In collaboration with RIWAQ, we have selected 4 Young Palestinian Architect Fellows for 2026. The fellows which will be teaming up with the selected LINA 2025/26 fellows will be leading a 1 week workshops in Prishtina during the Kosovo Architecture Festival First week of July 2026. Our 2026 YPAF fellows are:
Amira Sayyad is a recent graduate in planning and design from Birzeit University based in Jerusalem. Her work explores memory, heritage, and the layered urban realities of Jerusalem through architecture, storytelling, and visual documentation. Interested in the relationship between space, identity, and lived experience, she approaches cities as places shaped by both physical environments and personal narratives. Alongside her academic work, Amira writes short stories and reflective pieces inspired by everyday life, city streets, and individual memory, treating writing as an extension of spatial practice. Through both visual and written forms, her work seeks to uncover overlooked stories and examine how people experience, remember, and connect to place, creating a dialogue between architecture, culture, and personal experience.
Banan Shbair is an architect from Gaza whose work focuses on humanitarian and field-based responses within displacement and post-crisis contexts. Through her experience in site management, monitoring and evaluation within NGOs, and shelter-related interventions, she has worked closely with displaced communities to improve temporary living conditions through safer and more adaptable housing solutions. Her interests center on post-crisis reconstruction, cultural heritage preservation, and human-centered design in fragile environments. Banan has also undertaken research and design studies on transitional housing strategies, examining how emergency shelters can evolve into long-term, community-oriented living environments. Grounded in both professional practice and lived experience, she approaches architecture as more than rebuilding physical structures—seeing it as a means to restore dignity, identity, and a sense of belonging for communities affected by crisis.
Waleed Ahmed is an architect who graduated from Birzeit University in 2023 and currently works there as a research and teaching assistant. His work explores and documents spatial injustice in Palestine through research and visual practices, including drawing, mapping, and spatial analysis. He is interested in developing critical and interdisciplinary approaches to architectural research. His academic and professional interests engage with the relationship between space, politics, and everyday life, examining how architecture can reveal and respond to broader social and territorial conditions. Through analytical and visual methods, he investigates the ways spatial systems shape experiences of place and influence communities. His work seeks to bridge research and design, using architecture as a tool for understanding complex realities and generating alternative perspectives. Waleed is particularly interested in the role of representation and critical inquiry in shaping more informed and socially engaged architectural practices across different social and political contexts today.
Hala Awadallah is an architect from Gaza currently pursuing a Master’s degree in Landscape Architecture for Global Sustainability at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences (NMBU), where her work explores the intersection of architecture, landscape, and crisis-driven urbanism. Drawing from her experiences in Gaza and Norway, her research and design interests focus on reconstruction, public space, water systems, environmental justice, and nature-based approaches for resource-constrained cities. She holds a Bachelor of Architectural Engineering from the Islamic University of Gaza, graduating with distinction, where her thesis project Safe Haven proposed a post-war shelter, school, and cultural center for orphaned children. Hala’s experience spans architectural education, reconstruction initiatives, heritage preservation, and professional design practice, reflecting a strong commitment to socially responsive and community-centered design.
