Associate Professor and Director of the Design Development and Research Lab (DDRL), Kuwait University, College of Architecture
BIO
Asseel is an Associate Professor and the Director of the Design Development and Research Lab at Kuwait University’s College of Architecture. Until recently, she held the positions of Vice Dean for Academic Affairs, Research and Graduate Studies and Director of the Graduate Program in Architecture. She is currently on a two-year sabbatical as a Visiting Research Fellow at CERI-Sciences Po, in Paris, France, where her research focuses on human centered public space planning that responds to the climate crisis. She consults on urban and architectural projects for state planning institutions. Her published research explores the connection between historical urban planning processes and current challenges in Kuwait’s built environment. She is the co-author of the card game Kuwaitscapes designed for children to raise awareness on public space use as well as a public participatory tool for urban planning workshops.
Al-Ragam, A. (2021), Intersections between the Public and Private Spheres of Culture: Modern Heritage Practices in Kuwait in Fabbri, R., & Al-Qassemi, S.S. (Eds.). (2021). Urban Modernity in the Contemporary Gulf: Obsolescence and Opportunities (1st ed.). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003156529
Al-Ragam, A, Peca Amaral Gomes, A, and AlShalfan, S. (2021) Reclaiming public space in Kuwait’s residential neighbourhoods: an applied policy-oriented approach. Kuwait Programme paper series (8). LSE Middle East Centre, London, UK.
Al-Ragam, A. (2019). “Kuwaiti Modernity: An Unfinished Project. The Journal of Architecture 24(3), 366-84.
Al-Ragam, A. (2018), Towards a Critique of Kuwaiti Nahdha: Al-`Imara al-Hadītha and the Competing Narratives on Architecture and Urban Modernity, in Camacho R., Soares S and Fabbri R, (ed.), Essays, Arguments & Interviews on Modern Architecture Kuwait (Salenstein, Niggli), 47-65.
Al-Ragam, A. (2017). “Denial of Coevalness”: Discursive Practices in the Representation of Kuwaiti Urban Modernity. Traditional Dwellings and Settlements Review 28, no. 2, 7-20.
Al-Ragam, A. (2017). Negotiating the Politics of Exclusion: Georges Candilis, Housing and the Kuwaiti Welfare State. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 41, no. 2 (2017): 235-250.
Al-Ragam, A. (2015). Critical Nostalgia: Kuwait Urban Modernity and Alison and Peter Smithson’s Kuwait Urban Study and Mat-Building. The Journal of Architecture. 20 (1): 1-20 5.
Al-Ragam, A. (2014). The Politics of Representation: The Kuwait National Museum and Processes of Cultural Production. International Journal of Heritage Studies. 20 (6): 663-674.
Al-Ragam, A. (2013). The Destruction of Modernist Heritage: The Myth of Al-Sawaber. Journal of Architectural Education, 67 (2): 243-252.
Al-Ragam, A. (2011). Representation and Ideology in Postcolonial Urban Development: the Arabian Gulf. The Journal of Architecture, 16 (4): 455-469.
Al-Ragam, A. (2011), Explorations in Mat-Building: Kuwait Urban Critique. in Avermaete, T and Valena (ed.), Structuralism Reloaded: Rule-Based Design in Architecture and Urbanism, (Edition Axel Menges, Stuttgart), 150-156
