HIBA BOU AKAR
Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation
Associate Professor
School Profile
Hiba Bou Akar is Associate Professor of Urban Planning at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation, where she leads the Post-Conflict Cities Lab. Her research examines the question of futurity and the practice of urban planning in relation to forms of urbanization shaped by war, climate futures, displacement, and refugeeness, with particular attention to conflict and post-conflict cities, urban violence, and the role of religious-political organizations in the making of cities. She is the author of the award-winning book For the War Yet to Come: Planning Beirut’s Frontiers (2018) and co-editor of Narrating Beirut from its Borderlines (2011). She is currently finalizing a book manuscript, The Afterlives of Dead Futures, scheduled for publication in 2028. Bou Akar has also worked as an architect, planner, and research consultant with local NGOs and UN agencies in the Middle East.
