House of Today is a non-profit organization, committed to cultivating a sustainable design ecosystem in Lebanon, that transcends international borders. For over a decade, the organization’s overarching aim is to strengthen dialogues in the design world, expanding the reach of contemporary Lebanese designers and their creative processes, through mentoring and educating, curating collections and nurturing connections.
GHAITH&JAD is an architecture and design studio based in Beirut, Lebanon, co-founded by Ghaith Abi Ghanem and Jad Melki. Known for their distinctive process-driven approach, their work is characterized by truth to material and responsiveness to context. Their practice ranges in scales, combining architectural, interior, exhibition, installation, and product design.
Both Ghaith and Jad received their degrees in architecture from the American University of Beirut in 2012, and were each granted the Areen Award for Excellence in Architecture for their graduating projects.
Since their selection as Starch Foundation Architects in 2014, GHAITH&JAD won the iF International Award 2015 for Interior and Retail Design, and designed an experiential installation, Projection Lines, for the opening of the Dubai Design District d3, 2015.
In 2016, GHAITH&JAD were commissioned to design an exhibition for the 150th anniversary of the American University of Beirut. The public pavilion they created housed the exhibition genus: nation, gender, status. At Dubai Design Week they launched Blue, the first piece in their line of innovative lighting, and in Beirut they unveiled a custom interior installation at gilt.
In 2017, they were selected to be part of Kindling - an exhibition curated by Rachel Dedman for Fotopub Festival 2017 in Novo Mesto – Slovenia in which they presented their take on photography through their material exploration.
They are the recipients of the Next Generation Lafarge Holcim Award 2017 for their research project “Recovering Aleppo’s Topography” developed with Engineer Nour Madi to create a civic engagement and concrete recycling facility for post conflict situations – taking Aleppo as their specific case study.
They were awarded the 1st prize of the 2017 Génération Orient yearly contest, organized by the L’Orient-Le Jour, which aims at shedding light on 12 up-and-coming local talents from various disciplines over the course of a year. After that, they were commissioned to design and co-curate the exhibition for the 50th anniversary of the Architecture program at the American University of Beirut.
Ghaith and Jad were also responsible for the scenography of the 3rd House of Today Design Biennale that took place at 3Beirut in Lebanon – curated by Cherine Magrabi Tayeb and included a renowned list of local and international designers and collaborators.
Recently, they designed the second edition of How To Maneuver: Shape Shifting texts and other publishing tactics – A show, curated by Kayfa-ta, that shed light on independent publishers and artists that work with books, prints, and other braches of the publishing world.
They continue their design explorations through their studio at Mansion, a reclaimed 19th century residence that houses multidisciplinary designers under one roof.
