Halah Abi Haydar

Former Acting Dean ا Part-Time Assistant Professor
e-mail: habihaydar@azmuniversity.edu.lb

Ms. Abi Haydar is an AUB graduate and a syndicated freelance architect with
30 years of professional and academic experience of which 16 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.