NEW SOUTH
NEW SOUTH is an award-winning architecture, urban planning, and anthropology practice dedicated to creating spaces for vulnerable bodies in contested territories.
Led by architect Meriem Chabani (Algeria, France) and architect anthropologist John Edom (United Kingdom), the practice works across complex sites worldwide, including the Swann Arr Cultural Center in Myanmar, the Globe Aroma refugee art center in Brussels, and the forthcoming Mosque Zero in Paris. NEW SOUTH is a finalist for the Louvre Museum transformation project, and its work is held in the permanent collections of the MAXXI in Rome and Qatar Museums.
The office operates at the intersection of practice, research, and education. Meriem Chabani was the Aga Khan Design Critic in Architecture at the Harvard Graduate School of Design (2025) and has taught at the African Futures Institute in Morocco, École d’Architecture Paris-Malaquais in France, the Royal College of Art in London, and the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne in Switzerland.
In 2020, NEW SOUTH received the Europe 40 Under 40 award from The European Centre for Architecture and The Chicago Athenaeum. In 2024, it was recognized as one of France’s leading female-owned architecture firms, and in 2025, Le Monde named Meriem Chabani among the country’s most influential creative voices.
