This interview features Meisa Batayneh the Founder and Principal Architect of Maisam Architects, established in Amman in 1986.
Over four decades, she has led multidisciplinary teams across the MENA region on projects spanning architecture, urban design, and master planning from landmark buildings such as Petra Museum in Jordan to large-scale developments such as the Mina Zayed Master Plan in Abu Dhabi. Her work has been recognised by the World Architecture Festival and Architizer.
In this interview, Meisa discusses the turning point that led her to architecture and the development of Maisam Architects, exploring the principles behind her practice and projects such as the Petra Museum. She reflects on her approach to socially sustainable architecture, her work in building institutions including the Jordan Green Building Council and the Middle East Leadership Association, and her commitment to creating opportunities for young people in Jordan.
You’ve said the turning point for you was winning a national award for a juvenile centre in the U.S.A. Can you expand on that moment, and what it told you about wanting to be an architect?
While I was studying in the United States, universities across the country were invited to develop concepts for juvenile centres that could be built nationwide.
My teacher, the Greek architect Antonis Antoniadis, and the world-renowned architectural critic Charles Jencks reviewed our work. We pinned up anonymous concept sheets so they could choose who would participate.
My concept was summed up in two words: “Stop & Go.” I supported it with a few metaphorical sketches, including the idea of abandoned trains being recycled and given a new life.
When they asked who had created it and what I meant philosophically, I explained that a young person should not be defined by one mistake. The centre should make them feel they were not stuck — that they could move forward. I remember until today Mr Jencks saying, “This one is a winner.”
I won the nationwide competition. That moment showed me what architecture can do: it can give a young person a second chance in built form. It has shaped my approach ever since.
What are the visions, goals or principles behind Maisam Architects? How do projects like the Petra Museum reflect them?
At maisam, we believe in creating places and experiences that elevate the quality of human life. Everything we do must align with that purpose.
For the Petra Museum, we asked what higher purpose a museum should serve beyond telling Petra’s story, what the people of Wadi Mousa need, and how to respond to the clutter at the gateway to the ancient city.
We set the museum back from the main street, created a park for people to gather, and used a quiet architectural language. The building rises above a water edge that reflects the building and sky. Together, the museum and park form a threshold connecting the visitors’ bus hub to the souq and the gateway to Petra.
More than a decade ago, you said architecture is moving away from “flashy, statement, arrogant designs” toward social sustainability as a main driver. Can you expand on what that shift has meant for your own practice?
I have never felt I belonged to the statement-driven side of architecture. So when the profession shifted toward social sustainability, it was not a change of direction for us, for me or maisam.
The world had simply moved to where we already stood. What we had always done was listen to people and place. We became guardians of that approach by learning how to translate it, so that it became something that clients accepted, even when their initial incentives were different—more market-driven, perhaps, than socially sustainable.
What are some of the challenges you’ve faced building both buildings and institutions, from Maisam to the Jordan Green Building Council and the Middle East Leadership Association?
The greatest challenge was time. For years, my life was architecture and my children, and until my forties I rarely left the office.
Everything changed when I built a team I could trust. It freed me, and I wanted to give back. My path into service began by accident: I went to a Young Entrepreneurs Association meeting to cast my vote and left as its vice president.
I then spent fourteen years building a network of young Arab leaders who reached beyond their region and beyond nationality: a family connected by our shared humanity, supporting one another in building and in life.
You’ve said your dream client would be people in refugee camps, on a postwar or post-disaster reconstruction project. Can you expand on why and did you get the chance to do that?
Working with the people of Petra taught me what is possible. When they built their own homes from their own soil, something shifted in their energy and confidence.
Gaza moves me deeply, and its people inspire me. I don’t believe anyone should build for people who understand their own spirit and memory better than any architect.
When asked to contribute this past year, I asked for two things: that outsiders not bid to build it, and that we work by acupuncture, building on one empty lot at a time until it all links.
Rubble takes years to clear. Hope can begin today, on a single plot.
What are you working on now?
We are working on several projects, and two are closest to my heart. The first is the Excellence Centre at the University of Jordan, bringing every department’s examinations under one roof. Tomorrow I go to the quarry to choose its stone.
The second is What Remains… The Life of Place, presented with the Jordan National Gallery of Fine Arts in Al Weibdeh as part of Amman Design Week 2026. It begins with the stones of a demolished family house and expands to the neighbourhood: its homes, gardens, people.
It does not ask Al Weibdeh to stand still. It asks how a place can evolve without losing what gives it meaning.
Its contribution to Amman is a question we all share: how do we move forward without losing what we have loved about the places that shape our lives?
What was the first commission you lost because a client doubted you could run a project of that size, and how did you get the next one anyway?
It was never about size or scale, and it was not about mistrust. It was about mindset: a different outlook on the impact architecture can have on people’s lives.
The commission I lost was in Petra. I believed Petra should be built with the people, for the people.
When you build for the local community, visitors follow. They come for what is authentic, not for another hotel, and that uniqueness is Petra’s true value.
But the commissioning kept changing, and with it the decision makers and the belief system behind the project. A disconnect of values cannot be solved with a better drawing, and I would rather lose a commission over values than win it and lose the purpose.
What’s a piece of advice you give young women architects today that you had to learn the hard way, because nobody told you?
Be your own client. Design what you like to build, and enter competitions and aim to win them, because when you win, you are likely to build what you dreamed of.
You may struggle for the first ten years, but you will not suffer for a lifetime, you won’t loose integrity. I had to learn this the hard way, and I share it with great affection for the young women: do not wait to be chosen. Choose your work, and let it choose you back.
And too, even if harsh, know that balance is a myth. Learn to juggle; this will become your pillar of resilience.
You have played an important role in opening doors to young people in Jordan through the institutions that you founded or supported — how did this become part of your mission?
Architecture is too vast for one mind. You can never succeed alone, because people have different strengths.
I have never believed that an institution exists to produce followers; it exists to help people find what they find interesting and important.
My work has been to recognise talent early, give it responsibility, and build the platforms, whether a practice, a council or a network, where young people can be seen and heard. Collective work is slower, but it goes deeper and outlives any one of us.
I learned this from my practice. At maisam, the boldest step was to share ownership: I gave a quarter of the company to its people. They became owners, and that created a real shift, a true sense of agency.
Which project have you worked on that is the closest to your heart and why?
To be honest, it is my house. Building my home was one of the most rewarding things I have done, and I am deeply grateful to have had the chance, to design with my family at the centre It became a reflection of who we are and what we stand for, and in that sense a guide.
Twenty-four years on, I still walk in and think, ‘This is home.” It has the right transitions, light, and it has held my family’s happiness. It reminds me that architecture, done well, is sustainable in its lasting and healing in its effect on the spirit.
Meet the Shortlist series is a compilation of interviews with those who have been shortlisted for our awards. Saliha Benmessaoud is on the shortlist for the Women in Architecture and Construction Award, which recognises women who have made outstanding contributions to architecture and the built environment across the Near East and North Africa.
Meet the Shortlist: Hadeel Ayed Mohammad, Dr Hiba Alkhalaf, Jomana Baddad, Nuha Dandis, Ronak Roshan Gilvaei, Saliha Benmessaoud, Salima Naji, Salwa and Selma Mikoü, and Dr Zahra Hussain.
Tamayouz Excellence Award is sponsored by 99 Properties Development, Coventry University, Dewan Architects + Engineers, the Mohamed Makiya Foundation, Bonair Ltd, Aji Group, and Round City Magazine.