Rahel Shawl (Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, 1968) graduated in 1991 from the Addis Ababa School of Architecture. In 1994, she founded Abba Architects, and in 2004, Raas Architects. Shawl’s career is fruitfully rooted in the cultural and professional context of contemporary Ethiopia. Thanks to local newbuilds and international collaborations with foreign firms, Raas Architects works on architectural design as well as building supervision. Shawl is the recipient of a 2007 Aga Khan Award for her involvement in the Royal Netherlands Embassy in Addis Ababa.

Built projects include embassies, schools, hospitals, clinics, housing, hotels, master plans for campuses, landscaping and interiors. All have the aim of being innovative while using local knowledge, and being sensitive toward the context and landscape that hosts and generates them. One illustration of these principles is given by the Cure Ethiopia Children’s Orthopaedic Hospital built in two phases (2014 and 2018) in Addis Ababa, which offers optimum connectivity between the hospital rooms and the surrounding forest. The construction method uses easily available materials to create quality space.

The same type of intelligence applied to the relation between inhabitants and context characterises the Irish Embassy (2011) in the Ethiopian capital: it is conceived as an oasis in the middle of urban concrete. Raas’s quest for individual uniqueness is seen in the differently designed open spaces for each living unit at the Ska-1 apartment building (Addis Ababa, 2019).

Highly aware of the strong social component of her trade and position, Shawl has been using Raas Architects as an open platform to encourage young female architects working in a male-dominated industry and culture. She mentors young professionals in general through knowledge sharing and practice-based learning. For 2016–2017, she was a Loeb Fellow at Harvard Graduate School of Design. In 2017, she worked on the AbRen (“together” in Amharic) experimental centre in Addis Ababa for the knowledge of architecture and design practice. In a didactic setting, new roads to travel are explored through contact with different speakers.