Annabel Karim Kassar

Annabel Karim Kassar is an award-winning French-Lebanese architect and designer whose work challenges convention through a synthesis of modernist rigor and layered, sensorial richness. Founder of AKK Architects, with offices in Milan, Beirut, and Dubai, she has established a distinctive voice in the global design landscape—one that reinterprets space through light, texture, and a nuanced maximalism rooted in Ottoman, Arab, and Berber cultural heritage.

Her practice operates as a research-driven laboratory where ancestral craftsmanship intersects with contemporary technologies. Moving beyond the construction of spaces, Kassar creates what she defines as “emotional experiences” and “speaking architectures,” blurring boundaries between public and private realms. From the reconstruction of the Beirut Souks to projects such as New York’s Ella Funt and the Salon Nanà collection for Moroso, her work explores the convergence of time, space, and information into dynamic, living environments.

Her installations—including The Lebanese House at London’s Victoria and Albert Museum (2022)—act as platforms for collective memory and shared knowledge, reinforcing her commitment to participatory design.

Throughout her career, Annabel Karim Kassar has received numerous international accolades, including the Best Project medal at the 2016 London Design Biennale for Mezzing in Lebanon, as well as the German Design Award, the Iconic Award, and an International Property Award for the Al Zorah Pavilion.