Designer Bio

We, Ghaith Abou Ghanem and Jad Melki, are architects who began our Beirut- based architecture and design studio GHAITH&JAD in 2013 and have since expanded our reach to Europe and the Gulf.

Our practice operates at different scales, from architecture renovation to exhibition scenography, from experiential installations to interior and object design. We have had the privilege to work on large-scale exhibition design and production for leading art institutions in the Middle East and beyond, including recent projects for CID Center for Innovation and Design at Grand-Hornu, Beligum; mudac Museum of Contemporary Design and Applied Arts, Switzerland; ADMAF Abu Dhabi Music & Arts Foundation, UAE; and the American University of Beirut, Lebanon.

Working at the intersection of art, design and architecture, we create environments that sensitively extend and reflect the concerns of the curatorial brief and exhibition participants. Our practice focuses strongly on issues of sustainability and the exploration of socio-political and cultural concerns. Whether it is the community of craftsmen we work with, the locally sourced material we find, or the repurposing of the different sets we create, transferability is always at a forethought of our designs.

Being from Beirut, we have been intimately shaped – as architects and as people – by states of impermanence and flux, and our work responsive to the imperative of adaptation. For over a decade we have been part of the core team running a site in Beirut named Mansion – a nineteenth century Lebanese house, transformed over time by a team of cultural producers into an active living and working community space. Mansion inhabits and builds upon Ottoman architecture to respond to the changing social, political and practical needs of the city. In this way, our practice bleeds beyond the institution and exhibition, extending to long- term transformation of space with people and communities at its heart.