Biography

Rania Ghosn & El Hadi Jazairy
b. 1977, Kfarhata, Lebanon / b. 1970, Bologhine, Algeria
Lives and works in Cambridge, United States / Lives and works in Ann Arbor, United States

Led by Rania Ghosn and El Hadi Jazairy. DESIGN EARTH is a design-research practice that examines the geographies of technological systems in connection with, for example, energy, trash, water and agriculture to open up aesthetic and political concerns for architecture and urbanism.

DESIGN EARTH has exhibited internationally at venues such as Venice Architecture Biennale; Oslo Architecture Triennale; Lisbon Architecture Triennale; The New School for Design/Parsons, New York; MIT Keller Gallery, Cambridge, US and Sursock Museum, Beirut. They are authors of Geographies of Trash (ACTAR, 2015) and Two Cosmograms (MIT SAP, 2016). Some of their recent essays and projects have been published in Harvard Design Magazine, Pidgin, Volume, Journal of Architectural Education, San Rocco, MONU, Avery Review, Thresholds, Bracket and Perspecta.

Their work has received many awards, including the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture Faculty Design Awards for Pacific Aquarium (2017), Young Architects Prize, Architectural League of New York (2016), Jacques Rougerie Foundation First Prize for Neck of the Moon (2015), Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture Faculty Design Awards for Geographies of Trash (2014) and honourable mentions for their completion entries in City Vision, Organic Skyscraper, Archinect Dry Futures and The Architect's Newspaper Best of Design Awards in Architectural Representation.

Ghosn and Jazairy hold doctoral degrees in design from Harvard Graduate School of Design, Cambridge, where they were founding editors of the journal New Geographies and editors-in-chief of Landscapes of Energy (2010) and Scales of the Earth (2011), respectively. Ghosn is currently an assistant professor of architecture and urbanism at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology School of Architecture & Planning, Cambridge, and Jazairy is an assistant professor at the University of Michigan Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning, Ann Arbor.