Rolex Taps Beirut’s Arine Aprahamian As Its Next Architecture Protégé

Aprahamian’s practice is multifaceted. As an independent researcher, she takes inspiration from science fiction, anticipating the problems of the future in order to arrive at solutions for the present. Her master’s thesis at UC Berkeley, for instance, envisioned monuments made of excess salt from desalination stations for ocean water. “California already feels like the future, both in terms of its problems and advances,” she reflects, citing homelessness, natural disasters, and technological innovations.

At her studio, Müller Aprahamian, founded in 2018 with Adrian Müller, she has undertaken a series of projects that shrewdly make do with what’s available. Their update to a technical school in Bourj Hammoud (the Armenian enclave outside Beirut where she grew up) relied on affordable local materials out of necessity. An experimental dwelling, meanwhile, can be built in three phases, with the house inhabitable at each stage.

As part of the Rolex initiative, Aprahamian follows in the footsteps of past architecture protégés like Gloria Cabral, Simon Kretz, and Mariam Kamara— now an AD100 talent—who were paired with the legendary Peter Zumthor, David Chipperfield, and David Adjaye, respectively. “The beauty of the practice of architecture is that it necessitates collaboration,” notes Aprahamian. “I look forward to the opportunity to one day mentor and inspire the next wave of architects and designers.” rolex.org