Halah Abi Haydar

Acting Dean | Full-time Assistant Professor
e-mail: habihaydar@azmuniversity.edu.lb

Ms. Abi Haydar is an AUB graduate and a syndicated freelance architect with more than 28 years of professional and academic experience of which 14 years are spent in the academic domain.

Her professional experience mainly in Beirut working on the design of public buildings, schools and universities before starting her career in the academic domain and teaching both theoretical and design studio courses in a number of universities located in the North before joining Azm University since its inception in 2015 and becoming a full-time assistant professor in charge of the design track in ARCHIDES and the teaching of History of Architecture.

Ms. Abi Haydar has been teaching History of Architecture and charting a new pedagogical discourse in both design studio courses and history of architecture. She played a central role in blurring the boundary between history and theory axis and the Design studio teaching generating a paradigm shift whereby bringing the design into her history courses and applying the decentralization of the conventional teaching in schools of architecture, as design teaching skills becomes integral to the study of history of architecture infusing a sense of experimentation, discovery, and inquisition about architectural spatial design, and inciting the students to develop a sensitive, critical and analytical eye towards their environment and the architectural manifestations as directly related to their very own culture.

Ms. Abi Haydar believes in the vital role of architectural education in universities to reconfirm the power of architecture in changing people’s life, her research and teaching are focusing on the expression of the local and the interdisciplinary nature of architecture and its capacity in making this world a better world of inclusion, environmental sustainability and reconnection with mother Nature.