arine aprahamian
ARCHITECTURE • RESEARCH • DESIGNfor press-kit, commission, collaboration and consulting
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Lebanese-Armenian architect, designer and researcher Arine Aprahamian champions an innovative, affordable and sustainable vision of the future through architecture, drawing inspiration from science fiction and the qualities of existing sites.
She founded architecture and design studio MÜLLER APRAHAMIAN with partner Adrian Müller in 2018, working on cutting-edge buildings and proposals, as well as on forward-thinking projects with notable designers, artists and institutions.
Aprahamian was awarded a Fulbright scholarship in 2019, and a Master’s degree in architecture from UC Berkeley, where she started a future-oriented investigative research into innovative and experimental design issues in the hopes of developing new adaptable and resistant systems.
MÜLLER APRAHAMIAN recently launched Terraforma, an in-house R&D project working with local industry to explore the traditional, ancient building material of clay and produce innovative, domestic alternatives for architectural materials.
Throughout 2023-2025, Arine Aprahamian is being mentored by Pritzker prize winner Anne Lacaton as part of the ROLEX Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative.
She is currently based in Rotterdam.
EDUCATION
UC BEREKELEY CA USA
MArch 2019― Fulbright Scholar
STUDIO ONE with Nicholas de Monchaux & Geoff Manaugh
AMERICAN UNIVERSITY OF BEIRUT LB
BArch 2013
Minor in Art History 2012
PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE
MÜLLER APRAHAMIAN BEIRUT, LONDON, ROTTERDAM
2018-Present CO-FOUNDER
Architecture & spatial design buro established with Adrian Müller in 2018. Works with artists, brands, venues, and clients to design and create conceptually stimulating visions for spaces and projects, to realise their full experiential potential.
︎Concept & installation design for Dala Nasser’s work at the Renaissance Society in the University of Chicago and at the 2024 Whitney Biennial.
︎Walled Unwalled: Concept & installation design for Lawrence Abu Hamdan’s film at Tate Modern, the Venice Biennale, Turner Contemporary and Sfeir Samler gallery in Beirut.
︎Apelian Residence: Design and execution of a family home in Voskevaz, Armenia.
︎House Babylon: Installation design for Egyptial luxury bedding brand pop-up.
︎Polyglot: Interior fit-out for Polyglot Technical College in Lebanon.
︎Mountain Unit: Design of extreme weather module, a mountain dwelling for two in the mountains of Lebanon.
TIME EXTRACTION UNIT
2020-Present MEMBER, RESEARCHER
TEU is a multi-headed operation based in and around the malleable and quasi-sentient entity that is the Middle East. Founded by a group of architects, writers, and artists in Beirut, what feels like a decade ago, TEU explores disjunctions, folds, and ruptures in the fabric of time through the creation of digital speculative accounts in each case using as a point of departure psychogeographical places which resist singular narratives and are characterized by collective amnesia, conflict or ecological collapse.
TALKS
The 19th International Architecture Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia, curated by Carlo Ratti ︎︎︎
The Value of the Existing: Anne Lacaton & Arine Aprahamian in Conversation
May 2025
MEXTRÓPOLI 2024 ︎︎︎
Home Is Where the Earth Is
September 2024
MIT Architecture Lecture Series ︎︎︎
Anne Lacaton and Arine Aprahamian
“The Existing : the new material”
April 2024
Vitra Design Museum ︎︎︎
Global Local Architecture as part of Iwan Baan, Momente der Architektur
January 2024
EXHIBITIONS
The Value of the Existing
at the Rolex Pavilion at the 19th International Architecture Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia, curated by Carlo Ratti.
3Phase House, a Project of Sustainable Re-Homing ︎︎︎
at Dutch Design Week 2023
FUTURE READY: Survival Now + Next ︎︎︎
at the Anchorage Museum, Eklutna Dena’ina,
Alaska 2020
DEEP CITY: Climate change, democracy and the digital ︎︎︎
at the Rolex Learning Center, EPFL Architecture in Lausanne
The University of Hong Kong
Singapore University of Technology and Design 2021
PUBLICATIONS
✦ Reimagining Reparations & Repair ︎︎︎ for Arquine Magazine by Adrian Muller with Arine Aprahamian / Sep 2024
✦ Science Fiction And The Future Of California's Ecology: Studio One 2018-2019 ︎︎︎ by Nicholas de Monchaux & Geoff Manaugh
✦ Neologicon: A Cosmic Codex For Anthropocenic Alterations
Time Extraction Unit (TEU) ︎︎︎
in Portable Gray Vol.4 No.2/ Fall 2021
University of Chicago
PRESS
✦ TIME Magazine ︎︎︎
Next Generation Leaders, The Future Is in the Details
✦ ROLEX NEWSROOM ︎︎︎ Rolex announces the mentors and protégés for the 2023−2024 arts programme
✦ The New York Times ︎︎︎
Mentors Named for Next Class in Rolex Arts Initiative
✦ Archinect ︎︎︎
Pritzker winner Anne Lacaton selects Arine Aprahamian as her 2023-24 Rolex Protégé
AWARDS
✦ ROLEX Mentor & Protégé Arts Initiative 2023-2024 Protégée to Anne Lacaton
Fulbright Full Scholarship Grantee 2018-2019 UC Berkeley MArch
Raffy Manoukian Full Scholarship Grantee 2008-2013 American University of Beirut Barch
Fawzi Azar Architecture Award 2013 Finalist
Areen Architecture Award 2013 Finalist
RESEARCH
BOURJ HAMMOUD: The Value of the Existing ︎︎︎ The Value of the Existing is an architectural exercise focusing on Bourj Hammoud, a densely populated, relatively lower-income neighborhood located in the eastern suburbs of Beirut, just beyond the Beirut River.By recognizing the value in the existing before intervening, the study explores how minimal yet intentional design strategies can enhance spatial and living quality, as well as climate comfort, within the economic constraints of a neighborhood where space is a luxury and public areas are nearly absent.
Personal Research
Architectural scenarios in an attempt to highlight and explore the limits of some of the qualities that ultimately render the world we live in a design project: cutting-edge industrial design, the global cinematic imagination, unparalleled demographic integration, agricultural innovation, adaptive infrastructure, and the effects and risks of climate change.
The Time Extraction Unit
TEU is a multi-headed operation based in and around the malleable and quasi-sentient entity that is the Middle East. Founded by a group of architects, writers, and artists in Beirut, what feels like a decade ago, TEU explores disjunctions, folds, and ruptures in the fabric of time through the creation of digital speculative accounts in each case using as a point of departure psychogeographical places which resist singular narratives and are characterized by collective amnesia, conflict or ecological collapse.
TEACHING EXPERIENCE
Gerrit Rietveld Academie AMSTERDAM
2023 Science Fiction, Narrative Speculation & Future Defense Strategies
DesignLab3
TUMO Center For Creative Technologies YEREVAN
2017 How Big is Architecture?
Conducted a two-week Architecture-Lab with Adrian Müller of MÜLLERAPRAHAMIAN, about the understanding and use of scale as a tool for architecture and design.
JURY MEMBER
AMERICAN UNIVERSITY OF BEIRUT Final Year Student’s Mid-Review 03/18
UC BERKELEY Second Year Students’ Mid-Review 03/19
MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY Mid Review 04/24
PROFESSIONAL SOCIETIES
Lebanese Order of Engineers & Architects since 2015
Fulbright Alumni Association Lebanon since 2019
Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, International Exchange Alumni since 2019
LANGUAGE
Fluent English, Arabic, Armenian & French