[2] In 2010, he was awarded the Park51 Islamic Cultural Center project, infamously dubbed the “Ground Zero Mosque”, with one journalist calling him ‘the most controversial architect the US has known'.
[8] Hailed as a “marvel of both contemporary design and ingenious problem solving",[9] the Beirut-based showroom project was commissioned by Unilux Group.
Abboud used the showroom's basement space to showcase lighting fixtures housed in individual niche-like wall displays from floor to ceiling.
To mitigate these problems, Abboud and his team created a type of “second skin” for the structure, which acts as a screening mechanism by utilizing a horizontal louvered system.
The structure's interactive parametric design allows the depth of the louvers to be controlled by an interior program based on the level of shading and privacy required.