Soil, Sediment, and Memory: Dar al-Islam, Hassan Fathy, and the Architecture of Layering /  by Studio MIIM

For MIIM Designs, architecture is an evolving dialogue; one that accumulates stories of place, texture, labor, and life over time. Nothing is born from a void. Every project emerges from what came before, shaped by what is already present and by how a place might project itself forward. We understand architecture not as a fixed object, but as a layered condition: cultural, material, environmental, and temporal.

At Dar al-Islam, this understanding becomes tangible in the soil itself. Beyond the layered cultural accumulation produced through community engagement and participatory design - processes that inform the forms and spatial logic of the building - the material choices carry memory. Earth, sediment, and composite assemblies record traces of former lives. Each layer added is not a replacement, but a continuation of an ongoing conversation.

Sediment, for MIIM, is both a physical condition and a conceptual framework. Our design process operates through iteration and accumulation, where each project is shaped by the sedimentation of cultural considerations, environmental realities, past and future use, and emotional undercurrents. Materials are never neutral; they absorb context, labor, climate, and care. In this sense, every MIIM project becomes an imprint of time—shaped by the histories it inherits and the futures it imagines.

Our ongoing research into circular construction economies extends this thinking materially. For a more recent project, in the heart of Abiquiu New Mexico, we have been exploring the possibility of various adobe mixtures and earth–cement composites derived from the site. Recent site observations and 2024 soil analyses reveal how local and imported clays interact within the walls, confirming both intended material behaviors and emerging conservation challenges. These findings raise a critical question: how do we preserve an architecture conceived as a transnational experiment - rooted in Nubian vernacular traditions yet translated to the Chihuahuan Desert - when its substance and cultural life are inherently contingent, porous, and in motion?

When Hassan Fathy’s imported techniques met the ecology of New Mexico, alignment and friction coexisted. Local masons adapted his vaulting systems with ingenuity, embedding regional knowledge into the construction process. At the same time, these adaptations exposed the limits of transposed vernaculars, the slippages between theory and ground, between universal design ethics and situated craft knowledge. Dar al-Islam thus emerges not as a static monument, but as a palimpsest of negotiations and translations.

Its preservation, then, is less about freezing form than about tracing these exchanges across time: between Egypt and New Mexico, between the universal and the local, between soil, and the evolving ethics of architectural care. Through layering: material, cultural, and methodological, we do not simply build. We compose, allowing architecture to remain responsive, resilient, and alive within the landscapes it inhabits.

Looking forward, this research directly informs MIIM’s future projects and material experimentation as a form of applied research and development. The lessons embedded in Fathy’s only structure in the West, soil behavior, climatic response, structural performance, and the translation of vernacular logics across ecologies—now operate as design intelligence. They guide our continued investigation of earth-based systems, site-derived composites, and hybrid assemblies that leverage excavation residue, mineral sediment, and high-performance binders to produce thinner, more resilient architectural elements suitable for contemporary use.

At MIIM, innovation is inseparable from continuity. Each project functions as a living laboratory, where material testing, prototyping, and performance analysis are embedded within cultural and environmental contexts rather than abstracted from them. By treating sediment not as waste but as resource, and experimentation not as rupture but as accumulation, we advance circular construction economies that are both technically rigorous and ethically grounded. In this way, our work becomes at once a manifesto and method: a growing archive of material knowledge in which past experiments sediment into future form, and architecture evolves through deliberate acts of acknowledgment, adaptation, and transformation.

WE'RE HIRING for WINTER 2025! /  by Studio MIIM

1. Entry-Level / Junior Designer / Research / Graphic + Publication Associate

Role: Part-time (remote possible; may combine with other roles if full-time)
Start: November 2025 – January 2026

Responsibilities & Skills:

  • Design and representation tasks across architecture, urbanism, and ecological projects

  • Research support and publication assistance

  • Graphic communication, typography, and conceptual design

  • Proficiency in Adobe Suite required

Qualifications:

  • Strong conceptual and design thinking

  • Interest in architectural, urban, and territorial research

  • Ability to work across multiple scales and domains

Application Instructions:
Please indicate “25WINTER Entry Level_Your Name” in the subject line.

2. Junior Designer / Internship – Design Development

Role: Full-time preferred, part-time also considered
Start: November 2025 – January 2026

Responsibilities & Skills:

  • Assist in architectural design development, with a focus on exhibition/gallery furniture and industrial design

  • Support metal fabrication projects

  • Work in BIM, AutoCAD, and Rhino 3D environments

Qualifications:

  • Bachelor or Master of Architecture degree

  • Experience in design development and fabrication processes

Application Instructions:
Please indicate “25Winter Design Internship_Your Name” in the subject line.

Application Submission Guidelines

If you would like to be considered, please send a cover letter, resume, portfolio, and a list of three references with contact information as one PDF file (max. 20 MB) to studio@miimdesigns.com.

  • Any collaborative or professional work in the portfolio should clearly note the applicant's role.

  • The cover letter should indicate whether you are applying for a full- or part-time position and, if part-time, any associated limitations.

  • Please clearly indicate your eligibility to work in the U.S. and the feasible start date.

Applicants must have the following qualifications to be considered for the position:

  • Computer expertise in Revit, AutoCAD, and Rhino 3D

  • Strong design and graphic skills

  • Ability to juggle multiple tasks, collaborate on teams, and work well under deadlines

  • Excellent written, verbal, and visual communication skills

Due to the high volume of applications, we regret that we will only be able to contact candidates selected for an interview. Thank you for your understanding.




Preference will be given to applications submitted by October 17, 2025, for the first round of interviews.  Due to the high volume of applications, we regret that we will only be able to contact candidates selected for an interview. Thank you for your understanding.

Call for Partners: Let’s Reimagine Public Space Together /  by Studio MIIM

MIIM Designs is seeking a visionary community-based organization, cultural institution, or grassroots initiative to collaborate on.

We’re looking to co-develop a public space project, large or small, that prioritizes deep, sustained, and inclusive engagement across every stage of design. Whether you're stewarding a sacred site, a vacant lot, a street corner, or a storefront gallery, we want to partner with you to center care, culture, and collective authorship in the built environment. Let’s build something that reflects who you are and what your community needs.
INTERSTED?  Please provide us with information about your organization and the community engagement project you envision. This will help us understand your needs and explore potential collaborations by September 15, 2025.
FILL OUT FORM HERE.

Why Community Engagement Matters (to us… and hopefully to you too)

Community engagement isn’t a trendy add-on. It’s not the extra guac. It’s the tortilla. It’s the base layer, the thing that holds the whole messy, meaningful, layered project together. At MIIM, we think design gets a whole lot better (and more fun) when it’s done with people, not for them. That means early and often conversations, backyard brainstorms, sidewalk surveys, side-eye from the neighborhood cat, and everything in between. When folks feel heard, buildings feel lived-in before they’re even built. That’s the magic.

We don’t start with drawings. We start with listening. (There will be drawings later, we promise.) Whether it’s a vacant lot, a community garden, or a sacred space, we bring a process that’s deeply collaborative, culturally rooted, and just a little bit nerdy in all the best ways. We’ve built a pretty rigorous framework (but we keep it flexible, like good pants) that weaves in pre-design dreaming, responsive design strategies, and long-haul support long after the ribbon’s cut. Basically: we show up, we co-think, we co-design, and we stay in touch.

If you’re a nonprofit or community group looking to turn space into something soulful, grounded, and totally your own—we’d love to be your architectural co-conspirators.

Let’s build something weird and wonderful together.

We’ve been lucky enough to have our work recognized by some pretty amazing folks—The Franklin D. Roosevelt Foundation, UN Habitat, Open Architecture Collaborative, Clean Water for Ghana, American Express (yes, that one), HIVE Academy, NEA, IMLS—you get the idea. But awards aren’t buildings. And buildings aren’t communities. Communities are the point. Every MIIM project starts with a conversation and maybe a strong cup of tea. We believe the future is local, so we begin by listening (not drawing, yet), learning what people already know, what stories they carry, what dreams they keep folded in their back pockets. Then we get to work connecting that wisdom to the materials, policies, plumbing, and plants that make places real.

Somewhere along the way, we realized that building pretty things won’t fix everything. (Who knew?) Inequity isn’t aesthetic, it’s systemic. It’s tangled. So we made our own model. We call it “Productive Public Space” because we like alliteration and because, honestly, spaces need to do more than sit there looking nice. They need to work. So we design them to host cultural programming, make jobs, grow food, manage water, throw shade, and sometimes, if we’re lucky, spark joy.

We don’t just do architecture. We do architecture-adjacent things: research, policy wrangling, storytelling, systems thinking, and elaborate diagrams with arrows. Most of our projects live at the weird intersections of disciplines that don’t always talk to each other. And we like it that way. It’s messy. It’s multidisciplinary. It’s MIIM.

Top-down policies? Too far removed. Bottom-up efforts? Sometimes stuck spinning their wheels. We operate somewhere in the middle, awkwardly, productively, wonderfully. Think micro-interventions with macro-ambitions. At MIIM, we connect dots. Not the cute kind with colors and numbers, but the messy kind, between communities and city departments, between informal ingenuity and formal systems, between lived experience and development jargon. We help communities build not just things (though yes, also things), but relationships, across power lines and policy walls. We don’t stop at buildings. Our work shows up in meetings, maps, reports, pilot programs, maybe even a few spreadsheets. We take what we learn on the ground and feed it into frameworks that get published, policies that get debated, and practices that might, if we’re lucky, get just a little better.

It’s part design, part diplomacy, part diagram. All in the service of building cities that actually work for the people who live in them. Neighborhood by neighborhood. System by system. With snacks, whenever possible.

That’s our jam: building spaces that care for people, because people care for places.

Preserving Trees After LA FIRES /  by Studio MIIM

Preserving Trees After LA FIRES.

Dear Neighbors, Friends and Community Members, 

We have good news! LA County and the Army Corps finally issued tree waivers. 

It is IMPORTANT to COMMUNICATE as the homeowner's right and decision, through “the RIGHT of ENTRY PROCESS” that you would like to preserve your home’s trees. When the contractors calls, usually within the 72 hours grace period, before they begin the process and when they call you again, at 24 hours before they start the removal of trees, as the homeowner, you will need to give the form and the waiver, along with the diagrams and lists of trees to preserve to the Army Corp contractors. Ideally, complete all of your forms and waivers before they even call - since you might need the approval of an arborist to determine which trees still have life left in them. Upon completion of the form, email a copy and nail the diagrams onto the body of the tree. 

Below is a PDF for a set of instructions to the waiver form for tree preservation for your residence, along with names of arborist we recommend and an example of how to draw the diagram for the contractor. We are here if you have any questions; and we have also outlined how to submit the diagram/sketch if you choose to do it yourselves. If you would like more guidance or if you need assistance to clearly communicate your drawings more thoroughly with the Army Corp, please contact us and we will assist you through the process.

We are always here, if you have any questions; and as we untangle and resolve more of these complex issues regarding our environment, climate change, restoration and preservation for the places we live, our communities, and our home, we will keep you all updated.

TREE WAIVER FORM + INSTRUCTION
LA COUNTY WEBSITE

With gratitude, 
Maryam + MIIM Team 
Designing Communities + Creating Culture

LA Fire Note: MIIM EMERGENCY CLOSURE NOTICE /  by Studio MIIM

Dear Clients, Colleagues, and Friends:
We wanted to update you regarding where MIIM’s operation stands during the ongoing fires that are taking place across Los Angeles and Southern California. 

First, your companies’ health and welfare, as well as that of our community and staff, is a top priority for us. Prior to the pandemic, MIIM has had a robust technology platform that allowed us to provide seamless service to all clients anywhere, anytime. The MIIM Team met this morning and will continue to meet online to go through project goals, deadlines, and priorities. We continue to meet with all teams to ensure the proper flow of operation and information in order to meet deadlines. Our priority is to ensure as little disruption to your projects, as we can accommodate the safety from these fires that are spreading because of the Santa Ana winds.

Employee safety and wellness is a top priority, and we have implemented a firm-wide response plan. We have protocols and safety measures for tragedies like these. Every employee has the support platform- BIM/communication - to resume work from home, until the state of emergency has been lifted.

We intend to attend meetings via video, or phone calls; should an in-person meeting be required please let us know - but for the safety of your own health, the welfare of our first responders and clearance to access roads, we ask you to also stay indoors.  That said, we respect that each employee has their own comfort level and we will allow them to act accordingly. 

In addition, we are so grateful to everyone. Thank you for your messages and calls to our office. The air is thick and the smoke from the fires is damaging to everyone's eyes, nose and throat. Climate change is real and we are living through it.  We are sensitive to the uncertainty that everyone may be feeling and we are committed to getting through this period together. 

With respect, safety and health! 
Maryam + MIIM Team

Maryam | MIIM Designs Take Part Experimental Landings Exhibit /  by Studio MIIM

Maryam takes part in the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture (ACSA) and the Pratt Institute, School of Architecture Teachers Summit dedicated to Summit for Climate Agency: Teaching the Design Experiment in Brooklyn, New York Summer '22 for the TNC Dangermond Capstone Studio that she lead. The Curriculum for Climate Agency, saw calls for Architectural Education to step-away from pre-conceptions about climate and re-engage in active learning and science. The consistent takeaway voiced throughout the conference was that if architectural design wishes to establish an environmental agency within the 21st century it must depart from known narratives and operating conventions in favor of experimental approaches.

Experimental Landings is an exhibition that interrogates how designers assert agency through the representation, organization, and formation of land. Understood as an elastic and open-ended framework of consideration this collective exhibition of work will showcase how architecture and landscape experiments across “land” address new definitions of formal practice across several thematics : Artificial Earths, Seeding Resilience, Mapping Maintenance and Imaging Grounds. Maryam’s TNC Dangermond Capston Studio showcased half a dozen mappings and illustrations of the formation of land.

Exhibition curated by Jonathan A. Scelsa and David Erdman.

Read More Here.

ACSA CLIMATE SUMMIT.

Earth Day 2024 /  by Studio MIIM

Image of Point Conception © MIIM Designs

MIIM Designs has always been about ideas, and creating culture and community through those creative ideas. Each one of the built spaces and landscapes that we are trusted with, we use our creative tools to design and build a community to forge connections. This is always started by understanding the history of the land and the people who have fostered it. 


Since the inception of MIIM Designs we’ve had the opportunity and the joy of collaborating with many partners - each one of our creative projects and collaborations have focused on inspiring people to create culture, design communities and bring everyone together through the notion of these creative spaces. 

Most recently, MIIM Designs partnered with Material and Application (a Los Angeles based non-profit project space for critical and experimental architecture) and with Look Out FM (southern California’s home for radio art on a creative reading), under the theme of SONIC DUST, on one of Maryam’s reflections while working on a project in collaboration the Nature’s Conservancy in California. In honor of Earth’s Day, you can listen to Maryam read her reflection, “The Celestial Dust of the Chumash at Point Conception”, HERE.  


California Senate Bill 4 and 423 To Proceed /  by Studio MIIM

MIIM Designs has been collaborating with many policymakers, lawmakers and senators on the issue of lack of affordable housing, which has long been a problem for middle and low-income households. The primary goal over the last 7 years has been that California can, and should, look to innovative programs across the country for models to inform future policy efforts to address the state’s housing challenges. Using examples and case studies from religious institutions of the Middle East, Asia, and parts of Europe, the SB 4 and SB423 will allow for religious institutions and nonprofit colleges in California to turn their parking lots and other properties into low-income housing. Churches and colleges often face big hurdles trying to convert their surplus land and underutilized parking lots into housing because their land is not zoned for residential use. Proponents said the new law will serve as another tool to help build much-needed housing in the state. A recent study by the University of California, Berkeley, Terner Center for Housing Innovation estimated California religious and higher education campuses have more than 170,000 acres (68,797 hectares) of land that would be eligible under the bill.

The law, signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom rezones land owned by nonprofit colleges and religious institutions, such as churches, mosques, and synagogues, to allow for affordable housing. Starting in 2024, they can bypass most local permitting and environmental review rules that can be costly and lengthy. The law is set to sunset in 2036.

More Information HERE
Office of Governor Gavin Newsom

WE'RE HIRING! /  by Studio MIIM

MIIM Designs llc is currently seeking talented designers with strong research and design skills to join our studio. If you would like to be considered for the current or future positions, please send a cover letter, resume, a portfolio, and a list of 3 references with contact information as one pdf file (max. 20mb) to Studio [at] miimdesigns [dot] com. Any collaborative or professional works should clearly note the role of the applicant, and the cover letter should clearly indicate your eligibility to work in the U.S. and the ideal start time of work.

Applicants must have the following qualifications to be considered for the position:
• Computer expertise in Revit, AutoCAD, and Rhino3d
• Strong design and graphic skills
• Ability to juggle multiple tasks, collaborate on teams and work well under deadlines
• Excellent written, verbal, and visual communication skills

We are currently looking to fill following openings:

1/ Part to Full Time Short Term Position (Must be available to start immediately to work until May 30, 2023 or longer, exhibition installation design and coordination) - Please indicate in subject line of the application “23ST Application [Your Name]”.

2/ Full Time Entry Level Designer - Please indicate “23S application_Your Name” in the subject line of the application.   
Part Time Entry Level Designer - Please indicate “23S-part application_Your Name” in the subject line of the application. Please describe any restrictions in the cover letter.

3/ Intern (paid) - Please indicate “23S-intern application_Your Name” in the subject line of the application.

MIIM Designs + CDM of San Jose Awarded Grant from IMLS /  by Studio MIIM

The New Day Initiative (NDI) is a planning grant proposal to lay the groundwork for the “Nowruz Around the World” exhibition for children and families about the ancient Persian festival of Nowruz. This exhibition holds potential to build connections among the many nationalities and cultures that trace their heritage to Persian roots, while also educating others about Persian culture. CDM has partnered with a nationally-known designer of cultural exhibitions, MIIM Designs llc, to engage our region’s diverse communities in design/development of an authentic, experiential 2,500 sf traveling exhibition highlighting what it means to be Persian through the festival of Nowrooz.

“At this moment in history, the hope of building greater understanding with respect to immigrants and refugees may seem like a distant dream. Leveraging core competence in exhibit design/development, Children’s Discovery Museum of San Jose (CDM) is to set the stage for creation of a transformational traveling exhibition that addresses demographic trends and national challenges. Exhibition Design Partner Maryam Eskandari, principal of the architectural firm MIIM Designs, brings highly relevant expertise, having worked with Children’s Museum of Manhattan to create America to Zanzibar: Muslim Cultures Near and Far.”

~ Children’s Discovery Museum of San Jose

 

“The Nowruz festival offers a uniquely cross-cultural contribution to rebuilding a more trusting landscape in our nation. This exhibit will lay the ground work for children to learn more about inclusivity, celebration of various cultures under one theme – Nowruz (the first day of Spring), global citizenship and the nuances of various steps to in mitigating climate change and healing Nature.”

~ Maryam Eskandari  

 READ MORE

MIIM's Tribute to the Great Poet Khalil Gibran /  by Studio MIIM

Every 30 years, these three Abrahamic holidays, Ramadan, Passover and Easter, coincide to create a moment of universal humanity. When the client came to us with a specific vision – creating a center designed for the WHOLE community. The building, originally, an old abandoned and neglected shell was to become an arena of triumph. A place where the athlete can began a their journey towards physical, mental and spiritual wellness. Our design was to capture the personal growth through three goals:

  1. A design that would be inviting towards health, and healing of the body, mind and spirit.

  2. A place of diverse learning – where every community member, regardless of gender, race, religion and age are welcome.

  3. Community Learning Spaces – where intellectual engagement and discourse are at the heart of knowledge.

The result was HUB925. “Hub” – the effective center and “925” the area code of Pleasanton, California. We took the 35,000 sq. ft. factory and turned into a community and wellness center. And, on this day, we celebrate the WHOLE community through the remembrance of Khalil Gibran’s poem:

“I love you when you bow in your mosque,

kneel in your temple, pray in your church.

For you and I are sons of one religion, and it is the spirit.”

Maryam to Discuss the New Design of the Shams-i-Tabrizi Mausoleum in Khoy, Iran /  by Studio MIIM

This Saturday, April 9th, Maryam will be joined by Tammy Gaber, Gary Coates, and Bruce Lawrence in discussion with Nader Ardalan, to explore how Ardalan’s design for Shams will use the material medium of architecture facilitates transcendent experiences.

Each event features a virtual talk and visual presentation by a distinguished working architect, followed by a panel discussion moderated by Thomas Fischer. Sponsored by the Architecture, Culture and Spirituality Forum, the Kenan Institute for Ethics at Duke University, the Institute for Public Knowledge at New York University, and COMIT.

Register HERE

Maryam will lecture on April 21st at NYU /  by Studio MIIM

This Wednesday, April 21st, Maryam will be joined by Finbar Barry Flood, Nebahat Avcıoğlu, and Azra Akšamija, to discuss the “"ARCHITECTURES OF CO-EXISTENCE: BUILDING PLURALISM".

While the politics of building typology is not new, Muslim communities are often challenged by many political issues when it comes to establishing the basic building typologies within the fabric of American cities. Such issues include gerrymandering, redlining and socio-economic pressures. The architectural programming of these building typologies can resolve many of these issues through the building of architecture and urbanism. The agency of the architect in this process and their impact within social processes that are inherently political, especially in designing and building the public domain. — Maryam Eskandari

Register HERE.

MIIM Designs Selected to Reimagine the El Segundo Gateway for the LA 2028 Olympics /  by Studio MIIM

MIIM Designs is thrilled to announce our collaboration with the City of El Segundo in an exploration of the city’s main entrance on Imperial Highway. The 100 acres land is located in parallel with LAX runway just south of the city and is the gateway to the City of El Segundo. The original sign served as a landmark for the city.

The El Segundo Gateway, builds on the historical circular walls. The walls, the arms of the city, embrace you when you first arrive. Creating an inclusive in motion, representing the cycles of life, that emulates growth. The path directs you towards the west – as the sunsets, reflecting on the future of El Segundo and the future changes and shifting towards the emergence and weaving of a sustainability and technology through the celebration of the Blue Butterflies. 

 

“Land locked at one of the prominent spaces of Southern California, El Segundo is one of the main cities that one witnesses upon their arrival. Filled with a rich historical context of a land that was previously owned by corn farmers, later turned into a refinery town, through Chevron. We ask ‘How do we want the future gateway, for the city of El Segundo, to be representative of the community? And, how do we create: Wayfinding, Community, and Ownership?’ We strongly believe that the combination of strategic planning, creative programming and thoughtful transformation of the site will bring a renewed sense of relevance to this gateway.” – Maryam Eskandari