Architect Anastasia Elrouss has been actively working in the architecture field for nearly 15 years. She holds a degree in architecture from the American University of Beirut, which she attended from 2000 to 2005, and where she currently teaches design courses. She first worked in Beirut at Samir Khairallah & Partners (2005-2006) and at Jean Nouvel in Paris (2007). In 2008, she became the head of YTAA and soon after became a founding partner and general manager of the architecture firm (2011-2017).
In November 2017, upon exiting YTAA, she founded her own architectural practice ANA-Anastasia Elrouss Architects. At her new firm, Anastasia continues to uphold her main design philosophy: that architectural and urban thinking can never be stagnant. For her, architecture is about exploring options and about opening a dialogue, while encouraging an ongoing conversation.
With active projects in Lebanon, France, Romania, Canada and Dubai, and others planned further afield, Anastasia is a constant traveler both for her architectural work and for her global speaking engagements. In 2014, she co-curated Agora, Bordeaux’s La Biennale d’Architecture d’Urbanisme et de Design, with Youssef Tohme, around the theme of public spaces. That same year, and in collaboration with MEXTROPOLI, she worked on redefining the meaning of public space in Mexico City through the use of informal markets.
A passionate architect and firm advocate for women, Anastasia is the founder and president of Warchée, a Lebanese NGO advocating for international social and gender equality in the workplace, both in Lebanon and abroad.
“We live in a world that is changing faster than ever. In recent years, architecture has evolved at an increasing speed, but today it feels that we are on the verge of a revolution. The time has come to impose and experiment, to push toward a new design framework. Architecture allows us to give shape to our dreams and interpret them in reality.”
Most recently, a number of Anastasia’s projects received various nominations and awards. The Haddad Compound in Canada was nominated for the German Design Awards 2019 in the category of Architecture, and the DAM-MAD villa in Beirut won the German Design Awards 2019 with a special mention in the category of Architecture. The DAM-MAD villa also won the Iconic Award 2018: Innovative Architecture – Best of Best in the category CONCEPT with distinction.
Anastasia Elrouss Architects is an architectural and urban practice founded in 2018 that’s passionate about the built and unbuilt environments. The firm’s aim is to re-imagine how the user connects with the world in which he or she lives.
Launched by Anastasia Elrouss and based in Beirut, the firm works with a team of international consultants who understand its ethos: creating a structured intervention that results in spaces of liberty, allowing appropriation and leaving room for appropriation. Anastasia Elrouss Architects is focused on the concept of the transient – this fourth dimension that is sometimes overlooked by architects.