Charlotte Malterre-Barthes is an architect, scholar and urban designer. Her teaching and research interests are related to how struggling communities can gain greater access to resources, the mainstream economy, better governance, and ecological/social justice.

She was previously guest professor in the Architecture Department of TU Berlin, and Program Director of the Master of Advanced Studies (MAS) in Urban Design, Department of Architecture, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH Zurich), Switzerland. She directed the cycle on Egypt (2014-16), investigating formal and informal urban dynamics of Cairo; and the cycle on Tangier, Beirut, and Marseille (2017-19) on inclusive urbanism and migration.

She holds a PhD in Architecture from the ETH Zurich completing research on Food Territories, with Egypt as case study (2014). She also holds master’s and bachelor’s degrees in Architecture from the École Nationale Supérieure d’Architecture de Marseille (ENSAM), France.

While undertaking her internship with the firm Coop Himmelb(l)au in Vienna, she was part of the European Central Bank Competition team. Her diploma A Women’s Social Centre in Baghdad, obtained in 2003 magna cum laude, tackled political and social involvements of architecture. She has collaborated with several architectural offices including Rudy Ricciotti, Dipol Landscape Architects, OOS, and Balkrishna Doshi at Sangath, India.

Apart from her architectural practice, Charlotte Malterre-Barthes is a co-founder of OMNIBUS, an urban research laboratory focused on trans-disciplinary metropolitan explorations, with Noboru Kawagishi. She has lectured and taught workshops at the Architectural Foundation in London, the Storefront for Art & Architecture in New York, the University of Saints Cyrill & Methodius in Skopje, the University of Seville, Hong Kong University, ZhdK, Future Cities Lab Singapore, and with the AA Visiting School in Alexandria, Egypt.

She is author of Eileen Gray: A house under the Sun (with Z Dzierzawaska, NB Nobrow, 2019); Cairo Desert Cities (with Marc Angelil, Ruby Press, 2017); and Housing Cairo: The Informal Response (with Marc Angelil, Ruby Press, 2016) and Migrant Marseille: Architecture of Social Segregation (Ruby Press, 2020). She has published articles in magazines including AD, San Rocco, TRANS, MAS Context, Tracés, and Horizonte.

Charlotte Malterre-Barthes was a workshop respondent at the 6th International Holcim Forum for Sustainable Construction in Cairo, April 4-6, 2019.