The Founder

Etienne Bastormagi

Etienne Bastormagi’s architecture is shaped by movement – between disciplines, scales, and cultural contexts. Resisting fixed categories, he works through shifts and contrasts across typologies: memory and material, weight and lightness, rawness and refinement. Whether carving light into concrete or drawing the city into an interior, his spaces and objects centre on creating new dialogues between place, pieces, and people.

Since founding his studio in Beirut, Bastormagi has drawn on studies in Architecture and Urban Design, as well as a decade leading concept development across large-scale projects. Alongside his practice, Bastormagi leads workshops and academic collaborations between Beirut and Milan, teaching at the American University of Beirut and contributing to institutions such as the Lebanese American University, the American University of Sharjah, the Architectural Association, and the TUMO Center for Creative Technologies.

Raised in Lebanon within a family of Armenian metalworkers, Bastormagi spent his early years learning through making. This foundation in material sensibility continues to echo throughout his work. Now based in the loft above his grandfather’s former stainless-steel factory, he continues to experiment with construction and memory, surface and scale, reworking brutalist codes with a sense of lightness and play.

Portrait of Etienne Bastormagi, architect and founder of Studio Etienne Bastormagi, photographed in his Beirut studio

The Studio

Studio Etienne Bastormagi works across scales, with an office grounded in Beirut, Lebanon. The practice’s architecture moves fluidly from pieces – objects, memories, traces – and expands into places that speak of layered identities. Founder Etienne Bastormagi draws on his studies in Architecture and Urban Design, and a decade spent shaping concepts at different scales, to navigate varied typologies and terrains. The resulting work resists categorization and seeks connection, informed by Bastormagi’s Armenian diaspora heritage.

The studio embraces this duality, navigating scales with a sensitivity to transformation. Its design language reinterprets brutalist codes with a lightness of touch, balancing structure with whimsy – sharp edges meet unexpected curves, rigid forms bend toward movement. What emerges is a body of work that resists easy categorization: sculptural yet structural, poetic and rigorous, deeply rooted yet open to reinvention. Comfortable in the liminal, the practice draws together fragments – of place, material, and memory – into new spatial configurations.

Bastormagi’s contributions to architecture and design have been recognized internationally. The practice was named in AD100 Middle East (2024) and Architectural Digest’s Definitive List of Top Designers (2024), and was included in Dwell 24 (2022). The studio’s work has been a finalist at the World Architecture Festival and the Interior Design Awards. Featured in publications such as ArchDaily, Dezeen, Divisare, Domus, Elle Decoration, the Financial Times, Frame, IDEAT, and the New York Times, his projects engage a broad critical discourse.

Interior view of Studio Etienne Bastormagi in Beirut showing architects working on drawings and models

  • Whether architecture, object, interior, or urban installation, projects begin in a state of unpredictability, opening space for new possibilities to challenge conventional boundaries. A kindergarten roof garden that extends green space into the heart of its community, a cast aluminum  mirror that folds light and shadow into a conversation with its surroundings, an apartment animated by stories woven through craft and play – each project is approached with an attuned sense of place and an ambition to reframe spatial possibilities.

    Bringing the outside in, casting memory as material, and sculpting with light and shadow, Bastormagi’s output is porous, continuously evolving through collaborations with artists, designers, and craftspeople. Across all scales, the studio is defined by the strength of its relationships – between materials and makers, spaces and their inhabitants, past and present. Its output is both object and environment – each space an intervention in the city, each object an architecture in its own right.

Architectural study model and hand drawing on plans at Studio Etienne Bastormagi

    • Adele Chebly

    • Ahmad Beydoun

    • Ahmed Amer

    • Aline Chahine

    • Assaad Feghali

    • Elie Saleh

    • Ismail Hutet

    • Kann Design

    • Local Industries

    • Lucile Abi Chebl

    • Meg Architects

    • Mira Hawa

    • Nada Borgi

    • Omar Dally

    • Reem Obeid

    • Reine Hage

    • Sarine Vosgueritchian

    • Samer Marouni

    • Sandra Richani

    • Studio Triniti

    • The Piecemakers

Press Features

  • Cover of The New York Times article titled '16 Global Design Concepts for an Unpredictable Future'. The cover features an image of a modern school courtyard with colorful, abstract playground structures and children playing, under a high-rise building's open interior. The article is by Julie Lasky, Lila Allen, and Lauren Messman, dated March 28, 2021.
  • A man in a black shirt with his hands in his pockets, standing indoors against a white wall with a small window, black and white photo, with "ADI" text in the top left corner.
  • Photograph of a modern pastry shop with illuminated signage that reads "DES CHOUX ET DES IDEES" and a person standing outside at night.
  • A person stands outside a pastry shop named Domus in Beirut, illuminated by a neon sign that reads "Des Cieux et Des Idées". The shop features a monochromatic design and an urban mirror concept extending into the street.
  • Colorful industrial vases with geometric shapes in red, green, and black, displayed on tall silver pedestals, with a yellow and black logo at the top and text about designer Etienne Bastormagi's debut at Design Doha 2024.
  • Cover of an article about Arslanian Green Roof Kindergarten and Studio Etienne Bastormagi + Meg Architects in Beirut, Lebanon, showing a modern building with a green roof on a hillside surrounded by other buildings.
  • The cover of Dwell magazine featuring a woman with curly hair wearing a white sleeveless top and blue pants, standing inside a modern home with minimalist decor, a pink table, abstract artwork, and a patterned floor.
  • A screenshot of an article titled 'Studio Etienne Bastormagi and Hatch Contrasts Beirut's Historic Villa with Interactive Public Installation,' showing diagrams of a cushion, panel, and structure, with text indicating it was written by Dima Stouhi, published on May 16, 2022, from archdaily.
  • Magazine article feature on Beirut-based designer Etienne Bastormagi, discussing minimalism and sustainable design, with an image of a modern, artistic hanging sculpture.
  • A magazine cover titled 'Wallpaper' featuring a photo of an elderly man sitting on a chair in an all-green room. The man is dressed in black, has white hair, and is holding his chin with his right hand. The cover mentions Giorgio Armani and photographer Pierpaolo Ferrari.
  • Magazine cover titled 'Modern World' featuring modern shelving units with colorful shelves and black metal supports, designed by Borgi Bastromagi.
  • Text in French discussing Étienne Bastormagi, his family background, and history during wartime, with references to their residence and activities.
  • Exterior view of a cafe with patio seating, two white umbrellas, potted plants, and a storefront with a green awning.
  • Magazine cover featuring the title 'FRAME' and an article about Etienne Bastormagi with a colorful photo of a person with pink tape over their face and a digital artwork of a circular pattern.

Academic

  • Weaving with Light

    a workshop during Milan Design Week with Doha based brand FROMM

  • Workshops with students at TUMO yerevan in furnitecture, to design a central piece in an existing coffee shop

  • Lecturer at the American University of Beirut between 2016 - 2022

  • Invited for Design 8 studio teaching at the Lebanese American University in 2017 and 2020

  • Architectural Instructor at the University of the Holy Spirit Kaslik 2007 - 2015

  • Panelist at the AA on reconstructing Beirut, with the initiative of Let’s Play that is based on urban interventions in public spaces

  • American University of Sharjah workshop on furniture design

Exhibitions

  • Presenting the Behaviorology Collection as part of the LABO collective activities during the 2024 Milan Design Week

  • Selected for the curated section, the dressing room -2- was presented as part of the Brussels Collectible Fair in 2024

  • Presented a limited edition of the Behaviorology collection vases in cast aluminum that were curated as part of the M7 studio.

  • Works of the Minjara Collection developed for Minjara Editions were exhibited at the CID Museum as part of a collective exhibit on design in Lebanon.

  • Presented the Cast Poems 660.3 c, collection of lighting devices in cast aluminum for the LABO collective as part of the Fuori Salone Milan Fair 2023

  • Works of the Minjara Collection developed for Minjara Editions were exhibited at the Mudac Museum as part of a collective exhibit on design in Lebanon.

Awards & Nominations

  • “Bastormagi reframes architecture as a “cultural connector” that weaves together craft, materiality and layered histories.” — AD

  • “Etienne Bastormagi's design for the Alica Bakery celebrates local culture, craftsmanship, and sustainability.” — Dezeen

  • “Playful yet functional, Bastormagi’s interiors and objects are rooted in a love of forms, light and space.” —AD

  • Stellar Drawings Prize Finalist for works of representation by the studio

  • Finalist for a series of products at the Interior Design Awards

  • Finalist at the AlUla Design Awards for the best product category

  • Winner of the competition of the memorial architectural project