We are very pleased to announce that Zayed University has awarded Elizabeth Monoian (Principal and Co-founder of LAGI) the Provost’s Research Fellowship for her work on LAGI.

Sustainable Environment and Infrastructure is one of the strong UAE Government Strategic Directives, and Zayed University has implemented policies to incorporate that objective into University planning and decision-making, be it through curriculum, faculty research support, or through facilities maintenance and community outreach.

Last year, Zayed University launched ZEIN (Zayed Environmental Impact Network), a committee that has facilitated events and programs throughout the university to increase awareness, reduce resource demand, and increase recycling programs.

This academic calendar year, Zayed University launched RURL (Responsible Urbanism Research Lab) with Yasmine Abbas at the helm. RURL is Zayed University’s transdisciplinary research platform dedicated to advance knowledge in the field of sustainable urbanism.

Yasmine is a French DPLG architect (Paris Val-de-Marne — now Paris Val-de-Seine — 1997). At MIT and Harvard, Abbas researched how mobile individuals—neo-nomads—Re:locate, i.e. construct and reclaim a sense of belonging to places through physical, mental and digital means. Abbas has traveled extensively and worked internationally in the fields of art and architecture, consumer research and social sustainability.

Zayed University’s support of LAGI 2012 will help make possible the implementation of the next biennial international design competition.

Stay tuned to learn more about the exciting design site location for LAGI2012 (which city in the world will it be?) for next year’s competition. We’ll be making an announcement here in the coming weeks…