Faculty & Staff

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Faculty & Staff

Jamal H. Abed, Dean
e-mail: jabed@azmuniversity.edu.lb

Jamal Abed is the Dean of the Faculty of Architecture & Design [ARCHIDES] since its inception in the spring of 2015. Before returning back to the academic field, he was acting as a member of the Board and the Director of the Planning and Design Division at Millennium Development International Holding for around 13 years. Before joining Millennium in 2003, Mr. Abed was an Associate Professor, chairman of the Department of Architecture and Design, and Program Coordinator of the Masters Program in Urban Planning & Urban Design, at the American University of Beirut. He was a full-timer at the Department of Architecture and Design at AUB between 1988 and 2003. He obtained a bachelor degree in Architecture from the same university in 1982 and a graduate degree in Architectural Studies from MIT in 1988. He is an author of a number of publications and winner of many grants, the most prominent of which is the Fulbright scholarship. Combining thirty three years of academia and professional expertise in architecture and urban design, Dean Abed played an essential role in raising the standards of the program at AUB and in directing complex development projects that span a wide geographic spread ranging between Lebanon, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Oman, Russia, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Iraq, and Turkey. His plans for ARCHIDES to distinguish itself through a rigorous integration of academic research in undergraduate education culminating into a design scholarship that positively impacts its graduates, the local community, and the discipline at large is now grounded in the distinct quality of its growing staff, state-of-the art facilities, and dynamic and innovative curriculum.

Maxim Julian, architect DPLG
Full-time Assistant Professor
e-mail: mjulian@azmuniversity.edu.lb

Born in Lebanon in 1975, Maxim Julian graduated from the University of Fine Arts Lebanon and the National School of Architecture of Toulouse, France in 1990. Between 1990 and 1995 his professional experiences and exposure developed through the rehabilitation and construction of various public and private projects: the official stadium in Beirut, Phoenicia Hotel, the official hospital R. Hariri… In 2007 he created his first agency in France involving architects and engineers carrying out major industrial projects. In 2011, he created the agency SYNOPSYS, which opens to other domains: public and commercial, collective and individual housing, landscape and design. In less than 10 years M. Julian realize over than 40 projects/ 20 competition, covering several domain and various scales; industrial buildings, schools , university, offices, collective housing, crematorium, penitentiary building, medical facilities, restaurants, villas, etc.. He has been the President of Southern center of architecture and city Toulouse, the Director of the CCHA, research center on new forms of housing and is currently a member of the editorial committee of the architectural magazine ' Plan Libre.' M. Julian base project success on a technical know-how and an ability to understand the economic, urban and social issues that shape the upstream of architectural thinking. He aims towards a responsible and intelligent architecture; an architecture that has to combine functionality with aesthetics and technology with emotions.

Dr. Ahmad OMAR
Full-time Assistant Professor
e-mail: aomar@azmuniversity.edu.lb

Dr. Ahmad OMAR holds a PhD in Civil Engineering from Université Grenoble Alpes in France (2015), a Master’s degree in Geomechanics from Université Joseph Fourier in France (2011), and a Diplôme d’Ingénieur in Civil Engineering from the Lebanese University in Tripoli (2011). He also received a Postdoctoral Fellowship from Université Joseph Fourier (2016). His teaching experience includes Lecturing as a Teaching Assistant at the Civil Engineering department of Université Joseph Fourier from 2012 till 2014, and as a full-time Assistant Professor at the Geotechnical Engineering department of Polytech Grenoble in France till 2015. He also has been teaching as a part-time Assistant Professor at the Civil Engineering department of IUT1 in Grenoble, France till 2016. His research focuses on the numerical modeling of reinforced concrete structures subjected to seismic and impact loadings. He has published his research works in three international conferences and two journal papers in addition to his participation to the organization of the international Workshop PREVI 2013 in Chamonix, France. He also supervised two Master 2R projects and is currently co-supervising one PhD student in France.

Dr. Wissam Mansour
Full-time Assistant Professor
e-mail: wmansour@azmuniversity.edu.lb

Dr. Wissam Mansour is an architect, an urban specialist, and a researcher in the humanities and cultural studies. He holds a Master Degree in Architecture and Urbanism from the Architectural Association School of Architecture, and a PhD from Birkbeck College, The University of London, following a PhD research program at the London Consortium. He has been teaching architecture in London and in Lebanon since 2005 and is currently assistant professor at the Faculty of Architecture & Design [ARCHIDES] at AZM University. In 2007 he established OCCLUDE, an independent private advisory agency, offering expert research, design and development consultancy in the areas of Architecture and Urban Design, Urban Ecology, Urban Sociology, and Cultural Heritage Protection, especially in the context of Lebanon. Dr. Mansour’s main areas of expertise are Architectural and Urban Design, History and Theories of Architecture, and urban sociology. His current research rethinks urban experience and its transformations by social and material flows, as well as the politics and the structures of such transformations, including those relevant to occupation nuances, mobility and spatial resistance. He looks for the ecological prints that these transformations leave on the natural and the built environments he investigates, chasing vestiges of sustainable development in security sensitive contexts both on the human, urban and environmental levels. He has been involved in funding-awarded research projects on the modalities of urban reception of refugees and on Public Authorities and Legitimate Governance, both taking case studies in Urban Lebanon and Jordan.

Hala Abi Haydar
Full-time Senior Lecturer
e-mail: habihaydar@azmuniversity.edu.lb

Holder of a Bachelor degree in Architecture from the American University of Beirut Mrs. Abi Haydar is Lecturer in the field of architecture and design and a syndicated freelance architect with more than 20 years’ experience of which 9 years are spent in the academic domain. She is currently teaching in a number of universities being in charge of both theoretical and practical design studio courses in the discipline of Architecture. Her concentration is history of architecture, covering the Prehistoric all through to the Modern periods. Her seminar courses also explore architecture production in the post-modern condition. Her design research track that informs her design studios is to infuse a sense of experimentation, discovery, and inquisition about architectural spatial design in general, and to incite the students to develop a sensitive, critical and analytical eye towards their environment and the architectural manifestations as directly related to their very own culture.

Sany Jamal
Part-time Senior Lecturer
e-mail: sjamal@azmuniversity.edu.lb

Sany Jamal is the principal of Jamal - Architects and Engineers established in 2002 following the passing of architect George Rais with whom Sany Jamal formed the firm Rais and Jamal-Architects and Engineers (1980- 2002). Both firms designed and built over a period of nearly four decades an extensive and diverse volume of work covering: Residential compounds, Apartment buildings, Private Villas and Chalets, Office buildings, Corporate Headquarters, Medical Clinic buildings, Commercial centers, Schools, Universities and Institutions, Ski Resorts, Resort towns, Beach resorts, Country clubs, Hotels, Governmental and Administrative buildings. Some of these projects were in joint venture, or partnership with local / international Architectural and Engineering firms such as: S.O.M (Skidmore Owings and Merrill), Dar Al Handassah Shair, Cassia and Associates, Hecate international to name a few and were in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Egypt, Yemen, Greece, the UK and in California USA.
In parallel to his professional work as an Architect, Sany Jamal is a Senior Lecturer teaching Architecture at the American University of Beirut (AUB) -1987-89 and 2003-present, at NDU: Notre Dame University-Loueize – 2003-2007 and 2012-2016, and recently at AZM University, Tripoli.
Highly involved in all matters relating to the exercise of the profession of Architecture, Sany Jamal served in the following capacities:

Council Member for Region 2 UIA (International Union of Architects) – which
extends from Russia to the ex-soviet block and the socialist block of Eastern European countries, Greece, Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, Palestine.
President of the Architects’ Branch - Order of Architects and Engineers-Beirut. (2006-2009)
President of the Architects’ Association - Order of Architects and Engineers Beirut. (1999-2000)
Instigator and Founding Member: “OMRAN” Society for the Quality of the Built Environment in Lebanon (Legally registered in 2002).

Rony Jalkh
Part-time Senior Lecturer
e-mail: rjalakh@azmuniversity.edu.lb

With nearly 16 years of experience working with different UN agencies and other international organizations, Rony has extensive knowledge managing and monitoring projects relating to governance, civil society, the municipal sector, strategic planning, livelihood and urban analysis. As an activist and practitioner of Placemaking, he provides courses, lectures and workshops throughout Lebanon, MENA region and abroad and transfer the learning through hands-on activities using different participatory design tools. Using Placemaking approach, Rony’s work aims to increase the provision of public space through joining the efforts of different local actors such as Universities, Local Authorities, Civil Society Organization, Volunteers, Activists and Private Sector. Being a senior fellow at Porject for Public Spaces Organization (PPS) in NY, Rony coined the phrase ‘Placemaking for Peacemaking’ in an inspiring article under the same title. Placemaking is foremost a participatory process and in that sense it could be explicitly used to create encounters between different divers groups in society. Rony holds a Master’s degree in Urban Planning, Bachelor’s degrees in Agricultural Engineering and Political Science. He is actually an instructor and lecturer at many Universities in Lebanon and a visiting professor at Pratt University in NY.

Naji Safi
Part-time Instructor
e-mail: nsafi@azmuniversity.edu.lb

Naji Safi is a Lebanese architect and artist, with two years’ experience in the UAE and one in Lebanon. Throughout his career at NORR Group Architects ( MENA-DXB) Naji worked on the Lusail Qatar Towers and was behind the parametric scheme for the main façade treatments of the project. He also worked as a Project Architect at the Italian firm Decorepoint.Int (Dubai) where he was in charge of the design and project management of the group. In parallel , Naji pursues his sensibility towards and research in installation, computational & Fine arts, attending JIGSAW Master Course & Exhibition which granted him a Certification in 3D Design & modeling (Lead by Gilles Restin & Isaie Bloch). Holding his B.ARCH degree from ALBA University and in the process of finalizing his Master Thesis, Naji runs his own architectural and art Lab in Tripoli where he experiments in Art , Architecture and Forms in design. Passionate about the Abstract fusion between Art & Generative design technology, Naji explores the world of algorithms in the architectural context.
As an instructor at AZM University , Naji is responsible of the Computational Design track at ARCHIDES , thus exploring the role of technology in design and its wide spread application in the perception and experience of Architecture.

Jalal A. Hoblos
Part-time Instructor
e-mail: jhoblos@azmuniversity.edu.lb

Jalal Hoblos holds a Master’s degree in Architecture (M.Arch) from Beirut Arab University, and a Bachelor degree in Architecture from City University, where his graduation project was given first prize in the 2013 Order of Engineers and Architects annual competitions in North Lebanon. Jalal is a freelancer architect and a part-time instructor, and since his graduation in 2013, he was involved in different design studios, CAD, and BIM courses.
With a high commitment, Jalal is in a continuous research on improving his academic career, especially in terms of architecture assessment methods and knowledge sharing techniques. In 2018, Jalal joined the ARCHIDES faculty at AZM University as a CAD and BIM instructor, where he is providing, through the use of Autodesk software, a comprehensive design workflow, from conceptual to fully coordinated design. Furthermore, he focuses on using the Revit applications to gain insight into building performance and energy analysis, leading towards a more efficient design decisions and improved project delivery.