Lebanon: Amale Andraos
Born in 1973 in Beirut, Lebanon, Amale Andraos is the first woman named dean of the Columbia Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation (2014–2021). She is also the co-founder, president, and CEO of WORKac, an architectural firm located in New York City, New York (2003–). WORKac received the Arts and Letters Award in Architecture from the American Academy of Arts and Letters (2023), was ranked as the top architectural firm in the design category of the “Top 50 Firms in Design” issued by Architect Magazine (2017), and was named “Firm of the Year” by AIA New York State (2015).
Andraos holds a bachelor’s of architecture from McGill University in Montreal, Canada (1996), and a master’s of architecture from Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts (1999). She is a professor and dean emeritus at the Columbia Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation (GSAPP), and served as an advisor for the Columbia Climate School. She previously taught at Princeton University School of Architecture, the Harvard Graduate School of Design, the University of Pennsylvania Design School, and the American University in Beirut. Andraos contributed to Buildings for People and Plants by WORKac (Park Books, 2025), We’ll Get There When We Cross That Bridge (Monacelli Press, 2017), Architecture and Representation: the Arab City (co-editor; Columbia Books on Architecture and the City, 2015), 49 Cities (Inventory Press, 2015), and Above the Pavement, the Farm! (Princeton Architectural Press, 2010). Andraos served as chair of the Aga Khan Award, on the selection committee for the Walton Family Foundation’s Northwest Arkansas Design Excellence program, on the board of the Architectural League of New York, and on the Advisory Council for the New Museum. Andraos was selected as an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada in 2021.
References
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“Amale Andraos.” Columbia GSAPP. Accessed March 4, 2024. https://web.archive.org/web/20150925211813/http://www.arch.columbia.edu/faculty/aa3217.
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Andraos, Amale. WORKac: We’ll Get There When We Cross That Bridge. The Monacelli Press, 2017.
Andraos, Amale, and Nora Akawi, eds. The Arab City: Architecture and Representation. Columbia Books on Architecture and the City, 2016.
Andraos, Amale, and Dan Wood. Buildings for People and Plants: WORKac. Zürich: Park Books, 2025.
Andraos, Amale, Dan Wood, and PS 1 Contemporary Art Center. Above the Pavement—the Farm!: Architecture & Agriculture at P.F.1. 1st ed. Inventory Books 02. Princeton Architectural Press, 2010.
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Fernandes, Shirley. “Amale Andraos: Ideology and Philosophy.” RTF, March 29, 2022. http://www.re-thinkingthefuture.com/know-your-architects/a6536-amale-andraos-ideology-and-philosophy/.
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Marino, Vivian. “A Conversation With Amale Andraos.” The New York Times, June 2, 2015. https://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/03/realestate/commercial/a-conversation-with-amale-andraos.html.
“Rhode Island School of Design Student Center.” AIA New York. Accessed March 4, 2024. https://www.aiany.org/architecture/featured-projects/view/rhode-island-school-of-design-student-center/.
Rosenfield, Karissa. “WORKac to Design New Assembly Hall in Central Africa.” ArchDaily, October 22, 2012. https://www.archdaily.com/284788/workac-to-design-new-assembly-hall-in-central-africa.
