Anastasia Elrouss is a multi-award-winning architect with an uninterrupted professional journey spanning fifteen years. She studied at the American University of Beirut, where she regularly teaches design courses.
She began her career at Samir Khairallah & Partners (2005–2006), followed by a position at Jean Nouvel’s studio in Paris (2007). In 2011, she was appointed to lead the architecture firm YTAA, where she quickly became a founding partner and managing director (2011–2017).
Within this framework, she led several major architectural and urban planning projects, including the architectural and urban vision for Brazza, a 60-hectare district in Bordeaux, a 17,000 m² housing project in Nantes, and a museum in Bucharest.
In November 2017, she established her own architectural practice, ANA – Anastasia Elrouss Architects. Her projects were soon recognized by her peers and received multiple international awards, including:
- Iconic Award (2018)
- German Design Award (2019)
- Design that Educates Award (2019 & 2020)
- Architizer Award (2019)
With ongoing projects in Lebanon, Bahrain, Canada, Romania, and Dubai, Anastasia Elrouss frequently travels, not only for her architectural work, but also to speak at international conferences, where she actively advocates for a cause close to her heart: women’s empowerment and gender equality in professional spaces, particularly on construction sites.
In 2019, her studio was awarded second prize at the Krakow Architecture Biennale, under the theme “Connection: Cities and Rivers.” She was also selected as one of 72 “ordinary heroes” to participate in Al Safar ("journey" in Arabic), an international cultural platform project, In the Footsteps of Ibn Battuta, in partnership with UNESCO, the French digital edition of National Geographic, and the MiSK Art Institute.
The idea for Warchée, a bold and socially driven NGO, was born directly from her experience on construction sites, where she witnessed firsthand the lack of opportunities for women in trades traditionally dominated by men.
Deeply affected early in her career by the precarious conditions many women face in her country, she founded Warchée in 2017: a carpentry workshop where disadvantaged women are trained not only to work with wood, but to shape their own futures. This space serves both as a training center and a platform for empowerment, challenging and redefining the norms of a historically male-dominated trade into a tool for autonomy and resilience.
Thanks to Warchée, now evolving into a full-fledged social enterprise, the first cohort of 30 female carpenters in the Middle East has already entered the labor market, equipped with skills in traditional woodworking and digital fabrication technologies. The initiative spans across Beirut, Tripoli (North Lebanon), and Marseille.
Supported by major international institutions, including La Francophonie avec Elles (OIF), the French Development Agency (AFD), the Drosos Foundation, the Canada Fund for Local Initiatives (CFLI), the Fondation de France, and the Crisis and Support Center of the French Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs (CDCS), Warchée weaves a powerful connection between architectural creation and social reconstruction, actively working to reduce gender inequality through design and craftsmanship.
