Elias Anastas is an architect and partner at AAU Anastas, an art, architecture, and design studio based in Bethlehem and Paris, which he founded with his brother, Yousef Anastas. The duo also co-founded Local Industries, Radio Alhara, and the Wonder Cabinet. Elias’ work engages with people and territories at different scales through material research, making, and design. His work aims to develop collective consciousness around the materials shaping the built environment through experimental approaches to making, involving individuals from a broad spectrum of expertise. The Anastas brothers co-founded Stone Matters, an ongoing research project, to advocate for the use of structural stone in contemporary architecture. Elias has lectured at institutions around the world. He currently teaches alongside his brother at Columbia Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation (GSAPP).