about

MANUFACTURING TASTE was founded by Fakhry Akkad in 2023 to disrupt the dominant design model in architecture and property development.

With 18 years’ experience at leading London firms including Make, SOM, DSDHA and Foster + Partners — and having delivered projects for major developers — we saw first-hand how the traditional architectural model is no longer fit for purpose.

Architectural design has grown stagnant: slow to respond, blind to consumer desires, and detached from cultural change. This is failing both developers and their tenants.

Meanwhile, the property world is shifting at break-neck speed. Retail is being rewritten, the office is in flux, and living is increasingly hybrid and blurred. In this unpredictable landscape, sticking to old formulas is a liability.

That is why MANUFACTURING TASTE exists.

Meet the founder


  • Founder / Director

    With over 17 years of professional experience, Fakhry is the founder of Manufacturing Taste. Fastidious and passionate, he views architecture as one facet of a far greater design spectrum that spans branding, lifestyle, fashion and consumerist culture. Architecture in Fakhry’s canon is both a service and a product.

    Born in Beirut, Fakhry was educated in Lebanon, the United Kingdom and the United States but has been practising in London throughout his career. He holds an MSc in Advanced Architectural Design from Columbia University in New York City, an MA in Histories and Theories from the Architectural Association and a Bachelor of Architecture from the American University of Beirut.

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