3835 Campus Drive
Architecture Building (145 ARC)
College Park, MD 20742
United States
Rapid Recovery Housing (RAPIDO) - Designing a New System for Disaster Reconstruction
An exhibition and lecture by: Omar Hakeem, AIA
Design Director of buildingcommunity WORKSHOP
RAPIDO is a holistic approach to providing emergency housing that enables communities to recover from disasters within months instead of years at a fraction of the cost.
The Kibel Gallery RAPIDO exhibition will be held in front of the Kibel Gallery.
Omar Hakeem, AIA, LEED AP is Design Director at buildingcommunityWORKSHOP. He is working to build an organizational wide design practice. He is based in Washington, D.C. working to bring greater social and environmental equality through thoughtful design and planning. From 2013-2015, Omar lead the Rio Grande Valley office focusing on a geographical, social cultural frontier by addressing the systemic poverty, health and resilience issue that plague the region.
Through these efforts he has completed award winning affordable housing, rapid response disaster housing prototypes, urban bike and pedestrian infrastructure, regional drainage improvements and community based rural planning initiatives. Omar’s passion for design has taken him from the cloud forests of Costa Rica to the ravaged communities of the Gulf Coast and many places in between. His professional practice has also included supporting large arts and cultural projects at Skidmore Owings & Merrill in D.C., and prefabricated modular buildings at Alchemy Architects in Minnesota.
Originally from Washington, D.C., he received his B.S. of Architecture from SUNY Buffalo as well as a Master of Architecture and a Master of Science in Sustainability Design from the University of Minnesota in 2009.