Uploaded October 2025 | Updated September 2026, 8 hours ago
“The South does not exist.” —Paul B. Preciado, The Invention of the South, 2017
How do we design from a place defined by its erasure? A place whose epistemologies have been obscured, digested, distorted? Engaging with “the South” as a fictional construct, shaped by subjugation and uneven power relations, this talk explores an architectural practice of anchoring: between the sacred and the profane, the intimate and the planetary, the buried and the visible, the remembered and the not-yet-imagined. Chabani’s practice is situated at the intersection of architecture and research and embraces the in-between. It resists disciplinary enclosures and instead inhabits a space of speculation, translation, and negotiation. Drawing on recent work from NEW SOUTH, this lecture frames architecture as a relational and adaptive practice, one that listens, compromises, and evolves across time, context, and encounter. Ultimately, Chabani’s talk invites a shift from ownership to stewardship and from architecture as commodity to architecture as covenant–a commitment not simply to making space, but to holding it.
Speaker:
Algerian-born and Paris-based, Meriem Chabani is the founder and principal of NEW SOUTH, an award-winning architecture, urban planning, and anthropology practice focused on designing for vulnerable bodies in contested territories, and the Aga Khan Design Critic in Architecture at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. Her work spans complex sites around the world, including the Swann Arr Cultural Center in Myanmar, the Globe Aroma refugee art center in Brussels, and the upcoming Mosque Zero in Paris. She is currently a finalist for the Grenfell Memorial project in London. Her speculative and built work has been exhibited internationally, including at the Venice Biennale, the Biennale de Versailles, the Istanbul Design Biennial, and the Oslo Architecture Triennale. Her projects are held in the permanent collections of the MAXXI in Rome and Qatar Museums. She has previously taught at the African Futures Institute in Morocco, École d’Architecture Paris-Malaquais in France, and EPFL in Switzerland. She was awarded the Europe 40 Under 40 distinction and a Graham Foundation Grant in 2020, and, in 2025, Le Monde named her one of France’s leading creative voices.
00:00 Introduction by Sarah Whiting
05:30 Lecture by Meriem Chabani
46:50 Q+A
“The South does not exist.” —Paul B. Preciado, The Invention of the South, 2017
How do we design from a place defined by its erasure? A place whose epistemologies have been obscured, digested, distorted? Engaging with “the South” as a fictional construct, shaped by subjugation and uneven power relations, this talk explores an architectural practice of anchoring: between the sacred and the profane, the intimate and the planetary, the buried and the visible, the remembered and the not-yet-imagined. Chabani’s practice is situated at the intersection of architecture and research and embraces the in-between. It resists disciplinary enclosures and instead inhabits a space of speculation, translation, and negotiation. Drawing on recent work from NEW SOUTH, this lecture frames architecture as a relational and adaptive practice, one that listens, compromises, and evolves across time, context, and encounter. Ultimately, Chabani’s talk invites a shift from ownership to stewardship and from architecture as commodity to architecture as covenant–a commitment not simply to making space, but to holding it.
Speaker:
Algerian-born and Paris-based, Meriem Chabani is the founder and principal of NEW SOUTH, an award-winning architecture, urban planning, and anthropology practice focused on designing for vulnerable bodies in contested territories, and the Aga Khan Design Critic in Architecture at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. Her work spans complex sites around the world, including the Swann Arr Cultural Center in Myanmar, the Globe Aroma refugee art center in Brussels, and the upcoming Mosque Zero in Paris. She is currently a finalist for the Grenfell Memorial project in London. Her speculative and built work has been exhibited internationally, including at the Venice Biennale, the Biennale de Versailles, the Istanbul Design Biennial, and the Oslo Architecture Triennale. Her projects are held in the permanent collections of the MAXXI in Rome and Qatar Museums. She has previously taught at the African Futures Institute in Morocco, École d’Architecture Paris-Malaquais in France, and EPFL in Switzerland. She was awarded the Europe 40 Under 40 distinction and a Graham Foundation Grant in 2020, and, in 2025, Le Monde named her one of France’s leading creative voices.
00:00 Introduction by Sarah Whiting
05:30 Lecture by Meriem Chabani
46:50 Q+A
