Riyad Joucka

What excites me is finding ways to fuse novel technologies with local stories, and sometimes that means experimenting with 3D printing and robotics.

At other times, it's about rereading a tradition and giving it a contemporary form.

Across different scales, from a single object to a cultural building, our projects look at ways at how local materials and craftsmanship could be given a new life through technology.

We've worked in different places across the Middle East, Europe and the US, but the constant is this.

Every project tries to be forward-looking while remaining grounded in space.

And that's what excites me the most about housing.

It's where technology and belonging meet most directly.

Because our homes aren't just shelters, they should be mirrors of who we are.

And to further introduce myself, this is the house that I grew up in, designed by my father.

You see, both of my parents are architects.

Both of my grandparents were notable artists.

So I grew up in a household surrounded by conversations about art, culture and space.

And that's how I see design today.

Not as a template, but as something truly rooted in family, stories and place.

The house truly reflects the traditions of the region.

This scan from Albinat magazine, 1994, wrote about the house.

I pulled these from my father's archives.

You can see natural light being drawn through skylights, natural stone facade covering the exterior, very typical of houses of the region.

A majlis cast in concrete in the walls themselves.

My father describes it as post-traditional architecture, because post-modernism never really fit our context.