This book investigates the architectural implications of sympoiesis, the concept of “making-with,” through the work of Franco-Lebanese architect Lina Ghotmeh. Centering on the concepts of sympoietic living and sentimental care, the project explores how architecture can cultivate affective relationships, kinship, and memory across human and non-human realms. Structured in two parts, the first, Syntax, offers a theoretical framework built around six concepts: sympoiesis, sentimental care, kinship, affect, aesthetics, and memory. The second part, Categories, each examines one of Ghotmeh’s major projects through specific themes: environment and weather, earth and earthlings, materials and resources, participants and clients, land and heritage, beauty and aesthetics. These chapters engage closely with Ghotmeh projects, showing how architecture becomes a medium for knowledge, care, memory, and interdependence. The book concludes with a series of string games diagrams representing the six syntax definitions.

Lina Ghotmeh is a Lebanese-born architect and founder of the award-winning practice Lina Ghotmeh — Architecture, which is celebrated for designs that unite sustainability, tradition, and innovation. Guided by her philosophy, “Archaeology of the Future,” her work weaves history, craftsmanship, and ecological responsibility into inclusive visions of the built environment. Her notable projects include the western range galleries of the British Museum, the Bahrain Pavilion for Expo 2025, the Qatar Pavilion at La Biennale di Venezia, the Serpentine Pavilion 2023, Ateliers Hermès in Normandy (France’s first low-carbon, energy-positive industrial building), the Stone Garden housing tower in Beirut, and the Estonian National Museum. Her architecture has been exhibited at the MAXXI and at the 17th and 19th International Architecture Exhibitions of La Biennale di Venezia. An active academic and speaker at leading global forums, Ghotmeh has taught at Yale, the University of Toronto, and Harvard University Graduate School of Design. Her accolades include the Great Arab Minds Award (2023), the Schelling Architecture Award (2020), and the Prix Dejean (2016).

Ilaria Di Carlo is an architect, researcher, and writer. She graduated with honors at Milan Polytechnic with a master’s of arts in landscape urbanism at the Architectural Association in London and she holds a PhD in environmental engineering from the University of Trento. Di Carlo is a senior lecturer in history and theory of architecture at the Bartlett (UCL) in London, visiting professor at the UTDT in Buenos Aires, codirector of the AA Visiting school Milan and a member of the Scientific Committee for ACADIA. She has been the recipient of the UNTN PhD scholarship 2010-14 and is the author of the book The Aesthetic of Sustainability. Systemic Thinking and Self-organisation in the evolution of cities (Listlab, 2016) as well as numerous peer reviewed papers. Her research interest focuses on the importance of aesthetics and emotions, revisited through the lenses of systemic thinking and transdisciplinarity, in the sustainable design of city and territory.

Daria Ricchi is a senior lecturer in history and theory of architecture at Oxford Brookes University and faculty member at New York University London. She is a writer and architecture historian and holds a PhD in history and theory of architecture from Princeton University. Her research focuses on methods and styles of writing the histories of architecture. On the topic she published Writing Architecture in Modern Italy (Routledge, 2020). She is researching the impact and implication of bodily movements in the experience of space. Over the years, she also specialized in biographies having written on architects such as Mecanoo (Dedalo, 2005); Kengo Kuma (Motta Editore, 2007); Diller and Scofidio (Skira, 2007), and Maggie Keswick (Bloomsbury, 2025). This last piece of research is part of a larger work on therapeutic environments that brings together the importance of space as therapy under publication as Maggie’s Centres: an Architecture of Care (Bloomsbury, 2026).