The Paris and Brusselsbased practice challenges the colonial authority of the global north, inprojects both close to home and further afieldNew South was shortlisted in the AR Emerging awards 2024. Read about the full shortlist hereIn 1992, Meriem Chabani relocated from Algiers to Paris, where she would grow up holding on to the dream of one day moving back home, a dream that has yet to come true. The experience of living between a nation in the global south and its colonial counterpart in the global north informs New South, the Paris and Brusselsbased architecture practice that Chabani runs with John Edom. New South grew out of a research collective including other members from the diaspora, all united, according to Chabani, by the desire to reset the global south as a locus of knowledge and a centre of contemporary architecture.These principles are realised in built form in the Swann Arr cultural centre in the rural township of Taungdwingyi, Myanmar, designed in collaboration with the architect Franois Le Pivain. The architects were approached by a group of local businessmen looking to support cultural development in the area. The clients wanted a flashy symbol for the town, la Bilbao, an idea that was at odds with New Souths desire for a project rooted in its cultural and material context. This kicked off a yearlong process of refining the brief and convincing the clients of the viability of local precedents; their instinct was to build with brick rather than concrete and steel due to its use in local vernacular architecture and the ability to produce it nearby. The architects then engaged in a process of community consultation and workshops with the clients, local residents and their families. Through this process, New South developed the participatory, researchbased methodology that has become the bedrock of the practices work; it is central to projects currently in construction, including the transformation of the Jacques Franck Square in Brussels, as well as their ongoing refurbishment of the offices of Paris Habitat (Pariss largest social housing landlord).Construction of the Swann Arr cultural centre began in 2019, surviving the Covid19 pandemic and a military coup (during which one of the clients was imprisoned), and was completed in early 2022. The building comprises a cinema, market, exhibition space, multipurpose rooms, offices, caf and media library, its floors connected by a wide, wraparound staircase. The facade at ground level is lined with bamboo shutter doors, which open onto the street, allowing the covered market to spill out.New South are currently in the early stages of another public project in a different context: a mosque and cultural centre in Pariss historically workingclass but now heavily gentrified 11th arrondissement. Once completed, the centre will accommodate up to 1,200 visitors in a series of flexible prayer spaces that will double up as rooms for sport, teaching, meeting and study. This blending of the sacred with the profane ensures that money can be generated from commercial uses, and ties in with the practices ongoing research into how sacred spaces can inform sustainable practices and counter the financialisation of the construction industry.Produced for the 2023 Venice Architecture Biennale, Mediterranean Queendoms is a carpet capturing the history of Meriem Chabanis Algerian family across the Mediterranean. Queendoms are the domestic spaces ruled over by women, across many homes and continentsCredit:New SouthArtistic production is also a key part of New Souths work. Mediterranean Queendoms, a handtufted carpet displayed at the 2023 Venice Architecture Biennale, chronicles domesticity across the Mediterranean, as told through the lens of the matriarchs in Chabanis Algerian family. Chabani wanted to explore a form of storytelling that doesnt borrow from the tools of architectural discourse; instead, New South created a carpet, in reference to the ways North African cultures embed stories in domestic objects through weaving.The practice is currently engaging in the lengthy process of gaining approval and support from the state for the mosque against the backdrop of rising nationalist sentiments, notably demonstrated by the farright National Rally party gaining ground in the 2024 French elections, and the recent passing of the covertly antiMuslim legislation known as the loi sparatisme (separatism law). If realised, the mosque will be the second largest purposebuilt mosque in Paris. The project will bring visibility to Muslim practices that have too often existed at the citys margins.