Ali Rahim

Ali Rahim is Professor of Architecture and Director of Advanced Architecture Design (MSD-AAD) at the University of Pennsylvania Weitzman School of Design. He is Co-Director of the New York and Shanghai based architectural firm CAP. Mr. Rahim has served as the Studio Zaha Hadid Visiting Professor at the University of Applied Arts (die Angewandte) in Vienna, as the Louis I. Kahn Visiting Professor at Yale University, as a Visiting Architecture Professor at Harvard University and a Visiting Professor at SCI-Arc.

Mr. Rahim's books include Catalytic Formations: Architecture and Digital Design (20012), published by the China Building Press, Beijing; Catalytic Formations: Architecture and Digital Design (2006), published by Routledge, London; Turbulence (2011), published by Norten and Company, New York; and four edited issues of Architectural Design AD, Impact (2021) and Elegance (2007), both co-edited with Hina Jamelle, Contemporary Techniques in Architecture (2002), and Contemporary Processes in Architecture (2000) and Future Airports (2020), Asset Architecture 1, 2, and 3 (2016, 2017, and 2018), published by ORO. He has a forthcoming book on design research titled Catalytic Forms, which is to be published in 2022 by Routledge.

CAP Founded in 1999, is known for futuristic designs using digital techniques and the latest technologies for the design and manufacturing of architecture. Projects include commissions by The Museum of Modern Art [New York]; Reebok Shanghai, Lijia Smart Park, Chongqing, Wenjin Hotels, Beijing, NJCTTQ Pharmaceuticals, Nanjing, AMEC Technologies, Nanchang [China]; Samsung, Seoul [South Korea]; and IWI Orthodontics Clinic, Tokyo [Japan].

Contemporary Architecture Practice’s projects have been exhibited extensively at the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the London, Beijing, and Shanghai Biennales; and the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, among others. They also have been featured in more than 250 major publications around the world. Co-Directors Rahim and Jamelle have won the Architectural Record Design Vanguard Award and were featured in Phaidon’s 10x10x2 as one of the world’s top 100 emerging architects. Their project, IWI Orthodontics in Tokyo, Japan was featured in Phaidon’s ROOM 100 as one of the most creative interior design projects of the century. Their design for Reebok won the Outstanding Award for FEIDAD 2006 (Far Eastern Digital Architecture Design). In 2015 he was recognized as 50 Under 50 Innovators of the 21st Century by a distinguished jury.

Some of the 250 publications include the New York Times, Washington Post, International Herald Tribune, London Standard, the National Newspaper of Abu Dhabi, the Nikkei Newspaper (Tokyo), and the Mainichi Shimbun. Journals include Yale Constructs, Architectural Record, Domus (Milan), Arkitektin (Denmark), A+U (Tokyo), and Space (Korea).