The Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs (IFI) is located at the American University of Beirut (AUB).
The American University of Beirut (AUB) master plan requested a home for its new think tank that had minimal impact on the surrounding area and preserved sight lines to the Mediterranean below, despite its location on the upper part of campus.
Architecture firm Zaha Hadid won the design competition to create this building; she was a former AUB student.
Second-floor research rooms connect with the rest of the campus via a ramp surrounded by hundred-year-old ficus and cypress trees.
In 2016, architect Zaha Hadid died, and the building won the Aga Khan Award for Architecture in the same year.