change would never happen on its own. My dream was to make a positive change as a woman architect and urban planner. Warchée came about as a result of women meeting and seeking to effect change – women whose paths most probably would never have crossed if they hadn’t been engaged in the same profession.

Through my professional encounters across the globe, through a real exchange of cultural values, and as a Lebanese and female architect and urban planner, I felt the need to launch a debate about gender equality and the role of women in the workplace and the world. This came about as a result of similar challenges that working women have to face even when they’ve had different career paths and lived in different countries.

At the same time, I felt that I was shining a new light on this topic through my life experiences as a Middle Eastern female architect and urban planner, and also through my professional engagements in such differing places as France, Holland, Romania, Dubai, Canada, Mexico and Lebanon. It was clear that women still had a long road ahead to achieve gender equality, and that their skills and achievements wouldn’t be enough to ensure real independence.

I realized that the fight for gender equality in the workplace, in various cultures and countries, was just beginning, and that we’d have to work at every level – professional, legal, cultural, geographic and educational – to further women’s rights. If a woman’s achievements remain limited to her person alone, it will be impossible to effect change. Real gender equality can only succeed once each and every working woman has been successfully integrated into the workplace and on an equal footing.

ABOUT ANASTASIA ELROUSS ARCHITECTS

Anastasia Elrouss Architects is an architectural and urban practice founded in 2018 that’s passionate about the built and unbuilt environments. The firm’s aim is to re-imagine how the user connects with the world in which he or she lives.

Launched by Anastasia Elrouss and based in Beirut, the firm works with a team of international consultants who understand its ethos: creating a structured intervention that results in spaces of liberty, allowing appropriation and leaving room for appropriation. Anastasia Elrouss Architects is focused on the concept of the transient – this fourth dimension that is sometimes overlooked by architects. With its designs, the firm seeks to create “evolutive” or “volume capable” buildings that adapt both to the user’s needs and to the environment in which they exist.

A strong believer in spatial fluidity, Anastasia Elrouss Architects places a strong emphasis on details and transitory objects. Whether designing a city, a building or a house, the same rules apply – albeit on a different scale. The firm’s work is identified by its accessibility and flexibility, allowing the user to have a say in the space being created.

While always keeping the end user in mind, Anastasia Elrouss Architects’ projects also reflect the moment, the temporality of the way we live. The firm’s work captures the moment, while rethinking the preconceived limits of human space. Anastasia Elrouss Architects is engaged in multi-level conversations with itself, the client and the user, in order to create flexible, livable and highly distinctive buildings, villas, structures and public spaces. Once the firm completes its work on a specific site, the project must be still able to evolve according to the end user’s needs. And when working within existing buildings, Anastasia Elrouss Architects shows how each place can be inhabited differently, allowing a whole new building – and lifestyle – to emerge.

talks

AUB Symposium

05 October 2018

As part of an october 2018 symposium that celebrated the 50th anniversary of the american university of beirut’s bachelor of architecture (barch), anastasia elrouss took part in roundtable discussions about the tools and methods she uses in her work and how her education at aub influenced her practice
Architects For change

17 November 2017

Anastasia Elrouss took part in the Architect-Entrepreneur conference in Lebanon in November 2017. Under the theme Architects for Change, the conference examined independent thought and singular initiative among Lebanon’s new breed of architects.
How to think Architecture in Layers

23 November 2017

In November 2017, Anastasia Elrouss participated in a conference titled How to Think Architecture in Layers. The event was held as the American University of Beirut’s Charles Hostler Student Center
The 2017 Career Panel Discussion (CPD)

21 November 2017

The 2017 Career Panel Discussion (CPD) organized by the Career Services Office at Holy Spirit University of Kaslik in collaboration with the Faculty of Fine and Applied Arts / Department of Interior Design

Awards

International Biennale of Architecture Krakow 2019

Anastasia Elrouss Architects won the 2nd Prize at the International Biennale of Architecture ‘Krakow 2019’ with the theme ‘Connections- the Town and the River’.
German Design Awards 2019

DAM-MAD villa villa in Beirut won the German Design Awards 2019 with a special mention in the category of Architecture.
Architizer A+ Awards 2019

Haven House in Mount Lebanon is selected as a finalist in the Architizer A+ Awards.
The Design that Educates Awards 2019

Anastasia Elrouss Architect's design for the Haddad Compound, located in Canada, is finalist on the Design that Educates Awards 2019.
the Design that educates Awards 2019

The Haven House in Mount Lebanon won the Design that Educates Awards 2019 with an honorable mention.
German Design Awards 2019

The Haddad Compound in Canada was nominated for the German Design Awards 2019 in the category of Architecture.
Iconic Award 2018: Innovative Architecture – Best of Best

DAM-MAD villa in Beirut won the Iconic Award 2018: Innovative Architecture – Best of Best in the category CONCEPT with distinction.