Lebanese architect Lina Ghotmeh has been awarded Dezeen’s Housing Project of the Year and Architecture Project of the Year 2021 for her design of a cement and earth 13-storey block apartment building in Beirut, Lebanon.

This year, 50 winners including studios, individual architects and designers were chosen from more than 4,700 entries from 86 different countries for the Dezeen Awards 2021.

Located in the port area, Stone Garden materialises the architect's perception of her birthplace. Rooted in its context, the project portrays architecture's capacity to act as a healing tool and active player in building resilience at times of crisis. It also showcases alternative ways of living while dealing with questions of space restriction, memory, nature, living, and urban density.

Ghotmeh set out to create a building that could symbolise the resilience and long history of the Lebanese capital for her first architecture project in her hometown.

"This project is really poetic - it is talking about memory architecture, which is a hard thing to do in a multi dwelling project. This multicellular arrangement in the city centre has a remarkable freshness and power,” according to the judges.

Lina Ghotmeh was born in 1980 and raised in Beirut in the aftermath of the Lebanese civil war. In recent years, she has firmly established a humanistic approach to architecture, bringing together suggestions from her personal geography, having studied at the American University of Beirut and later training in London under the prominent ateliers of Jean Novel and Norman Foster.

She is the recipient of multiple awards, including the 2020 Schelling Architecture Prize, the 2020 Tamayouz “Woman of Outstanding Achievement” Award; the French Fine Arts Academy Cardin Award 2019; and the Grand Prix Afex 2016, and has had her work exhibited at the 17th Architecture Biennale in Venice.