Rahel Shawl
Rahel Shawl was born and educated in Ethiopia and is founder and director of Raas Architects plc. in Addis Ababa. For the last 27 years she and her team have worked on an extensive list of projects both local and through international collaborations, designed and executed with traditional and contemporary architectural approaches and true to the environment and its users. The wide range of successful building projects includes embassies, schools, health care centers and offices, commercial, industrial and residential buildings. Amid the challenges and hardships of a developing country and rapidly urbanizing ecosystem where the design and construction environment is frenzied and chaotic, Rahel strongly advocates that architects have to be the leading voices to bring positive impact within the construction sector and thereby assuring the health and well being of communities, cities and the built environment. Her wide range of experience results from engaging on collaborative design works with local and international colleagues, partners and clients; through constantly engaging in areas of design thinking where aspects of home, place and identity are important; through engaging with young people to promote and share knowledge of architecture; and passionately engaging in the advocacy for equity in design practices.
Rahel received the Aga Khan Award for Architecture in 2007 for her work as architect of record on the Royal Netherlands Embassy in Addis Ababa; received the AEA best Architecture Piece Award in 2017 for her collaborative works on the South African Embassy in Addis Ababa; Abyssina Award for Social Engagement in the fields of Architecture and Engineering in 2017; was awarded the Loeb Fellowship at the Harvard Graduate School of Design in 2017 as well as various recognitions from the Association of Ethiopian Architects. Her passion to inspire and share knowledge in higher education; in the schools of architecture and around young professionals, led to her being cited as a role model in “Temsalet”, a book compiled of 64 outstanding Ethiopian Women as Role Models for Young Girls in Ethiopia. Rahel was appointed as Honorary Good Will Ambassador for “Zer Ethiopia” in 2014, an NGO promoting Young Ethiopian Girls in Education.