Wesam Al Asali

Wesam Al Asali is a designer and scholar working at the intersection of vernacular building crafts and construction technology. He is an Assistant Professor and the Director of Materials and Methods at the IE School of Architecture and Design. His work bridges heritage knowledge with contemporary environmental design, focusing on training and experimenting with local building crafts and natural materials. Wesam earned his Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge in 2021, where he researched design strategies for thin-tile vaults in low-carbon floor systems. He was also a 2021-2022 Global Fung Postdoctoral Fellow at Princeton University before joining IE.

In 2010, Wesam co-founded IWlab, a research hub dedicated to cities, building cultures, and crafts in Syria and the Middle East. In 2020, he co-founded CERCAA, a social enterprise based in Valencia, Spain, focusing on teaching masonry vault design and construction to architects and builders.

Wesam’s work has been recognized with awards including the Royal Institute of British Architects’ (RIBA) President’s Medal for Research (2022) and the Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians’ Founders’ Award (2023). In 2024, Wesam received the DigitalFutures International Arabic Awards, and IWlab received the UNESCO Global Award for Sustainable Architecture.