Architecture is more than producing an object, or even a landmark building.

Michel Mossessian is a French-born architect of Armenian heritage based in London. He holds French, British and American citizenship.

He founded Mossessian & Partners in 2005, which was renamed Mossessian Architecture in 2015. His work spans architecture and urban design, combining art, craft and engineering to create places rooted in their cultural and environmental contexts.

“Sculpting the Void” places shared space at the centre of his architectural thinking. A void takes shape through the built mass that defines it. While mass embodies the economy of buildings, the void gives spatial expression to shared values: a place where people gather, encounter one another and develop a sense of belonging. From the intimacy of a room to the scale of a neighbourhood, Michel explores how architecture can make collective life possible.

His approach to Hyperlocalism grows from close attention to the particular conditions of each place: its climate, landscape, materials, craftsmanship, social customs and cultural memory. These become active resources for contemporary design. Local knowledge works alongside engineering and technology to develop architecture that belongs to its setting and supports its future. His proposition, “Nature is Culture”, recognises how communities shape their environment and how that environment, in turn, shapes their ways of living.

Together, Sculpting the Void and Hyperlocalism guide a collaborative process involving clients, communities, artists, craftspeople and specialist consultants. Art and craft participate in the conception of the architecture, shaping its spaces, materials and sensory experience.

The practice’s work includes 5 Merchant Square in London’s Paddington Basin; the S1 and S2 buildings at King’s Cross; 26 buildings and Barahat Square in Msheireb Downtown Doha; and the redevelopment of Place Lalla Yeddouna in the historic medina of Fez. Across these projects, shared spaces connect contemporary architecture with everyday life, cultural identity and the affinities that bring communities together.

Before establishing his London practice, Michel worked at Skidmore, Owings & Merrill in Chicago and later served as Design Director and Associate Partner in the firm’s London office. Between these appointments, he was a principal of atelier 4 Architecture in New York and Paris. At SOM, he played a leading design role in the competition-winning proposal for NATO’s headquarters in Brussels.

Michel’s education and research took him from Paris-Belleville to Cooper Union in New York, followed by a Villa Médicis Hors les Murs fellowship and further study at Harvard Graduate School of Design and MIT Media Lab. His engagement with artificial intelligence and design methods informs the practice’s Black Box script, a framework for bringing different perspectives into dialogue and developing a shared design vision. Alongside this, “Journey Through Time” explores how architecture connects cultural memory, present experience and future possibilities. Together, these approaches guide his continuing exploration of how human knowledge, collaborative thinking and AI can contribute to the design process.

Through his practice, lectures and films, Michel explores architecture’s capacity to bring people together, sustain cultural identity and create shared possibilities for change.

Visit Michel’s Instagram page