This book critically examines L.E.FT Architects’ diverse body of work from the past decade, reorganizing their designs, research, and pedagogical pursuits around five Arabic spatial terms: tawaf (circumambulation space), jami (mosque space), riwaq (courtyard’s colonnade), dar (domicile), and khirba (ruin). Grounded in the Arab-speaking, Islamic geographies of the Middle East and North Africa, these terms illuminate and conceptualize L.E.FT’s investigations into contemporary religious and non-religious architecture. In doing so, the book expands discussions of Islamic architecture beyond the fixed typologies that have historically characterized it, proposing instead a more fluid, multifaceted understanding of its contemporary global manifestations. The book reveals how L.E.FT’s praxis translates linguistic and historical knowledge into projective design, advancing an intellectual dialogue across religious, cultural, and geographic boundaries through detailed case studies, theoretical discussions, and design analysis.

Makram el Kadi is a cofounder of L.E.FT Architects (Beirut/New York) and currently runs the Middle East regional office. El Kadi taught architecture studios at Columbia University, Cornell University, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he served as the Aga Khan visiting lecturer. He served as part of Yale University’s core studio faculty from 2009 to 2012 and was the Louis Kahn Visiting Assistant Professor of Architecture for spring 2011. El Kadi has lectured at major schools, institutions and museums, including the Guggenheim Museum in 2010 as part of the 24-Hour Event on the Concept of Time. He currently teaches architecture at the American University of Beirut. El Kadi is the recipient of the 2002 Young Architects Forum Award and the 2010 Emerging Voices Award from the Architectural League of New York.

Ziad Jamaleddine is a cofounder of L.E.FT Architects (New York/Beirut) and an assistant professor at Columbia University's Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation. He is a practitioner and scholar with a research focus on mosque architecture. He has taught at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he served as the Aga Khan visiting lecturer, and at Yale University as the Louis Kahn Visiting Assistant Professor of Architecture for spring 2011. His writings have been published in Places Journal (2020), Journal of Material Cultures in the Muslim World (2024), and International Journal of Islamic Architecture (2025). Jamaleddine is the recipient of the 2002 Young Architects Forum Award, and the Emerging Voices Award from the Architectural League of New York (2010). In 2024, he was selected as one of the Nine Arab American Architects You Should Know by the American Institute of Architects.