Rashid
Taqui
Architect · Publisher · Strategist · Founder
Three decades across buildings, businesses, and boardrooms taught me that clarity is not a gift. It is a discipline.
30+
12+
4+
YEARS OF HIGH-STAKES DECISIONS
COUNTRIES WORKED ACROSS
GLOBAL PLATFORMS LAUNCHED
Three decades across buildings, businesses, and boardrooms taught me that clarity is not a gift. It is a discipline.
30+
12+
4+
YEARS OF HIGH-STAKES DECISIONS
COUNTRIES WORKED ACROSS
GLOBAL PLATFORMS LAUNCHED
Architect · Publisher · Strategist · Founder
BACKGROUND
From one hotel room to reshaping a region.
When I arrived in Dubai, I had no contacts, one clear ambition, and a hotel room for a week.
Within months, I was working on what became Al Maha Desert Resort & Spa, the Middle East’s first eco-resort, a multi-award-winning project, and my first major work after graduation. I was 25. It was designed and delivered in 18 months at c. AED 350 million, and later declared a national landmark.
What followed refused a single lane.
I founded Architecture Plus, Dubai’s first architecture and design magazine, building a platform for regional talent and putting sustainability on the agenda before it was fashionable. It grew to subscribers across 27 countries. I also co-launched Cityscape as both exhibition and conference, helping turn industry conversation into a global platform that grew 500%, with the congress later evolving into the World Congress in Architecture.
Through RTAE, I have worked across 12 countries, from royal commissions to US$4.5 billion city masterplans. The throughline has never been architecture alone. It has been the ability to read a situation clearly, decide what matters, and act with conviction.
That is what I bring to The Decision Room.
“The value of experience is not hindsight. It is the ability to see what matters clearly while you are still inside the situation.”
Why This Matters for You
Not a formula.
A discipline.
Because the quality of a decision is shaped by the quality of the thinking behind it.
When the stakes are personal, professional, or commercial, it becomes harder to see clearly from inside the situation. Patterns blur priorities. Pressure distorts judgement. What looks obvious one day can feel impossible to act on the next.
This is where experience matters. Not as biography, but as perspective: the ability to cut through noise, recognise what matters, and shape a more coherent path forward.
“The advantage of experience is not certainty. It is better judgement when the situation is complex, pressured, or unclear.”
Thirty years,
Career Arc
one throughline.
Education
M.Arch, University of Huddersfield, UK
Architecture Studies International, with thesis work focused on UAE cultural identity and the National Museum of Al Ain.
architecture
Al Maha Desert Resort & Spa, Middle East's first eco-resort
First major project after graduation, at age 25. AED 350 million, delivered from brief to handover in 18 months. Multi-award-winning and later declared a national landmark.
Leadership
Kling Consult · Italconsult SPA · Conin
Fast-track projects across the UAE and GCC, spanning hotels, airports, civic infrastructure, and masterplans.
Media · Publishing
Founder, CEO & Editor-in-Chief, Architecture Plus Magazine
Self-funded and launched Dubai’s first architecture and design magazine. Built an international subscriber base across 27 countries and created a platform that gave regional talent a serious voice.
Industry Building
Cityscape Dubai · Architecture Plus Awards · Inhouse Creative
Self-funded and launched Dubai’s first architecture and design magazine. Built an international subscriber base across 27 countries and created a platform that gave regional talent a serious voice.
Global Practice
Founder: RTAE | Rashid Taqui Architects & Engineers
Award-winning practice across 12+ countries, spanning national landmarks, royal commissions, conservation-led resorts, city masterplans, and carbon-conscious design.
Current Focus
The Decision Room
Three decades of high-stakes decision-making, applied one-to-one. A strategic space for clearer thinking, stronger judgement, and more coherent next steps
A voice the industry has quoted for thirty years.
In the Press
TIME Magazine
"Postcard from Dubai"
Featured as a leading critical voice on the Burj Khalifa and the evolving architectural identity of Dubai as a global city.
Citizen K — Middle East
Placed alongside Zaha Hadid, Rem Koolhaas, Karim Rashid, and Norman Foster, recognised as a cultural curator and media force, not just an architect.
Condé Nast Traveller
Ongoing recognition of the eco-resort as a landmark in luxury, sustainability, and place-making.
Time Out Dubai
Profiled in the context of a changing regional design landscape and the push for more serious architectural discourse.
Wallpaper*
Featured for design work contributing to the wider architectural conversation in the region.
Academic — Univ. of Pennsylvania
Architecture Plus editorial work cited in academic research at one of the world’s leading architecture schools.
TIME Magazine
Featured as a leading critical voice on the Burj Khalifa and the evolving architectural identity of Dubai as a global city.
Citizen K — Middle East
Placed alongside Zaha Hadid, Rem Koolhaas, Karim Rashid, and Norman Foster, recognised as a cultural curator and media force, not just an architect.
Condé Nast Traveller
Ongoing recognition of the eco-resort as a landmark in luxury, sustainability, and place-making.
Time Out Dubai
Profiled in the context of a changing regional design landscape and the push for more serious architectural discourse.
Architecture Plus editorial work cited in academic research at one of the world’s leading architecture schools.
Profiled in the context of a changing regional design landscape and the push for more serious architectural discourse.
Three things that do not come from a framework.
What I Bring
Judgement
Frameworks can organise information. They cannot tell you what matters most when the situation is pressured, layered, or unclear.
Judgement comes from experience: knowing what to focus on, what to ignore, and what will actually change the outcome.
When you are too close to the situation, it becomes harder to separate signal from noise.
The value of outside perspective is the ability to see the pattern, the pressure points, and the clearest path more clearly than you often can from inside it.
Whether you are navigating a crossroads, building a business, launching a product, or trying to move a goal into reality, the challenge is rarely ambition. It is turning that ambition into a coherent path.
Strategy is sequence, priority, timing, and knowing what to do next, and what not to do.
"The most important project most people will ever work on is their own direction, and almost no one gives it the rigour it deserves."
The record
Credentials
speaks clearly.
The perspective behind The Decision Room was not built in theory alone. It was built over three decades in environments where decisions carried consequence, the stakes were real, and the outcomes lasted.
Whether you are navigating a personal crossroads, building a business, taking something to market, or trying to think more clearly about what comes next, this is private work shaped by lived experience across architecture, publishing, business, and practice.
What follows is not there to decorate the page. It is there to show you what sits behind the judgement, perspective, and strategy brought into the work.
Ready to work through what comes next?
A focused one-to-one session for one important question, decision, or crossroads.
45 mins. Oniline
US$125
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