Tamayouz Excellence Award is proud to announce the winners of The Rifat Chadirji Prize 2026, the award’s fifth cycle, themed The Right to Landscape: Reclaiming Land and Sustaining Lives in Sahl Al Khiam, Lebanon.
The 2026 Rifat Chadirji Prize was organised in collaboration with the International Federation of Landscape Architects (IFLA), and the IFLA Middle East Region, together with the Beirut Urban Lab at the American University of Beirut.
The winners and honourable mentions have been selected from 68 submissions received from 26 countries by the Rifat Chadirji Prize jury, based on the criteria set in the competition’s brief. The jury judged each entry as a whole, so exceptional strength in one area could outweigh a weakness in another. This year’s theme invited participants to envision a landscape-led approach to the recovery of Sahl Al-Khiam, Lebanon, where land, livelihoods, ecology and identity intersect.
The winner of the first prize is Green Alma team from the United Kingdom. The second prize is awarded to American University of Beirut – Team YMN from Lebanon, and the third prize goes to Curio Project team from Italy. Additionally, the Rifat Chadirji Prize also recognises five honourable mentions, which are listed below.
- Professor Jala Makhzoumi – Lebanon: International Federation of Landscape Architects – Middle East Region Past President, American University of Beirut, Adjunct Professor, Co-chair, Tamayouz Excellence Award Grand Jury 2020–25, co-author of Landscape Architecture in the Arab Middle East (Routledge, 2025).
- Professor Howayda Al-Harithy – Lebanon: School of Architecture and Design, American University of Beirut, Professor of Architecture and Urban Design, and Research Director, Beirut Urban Lab.
- Abdul Halim Jabr – Lebanon: Architect, Urban Design Consultant, University of Balamand, Educator.
- Carey Duncan – Morocco: South African Landscape Architect; Founder, Carey Duncan Design; Founding Member, Association of Landscape Architects of Morocco (AAPM); Past President, IFLA Africa (2017–2021); Incoming President, International Federation of Landscape Architects (IFLA) 2026–27.
- Dr Marina Cervera Alonso de Medina – Spain: Landscape Architect and Urban Planner; Founder, NablaBCN Studio; Adjunct Professor, UPC-BarcelonaTech; Executive Director, Barcelona International Landscape Biennial and Rosa Barba International Landscape Prize.
- Professor Hayriye Eşbah Tunçay – Türkiye: Professor of Landscape Architecture, Istanbul Technical University, and Landscape Architect and Urban Design Specialist.
- Batoul Faour – Lebanon: Architectural Researcher, Writer, and Filmmaker
- Ahmed Al-Mallak – UK: Founding Director of Tamayouz Excellence Award, Academic at Coventry University, President of the Arab Architecture Festival, Non-voting Chair.
The Prizes
First prize: The Rifat Chadirji Prize Statuette, $5000 cash prize, Certificate, Tamayouz Medals for the team, and an invitation to attend the ceremony.
Second Prize: $3000 cash prize, Certificate, and an invitation to attend the ceremony.
Third Prize: $2000 cash prize, Certificate, and an invitation to attend the ceremony.
Honourable Mentions: $500 cash prize, certificate, and an invitation to attend the ceremony.
The Rifat Chadirji Prize 2026 Winners:
The detailed results and jury comments
First Place – Green Alma: Nora Aridi, Viviane Viniarski, Gerardo Ponte, Will Sandy, and Zixu Qioa from London, the United Kingdom
The Judging Panel comment:
The jury considered the Baladi Caravan a genuinely fresh, out-of-the-box vision. Proposing a fully equipped mobile unit, the project responds directly to the impermanence of the political situation in southern Lebanon. It is mobile, immediate and pragmatic in emergency conditions, yet able to seed more permanent landscape recovery as safety returns.
The jury valued how intelligently the proposal deals with uncertainty. ‘Impermaculture’ is an original and realistic response that works across occupation, ceasefire and peace; the infrastructure can remain temporary, grow, relocate or become permanent depending on conditions.
The caravans support and guide farmers and displaced people and network them with national organisations. Diaspora co-investment and academic partnerships broaden inclusion and connect the valley to the rest of the country and the wider Lebanese diaspora. The strategic location of the units across the valley, through eight activation sites, demonstrates the range of support they can provide, from agriculture and seed collection to biofuel generation.
The six-layer framework (soil; energy; water; financial security; learning and exchange; and heritage, community and joy) was found to be well considered and complete without becoming over-designed. It is deployed through interrelated interventions within a clear vision, a phasing strategy and a holistic, contextual approach. Mycoremediation, off-grid solar, wind and hydro power, and olive-pit biomass give the proposal strong decarbonisation and resilience. The jury noted that it is unusual to see joy treated as an essential part of recovery rather than an optional extra.
The project reclaims agriculture as an act of peace, political resistance and environmental resilience: connection to this landscape is a human right, and healing contaminated ground is how that right is exercised. Low-key but optimistic, its strength lies in activation and agency rather than monumental intervention.
Second Place – American University of Beirut – Team YMN: Noura Al Naamani, Yanane Yassine, and Maurice Mattar from Beirut, Lebanon
The Judging Panel comment:
The jury considered the ‘Right to…’ framework the project’s strongest idea. It translates the right to landscape into tangible rights to return, settle, grow and belong, giving the proposal a very strong social and human dimension. Its attractiveness lies in this rights-based, people-centred approach to landscape rather than purely in its water-management strategy.
The four phases, Return, Settle, Grow and Belong, are tied clearly to rights of access, benefit, participation and identity. The framework is well phased in relation to return and recovery: incremental, yet with well-defined strategies, offering a strong temporal and spatial reading of how the valley can be reclaimed.
Water is used as the connective spine that stitches the valley back together, linking ecological restoration, agriculture, memory and fragmented communities so that landscape and community heal together. The jury found this well argued.
Landscape analysis is extended beyond the valley to embrace the larger context. The proposal is simple, placing ‘parks’ at three strategic junctions to animate and reclaim the valley landscape, with each location defining the character and function of its park.
Orchard canopies serving as safety zones, women-led cooperatives for olive oil, za’atar and dairy, and oral-history kiosks make this one of the most socially inclusive proposals in the competition. The jury also noted the evocative video, which captures the essence of the competition.
Third Place – Curio Project: Retri Haryanto Atta, Sony Indrawan, Silmi Priliana, Widyasari Ayu Wibowo, Mahassen Masri, and Eugenia Natasha from Florence, Italy
The Judging Panel comment:
The jury found this an exceptionally purposeful concept. Water justice provides a very strong organising idea, and naming the issue of hydrological injustice conveys a message the jury considered important for this competition, in a context where water itself can become a weapon.
Placing water at the heart of agro-ecological governance was commended, as was the reference to Subak, the Balinese terrace system, as a paradigm for the right to water. The Subak principle is applied thoughtfully, respecting the underlying traditional system without copying its physical form. The Temuku is especially successful as both infrastructure and social space: the act of sharing water becomes visible, civic and collective.
The proposal establishes a strong relationship between productive landscape and community resilience as one interconnected system. Its intention is to rebuild soil and agricultural autonomy through agroforestry and the Subak hydrological network, not simply to create a new aesthetic landscape. The analysis of the problem and the responses to the core challenges are clearly set out in the section on the second board.
Adaptive reuse of war-affected structures is powerful and meaningful rather than cosmetic: military hangars become community granaries, the airstrip a phytoremediation wetland and the detention centre a living memorial landscape.
The project understands landscape as social and cultural infrastructure, not only ecological infrastructure. The ordinary acts of moving through and cultivating the land are deliberately connected to memory, belonging and community continuity.
Jury Comments on the Honourable Mentions
(Arranged in countries’ alphabetical order)
ITALABB: Claude El Haddad, Rania Sayed Ahmad, Farah Sadek, and Simone Kehdeh from Beirut, Lebanon
The Judging Panel comment:
The jury valued the strong historical analysis, the clear structuring of the key design challenges and the systems thinking, translated into a clear spatial strategy of interconnected ecological, agricultural, heritage and community networks. The biodiversity and ecological framework is particularly strong. Hydrology, agriculture, mobility, heritage and wastewater infrastructure are well integrated at multiple scales, with the bioremediation of wastewater clearly articulated.
The proposal transforms existing agricultural infrastructure into a resilient rural network where ecology, local economy and community life grow together, with a phased implementation strategy. It makes a clear connection between the town of Khiam and the valley, traversing the agricultural landscape; this link was missing from many entries. The graphics are strong and generally clear.
Participation and governance mechanisms could have been more explicit. Apart from the wastewater bioremediation, strategies such as agrivoltaics, ecological buffers and pollination patches remain suggestions. The information density on the boards is high.
Paolo & Pablo: Pedro Pablo Garcia Alcazar and Paolo Damone from Barcelona, Spain
The Judging Panel comment:
The jury considered this a well-conceived landscape approach built on a strong central idea: landscape is not designed but collectively governed. Reviving the mashaa’ as a farmer-led territorial commons ensures that decisions over land, water and production are collectively negotiated by farmers, cooperatives, municipalities and displaced communities. This was seen as the most rooted response to indigenous knowledge and social inclusion, and as culturally and practically credible rather than imposed. In a valley that is largely privately owned, it has considerable potential to upgrade and perennialise agriculture.
The layering of Blue, Green and Community systems is convincing. Phasing, from immediate survival to long-term regeneration over a 40-year horizon, is one of the project’s strongest aspects, with clear strategies on the source and location of water for each phase. The proposal works across timeframes and territorial scales and leaves room to adapt as conditions change. Proposals for inaccessible parts of the valley remain intentionally provisional rather than over-designed, and the honest note on designing without a site visit shows maturity. The presentation is sensitive and clever.
The physical and ecological design is the least developed aspect. Soil, water, habitat and energy strategies needed to be made spatial, and there are few concrete site-scale interventions. Heritage and memory are present conceptually, but with few concrete memorial or built-heritage actions.
Landscape First: Niloufer Yusuf Shahapur from Manchester, the United Kingdom
The Judging Panel comment:
The jury considered the conceptual position strong: the valley itself becomes the memorial. Remembrance is expressed not through a monument but through a living landscape, where ecological regeneration, productive agriculture and community stewardship become acts of remembrance, allowing memory to evolve through continuous care.
The closed-loop agrosilvopastoral system is very well explained and credible. Drawing on Lebanon’s agricultural heritage, it adapts traditional crop, legume and livestock rotations into a regenerative system; existing orchards are retained and enriched with forage-producing understorey shrubs, while new olive and carob groves establish productive landscapes for future generations. Circular management extends to water, and biogas, manure, treated effluent for irrigation and the constructed wetland give strong ecological performance and decarbonisation.
Concentrating programme in the previously inaccessible southern area is a bold decision that gives the project a social and political edge, reclaiming land associated with exclusion as a shared productive and civic landscape. The past, present and future sequence is simple but effective, and the spatial restraint suits the idea of continuity. The proposal is clear and well grounded in existing conditions, and its graphics are sensitive and beautiful.
Social inclusion and governance are thin: who owns, decides and benefits is not stated. The crop succession is too complicated to follow graphically, and the locations of Site A (crop first) and Site B (pasture first) could not be found. The area shown is a small sample, leaving it unclear how the idea extends across the whole valley.
MNA26: Mohamad Nour Abo Amou from London, the United Kingdom
The Judging Panel comment:
The jury found the narrative exceptionally strong, almost a political manifesto, capturing the resilience of the people and rooted in land stewardship and lived experience. The questions ‘What remains? What return?’ provide a powerful framework. The proposal demonstrates an intimate understanding of the valley’s hydrology, agriculture, fragmented ownership, movement patterns and post-war material conditions.
It offers the strongest reading of indigenous knowledge in the competition. Declaring the three springs hima, distributing water by gravity so that no strike or power failure can cut the valley off, and designing around the fragmented, family-held plot pattern rather than consolidating it show a real understanding of how the valley has endured, and a respect for traditional land tenure. Rubble from the bombing is recycled as gabions for terraces, walls, benches and paving, lowering embodied carbon, with collection centres that mobilise the community. Extending rehabilitation to both sides of the valley, Al-Khiam and Qlayaa, reduces soil erosion and harvests rainwater runoff.
Water management, productive landscape, rubble reuse, community stewardship and everyday movement are integrated into one coherent landscape system. The strategies are practical, clear and technically worked out, and the graphics are strong, clear and informative.
Biodiversity and habitat could have been communicated more explicitly, as ecological performance is asserted rather than evidenced. The governance of the hima, and the financing of the shift from cash crops to perennial groves, needed further detail. On the main aerial image, the mapped interventions and key are difficult to distinguish.
The Collective: Jessica Huynh, and Fatimah Ishmael from London, the United Kingdom
The Judging Panel comment:
The jury found this a beautifully presented, sensitive and realistic proposal, departing from a clear and well-documented understanding of the site and its integrated layers. Topography, water, agricultural terraces, paths and inherited practices are treated as the basis of the design, as instructions already written into the ground, rather than as constraints to overcome or an occasion to impose a new order.
The overall vision addresses water conservation through interventions at four strategic locations, each simple and clearly explained. The hydrological sequence is convincing, linking recharge terraces that follow traditional terracing, the spring, reed-bed greywater treatment and agricultural reuse, with the old treatment plant reclaimed as a wetland. The stayha-inspired library café at Ain Dardara and the gabion terracing work well. Interventions are modest in scale, believable in character and make good use of existing structures. Governance is addressed well: the water council, with one seat per zone, is an elegant and inclusive device.
The four site interventions are rich, but the valley-wide strategy for agriculture, contamination and return is less developed, and the parts of the proposal could have been integrated more into one whole. The riparian corridor is over-emphasised for what is a seasonal stream. Some mapping and symbols are difficult to decipher.
Click here to learn more about the Rifat Chadirji Prize 2026 shortlist.
The jury reflected on the quality and significance of this year’s submissions: “We were deeply moved by many of the proposals, and especially by the way the resilience of people emerged alongside the resilience and healing capacity of the landscape itself. The depth of reflection, and at times the poetic approach to memory, belonging and recovery, gave extraordinary richness to the entries and showed how landscape can become a powerful framework for renewal, continuity and hope. The range, quality and diversity of the entries mark an important milestone, particularly as landscape architecture is an emerging profession in South West Asia and North Africa. The design ideas were creative and responsive to their social, economic and ecological contexts, contributing to expanding the understanding of landscape in the region. The Right to Landscape was truly affirmed.”
The Rifat Chadirji Prize, named after the prolific Iraqi architect Dr Rifat Chadirji, is an international thematic competition addressing architectural and urban challenges across the Near East and North Africa. Each cycle explores a different context: from Rebuilding Iraq’s Liberated Areas: Mosul’s Housing (2017), to the Baghdad Design Centre (2018), to Barjeel Museum for Modern Arab Art in Sharjah (2019), to A Living Pedestrian Bridge Over The Nile (2020).
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.