Baumer Lecture Series: Hiba Bou Akar

Hiba Bou Akar is an associate professor at the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation at Columbia University. Her research focuses on planning in conflict and post-conflict cities, the question of urban violence, and the role of religious political organizations and aid organizations in the making of cities.

She is also the founder and director of the Post-Conflict Cities Lab at Columbia University. Bou Akar is the author of For the War Yet to Come: Planning Beirut’s Frontiers (2018) and is currently working on a book manuscript entitled Sedimentary Urbanization: Displacement, Refugeeness, and the Afterlives of Dead Futures.

Dr. Bou Akar received her PhD in City and Regional Planning from the University of California, Berkeley, holds a Bachelor of Architecture from the American University of Beirut, and a Master in Urban Studies and Planning from MIT.

“Sedimentary Urbanization: Displacement, Refugeeness, and the New Geographies of Dead Futures”

In this talk about her new book project, Sedimentary Urbanization, Dr. Bou Akar will explore the concept of what she terms the “new geographies of dead futures.”

If the envisioned and planned future is disrupted or left incomplete due to unforeseen events, a “dead future,” what alternative futures manifest in these geographies? What role does planning play in this context? This framework explores the ways the geographies of the imagined futures of the past have been reconfigured through temporalities and spatialities of displacement, refugeeness, occupation, and humanitarian aid in the peripheries of Beirut, Lebanon, in informalized sites that have been shared by impoverished Lebanese families and Syrian refugees over the past decade.

These reconfigured dead futures present opportunities for new forms of urban habitation and existence to emerge, particularly for those lacking access to shelter amidst state neglect of the urban poor. Thinking from Beirut, I consider humanitarian interventions in the urbanization of the Middle East to explore the complex web of jurisdictions governing refugee urban spaces and the physical infrastructure of humanitarian aid in conflict zones.

This event is approved for AICP CM credit. To claim your CM credits, log into your My APA account on the APA website and enter the event into your online CM event log.

This event is part of the Spring 2026 Baumer Lecture Series.

The Baumer Lecture Series invites prominent researchers and practitioners of architecture, landscape architecture, and city and regional planning to present their work and to engage subjects both topical and enduring.