Nader Akoum
2016-2023
Architecture+Design Capsule Portfolio
Selection of
Projects*
Hey!
I’m an architect, instructor, and multi-disciplinary reform strategist that has lived in Muscat, Abu Dhabi, Beirut, and Barcelona. I completed a Master of Advanced Architecture & post graduate in 3d Printing Earthen Architecture at IAAC + B.Arch at LAU.
In the beginning of 2020, & in the midst of Lebanon's unprecedented crises, I founded the Studio Madane collective. The youth collective uses practice-based approaches towards socio-political reform and collaborates with local and European bodies in the fields of social activism, urban regeneration, documentation, political vision, & reform.
*The portfolio showcases a small selection of group and individual efforts spanning various fields, such as architectural proposals, maps, urban research, speculative design, earthen architecture, and more. It should be noted that the featured projects are part of a larger body of work and more information can be provided upon request.
10/28
+ back for credits
in Education
2023 PG 3D Printing Earthen Architecture - Institute of Advanced Architecture in Catalunya
2022
M.Arch Master in Advanced Architecture - Institute of Advanced Architecture in Catalunya
2021 B.Arch Bachelor of Architecture [NAAB Accredited] - Lebanese American University
2020 Seminar
Extreme Environments Architecture - NASA [India]
2019 Seminar International Studio: Germany - Lebanese American University
2017 Seminar ‘Interventions on Mars’ - Architectural Association Visiting School in Jordan
in Architecture
2023 Architect at LifeHaus
Researched in-situ architecture & co-designed Module 60 closely with founder Nizar Haddad.
2023
2021
2021
2020
2019
Instructor of Design Studio X [ARC632] at Lebanese American University
Instructed 10 senior students to design perfomative architecture in Lebanese territories.
Lead Architect at Studio Madane
Worked with 3 architects to survey, design, draw, render, & disseminate civic reform proposal in Karantina, Lebanon.
Instructor of Regional Urbanism [ARC484] at Lebanese American University
Developed syllabus, conducted exercises, and guided the design of 6 master plans in 2 studios.
Architect at Bernard Khoury DW5
Co-designed installation at 2021 Seoul Biennale & Casablanca mixed-use development.
Researcher with Outer-space Architect Dr. Samer Al Sayary
Researched Martian living conditions, life support systems, & E.T. circular economies.
in Leadership
2020
2020
2019
Multi-disciplinary Strategist & Founder of Studio Madane
Facilitated youth involvement for successful sociopolitical reform interventions with diverse stakeholders.
Board Member at Madinati [Progressivist Political Party]
Achieved successful political initiative implementation via landscape assessment, recruitment, & evaluation.
Trainer + Dais at Global Classrooms Simulation Programs
Training & evaluating high school students that participate in the UN Simulation Competition.
Part time Faculty Full time Part time Full time TA Internship
Part time Part time Full time Internship
Capsule* Index
The Fifth Facade - Valldaura, Spain Design Studio
1:1
PATI de la VILA - Vision for 3d Printed Earthen Housing Competition
1:1 Arched Vault Competition Proposal
Adaptive Support System: Retraction Control in Arched Vaults
Clay to Cellulose Detail for ‘Living Prototypes’ - AEDES, Berlin
Acoustic Clay Wall for ‘Living Prototypes’ - AEDES, Berlin
1:1
1:1
Climatic Earthen Tower & ITKE’s Fiber-reinforced Slab 1:1
1:10 to 1:1 3d Printing Clay for Structural Assessment
L’Herbier Extraordinaire - URBINantes: Nantes, France 1:1 &
Ebb & Flow for Self-sufficiency: Mequinenza Reservoir
Acoustic Control for Biotic Function: Llobergat Chiffchaff & Prey
Photosensitive Reflective Environment - Powered by Arduino
2023 2022 2021
Metabolic Urban Lung: Porta Fira’s Pneumatic Algae Bio-facade 1:10
To Produce: Biosphere 03 [A Social Condenser]
Aborted vs. Conceived Condition in Karantina’s Urban Fabric
Urban Informalities in Bourj Hammoud, Lebanon
Roof Pond & Water Wall System for Learning Environment
To Transit: Public Services Facility for Bourj Hammoud Building Technology
2019
To Extend: Deir El Qamar’s Piazza
Metal Cladding Wall & Window
2018
To Participate: A Community Spot & Learning Cafe Urban Research
Beirut’s Urban Morphology: Linking Localized Colonies
2017
To Dissolve: A Landscape Museum at Byblos Citadel
To Infect: A Machine
To Confess: ‘Is Design a Need?’
150 sqm Installation Design Studio
2016
To Anguish: A Dwelling for One
Public vs. Private: A Community Laboratory Design Studio
To Shield: Pangolin vs. Ballerina Movement Foundation Studio
*refer to extended portfolio to unlock extended index
Prototype Design
Studio
1:10 Prototype
&
1:1
1:10 Competition +
Prototype
Prototype
1:10
Urban Research
1:1 Prototype
Earthen
3d Printing
1:10 Earthen 3d Printing
Exhibition
Prototype
Exhibition
Prototype
Design
Urban Research
Studio
Prototype Urban
2020 1:1
Research
Urban
Studio
Prototype Design
Building
1:1
Studio +
Technology
Design
Design Studio
Studio
Community
Outdoor Courtyards Flanked by
Rooms
+ PATI de la VILA - Vision for 3d Printed Earthen Housing
At the edge of Collserola Park [41°29’N 2°05’E], a large and green piece of land sits next to the UAB campus student housing complex. Seeing its massive breadth, the site poses a ‘Tabula Rasa’ situation whereby blank slate conditions are at hand. PATI de la VILA is a 3d printed earthen student comprising of arched vaulted closed spaces, large courtyards, and hybrid circulation.
Structural & Distributional Grid Based on Site Lines
Drying Arched Vaults
+ The Fifth Facade - Valldaura, Spain
The arched vaulted 3d earthen print combines the technology from the ‘adaptive wooden system for retraction control’ with the infill design for vaulted roofs in order to generate the first 3d printed earthen fifth facade. Fiber strips were used to carry the layers of earth that were at risk of movement. The printing material was extracted and mixed on site.
A Walkway & Storage Room
Habitational Space by Biomaterials
+ ‘Living Prototypes’ - AEDES, Berlin
Commercializing the technology of 3d printing earthen structures means finding solutions to daily commodities. The ‘window’ detail was designed to carry a cellulose parititon. Knowing that sound particles die out after five collisions with the surrounding surfaces, a clay wall’s surface was designed with tangencies that have a consciousness towards optimized acoustic quality.
Assemblies for Clay, Wood, Fiber, & Cellulose
1:1 Mobile Garden
+ L’Herbier Extraordinaire - URBINantes: Nantes, France
'Characters of L’Herbier Extraordinaire' is a mobile garden created in collaboration with a European-funded project for the Media Library in Nantes, France. The project consists of different units that facilitate interaction around the intervention, targeting different audiences. The design is informed by data on cultivation, water collection, and community interaction.
Winning Competition Entry by Nader Akoum & Wei Hao
!;10 Prototype of Moving Slab
+ Ebb & Flow for Self-sufficiency: Mequinenza Reservoir
Water river fluctuation levels are a natural occurrence can catalyze modes of habitation and mold behaviors in an integrated domestic space. How can the choreography by the seasonal and diurnal ebb and flow of the Mequinenza water reservoir shape the users’ modes of habitation, accessibility, visibility, occupancy, and atmosphere?
Responding to Changing Conditions via Light and Accessibility
Inhabiting the Biosphere: Ground Floor as a Public Attractor
+ To Produce: Biosphere 03 [A Socil Condenser]
Biosphere 03 realizes Karantina [the island] as a socially, environmentally, infrastructurally, and politcally infected territory. The intervention spreads itself as a food production body that uses hybrid environments to respond to the site’s pollution, food scarcity, and controversial gateways. Biosphere 03 has inherent tendencies towards urban reform and socioeconomic healing.
Return to Karantina’s 1960’s Nostalgia
A B C A’ B’ C’
Corrected User Map for Drivers Corrected User Map for Drivers 2 4 C C C C C T C T + + + + + A2 [70 Db] A1 [107 Db] 3 1 N August 4th Blast Closed Road Sound Db Study Militarization Pathway Suitable for Residence Canalized River Aborted Space Large Bodies Illegaly 2-Way
+ Conceived vs. Aborted Condition in Karantina’s Urban Fabric
Karantina’s gateways are many, and the most important one is the South-Eastern one that is heavily used and has become a turbulent diffuser. The lines in the mapping, despite accentuating the neighbourhood and its usability, contribute directly to a systemic and unintentional mixophobia. The food ritual in the urban fabric is multi-faceted and tell the tale of a vulnerable community.
Food Hybrids Typologies Host Building Host Building Food Shop Narrow Sidewalk One-way street Host Building Food Shop Food Shop Regular Sidewalk Regular Two-way street Two-way street Host Building Food Shops Large Sidewalk Two-way street 2 3 1 2 4
Growth of Facility in Train Station
Growth of Facility in Train Station
+ To Transit: Public Services Facility for Bourj Hammoud
Conceived in an urban chaos, a foreign installation grows inside an abandoned train station by breaking walls, tuning the ground, and welcoming nostalgic behaviors of transience. The intervention is a public facility that disperses spaces of labor and habitation in hopes of transforming a hard nucleus to a soft tissue that mends the relationship between the living and the industry.
Ground Tuning & Incubation at Abandoned Station
+12.60 m +8.40 m +4.20 m +0.00 m A B C D E F
Operable Louvers & Structural Spider Glass
+ To Participate: A Community Spot & Learning Cafe
The site sits at the edge of Beirut’s gate to the cnetral district, and embodies an underserved piece of land that is bounded by a highway and a public garden. ‘To Participate’ is a learning cafe, educational spot, and outdoor public space that extends the function of the neighborung park and generates a community hotspot.
Depressed Public Space as Building Corridors
Perforations
Play in Light, Vision, & Aroma
for
+ To Dissolve: A Landscape Museum at Byblos Citadel
The 5000 years old Byblos Citadel is realized as a spectacle that dwells on sound, place, and smell. The landscape musem, offices, gathering spaces, and cafe are joined by an external promenade that behaves as a datum to the entries. The floors, facades, and roofs are punctured in distinct ways that dissolve the seperators between the viewer and the spectacle.
Framed Views as Nodes for Spectacle
Credits
The Fifth Facade - Valldaura, Spain
Nader Akoum, Teodora Moraru, Paco Pioline, Mara Müller-de Ahna, Shazwan Mazlan, Kevin Mwangi Njoroge, Nestor Beguin, Jett Demol, huanyu.li, , Dnyaneshwari Mete, Francisco Magnone Rienzi, Marta Navarro, Tinsae Tsegahun Mengistu, Marina Nassif, Ali Salamatian, Javad Norouzi, Milad Mehdizadeh, Kingsley Claudin Jacob, Ionut Adrian Patrascu, Michelle Bezik, Alex Dubor, Edouard Cabay, Oriol Carrasco, and Secil Afsar.
PATI de la VILA - Vision for 3d Printed Earthen Housing
Nader Akoum, Marta Navarro, and Jett Demol.
‘Living Prototypes’ - AEDES, Berlin
Nader Akoum, Teodora Moraru, Paco Pioline, Mara Müller-de Ahna, Shazwan Mazlan, Kevin Mwangi Njoroge, Nestor Beguin, Jett Demol, huanyu.li, , Dnyaneshwari Mete, Francisco Magnone Rienzi, Marta Navarro, Tinsae Tsegahun Mengistu, Marina Nassif, Ali Salamatian, Javad Norouzi, Milad Mehdizadeh, Kingsley Claudin Jacob, and Ionut Adrian Patrascu.
L’Herbier Extraordinaire - URBINantes: Nantes, France
Nader Akoum, Rachel Busche, Federico Caldi, Leorick Chilimanzi, Vishakha Darshan Pathak, Jack Davis, Vasudha Karnani, Furio Magaraggia, Yerwant Megurditchian, Valentina Minoletti, Rishaad Mohammad Yusuff, Meagan Sinead Enright, and Weihao Yin.
Ebb & Flow for Self-sufficiency: Mequinenza Reservoir
Nader Akoum and Aswin Kumar.
To Produce: Biosphere 03 [A Social Condenser]
Nader Akoum.
Aborted vs. Conceived Condition in Karantina’s Urban Fabric
Nader Akoum.
To Transit: Public Services Facility for Bourj Hammoud
Nader Akoum.
To Participate: A Community Spot & Learning Cafe
Nader Akoum.
To Dissolve: A Landscape Museum at Byblos Citadel
Nader Akoum.
Architectural Photography - ‘Day & Night Collection’
Architectural Photography - ‘Day & Night Collection’
naderakoum@hotmail.com naderakoum@studiomadane.com Org. www.studiomadane.com WhatsApp +34 651-012-054 Emails Personal Work iaacblog.com/tag/naderakoum blog.iaac.net/user/nader+akoum Blogs M.Arch AA PG 3dPA