Annabel Karim Kassar & Associates was established in Beirut in 1994 and has since developed a reputation for design excellence and precision, with a distinctive approach to modern architectural environments. AKK has broad experience in interiors, urban development, private homes, and major public buildings. The bureau is equally dedicated to architecture as interiors, and the two evolve in tandem.
With offices in Beirut, London and Dubai, the practice is compelled to present a personal and contemporary understanding of tradition and modernity. AKK continues to broaden its agenda and scope on an international level. The team is currently working on projects across Beirut, Paris, Dubai, London, Jordan, China and Kazakhstan. AKK & Associates has broad experience in interiors, urban development, private homes, and major public buildings. In collaboration with an international network of technical partners, the bureau’s realizations include offices, nightclubs, headquarters, hotels, sport and shopping centers, cultural institutions, and theaters. The work of AKK & Associates is engendered with a sense of the collective, and the positive view that design is more a process than a style. Once structural challenges have been solved, subsequent layers are applied: light, motif, furniture and fabric. Contextual issues of locality and region are solved through the marriage of the artificial and natural, of traditional materials worked into thoroughly contemporary design. AKK & Associates continues to broaden its agenda and scope on an international level. About CAI and ANNAKA
In the spring of 1998, AKK joined with lighting designer Christophe Hascoët and architect Isabelle Rolland to set up a new concept for lighting the traditional Lebanese house. The outcome of this collaboration was the successful production of five light-objects. In 2002, the trio formalized their design relationship with the creation of CAI, which embraces the diverse activities of lighting design, from conception to production. In 2001, Karim Kassar integrated furniture into her architectural activity with the establishment of ANNAKA: the products are a marriage of Middle Eastern style and clean, modern lines in all manner of nuances and pairings.
