ABOUT US

We are a charity that uses design and architecture to empower vulnerable children, youth and their communities. We achieve this through built and research projects, delivered using a participatory approach that engages local communities.

Our Services

Our Approach

We work with communities to produce dignified built environments where everyone can take part in the creation of equitable, inclusive and sustainable communities. Through community engagement we build local human capacity that ensures our work has a lasting positive impact.

Participation is at the core of our approach. We believe that to generate sustainable and just interventions, people’s and children’s visions and ideas must drive interventions. This is why we developed context-specific participatory tools to meaningfully engage with communities in each step of a project cycle.

Researching local contexts and needs

Translating ideas into solutions

Sustainable procurement and implementation

Activation, ownership and management

Impact evaluation

Learning and dissemination

1. Researching local contexts and needs

2. Translating ideas into solutions

3. Sustainable procurement and implementation

4. Activation, ownership and management

5. Impact evaluation

6. Learning and dissemination

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Where We Work

To date we have implemented:

design
projects

participatory
activities

research
projects

advocacy
events

Our Team

We are a team of architects, researchers, artists, builders, educators, filmmakers and humanitarians. Our story began in 2014, when we supported refugee children in Lebanon by co-creating safer and stimulating educational spaces. Today, we continue to work with vulnerable communities to enhance the quality of their built environment and improve people’s wellbeing.

Joana Dabaj
Director of Programmes and Co-founder
Joana holds an MSc from University College London and a Bachelor of Architecture from the American University of Beirut. She is an architect and researcher whose recent work revolves around working closely with displaced and host communities in Lebanon to co-design inclusive research and built interventions, with a focus on play, urban displacement and the public realm.

Riccardo Luca Conti
Executive Director and Co-founder
Riccardo is an architect and urban designer with over 9 years’ experience in participatory design. He has led numerous placemaking initiatives, overseeing the design and construction of built interventions with vulnerable communities and managing complex design-build projects. He holds an MSc from University College London and a BSc in Architecture from Politecnico di Milano.

Giulia Galli
Lead Architect
Giulia holds a MSc in Architecture from Politecnico di Milano. Through her work, she aims to improve the living conditions of vulnerable communities focusing on sustainable development and human centred-design. In her recent experiences, across different countries such as Italy, Chile and India, she developed several projects with a strong social impact, in collaboration with no-profit organisations and design firms.

Sara Maassarani
Local Coordinator
Sara holds a masters degree in architectural engineering from the Beirut Arab University. Her experience focuses on humanitarian architecture and looking for ways in which design can enhance social cohesion; currently completing her PhD on this specific topic. With CatalyticAction, she has been coordinating all field operations, from community engagement to managing local researchers and ensuring successful project delivery.

Ramona Abdallah
Architect and Researcher
Ramona holds a masters in architecture from the Lebanese University and an MSc in gender studies at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden, with interest in decolonizing knowledge, participatory approaches, genderism and ableism in architecture. Throughout her practice and research work, she embedded a gender lens to address inequalities leading her to pilot her Feminist architecture research initiative.

Dima Mabsout
Art & Education Programme Consultant
Dima Mabsout’s creative practice has been evolving over the past decade, traversing educational, psychosocial, and political realms. She is interested in how the arts can bridge between experiences, disciplines and across social structures. Dima holds a BA in Fine Arts from Central Saint Martins, London, an MA in Arts in Education from Harvard Graduate School of Education.

Ronan Glynn
H&S Consultant
Ronan has a diverse career combining both construction and media production. His experience on site brings with it both practical implementation skills and pre-phase planning knowledge. Advising and assisting on UK HSE guidance for safe systems of work; to improve the wider levels of safety on our site.

Jacopo Donato
Architect
Jacopo achieved a MSc in Architecture with the final project “Building Peace in Mosul. A propulsion system for returnees”. With this project he won the 2nd prize of the “Tamayouz International Graduation Project Award” and a mention in the Emergency’s “Design against war” international competition. Jacopo believes in architecture that guarantees the rights of survival, coexistence, and prosperity of every human being.

Our Trustees

Andrea Rigon
Associate Professor at University College of London
Andrea has a background in development studies and research, consultancy and project management experience in several countries. He lived in Kenya for four years, working and researching in the informal settlements of Nairobi as a project manager for an NGO, consultant for UN-Habitat, and as a research associate at the Institute of Development Studies, University of Nairobi.

Sandra D’Urzo
Senior Officer with the Shelter and Settlements Unit of the IFRC
Sandra is an architect whose work aims to improve the living conditions of the most vulnerable. Since joining the IFRC in 2009 she has worked on large-scale reconstruction efforts in Colombia, Haiti, Ecuador, Mozambique, Sri Lanka and promoted recovery plans that embrace green response, improved local building practices, and tailored technical trainings for staff and volunteers.

Andrew Hilton
Architect and Lecturer at Birmingham City University
Andrew Hilton RIBA ARB BA (Hons) Architecture, Dip Arch, PG (Dip) Architectural Practice. Andrew has 20 years professional experience working in architecture and urban design with projects around the UK, Europe, Africa, Middle East and China. In 2008 he co-founded Urban Synthesis (UK) Ltd which has grown to have offices in UK and China.

Ignacia Ossul Vermehren
Gender and Humanitarian Analyst at UN Women Somalia
Ignacia is a gender and inclusion specialist, working in humanitarian action and development. She currently works for UN Women in Somalia. She holds a PhD from University College London on women’s access to housing.

Grace Nalty
Philanthropy Lead at British Red Cross
Grace has worked in fundraising for over 7 years, and is currently Philanthropy Lead at British Red Cross, securing six and seven figure transformational gifts to support humanitarian action across the globe. Grace has a BA in History of Art and Material Studies from UCL.

Awards

Winner of the Inspire Future Generations Awards 2023 – Long Term Programme Category
Special Mention for the Real Play City Challenge 2020
Winner of the Participatory Design Conference Award 2020
Shortlisted for the Aga Khan Award for Architecture 2017-2019 Cycle
Bronze Winners of the Regional Holcim Awards 2017 Middle East Africa
Commendation for the ASF Award 2017
Lebanese Architecture Award 2016