Yara Sharif

Palestine Regeneration Team (PART) was co‑founded by architects and academics Nasser Golzari and Yara Sharif. It is a research-by-design group for creative spatial possibilities in fragmented landscape. Their design research has been published widely. Both founders won the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) President’s Award for Research for their work on Palestine. Their projects in partnership with local NGOs also won the Holcim Award for Sustainable Construction 2014 and the Agha Khan Award 2013. More recently, in November 2023, they set up Architects for Gaza (AFG) and Gaza Global University as a response to the urbicide and cultural erasure of the Gaza. The group boasts over 700 volunteers, architects, academics and professionals.

For Yara Sharif, design helps rethink contested landscapes with a new take on architectural practice. Her work focuses on “forgotten” communities, as well as interrogating the relationship between politics and architecture.