League Prize Winner Bio
DESIGN EARTH
DESIGN EATH
The League Prize, an annual competition that asks young designers to respond to a given theme, has marked an important milestone in many architects’ careers. Winners showcase their work through a lecture series and exhibition.
Rania Ghosn & El Hadi Jazairy were winners of the 2016 competition.
DESIGN EARTH is a collaborative practice based in Cambridge, MA and Ann Arbor, MI founded in 2010 by El Hadi Jazairy and Rania Ghosn. Their work “engages the geographic to open up a range of aesthetic and political concerns for architecture and urbanism.”
Currently, DESIGN EARTH is completing an upcoming book entitled Geostories. Their first book, Geographies of Trash (ACTAR) was released in May 2015. This summer, the firm will participate in the Venice Biennale of Architecture in Kuwait’s pavilion and their Pacific Aquarium project will be exhibited at the 2016 Oslo Architecture Triennale beginning in September.
The firm’s speculative project, Neck of the Moon received First Prize in the 2015 Jacques Rougerie Competition and was featured in an exhibition at MIT’s Keller Gallery beginning in November last year. Prior to that, DESIGN EARTH’s Cloud Culture City received a Special Mention as part of the London Organic Skyscrapers Competition and their 4.7: A Geographic Stroll around the Horizon received an Honorable Mention designation from the Rio City Vision competition.
Rania Ghosn is currently an assistant professor at MIT’s School of Architecture + Planning. She holds a Doctorate of Design from Harvard University Graduate School of Design (GSD), a Master in Geography degree from University College London, and a Bachelor of Architecture degree from American University of Beirut. Prior to joining MIT, she was an assistant professor at University of Michigan and a Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow at Boston University. Ghosn is a founding editor of the journal New Geographies and editor-in-chief of NG2: Landscapes of Energy.
El Hadi Jazairy is currently an assistant professor of architecture at the University of Michigan. He holds a Doctorate of Design from Harvard University Graduate School of Design (GSD), a Master of Architecture degree from Cornell, and a Bachelor of Architecture degree from La Cambre in Brussels. Prior to his appointment at the University of Michigan, Jazairy was lecturer at MIT and a Postdoctoral Fellow at Harvard. He is a founding editor of the journal New Geographies and editor-in-chief of NG4: Scales of the Earth.